She sat up and reached for the provisions. This time, she ate slowly and gave sparingly to her mount, noting how dangerously depleted her stock of food and grain had become. When she finished, she repacked the saddlebag, wondering how she was going to get it back on the horse with only one arm.
There was very little she could do about her wound. She constructed a sling, using strips of her cloak; this gave the arm something to rest on and made it less painful, but it was still useless. Then she went to the mouth of the cave and peered out.
The scene was a study in shades of gray. The mountains were blanketed with snow; not clean and white, but a dingy gray in the faded light that filtered through the heavy clouds. The shapes of trees stood out in stark relief, dark gray against light, and above them gray rock poked through the snow. Nothing looked familiar in the least.
Alethia went outside cautiously, watching the sky for large birds. Her most pressing needs were fire and food. Though she knew that she could use the firestone to summon wood, she was unwilling to do so, for she suspected that the effort of finding shelter by magical means was what had so exhausted her. Besides, Maurin had said they were nearer to Lithra than he liked, and she did not know what might attract the attention of the Shadow-born.
Half an hour later, she had found only two small sticks, and she realized that she had no choice. Exhausting herself physically plowing through the snowdrifts was just as dangerous as the energy drain of using magic. Carrying the little wood she had found, Alethia trudged back to the cave.
Standing in the shrub-covered opening, she grasped the drier of the two sticks and tried to remember Clasiena’s instructions. The summoning of like to like was a spell that she had learned the day before Har’s arrival in Eveleth, and she had not had a great deal of time to perfect it. When she was sure she had the spell clear in her mind, she groped for the power that linked her with the firestone.
At first she could not find it, and that worried her. She set the wood down carefully, and drew her hand closer to stare at the glow in the depths of the firestone ring. Suddenly it came, flooding her with so much power she could hardly handle it. Alethia cried out in protest at the searing force, and for a moment she almost lost control. She fought for balance, trying to force the power into the mold she had chosen for it. She was only partially successful. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the surge of power passed.
Alethia staggered and almost fell into an absurdly huge pile of dry wood before her. She shook herself a little, feeling surprised that she was not drained after such prodigal use of power. “Like using Thoren’s Sword to chop grapes!” she muttered, and reached for the firebox that held her flints.
Chapter 21
ALETHIA LAID HER FIRE just inside the mouth of the cave. The flints were awkward to use with only one hand; finally, she wedged one between two rocks and tried striking it with the other. It didn’t work very well, but eventually she got the fire lit.
With a sigh of relief, she sat back, looking at the fire. As she did so, the fight changed; things grew clearer and more sharply defined, and Alethia knew that her off-again, on-again spell-sight had returned, wakened perhaps by the surge of power she had felt when she used the firestone. She sighed again, wondering why the erratic gift had come now, when she did not need it, instead of a few minutes or days earlier, when she had been trying to find her way through the blizzard or attempting to gather firewood. She started to rise, and as she did so she glanced out of the cave mouth. And froze.
The sky was no longer simply heavy with clouds. To her newly awakened spell-sight, it was shot with dark lightning. Flashes of blackness leapt along a web of power that could only have been constructed by the Shadow-born. Alethia dropped the firebox and shrank back, trying to make herself as small as possible in the hope of being overlooked.
Nothing happened. Gradually, she realized that she was not being hunted. If the Shadow-born had been seeking her, the tremendous power that had overwhelmed her a few minutes before would surely have attracted their attention. The lines of force were herding the clouds southward; she was seeing only a visible manifestation of a spell being cast miles away, perhaps in Mog Ograth itself. Unless she tampered with the web itself, her only danger lay in blundering into the path of the spell, as she had when she was lost in the storm.
As she began to comprehend more fully what she was seeing, Alethia relaxed. She had, she realized, a tremendous advantage over the Shee wizards. As long as the spell-sight was working, she would instantly know of the use of magic anywhere around her, without having to resort to detection spells which might betray her own presence. Her confidence started to return, and she glanced around for the firebox.
Only then did Alethia notice that the cave seemed to be full of light. She stopped and turned slowly, then looked quickly at the firestone. The ring was glowing, but it was not the source of the pulsing, golden light she saw.
Once more she reached out for her power, and the ring blazed in response. Suddenly she realized the source of the unexpected surge that had nearly overthrown her attempt to summon firewood; the golden glow was raw power, unchanneled. Alethia’s eyes widened and she looked around for the source of the magic.
The glow seemed stronger toward the back of the cave. Alethia walked forward and the firestone grew warm upon her finger, but she could not see anything that seemed to be the source. Patiently she continued searching.
The cave was much deeper than she had suspected. When she reached the back wall, Alethia found that it was really only a sharp, narrow bend, partially blocked by a rock fall at some time in the past. Alethia moved a few of the rocks, then squeezed through the opening, wincing as her injured shoulder scraped against the rock walls.
She found herself in a large open area. The glow was perceptibly brighter, and she heard the sound of water dripping. She moved toward the noise, and the glow grew brighter still, until she moved in a bright haze of power with the firestone on her finger blazing in response.
