by Andre Norton
Only—she failed. Death ate her up a second time, perhaps firing her own hate to such a heat that it was able to consume her. She was gone. I watched for a long moment after her semblance had crumbled into ash, half expecting a second attempt. If this was some work of that Galkur—yet surely such as he could have provided a much stronger threat.
Joisan's voice startled me. During those moments when I had confronted hatred come alive I had forgotten her.
“She was an illusion—was she not an illusion, Kerovan? She—I know she is dead!”
Had I been quicker-witted, less still caught up in what had happened, I might have answered more prudently, rather than with what might well have been the truth.
“She hated me very much. Perhaps—in this country of Power—some portion of her did live on and when it gathered strength enough—”
“Can it be true that hate lives past death?” I saw Joisan shiver as she stared now at me.
The shell that had encased me since my dream of the night had cracked, fallen away when I had roused to do battle. I went to her and took her into my arms. They played with us, these holders of Power. Now I wanted nothing of them—neither aid nor attack. What I desired was to fight against them—all of them! There was only one way to do that, I now sensed. I must keep myself part of the real world—be Kerovan. Joisan was my anchor. My anchor? That sounded as if the poison of Power had already touched me, that I had begun to look upon her as an object to be used for my own purposes.
Joisan was real. She was love, not hate, though I could not release any answering emotion that I could believe was truly love. I was not using Joisan—I would not! But, even as I so argued and doubted within myself, I held her tighter.
Her body fitted itself to mine as if two halves had been joined to form—at last—a whole. I kissed her for the second time since I had known her, had come to realize the depth of her courage and spirit. She herself was the truest and finest thing a man might ever discover in a world full of deceit, mystery, and the darkness of evil.
We clung together, and now I was glad that my mother's rage had sought us out. For this joining was surely stronger than any intrigue of the Waste.
A lock of her hair fell free across her face and I kissed that also, gently, aware of a fragrance that clung to it as if she had worn a garland of sweet-scented flowers until their life had become a part of her. Her hands lay again on my shoulders, feather light, still I could feel the dear pressure of them through both mail and leather—and so I always would.
“Kerovan"—she was a little breathless—"if it takes foul illusion to so bring you to me, then may we be often so assailed!”
Once more I set my lips to hers, hoping that she could not read me. For only a few moments snatched out of time I had been a man—a whole man. Now that other compulsion—though I tried to fight it—settled about me once more, with an even tighter grip. I kissed her . . . but the feeling had gone.
She set her hands swiftly against my chest and pushed herself free for I had at once relinquished my hold. When she looked at me, there was desolation in her eyes and her hurt reached me even though I was fast losing the sense of feeling. I could no longer respond as I longed—yes!—as I longed, even under the spell, to do.
“You—you have left me again.” Her voice was very low and uneven as if she were close to tears, save that pride stiffened her. “Why do you so? What is there in me to which you cannot warm?” She wrung her scratched and sun-browned hands together with a gesture of one who is pushed close to the edge of endurance. The rosy hue of her ring—even it appeared to be touched with gray at this moment.
I swung around, no longer any more able to look upon her standing there—the brightness of her look, the beauty of her eyes, her face. That other inside me was fighting hard to stay alive—fighting with a strength that would have rocked my very body from side to side had I given way to it. Only for him there was no hope. I was bound to a future I did not understand or desire, into which perhaps not even Joisan, for all her greatness of heart, could follow me.
“The fault lies not in you—never in you,” I got out harshly. “Never believe that it is you who have failed.” To allow her to think that was a cruelty I could not bear. “It is mine—a curse laid upon me. Believe that, it is true, believe it!”
Once more I made myself face her. I wanted to lay hands upon her shoulders, to shake her until she promised me she would do as I asked. This was the stark truth—that I had nothing to give her, and I would not take and take until she was as ashy as the ring upon her hand—a love token I had not been able to give her. She must understand!
“I believe,” she answered me then. Her hands fell to her sides. She stood straight, head up, her face sober, but with that heart-tearing look gone out of it. “I believe, yes. Only, I also believe that there is still my Lord Amber imprisoned somewhere inside of you, and he shall come to me again.”
Lord Amber? For a moment I was puzzled—until the cords of memory tightened. That was the name she had given me when I first found her in the wilderness, leading her people—when she had accepted me as one of the Old Ones, who had somehow been moved to come to their aid.
“You are him, and you are Kerovan,” she was continuing, “also you may be another. But in all of you I have found nothing that will send me from you. Nor can you do this—ever!”
There was no arguing with her. I must accept that her will was unbendable as the sword at my belt. I was afraid—for her. I wanted to ride—to run—but I must accept.
We prepared to spend the night at that campsite in spite of the evil thing that had materialized there. Before us lay the high-walled cut where the road ran on—already shadowed—and I had no desire to travel it in a time when the dusk was double thick. Once more, unable to really rest, I watched the footprints that appeared, clouded and then clear, as if many walked there, unseen, unheard in this world. Sleep was very far away. In fact I did not want to yield to it since dreams might lay in wait. I had had my fill of dreams.
