Eldra closed her eyes. Teron let himself go free, opening his strength to her. After a long moment she sighed. “It is no use. He is too strong, too careful.”
“What of Roosk?” Teron demanded. “If you sought his thoughts, you might learn what lies in Korox’s mind.”
She nodded and held his hand tightly. Once more Teron gave of himself to help her probe through the dark night, seeking the mind of one among the many who swarmed through the city. But when Teron felt the impact of alien thoughts, he also felt an aloneness, an isolation.
“Yes,” Eldra whispered excitedly. “Roosk .. .”
Teron’s sensation was different from those times when Eldra had conversed with his mind. Now he seemed to be looking outward, at the physical world, but through another’s eyes, with another’s perception. Eldra was not only drawing from him; she was returning to him what came to her mind.
Through Roosk’s mind Teron became aware of a small bowl-shaped valley, rough surfaced but flattish. Off to one side steam hissed in short, noisy spurts through cracks in the ground. The air was ripe with the reek of sulphur coming from bubbling pools of mud that were invisible in the darkness. In front of Roosk’s eyes was the Gate. Teron felt a stirring of wonder.
Here Was the pale pinkish light he had seen so often from the tip of his spellstaff. But this was no fine line. It was a great fan, spreading outward from near the ground to fill the narrow gap that separated the Vale from the valley of ice beyond it And the light rose, curving upward like the side of a great bowl. To form, Teron thought, the lid over the valley where Udrig was imprisoned.
And now through the ears of Roosk, Teron heard the
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voice of Korox: “We cannot wait too long. The spell- maker is clever. You saw Sovag’s suspicion tonight. He is not as sure of us as he was before.”
Through Roosk’s mind, Teron felt a surge of fear. “What if you cannot control Udrig once he is free?” he demanded. “What will happen then?”
Korox’s laugh held no amusement. “How will we know? The power of Udrig will destroy us along with all Zarza—and too swiftly for us to even be aware that we failed.”
His voice became more authoritative. “But I can control Udrig, even as I have controlled his drig. Didn’t they bring me power from Udrig himself? Now mark carefully the plan as I devise it.”
Teron felt a withdrawal, a brief emptiness, and then he was aware again of the cell around him, of Davok looming darkly by the side wall where he whispered something to Inge on the other side. And he was aware of Eldra still grasping his hand. But he felt no awareness from her, and he realized that her mind was still far off.
He felt the tug from her as she sought his strength again, and a third time this night he gave of himself. But now there was no return to him. He could but stand emptily, feeling the weakness growing in him. And then she stirred, and Teron was whole once more.
“Korox,” she said. “In concentrating to devise his plan to free Udrig, he failed to keep his mind guarded. I probed carefully so that he could not feel me.” Her voice dropped. “But he is a clever man, and he guessed.” “But before he cast you out, you learned something?” She shivered and Teron put an arm around her. “I saw in his mind a picture of the ice and rocks and frozen white rain that make the cliff above the Tube. I saw the cliff crash down, filling the Vale even as Inge fears.”
“Filling the Vale and choking the Tube long enough to free Udrig,” Teron murmured. “How? How does he plan to make a mountain fall?
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“I don’t know,” she said. “Before I could learn, he cast me out.”
“If we seek Roosk again ...”
“I haven’t the strength,” she confessed.
Teron stared at the opening to the Vale. “Whatever Korox means to do, he means to do soon,” he said, as he moved to the door and peered through its bars into the narrow twists of the darkened streets of the city. Suddenly he laughed softly at himself. He was asking guidance from Eliff. He who had once been proud of his lack of belief in anything but logic. He had sought Eliff, without doubt or question, he had reached out for help!
And from beyond himself, independent of his being, what he must do surged into his mind as ephemeral as a stray beam of light. He turned away from the window, knowing what he must do but unable to conceive a way of doing it
Eliff had given him the answer to his problem. But
the method of arriving at the answer depended on his own resourcefulness, his own intelligence and strength. No, on himself and Eldra combined, he amended.