At last she stopped before a small pool. Water dripped slowly into it from a ledge far above her head. Just in front of her, at the edge of the pool, lay a skeleton, covered here and there by shreds of cloth. Next to it, set carefully on a rock a little above the level of the pool, was a well-wrapped bundle that, to Alethia’s spell-sensitive eyesight, seemed to glow and pulse with power.
Gingerly, Alethia stepped over the bones and picked up the bundle. She backed up a little, putting some small distance between herself and the skeleton, before she knelt to pull at the greased layers of cloth that were wrapped so tightly around the thing of power.
The leather thongs securing the bundle had resisted the attacks of time quite well. The knots securing them, however, had shrunk to unyielding, stony lumps, and in the end Alethia had to saw at them with her dagger. Finally the last layer of cloth, stiff with age, came free. Alethia choked and almost dropped the bundle as she saw what it was she held.
Gold and silver wire twined in intricate shapes and spirals above a delicate circlet of gold set with opals. Precious stones flashed a rainbow fire of diamond, ruby, emerald, and sapphire from crystal cages that caught the light and multiplied it until the crown was ablaze. Over it all, overwhelming the beauty of the thing itself, was its magic. Power coiled about it, fountained from every spiral, and focused through every jewel, spilling over into every corner of the cave and filling it all with fire.
With a shiver of awe, Alethia set the crown on the cave floor. There was no doubt in her mind that she held the long-lost Crown of Alkyra; nothing else could possibly hold such power. It was easier to understand, now, why the firestone had guided her to this cave; it had been drawn by the echoes of the power of the Crown. Hadn’t Clasiena said that firestones were sensitive to power in other things?
Four other treasures had disappeared at the same time as the Crown. She rose to her feet and searched thoroughly, but there was no sign of anything but the skeleton. Alethia walked slowly back to the bones and, with a grimace of dis
taste, examined them more closely.
The dingy scraps of material were too coarse-woven to belong to a well-to-do or powerful man; a servant, then, or common soldier. Nearby lay a rusty knife, thin-bladed and still bearing traces of brownish stains along the edges. When she picked it up to examine it more closely, she recognized the workmanship of the Lithmern. Underneath it was a small packet wrapped in oilskin.
The light wavered, and Alethia rose hastily, holding the packet. Her spell-sight was fading again, and she had nothing to see by once the glow of power disappeared. Hurriedly she snatched up cloth and crown together and headed back toward the outer part of the cave. She reached the rock fall and squeezed past just before the spell-sight vanished completely.
The fire was burning brightly, and Alethia sat down in front of it and opened the packet. It contained letters, or a diary of some kind. The pages were stiff, and they crumbled at the edges when she touched them. The writing was strange, but Alethia knew enough Lithran to recognize words here and there, and gradually she began to piece together a picture of the message she held.
A party of Lithmern had set out from Lacsmer three hundred years before to carry the Crown and the Gifts to Lithra. Alethia could not follow much of the next section; it seemed to be a list of disasters that had befallen the group. The words “injured” and “died” appeared several times, but the rest of the page was illegible. Alethia shrugged and went on.
The last page was clearer. The first paragraph was water-stained in spite of the protecting oilskin, and Alethia could only make out scattered phrases. The clearest were “quarreled last night,” “we pursued,” “killed at Coldwe,” and “blocked the pass.” Further down, the writing changed and was easier to read. Alethia bent over the page in fascination.
“… had to leave the others there,” the manuscript read. “The Crown is the most valuable of the treasures, so I will take it with me. Hopefully, I can find some other way through the mountains, and bring a party back to Coldwell to recover the rest before the snows come.”
Alethia put the note down and stared into the fire. She could almost feel sorry for the writer, the last of the convoy carrying the Gifts, dying lost and alone in a cave in the Kathkari. A thought occurred to her, and she looked at the note again. She began to grow excited; unless she was totally misreading the message, the remainder of the stolen Gifts were hidden at Coldwell Pass!
For another hour, Alethia poured over the note, trying to decipher enough of the writing to confirm her guess, but she was not successful. Finally she gave up. She put some more wood on the fire, rolled herself in the remains of her cloak and one of the blankets, and fell asleep.
She woke early the next morning. The fire was nothing but ashes, and she had to rekindle it from scratch. She ate sparingly, then took a burning branch from the fire to light her way to the inner cave, where she filled her nearly empty water bottles from the spring. She made sure the horse was well provided for and then sat down to think.
The situation was hardly promising. She was lost in the Kathkari, severely wounded, with few remaining provisions and surrounded by hostile magic. Of course, she did have some talent for magic herself and a ring with some rather odd properties. And the Crown of Alkyra. Alethia grinned at the incongruity, then sobered. She had to get to Coldwell with the Crown, and soon. The Crown and the Gifts had been used to bind the Shadow-born once; if Alethia could reach the army in time, perhaps the Veldatha could find the Gifts and use their power as it had been used in the Wars of Binding.
There was no way for her to find Har and the others. By this time they would surely have given her up for dead, and if she had not had the firestone they would have been right. She had no idea where Coldwell Pass was; the mountains were totally unfamiliar to her. Traveling south was her best hope, she decided, provided she could keep a straight path. Even if she could not find her way out of the mountains immediately, if she went south she must eventually reach the River Selyr that flowed through Brenn.
