by Andre Norton
On one side of the floor there were two long strips of waterproofed cloth laid ready. Covering for packs, she understood. It would seem that Rhys had already been very busy, for there were other supplies laid out along with small bundles of clothing.
"We travel by day, then?"
The ranger brought the meat to the table.
12
“What of the wolfheads?" It would be long before Sarita forgot— if ever— what she had seen in the meadow.
"Men can be fought," he replied grimly. "There are few among those sulkers who have ranger knowledge of this land. They also may no longer look to Sanghail for leadership. He has used them for his purpose—they have looted the valley. He has his own men to provide for. If they grow bold, then he may turn to hunting them—and show no mercy.
"In the past the earl put himself to the trouble of aiding at least three outlaws I know of— men who were forced into the wild by ill fortune. I wonder if those can now be counted among his enemies?"
They turned to packing. Valoris, excited by the chance of again riding Lopear, asked constant questions which Sarita, busy helping Rhys secure packs, answered as best she could.
They had what extra clothing she could bundle small enough, pouches of jerky and dried fruit, and some of the meal. But it was impossible to take all she knew they should have.
Rhys worked three bows into the ties of the packs, with two quivers full of arrows to join them.
The day's midpoint had been reached before their preparations were finished. Two leather bottles of water were slung over Lopear just in front of Valoris' perch, and Berry submitted to a neck rope, but there was a wild rush to secure the kid. Rhys knotted closed the latch of the lodge door.
For a time the going was easy, for they used a trail hunters had taken for several seasons. It was Sarita's task to see to the small caravan while Rhys scouted ahead.
She had learned something of tracking and the earth here was marked only by the slot of buck and, once, a broad pad fringed at one end with indentations of claws. Rhys identified that as the print of a curven cat—a creature which would flee men rather than attack.
The dusk that always hangs beneath the trees deepened. They must find a camping place soon. That thought had no more crossed her mind than Rhys appeared to wave them on. She could hear the murmur of water and they came out on the edge of a stream of some width. Did Rhys expect them to cross that?
No, for as he stood waiting them, he motioned westward. Through the green she could see the gray shapes of moss-mottled rocks —another of those cages? But certainly they had not come as far as the second she had seen marked on the map.
These did not form a circle, rather a triangle, and within was a pavement of sorts —stones roughly fitted together. At the far point was a firepit in the crude flooring. There was room within for them and the animals both, but after they had unloaded the donkeys, Rhys let them and the goats out to graze.
"What is this place?" Sarita busied herself with their food supplies.
Rhys shook his head. "Who knows? It is another of the Old Places. The sage scholar was much interested in them. He wanted to get men and supplies and come again to study these. This was never roofed, I believe —whoever raised this preferred an open sky overhead."
"Well enough in summer and when there is no rain," the girl commented. "But with that or snow—" She gave an exaggerated shiver.
Yet in her the feeling grew that they were intruding, that this was not a place where they or their kind were welcome. Still the stones were apparently so ancient that she thought no one would now rise to refuse them shelter.
Rhys carefully built a fire and cooked them a warm meal. Valoris nodded off to sleep, a fistful of dried fruit still in his hand. Sarita settled him in the blanket nest she had made.
Rhys crouched by the fire only a step or two away. The night was so still she could hear the movements of the animals outside and once the deep-throated cry of a winged night hunter. She settled down beside the ranger.
"We do not belong here."
He turned a little to meet her eye to eye.
"You feel that also? No place for us —still, there is no warning."
He paused and she tried to shift her own thoughts to discover a name for the feeling which gripped her.
"No warning," she agreed, "just old —old, and not of our kind. Did your sage ever return to search? Was it treasure he would hunt?" She turned her head. Behind her, in this faint light, the stones looked unpleasantly like broken fangs.
"No. He was old and I think that once back in Raganfors he felt such journeying too much for him. As for treasure, he mentioned perhaps finding some things which could give clues to the builders. If he had mentioned treasure, there would have been half a hundred men out in a day with axes and spades." Rhys, as he so seldom did, laughed softly. "Treasure is always a potent word to set men to laboring, mistress."
Her next words were far from the subject. "Why do you call me mistress, ranger? We are no longer in the keep."
"Or bound by its customs?" he asked. "I do not know, save that I know little of women and I thought you might believe me overbold to use your name without asking."
"I am Sarita Magasdaughter, as I told you, and you are Rhys, one who knows his trade well. We of the guilds honor a good journeyman. Shall we have less custom between us now?" She did not know why she wanted to hear him say "Sarita" rather than the more proper "mistress."
"Well said, Sarita. Now, I am for first watch. Sleep well, there is a long trail tomorrow."
He moved from the fire and she rolled up beside Valoris, somehow pleased to have heard him say her name.
On the fourth day after they left that ancient rock formation, the weather turned against them and it began to rain. The trees under which they now moved kept off some of the water, and this was no great storm such as had struck earlier. But it was enough to make one miserable. Sarita slogged beside Lopear, tugging at Berry's rope, for the nanny was expressing her dislike of the weather by trying to halt now and again.