He walked to her. As he passed Davok, he heard him murmuring to Inge. “What in Sidris are you two talking about?”
Davok answered, “Of a way to get out of this prison.”
“That’s easily done,” Teron said. “But to what purpose?”
“There are a good hundred of us Whitelanders held here. If we combined with the three of you and marched on Sovag, maybe we could make him listen,” Inge said.
“And get cut down by Skoog’s guards for our trouble?” Teron asked. “I doubt if Sovag would listen. He must be shown.
“That’s the answer!” he cried. He moved to the hole next to Davok through which Inge spoke. “Inge, tell your Whitelanders to get ready to leave. They are to gather in the darkness along the inside of this wall They must remain silent until I come.”
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“What’s your plan?” Davok growled.
“You’ll see when I return,” Teron said. “Stay with Eldra and the Whitelanders. Be alert. If guards should come, take them silently if possible. Put them in the cells gagged and bound. No senseless lolling!”
“If that Skoog falls into my hands . . .” Davok said eagerly, “Til...”
"You’ll do nothing. He’s as much under the spell of Korox as you were at one time.” Searching in his belt, Teron drew out the same instrument he had used to open the lock on his chains when he’d been in Davok’s dungeon. He turned his attention to the door and in a moment had it open. He stepped outside, alert for a patrolling guard. But the darkness held only silence, and he moved along to the next door. By the time he picked the third lock he knew by touch the best way of managing the simple mechanism, and he moved swiftly along the wall, sure fingers opening the lock of each door as though he had its key.
He waited only to see Inge glide from her cell and start down the line of cell doors, then he hurried away to the palace. Getting inside was easy. The guards Were few and lax. Teron moved through the cold hallways looking for Sovag. He passed blank doors and at each one asked himself if Sovag might be sleeping behind it.
He risked opening one only to find a guardroom. A man muttered and Teron silently drew die door shut He went on, climbed stairs badly lighted by a single wall sconce and moved along a corridor. He smiled as he Saw the door he sought. Two guards stood on either side of it, and on the upper panel of the door was a painting of the six-antlered yarbuck, which also appeared on the medallion Sovag wore.
Remaining in shadow, Teron drew a slender, short tube and a flat box from his belt. Opening the box, he selected a tiny sliver of metal, pointed at one end and blunt on the other. Slipping the sliver into the tube, he took aim at the cheek of the nearest guard, sucked in his breath and blew.
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He saw the guard slap at his cheek, take a half step and collapse on the floor. As the other guard moved to see what had happened, Teron’s second dart caught him on the side of the neck. He fell to lie alongside his companion.
Teron hurried forward. Rescuing his darts, he replaced the equipment in his belt and tried the door. It refused to yield. Using his lock pick, he was able to swing it softly inward. The room was lighted by a single, thick candle that burned on a chest, well away from the high bed holding the form of a sleeping man.
Teron searched silently. Near the bed he found what he sought, his spellstaff. Taking it quic
kly, he examined it with the tips of his fingers. Satisfied that it was as he had left it, he peered down at the sleeper.
“Sovag, wake up. Wake up, man. Your world is about to collapse around you.”
Sovag woke as a trained warrior would, sitting up and reaching for the short sword that hung in its scabbard from a bedpost.
“Save your effort, Sovag. A sword is no match for a spellstaff.”
Sovag stared at him. “You! I’ll have the head of the one who set you free!”
“It’s my head you want then,” Teron said. “Do you think any prison of yours could hold a spellmaker?”
“How did you get past my guards?” Sovag demanded.
"Why, I asked them to go to sleep, and they obliged me,” Teron replied. “Now dress yourself. There are things to do this night and little time in which to do them.”
“I do not understand you.”
Teron said, “Korox and Roosk are in the Sacred Vale. They plan to bring down the cliffs of frozen white rain from the mountains above the Vale, choking off the Tube, setting Udrig free.”
“Tongue trickery! Lies!”
“Come and see for yourself,” Teron invited, stepping
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back to give Sovag room to get up. “And bring Skoog if it makes you feel safer.”