Nor did it appear that Joisan wanted rest either. Instead, she sat beside me, also watching the road, one hand cupping the englobed gryphon tightly against her breast.
“They walk—” She broke the long silence between us in so soft a voice it was hardly above a whisper. “I wonder—are those unseen ones alive but ensorcelled, so that they must endlessly journey this road? Or are they but shadows out of the past whose memories linger so?”
I was surprised, though I should not have been, that she also was able to mark the slight dimming and brightening of those prints.
“I think,” she added, “that they go upon some mission—yet their time, their world is no longer ours. Kerovan"—she changed the subject so quickly that she startled me into answering as I had not meant to—"what of your dream? Was it perhaps of another world or time?”
“I do not know. I—"A hand might then have been slapped hard across my mouth, silencing me. I could not, even if I would, tell her of that dream. If dream it was.
“Kerovan!" Joisan's hand caught now at my arm, though she had been careful not to touch me since I had closed my heart to her earlier. “Look!”
Farther along, within the walls of the cut, where the road lay like a white ribbon between two towering, blank walls—that was where she was pointing. Something else could be seen beside the night-induced shine of the symbols, the stars, and the flow of footprints.
Dark clots fell from the heights to strike upon the pavement, spread out in evil-appearing blots across its surface. I could think of nothing save the action of one of those war machines I had seen under construction in Imgry's camp, designed to hurl rocks into the heart of an enemy advance.
There was, in turn, a rising shimmer of light from the road itself. The fall of stones (the sharp impact of which we could hear) and the earth continued. Was this some effort to bury the highway, seal off what protection existed along that moon-bright length?
I was on my feet, reaching down to draw Joisan up bes
ide me.
“We must go—now!” If the road was sealed we were lost! Again knowledge that was not mine came alive in my mind as if it had been planted there to await this very happening.
She looked at me steadily and then nodded. “If this must be done—then let us to it. Leave the packs. I can ride the pony— you take Bural.”
We grabbed the closest of our supplies and water bottles, leaving the rest of the gear. As usual, neither animal showed any fear of the road—not at first. Ahead black masses heaped together, but they did not stay so for long. Rather the mounds melted, running off in besmirching rivulets. The very touch of the pavement appeared to transform solid into liquid and send it flowing.
“That smell—Thas!” Joisan cried.
I caught it, too, the same stench that had arisen from the churned earth back in the meadow trap, only stronger, more offensive. Now the mare threw up her head with a loud whinny, answered by the pony. They balked, so it was all I could do to force my mount forward. Joisan would not allow her smaller steed to hold back; I could hear her voice crooning encouragement.
The fallen earth was running in streams from the road's surface as rain might be channeled from stone, while that stomach- turning stench grew the worse. I saw movement higher above, far up the sides of the cut walls, though I could not make out clearly the form of the creatures laboring so frenziedly there, attempting to wall us away from the mountain land. They did grow more visible as they dropped farther down in their endeavor to start landslides. Perhaps, as they appeared to be failing in their struggle to barricade the road, they were now determined to launch a personal attack—to catch us as they had netted Joisan—using the earth as best they could, since that was their tool of power.
The mare's front hooves thudded into the first runnel of the black soil. She cried out as I had never heard one of her kind give voice before, gave a convulsive leap forward as if she had stepped into a mass of live coals. I heard a heavy sucking as her feet pulled free.
“Keep moving—fast!” I flung the order back at Joisan and drew my sword.
She did not need that command, for she was slappig the pony's rump with one hand, flogging the small beast on. The black flood was thick around the feet of both animals, seeming to circle about as if it was trying, like a bog, to suck us down. Then I saw that the globed gryphon was waxing brighter and brighter. From it came a beam of bright light. Around my own wrist the band awoke to life in a circle of cold flame.
Joisan lifted the chain from around her neck and began to swing the globe. As it passed thus through the air the light blazed even higher and brighter. I watched the sticky black tide on the road curl back from that radiance, as living flesh might shrink from a threat of pain or dissolution.
My companion kneed her pony on, and the animal quieted, as did the mare, once that blaze swept briefly across her head. Now my lady Jed, and the black earth not only melted from her path, but those masses of earth and stone that were still falling were deflected, providing us with a narrow path of safety.
I could hear our attackers. Where before they had moved in silence, scuttling through the dark which was their cover, now they uttered guttural cries from the heights on either hand. Their shadowy forms scrambled and shifted, I was sure they had sent parties down both walls to intercept us. Only they could not, dared not, venture on the road itself.
Our two mounts were sweating; the rank animal smell cut off some of the stench of the Thas. The beasts tossed their heads, but they kept steadily on until we reached the far side of the earth slides.
The scrambling along the cliffs intensified. I braced myself for an attack, which might well come if they were desperate enough at our escape. Joisan actually then tossed the globe in the air as if it were a ball. By the wide sweep of its light I saw clearly, for an instant, a creature that threw a stubby arm across its eyes, squealed, and fled, clinging to the wall as it climbed, after the way of a lizard. Haired all over it was, and from the tangled mass that covered the lump of its head, pale disks, marking eyes, were turned in our direction before it gained the dark beyond the light's reach.