They were drawing close to the mountains, which to Sarita promised more trouble than refuge. The two past night camps had been without fires in improvised shelters.
So far Rhys had discovered no traces that any of their kind had come this way. Yet Sarita remembered that this was wolfhead land, and she noted that Rhys moved with extra caution.
They were traversing the foothills. Beyond loomed the frowning bulk of LodenKail. She kept her head down under the drive of the morning rain but she knew it was there —waiting.
Valoris whined. She had wrapped him as best she could against the rain and, as she walked beside him, pointed out things which might catch his attention, though there had lately been no noisy outbursts of temper from the child. She remembered how he could keep a corridor ringing with his enraged clamor, and they certainly must have no such screams from him now.
"Go home —want Hally—want sweeties —bad Saree—go home!" It was a miserable little litany and she only wished she could indeed give him all he asked for. Looking back she was surprised that the child had held up as well as he had during the hardships into which he had been plunged.
"Good boy. Soon —soon we shall be there —"
At least there had been no more of those attacks to stifle her will and make her obedient to the purpose of the Dark. Rhys must be right—it had centered on her at the lodge because of the strange behavior of the awl. She still found it difficult to believe that she had had anything to do with such happenings.
Rhys came into view again. He did not disappear as he usually did, but waited for them to join him.
"North."
"Why?" Sarita asked after she had taken a good view of the country. That way was broken by ridges and many rocky outcrops. There was certainly no trail and to work their way through would be a hard journey.
"Fresh trail to south and east," he reported tersely. "If we can mend our pace, we can be well away by nightfall. There is a way up
the mountain —I have found its opening."
He stayed with them, urging Lopear to a trot as he steadied Valoris. Berry balked and Sarita had to coax her on by giving her half of one of their precious meal cakes.
She began to feel oddly dizzy—trees and stones wavered as she moved up this rise and down that. At least she was wearing ranger boots instead of her worn-out slippers and, though the rain water squished in them, she did not feel every stick and pebble she trod on.
At last she realized that they were following a trail of sorts. Every once in a while Rhys brought their procession to a halt while he stepped away to study the trunk of a tree. The third time he did this, Sarita pushed up beside him. What kind of guide was given by trees?
His fingers were pressing the bark at eye level and she saw there a faint scarring, nearly grown over and certainly to be noticed only by one diligently searching for it.
"We marked out way to LodenKail two years past," he told her.
Her fear of what lay ahead was growing steadily, perhaps made worse by that strange struggle at the lodge. Deliberately now, knowing she must know the worst, Sarita forced open the mind door she had tightly closed and sent out a small, seeking tendril.
Instantly she recoiled. She swung upon the ranger. "There is something—it waits — "
He stood very still and closed his eyes, his face turned in the direction she had pointed.
"Yes —but not what you fear, Sarita. This is the edge of LodenKail. I felt this before when we came here. It does not mean harm — "
No harm? she thought angrily. He had not faced that thing! Perhaps it was now lying in wait, readying for them. Still, what she had touched had not had an overpowering sense of evil. However, did not humans smile or frown at will? What threatened before could now entice.
Her hand went to the awl. She stepped away from him and once more reached out with her mind.
No, this was not evil —or at least not any evil her human blood shrank from. Rather, it was akin to what she had felt in the circle of stones. Old—old— that one word beat upon her. "It is like the stones—very old."
"Yes," he agreed. 'True, it might be a set warning, but either not for our kind, or else it is so old that it has faded close to nothingness. It will grow stronger as we climb —close your mind."
Sarita might close her mind, but she kept a tight grip on the awl. "Lady—" she said in a whisper of appeal. However, when Rhys started once more to lead Lopear on and she heard him talking soothingly to Valoris, she did not refuse to follow but trudged doggedly on. There was nothing else to do.
That night's camp was made in a narrow crevice between two rocks sprouting from the mountain cliff. The animals were staked out to browse as the rain had thinned to a mist. The three of them huddled together against the sharpness of the mountain wind and ate sparingly of their dwindling provisions.
When Sarita settled Valoris for the night, she wished she had at least a chance to provide the child with warm and dry clothing. This was summer, but treacherous chills could be caught as easily as in winter, and she would be lost if Valoris ailed, she knew so little of healing lore.
As she cuddled him closely, hoping some of the warmth of her own body might reach him, he whimpered, "Go home — " before he burrowed his face into her shoulder.
"How I wish that you could, little one," she whispered. She had been careful to dig the awl into a small crevice of the rock beside her so that its silver knob touched her own head. This uncanny place might well be an open door for what she feared the most.
Rhys asked no questions when he saw her action. Instead he opened his belt pouch to draw out two coins, newly minted by their shine. Into each a ragged edged hole had been bored, and through those he now knotted a bowstring.