Sovag looked at the spellstaff in Teron’s hand and rose. Silently, he dressed.
Teron said, “Don’t forget your sword, Sovag. You may have need of it before dawn. Now lead the way.”
Sovag’s scowl deepened. “You are sure of yourself, spellmaker.”
“The truth is always sure,” Teron observed dryly.
Sovag led the way out of the room, pausing briefly to stare at the sleeping guards. With a Whitelander curse, he stalked down the hall to a nearby door. He rapped on it with the butt of his sword. In a moment the lock creaked open and the door swung back. Skoog blinked out
“Sovag, what do you . . .” He broke off as he saw Teron. “The spellmaker!”
“We have no time to waste,” Teron said. “Get dressed and come with us.”
Sovag pushed into the room and Teron followed. “Do
as he says,” Sovag ordered. “He claims Korox is about to bring the ice mountain down into the Sacred Vale thus freeing Udrig. He invites us to see with our own eyes whether he lies or speaks the truth.”
“He has his spellstaff,” Skoog said. “That’s a strong argument in his favor.” He dressed with dispatch, buckled on his sword and joined Sovag and Teron.
And Skoog led the way to the floor below, stopping at the guardroom to give the order for the guards to remain where they were. His lack of hesitation, of argument, made Teron wonder. As he stood in the shadows outside the guardroom Teron decided to see what his own sharpened mentaler powers might accomplish without Eldra’s aid. He reached out seeking Skoog’s mind.
He needed but an instant of contact to feel Korox there. Korox, a stronger mentaler than Teron, was able to stay in Skoog’s mind, to control the man as a puppeteer controls a puppet. Korox would know they were coming to the Vale. He would be prepared for them.
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Teron smiled to himself as he stepped bach into the light and indicated that Skoog and Sovag should go ahead. Korox might expect him, but unless his powers were greater than Teron believed, he could not know what would take place this night
Teron directed his prisoners toward the city wall. He called softly as he approached, “Teron coming with Skoog and Sovag.”
Skoog swore as Inge’s Whitelanders materialized out of the shadows, the massive form of Davok at their head. Eldra came to Teron’s side.
“He freed them all,” Skoog said bitterly. "What is the reason for this, spellmaker? Do you think you can overpower Korox? Or is this supposed to be proof of your powers?” He spit on the ground.
“No and no,” Teron said. “Most of Inge’s people will stay at the city gates to see that your guards follow the orders you gave. The Seventh and I must not be interrupted at our appointed task.” He caught Inge’s displeasure and moved to her. “Someone must protect our rear.”
“Does Davok go or stay?”
“He goes. I wouldn’t deprive him of the pleasure of meeting Korox again.”
“Then I go, too,” Inge said flatly. She went to stand by Davok.
“Love comes in strange ways,” Teron said to Eldra.
"Yes, and fails to come with equal strangeness,” she retorted.
Teron directed the Whitelanders into the shadows by the city gates. His own party took sahrs from the pens nearby and rode toward tire Sacred Vale.
The opening between the Valley and the Vale was no wider than a span of sahrs. From the gap Teron saw the arch of pink light more clearly. Wonder at its power struck him but there was no time to study its nature.
He concentrated on what lay ahead. Korox would have a trap prepared. Logically, he would use Skoog
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as part of that trap. A moment’s mentaler probe confirmed Teron’s guess, though he hadn’t the skill or power to pluck from Skoog’s mind the details of what must be an ambush.
They reached the entrance to the Vale and Teron called a halt. He looked directly into Skoog’s face. “Korox is a powerful man. He will know were coming. He is a desperate man as well. He fears me so I must go first. I didn’t bring you here to save myself.”
“I will lead,” Skoog said. “I do not fear Korox.”
“No,” Teron said, “you’ll ride with Davok. His sword will be ready to test the thickness of your hide.”
