* * *
[“Jemadar, we come to the haunted defile. Surely those we chase will not enter there.”]
[“Who knows, Kauwâs? Who knows? We know not even who it is we pursue…or what they were after in the citadel.”]
[“Aiee. I have just had a most calamitous thought, Jemadar,”]
[“And it is…]
[“If they were mad enough to attempt to invade the citadel, then they are mad enough to enter the haunted canyon.”]
In the moonlight, the Men riding after the jemadar and the kauwâs glanced uneasily at one another, whispers rippling down the column.
Yet onward they rode, coming at last to the dreadful notch. The jemadar reined to a halt, stopping the column, the kauwâs beside him nervously eyeing the ebon gape. The horses snorted and skitted in fear, and it was all the Men could do to control them. But above the clack of their own steeds, the jemadar and kauwâs could hear the clattering echoes of riders moving up the gulch.
Grimly the jemadar gripped the reins of his dancing, frightened mount. The Man was preparing to speak, to issue orders. But in that very moment—
RRRAAAWWWW! A horrendous sound split the air, slapping and echoing among the crags, and lumbering out from the notch came a huge, walking monster, arms raised up high to strike.
“Waugh!” shrieked the kauwâs. [“Demon Afrit!”] Horses reared and belled in fear, bolting away, Men screaming, kicking the steeds for greater speed, pandemonium and panic reigning. Up the pass they galloped, down the pass as well, fleeing blindly, not caring which way they ran, only that they did so, for each knew that the dreaded Afrit was after him and him alone.
In moments they were gone.
The Bear dropped back down on all fours, having once again proven his might.
Then the Bear thought of Urus, and a dark shimmering came upon him.
* * *
Two furlongs or so had Urus walked within the gulch ere from above came the soft call of a crow, and he looked up to the east rim to see Aravan silhouetted against the dim sky. The Elf gestured to a wallbound ledge pitching steeply upward, running from the floor of the gorge to the lip above.
Up this path trudged the Baeran, entering camp just as Riatha, kneeling among rocks, placed a small pot of water to boil on a tiny tripod above a meager fire. And as the Man strode in, she stood and embraced him, clasping him tightly to her, and Urus kissed her gently.
To one side, Aravan began washing each Waerling’s face with a wet cloth, chill in the night, Faeril’s first, Gwylly’s after. And as he washed the buccan’s face, Gwylly moaned, his eyes fluttering. Momentarily he looked at the Elf, and he feebly pulled Aravan unto him, his voice whispering, Aravan listening closely. Then the buccan closed his eyes and did not speak again.
Riatha looked at Aravan. “What did he say?”
A stricken look filled Aravan’s eyes. “He said, ‘No antidote. Dead by dawn.’”
Riatha gasped, her own gaze flying to the early light even now beginning to pale the distant eastern skies.
CHAPTER 37
Sanctuary
Early 5E990
[The Present]
The eastern skies grew bright, dawn arriving, though the morning Sun was yet hidden behind the crests of the intervening mountains.
“There’s nought we can do now but wait and see,” said Riatha, setting aside the vessel, emptied of its gwynthyme tea.
Before the Elfess lay the Waerlinga, their breathing thready, their faces pallid.
Behind sat Urus by the fire, his forearms across his drawn-up knees, his hands lax, his head down, his eyes focused…elsewhere—or perhaps on an unseen point deep within the earth.
Aravan stood off by himself, watching the early skies.
Riatha came and sat beside Urus. “Urus, I am frightened for these Waerlinga. Even though they have taken gwynthyme, they teeter on the verge of death…would have been dead by dawn.”
Urus’s hands clenched into fists. “The Emir never intended for them to live. The week he gave us to bring him Stoke’s head was a lie.”
Riatha reached out, taking his hand, unclenching his fist, smoothing his fingers with hers. “If what Gwylly whispered is true, the Emir lied about the antidote as well. Perhaps he has no antidote at all.”
Urus looked into her silver-grey eyes. “I feel so useless, so helpless.”
Riatha sighed and kissed his hand. “So do we all, my love. So do we all.”
Aravan whirled and strode to his horse. “I feel nought but rage. Yet heed, for this I swear: should I survive our quest, the Emir of Nizari will pay dearly for this deed he has done.”
The Elf mounted up. “We and our steeds will need water and forage a goodly while, for the recovery of the Waerlinga will take time. Two doves I saw winging easterly, and in land such as this, at dawn and dusk they are the best guides to water.
“Too, we need move our camp away from this canyon. I deem there is cause for it to be feared so, and I would not have our sound and scent so near the edge.
“I go now to follow the doves, and to find a place where we will be safe, for there is nothing, nothing!”—frustration filled his voice, but then his gaze softened as he looked at the Wee Ones—“nothing I can do here.”
Aravan turned his horse eastward and rode away.
After a moment, Riatha said, “Adon, I am weary.”