When he was done, he held one of them out to the girl and looped the other over his neck. "Many men believe in the power of amulets," he said. "These are silver—by all lore, opposed to that which is friendly with the Dark. Perhaps they can give us armor of a sort."
If it was armor it did not hold against dreams. Sarita awoke at the dawn's first light and sat up, her cheeks wet with tears. She could not remember the substance of her dreams, only that they left her with a burden of sorrow and a sense of great loss. So great was her sorrow that she picked up Valoris and hugged him tightly while her gaze moved to the man just rousing himself from sleep.
"It— I do not know, yet I cry as if from some great hurt."
"It is old, I think. We, too, have seen and felt great hurts and therefore we are open to such pain. Yet—we must go on."
Sarita was ready to protest, but discovered that she could not. Fear seemed to have fled, what was left was a need to do just as he said. Still, as she reached for the awl, she was sure this was no compulsion leading her to follow some dark will. Rather it was like offering quiet respect—attending the funeral bier of someone much mourned.
Nor did that feeling leave her as the morning wore on and they climbed the faint trail. This was clearly the remains of a roadway, and at intervals along it were tall rocks set up on end like those which formed the circles. Yet if they had ever borne any inscriptions, time had long since worn them away.
Rhys came as a rear guard now. The animals displayed no signs of uneasiness, Berry snatching mouthfuls of coarse grass and low-growing bushes as she moved along. There were no trees on this height, though through the morning mists Sarita could see some on neighboring slopes.
13
The way they followed became a series of broad ledges like giant steps. At least the rain had stopped, and as they reached the tenth of those great steps, the sun broke through, bathing them with light and warmth. There they paused long enough for Sarita to unwind Valoris' damp covering.
He no longer whimpered, in fact he was too quiet. If he fell into a fever, how could she manage? For the moment he seemed able to keep his seat on Lopear, though she watched him anxiously.
This strange stair wound around the side of LodenKail. Already they had lost sight of the land through which they had come. All there was to be seen were mountains nearly completely covered by dark, forbidding forests except for peaks bare to sun and wind.
The rock posts still marked the trail and Sarita had an impulse to hurry by each as it appeared. They made another turn and were now on the western slope of the mountain. Here the ledges stopped at the mouth of a shadowed crevice which appeared to be a door
into the very heart of the mountain.
To go in there—Sarita shrank from the thought, but there was no turning back. Here the last and tallest of the pillars had been set, one on each side of that dark mouth. These bore what might have once been heads, but the features were too weather worn to
tell.
There was no hint of evil here, only sorrow. Sarita felt moisture gather in her eyes, Valoris broke the silence with a cry, his hands up, hiding his face, as if he did not want to see what lay around him now.
Quickly the girl loosed him from his seat. He was crying now, not loudly, but with the low wail of a lost and miserable child.
"On!" Rhys came up, herding the rest of the animals so she had to give way and enter the crevice. Luckily it was no tunnel. Over their heads the summer sky still showed, but only rock walls rose starkly on either side. Nor was the passage long.
Sarita emerged with Valoris and looked down and about her. There were tales of how in the far past mountains had belched forth fire and the very stuff of their making, which had become molten. Was that what had happened here?
They stood at the top of a slope, rather steep to be sure, but one which could be descended. Below was a bowl of valley. The tough greenery which had framed the outer trail changed to lush growth; there were even trees of respectable size. To one side the smooth mirror of a lake reflected back the sky.
There appeared to be no other break in the bowl's walls —they must have come through the only passage.
"A pass—such as Felspar!" There was an excited note in Rhys' voice. "We
shall have only one door to be guarded."
Had they indeed found a safe refuge? Sarita sighed and Valoris whimpered again. Well enough, but the child must be speedily cared for.
"Come." Her voice was curt. "I must get him out of these damp clothes. In fact, we had all better do that—lung fever comes not only in winter."
Their four-footed companions had already decided what was best for them. The goats were scrambling nimbly downslope, Lopear and Mouse behind. But Sarita, now weighted with Valoris, had to move much more slowly with Rhys' aid.
Once she was safe on the valley floor, the ranger quickly left her. He worked with deftness and erected a lean-to, the final roofing the waterproofed covering of their packs. Sarita trudged down to the lake, where the sun had warmed some flat rocks.
Once freed of his damp and sticky clothing and given a handful of dried plums, Valoris squatted on one of the reddish stones while the sun toasted him. At first he was content to just sit there peacefully. Then he crept over to the edge from which he could watch the water and began calling for Sarita to come and see the fish.
When they were ready to eat, Rhys returned from the lake with five of those fish strung on a tough reed, ready to be broiled over a fire he had no hesitation in lighting. Sarita gathered up the clothing they had changed out of and washed it, spreading the pieces out on the rocks to dry. She kept determinedly busy, for there was a kind of prickling—that was the only word she could think of to describe the feeling that they were only here by sufferance and what seemed a good place might still be a trap. From time to time she watched Rhys; he certainly showed no sign that he felt any of the warning or uneasiness he had spoken of.