Not bothering to look back, he sent his sahr forward through the narrow opening into the Sacred Vale.
xvn
PINK LIGHT filled the far end of the Sacred Vale. On Teron’s right steam hissed from vents in the dark ground. The stench from the bubbling pools of mud was just as the few moments in Roosk’s mind had showed it to Teron.
He reached out seeking Korok with his mind, for he could see no one. The Vale was small and the Gate gave enough light for him to see all but a few shadowy places at its far edges. His seeking mind found Korox, and the knowledge that the wizard had succeeded in tricking him.
Korox and Roosk stood in deep shadow, but the darkness that hid them from Teron was made not of night but of swarming drig. Teron felt them coming, a phalanx of cold, black oblivion. Their hunger for his life force almost paralyzed his mind with fear, but he managed to cry out to Eldra just once with all the strength he was able to spare.
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And as it had been in the dungeon so it was now. He felt the drig’s cold, wormlike probing in his body and his mind; and then there were liffi—the warmth and light of them. But now when the liffi drove the drig back, Teron did not remain passive. He had more strength, for he and Eldra had been joined.
So he called to her again with mind and mouth, “Keep the liffi! Light the Sacred Vale with the glow of the lifEl”
Eldra’s hand took his and he knew she had joined him in the center of the Vale. Without looking, he was sure that Sovag and Skoog, Inge and Davok, stood no closer than where the gap opened into the Vale. And there they would wait until Korox and Roosk or Teron and Eldra won; until Udrig or Eliff was champion; until Zarza continued to spin with warm life or turned cold and empty around its sun.
Eldra’s clasp on his hand tightened. “More drig are coming. Korox gains power. Udrig stirs.”
Teron saw clearly the small glow of liffi driving back the mass of drig, smashing them down and lighting the shadow where Korox stood, Roosk cowering behind him. Korox raised his arms, and his hands tensed into claws as he threw his head back. His mouth moved but his words were lost in the hiss of steam from the tortured earth. As he cried out, more and more drig swarmed into the Sacred Vale until their black cold nothingness seemed to diminish the pink glow of the Gate.
The staunch sahrs they rode had stood throughout the first onslaught, but now
they were spooked. Teron and Eldra jumped down to the floor of the Vale and Teron sent both frightened animals racing back toward their companions with a smart slap on each rump.
He and Eldra stood alone, bracing themselves against his spellstaff. Teron knew its strength would be needed later, if there was a later, though he didn’t know how he knew nor did he care.
“Speak to Eliff in the words of Vacor,” he said. He grasped her tightly. J'Call out to him as you did in the tower in Fenn.”
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He shared her hesitation, her fear of failure. He said gently, “It is all we can do.” He took his hand from hers and cupped her chin so she faced him. The light from the Gate glowed out of her eyes.
“Should we fail, should Korox win, I want you to know that even as Vacor loved the first Eldra, I love you.” He quoted softly:
" “Were you not a Seventh,
Were we not children of Eliff,
Even so would I love you;
Even so would I want you for wife.’ ”
Her voice was low but sure with gentleness:
“ ‘And Eldra replied in kind:
My love is love of you;
I love not your powers alone;
I love as a woman loves a man.’ ”
The massing drig had reached such numbers the cold was freezing the steam from the vents. Teron thought the very blood in his veins must congeal.
“Speak the words. Take my strength.”
And Eldra spoke in that voice that was apart from her. At first the voice whispered, but it grew, hammering the air with words which battered the cliffs and echoed back.
“Ab tuha, ani katat glimka libna mileir
And in his mind the meaning was clear: “Father spirit, send thy image from abovel”
The liffi came. From the heavens they came down as they had before, forming a great spearhead. They smashed against the dark cold and broke it into fleeing shards of impotency.
Now was the time. That vision he had had in Sovag’s prison returned, strong and clear. His hand pressed Eldra’s until she whimpered in pain.
“Now give me your strength!”
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He felt her strength flow into him and he lifted his head and focused his eyes, on the towering mass of ice and snow and rock that hung over the Vale, the mass Korox planned to bring crashing down to choke the Tube and so free Udrig.
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