Urus cradled her against him. “Sleep, love. I will wake you should there be need.”
* * *
In mid-morn, Aravan rode back into the campsite. Urus knelt at the fire, feeding it twigs of thornbush, a pot just beginning to boil upon the tripod.
Riatha lay slumbering beneath a rigged shade, Urus’s cloak roped above her.
The Waerlinga, too, lay in shade, a blanket fixed overhead.
Aravan dismounted and tied his steed to a branch of scrub, taking the biscuit of crue held out by Urus.
“Luck?” asked Urus, his voice hushed.
“Aye,” answered Aravan in kind. “A league or so from here. Difficult to find. In a fold of stone. But the doves led me to it.”
Urus set the steaming water aside and crumbled tea leaves into the liquid, covering it over to steep. Aravan looked at the Waerlinga, then cocked an eyebrow at Urus. “No change,” said the Baeran, answering the unspoken question.
They sat in silence as the tea steeped, its fragrance filling the air.
Riatha stirred and opened her eyes. Groaning, she sat up, then stood and stepped to the side of Gwylly and Faeril. She knelt and watched their breathing while she took the measure of their pulses. Too, she rolled back an eyelid on each, gauging the response of the pupil to the light of day. She shook her head. “There is no change.” Standing again, she walked into the brush to relieve herself, saying, “Set more water to boil. We will try gwynthyme again.”
* * *
They moved their campsite in mid-afternoon, Aravan leading the way, Faeril in his arms. Riatha came after, and Urus rode at the rear, the Baeran cradling Gwylly. Some three miles easterly they fared, toward a convoluted massif of stone, long perpendicular folds running down its height, high, shallow cavities here and there. When they came to the face of the butte, Aravan rode straight at the barrier, as if he would ride under the very bulk of the mountain itself. But at the last instant, rightward he turned and disappeared, and Riatha, who followed, gave a small gasp of astonishment. Yet she, too, disappeared, and Urus riding last found a narrow opening doubling back to the right, the stone lapped vertically, a narrow passage behind the wall. Yet even when he looked directly at it he knew that without guidance, none could see the way, for the cast and flow of the stone curtain itself provided an illusory appearance of solidity.
Urus chrked his tongue, and the stud moved forward, twisting inward and to the right, entering a narrow, high passageway behind the rippling wall. Ahead rode Riatha and beyond her, Aravan.
The passage curved back to the left, and after some twenty yards debouched into a moss-laden covert beneath an immense
sweeping loom of overarching stone. Shafts of sunlight stabbed inward through high openings in the outer wall, striking rock, diffusing downward to light the interior of the great hollow. Forward they rode into the cavity, their eyes filled with wonder at this haven. The air within was cool and fragrant, filled with the faint odor of sweet mint. Toward the rear, some thirty or forty yards away, water ran in rivulets down a broad band of stone and into a shadowed pool. And beside the lakelet stood a broad tree, the girth of its trunk mighty, its branches reaching outward above and beyond the darkling mere.
A profound stillness rested o’er all, the faint sound of trickling water seeming to deepen the stillness rather than to break it.
“Did I not know better,” whispered Urus, his voice filling the chamber, “I would say that the tree is an oak. Yet oaks grow not in Hyree.”
Aravan turned in his saddle to the Baeran. “Thine eye fools thee not, Urus, for in this wondrous place indeed grows an oak.”
Riatha dismounted, stepping to Aravan to take Faeril from his arms, the Elf alighting afterward.
Urus, too, dismounted, yet cradling Gwylly.
While Riatha and Urus prepared a resting place for the Waerlinga, Aravan unladed the horses and led them to the pool, where not only was there cool water to drink but also succulent grasses growing, supplement to the rations of grain.
Urus followed the passage back outside, where he gathered hardened scrub, returning minutes later, his arms laden. “For the fire to make tea,” he said as he piled it nearby. “Wait till I gather rocks for a fire ring.”
Several trips later, he and Aravan had set rounded stones into a ring, and Riatha kindled a small blaze. The moment the fire caught, a sigh of wind sounded throughout the cavity, as if the hollow itself lamented at seeing the flames, the branches of the massive oak stirring in agitation.
Aravan stood, facing the interior of the cavern. “It is necessary,” he called out. “We have no choice.” To whom he directed his words, neither Riatha nor Urus knew.
Stillness returned to the cavity, though the trickle of water seemed somehow perturbed, disquieted.
Aravan turned to Riatha. “When the tea is made, extinguish the blaze.”
Riatha nodded, setting the tiny pot upon the tripod.
* * *
“Still no change,” said Riatha, placing Gwylly’s hand across his breast.
Urus stirred. “How long has it been?”
Aravan held up a thumb and two fingers. “I make it three days—one upon the rim and two more here within this hollow.”