Now safe beyond the bombardment of the avalanche, our mounts broke into their fastest gait and we did not try to halt their boneshaking run. Better to gain as much distance beyond the present perches of the Thas as we could. I hoped that those creatures could not keep up with us, though the form I had seen had not suggested that its stunted body was meant for longdistance running.
Straight as a sword blade, and now as bright as the moonlight would lie on such a blade, the road lay open before us. We needed that brightness, as the gleam of Joisan's ball torch waned steadily, while the rise of the dark cliffs on either side increased with every stride mare and pony covered. We might be riding at the bottom of a deep gulf . . .
A deep gulf? I felt cold rise in me—the gulf of my dream! Only here I was at the bottom, not riding through the sky—or the space above. I turned my head up and back. Now I could see the night sky—a sprinkling of pallid stars there, so far above . . . It was as if I were caught, encased. I tried to breathe deeply, to fill my lungs with air, which my body suddenly craved, as if I had been indeed buried in the fluid earth that now lay behind.
I looked to Joisan, saw, to my alarm, that her body was drooping. She gripped with both hands, not the rope hackmore we had improvised for the pony, but the animal's mane.
“Joisan!”
I urged the mare closer. At my cry she raised her head a fraction, turned a face that was hardly more than a white blur toward me. Just in time I reached her side, caught and steadied her body as she went limp, her eyes closed, ready to slide from her perch on the pony's back.
“Joisan!”
I held her by an arm about her waist, though the pony snorted as my mare nudged against it and strove to draw away. Somehow I managed to take my lady fully into my arms where she lay unmoving, her head against my shoulder, face upward, her eyes still closed.
‘'Joisan!” For the third time, and most urgently, I called her name.
The globe on her breast was dead, not even a small, wan light marked its power. Burned out? Had that valiant use of it to bring us safely through the Thas attack exhausted whatever energy could be summoned from it?
And Joisan—what had that drain of will done to her? I remembered her story of how she had willed the gryphon to lead her from the cavern underground and that its response had weakened her. Perhaps to use it again in such a short time had been too much for her. I raged at my own impotence. It had been Joisan alone who had brought us through this battle with the Dark—no credit to me. Now what could I do to bring her aid—or comfort . . .
“Joisan!”
At my fourth call I saw her eyelids flutter. She sighed, but neither looked at me nor spoke. I doubted that the mare could carry double for long. So I must push as far as I could, for it was plain that Joisan was in no condition to ride the pony now. To stay where these earth cliffs loomed above was folly. What the Thas had tried once they could easily assay again, and this time they might well be successful. We must win through this gorge— if it had any end—which, looking ahead, I began grimly to wonder.
I bound my lady to the mare s saddle—her lighter weight would be easier on the mount. The pony could not carry me, but I had those sturdy hooves—and I could put them to good use. The pavement was very smooth underfoot. I began to trot, discovering I could easily match my speed to that of the mare. The pony edged up beside me on the other side, for I kept close to Joisan, fearing that the lashings might slip and allow her to fall.
She was like one in a deep sleep, not moving except to the swing of the mare. I divided my attention between her and the heights on either side. Though I tried to listen for any sound above the clop of hooves from our two beasts. I heard nothing.
That stench was no longer in my nostrils. However, I knew that the earth itself obeyed the will of those hairy creatures and it might be they could still summon up some peril from it to strike at us. I dared
not trust any surface beyond that of the road itself.
The rest of that night (it was not a dream, for my dreams had been more real than this—at least the dreams that had plagued me of late) finally passed. I moved as I had in the cold season when I had been on scout and caught in some storm wherein the misery of my body pulled at me until I might come to camp.
Pain shot up my stiffened legs as I footed on. After an interval I realized that the pace of the mare had fallen to a walk, that she breathed in great snorts, while the pony now plodded three or four lengths behind, its head drooping. Still it followed doggedly.
Dull-eyed, I looked about me. The heights had dropped somewhat. They no longer appeared to reach to the sky. I stood for a space, the mare blowing again. Fumbling at the saddle I brought out my water bottle, took a sip. which left me avid for more. Yet we had left our camp so quickly this was all we had and Joisan would need it, too.
She lay forward, stretched with one arm on either side of the mare's neck, her face half hidden in rough strands of mane. I made no effort to rouse her. Better that she sleep until we could reach some point of safety—if sleep she now did. I felt her dangling hand and it seemed warm to my touch—was she fevered? But I could not see to her yet, not as long as we remained within the least rise of those walls.
I urged the mare on, though she moved no faster than a walk, would stop now and then until I pulled at the reins, or slapped her rump. So intent was I on keeping her moving that I had not realized we had worn out the night until I saw the gray gleams of predawn lighting the mounds of earth on either side, the paling of the road.
It was a matter of the stumbler leading the stumbling when we came at last to the end of that cut, crossed a valley and—
The road came to an end!
I wavered on my feet staring up at the rockwall of what was a mountain, a mountain planted directly before our faces. Straight into that the road ran—and stopped as if the mountain had been raised from its stone roots somewhere else and dumped to cut off our path.