Alethia spent the early part of the morning packing the saddlebags and hoisting them onto the horse. Her arm was somewhat better, though still painful, and she wondered if the Crown had some sort of healing power. Even so, she had to rest frequently, and it was early afternoon before every thing was secured to her satisfaction.
As soon as she was finished, Alethia left. The weather did not seem quite as cold, though it was still gloomy, but her torn cloak did not offer much protection from the wind. In the end, she wrapped herself in one of the blankets and put the cloak on over it.
Her progress was slow. She was acutely conscious of the fact that the return of the Crown of Alkyra, and possibly the future of the country itself, depended on her safe arrival, and she was torn between the need for haste and the fear of losing her way even more completely, or of being injured again. She also had the disquieting suspicion that the Shadow-born knew where the four lost Gifts were hidden, and she feared what might happen if they reached Coldwell before her.
There was little she could do to speed her journey; she could not even be certain she was heading in the right direction. So she fretted whenever she was forced to retrace her steps, or to go around a place where the path seemed treacherous or unstable. Once at least her caution saved her life; a rock ledge collapsed onto the path ahead moments after she had turned away from the icy trail to seek safer footing. After that, she redoubled her watchfulness.
For two days, she traveled south without finding any sign of the Wyrwood. It occurred to her several times that she could use the firestone to find a safe path to Coldwell, but the ever more frequent glimpses of the black power-web of the Shadow-born hovering over her made her reluctant to attempt it. Furthermore, she was not sure enough of the spell to try using magic except as a last resort.
By the third morning, cold and tired, Alethia decided to risk the firestone, in spite of the drain that she expected and her terror of detection by the Shadow-born. This time she was more cautious, and not so desperate, and the spell took far more time than it had during the storm.
When she had shaped the spell to her own satisfaction, Alethia looked up. No picture appeared in the air, and she looked around, a little puzzled. There was still nothing to be seen. Alethia moved her hand in a frustrated gesture, and the firestone flashed. She moved her hand again, more slowly and deliberately. The stone’s glow brightened and dimmed again as she swung it in an arc in front of her. The brightest point of the arc seemed to be a little to the left of the direction she had been traveling in.
Reassured, Alethia set off in the new direction. By mid-morning, she had found a pathway that had clearly been traveled recently, and she struck out along it. Now that she had a clear direction and good footing, her progress was considerably faster, and though she met no one that day, she fell asleep confident that the next day’s ride would bring her to some more familiar area.
Chapter 22
SINCE DAWN, MAURIN HAD crouched behind a rock pile atop a low ridge, watching the far end of the pass. He was cold and stiff, and he was not alone in his discomfort. Behind and below him he heard a muffled curse as one of the other men shifted, trying to find some part of his anatomy that was not already sore from the hours of waiting. Someone cuffed the offender back into silence, and the waiting continued.
Maurin looked toward the western end of the pass and tensed. There was movement, surely he had seen movement at last. In a few minutes more, he was certain. A gray river of Lithmern flowed toward the narrow funnel of the mountains. Only a little farther, Maurin thought. Only a little longer and it begins. Cautiously he signaled to the main mass of troops and cavalry, hidden behind the ridge. He was luckier than they; at least he could see the enemy approaching, instead of waiting in ignorance, dependent on a signal from above.
For the hundredth time, Maurin checked his armor and his weapons. All about him others were doing the same, shifting awkwardly to avoid sending any telltale gleam or clink down to the floor of the pass. Beside him a grizzled vet
eran grinned. “Aye, you take proper care, lad,” the man said in a low voice. “Some of them, now, they’ll be crow meat for not checking right.” He spat into the snow.
Maurin eyed the worn leather sewn with metal rings that the other man wore and his eyebrows went up. “Are you sure that you are as well prepared as they are?” he asked, nodding toward a group of Marhal’s men in chain.
“It’s good enough for me, lad, and has been these many years,” the veteran replied. “Those staves with the blades on them can’t get through the rings, and I can move a bit faster without all that extra weight. You’ll see. Lithmern, bah!” He spat again.
Maurin grinned and they touched clenched fists before the other man disappeared to find his place in the line that was slowly forming along the base of the ridge.
By the time the vanguard of the Lithmern army approached the ridge, Maurin was light-headed with anxiety, with eagerness, with tension, with a confusing welter of familiar emotions that made the blood sing in his veins. The long wait was forgotten; these last few minutes were harder than the hours had been.
From the other side of the pass a horn sounded. Almost as one the men rose and charged down at the Lithmern, while the cavalry rode out from the concealing ridge and into the front of the Lithmern column. Behind the Shee riders, the foot soldiers of Alkyra closed their ranks and advanced.
There was a roar as the two sides met. The front part of the Lithmern column was halted, at least for the moment, and the soldiers farther back milled about in confusion, unable to see what was happening in front of them. From concealed positions along the tops of the cliffs, the Wyrds rained arrows down on the exposed ranks of Lithmern. Then, from the rear of the column, there was a ripple of movement, and the soldiers shrank away as the Shadow-born advanced.
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