Riatha turned to Faeril, putting her ear to the damman’s breast. “It yet beats, but without strength. I fear the gwynthyme has merely held at bay the harm of the Emir’s poison. When we exhaust our supply of the golden mint, then will the venom resume its fatal course.”
Urus interlaced his fingers and gripped hard, his knuckles white. “Surely there is something we can do…. Perhaps the Emir does have an antidote after all, and can we get it…”
Aravan shook his head. “Nay, Urus. Gwylly knew. The Emir has no antidote.”
* * *
In the night, Aravan sat watching over the Waerlinga. To one side, Urus and Riatha were curled together asleep. The cavern was dark, yet not completely without light, for starshine glimmered inward through the high openings above. The Elf sat atop a poolside rock, watching the rivulets glisten as they slid down into the pool. Why the pool did not overflow, where the water went, he did not know…down through the earth below, he surmised.
Aravan glanced at the Waerlinga, so still, so pallid, so near death.
And he knew that Riatha was coming to the end of her supply of gwynthyme.
The Elf calmed his mind, composing himself for prayer to Adon, as he had done every night since entering the hollow.
Aravan prayed even though he knew that Adon had pledged never to directly act in matters of the middle world. Elsewise, Adon had said, the hands of the gods would destroy that which They had created, for Their power is too great, and those They sought to help too fragile. Too, Adon told that were the gods to interfere it would fetter free will.
Even so, Aravan prayed, hoping against hope that the High One would intervene.
This night he held the blue stone amulet in hand as he cast his words unto the Allfather. “Adon, if it be Thy will then take Thee the souls of these tiny Waerlinga unto Thyself. But if it not be Thy plan to let these wee ones lapse into death, then send aid. Send aid. For we are desperate and little time remains.”
Nought but silence answered him.
Aravan turned dejectedly to the great oak, remarking “O tree, it would seem that Adon will yet keep his pledge. Would that you had the power to aid, for I would call…I would call.”
A darkness seemed to gather high within the branches, and Aravan drew in his breath. Quickly he glanced up at the stars that he could see. They still glimmered brightly—no cloud intervened—yet among the leaves of the oak, shadows mustered.
Like a wisp of dusky smoke, the darkness coiled down and about the massive trunk. Aravan took his spear in hand but did not Truename it, for the blue amulet was still warm to the touch, not chill.
The Elf’s eyes widened as
[“Friend,”] answered Aravan.
The mental voice seemed vaguely feminine, though that was by no means certain.
[“I did not know the stone had the power to summon.”]
The shadow reached the moss at the base of the trunk and coalesced into an indistinct apparition some eighteen inches high. It moved across the ground, coming to a stop before the Elf. Aravan thought that he could see a vague darkness within the shade, as if the true being before him was even smaller and cloaked within folds of dusk.
[“Aye. We are in sore need. The two Wee Ones are dying of a poison, and we have no remedy. We can only arrest their death for a while. Yet soon we will have no more power to stay the Dark One’s hand.”]
[“Aye, it is. Yet I would have it be a natural way of passing, and not this undeserved end.”]
[“What matter a few years? Why, just this: it is all they have and no more. I would not have their brief lives shortened by one jot.”]
[“Thou knowest my name? How?”]
[“What may I call thee?”]
[“Canst thou aid, Nimué?”]
The shadow glided across the moss-laden ground, moving to Gwylly and Faeril. Long did Nimué pause at each, then the shadow stepped to the packet of gwynthyme, again pausing long. Finally, timorously it seemed, Nimué moved to Aravan, briefly touching the amulet in his hand before hastily backing away, as if afraid to stand too close to the Elf.
Aravan repeated his question. [“Nimué, canst thou aid?”]
[“Danger?…”]
Aravan fell into thought. Long moments later he said, [“Without aid they are dead regardless. Better a single chance in thousands than no chance at all.
[“Speak. I will listen.”]
[“But the blended tea may also cure.”]
[“Where will I find this Nyktohrodon? What is its aspect?”]
[“I have been there.”]
[“And its color?…”]
[“Is there aught special I must do?”]
[“Is there aught else?”]
[“Things of Neddra?”]
[“I shall be wary.
[“Is there aught thou wouldst ask of us?”]
From behind came Riatha’s voice. “Aravan, dost thou speak to Faeril or Gwylly? Are they awake?”
Aravan glanced aback at the Elfess struggling up on one elbow, peering toward the Waerlinga. Quickly the Elf looked forward once again to Nimué, but the shadow-wrapped being was gone, fled. Aravan’s gaze flew to the great oak, and he thought he saw a darkness swiftly vanish up among the branches high.
* * *
Urus shaded his eyes. “The Sun sets.”
Aravan stood beside the Baeran and gazed down into the canyon below. Krystallopŷr was slung over his back. “It will be dark within the hour. The Moon will not rise until halfway ’tween mid of night and dawn. We will have some nine hours or so to find the blooms of the white Nightrose.”
The Eye of the Hunter Page 52
