by Rick Shelley
The gate of Mikel's palace grounds was open. The guards flanking the gateway scarcely showed that they noticed Silvas and the others leaving. They did not stop them, or offer any message. Mikel did not come to say farewell.
Bay picked his way surely through the Citadel, moving somewhat more rapidly than they had traveled the day before, but not showing undue haste. He alternated a rapid walk with a trot.
"Not too abruptly," Silvas cautioned Bay at one point. "We don't want anyone to get the idea that we are fleeing for our lives."
"I do know how to calculate such things," Bay replied. "We will make the best time that is seemly. Look. Girabelle and the team pulling the wagon are in a comfortable rhythm. Even Braf and his men are not straining."
"Just a reminder, Bay," Silvas said easily. "The folk of this place will be much finer in the way they reckon such things."
Bay did not bother to reply. Neither did he slow his pace. Silvas smiled and relaxed, looking to Maria. She reached out to him, and they rode hand in hand for a moment—not for long, because the difference in size between their horses meant that it was an uncomfortable stretch.
The people of the Citadel, and of the larger city beyond its walls, paid no more attention to the group from the Glade than they had the day before. If anything, they were ignored even more completely than they had been on their arrival. Competing traffic seemed to flow easily around them. There was no glowing way in the Shining City to show Bay the path, but he never hesitated. The gate of the Citadel, and the city gates, were open. The drawbridges were down, and free of traffic, when they reached them. Silvas and his companions went straight on through the city without stopping, and once they were across the moat that ringed the Shining City, the road was there before them, retaining the soft ivory glow that had led them into the land of the gods.
Silvas and Maria paid less attention to the landscape in the land of the gods than they had on the journey to the Shining City. An occasional scan to make sure that it held nothing new—and potentially threatening—was sufficient. They had more than enough to keep their minds occupied without frivolous sightseeing.
"There's so much, it's hard to know where to begin," Maria complained after they had transversed half of the plain.
"For me as well," Silvas said. "I reach out and take in everything that seems to be close, then reach out a little farther the next time. I can't even begin to anticipate the farthest edge yet."
"Like being at the center of ripples in a pond," Maria suggested.
As they approached the edge of the valley of the Shining City, Silvas and Maria watched the road ahead of them with more interest, waiting to see if the way lay open all of the way to the Seven Towers. The gentle grade finally peaked, and they started down again, on an equally gentle slope. The road continued to stretch out in front of them, absolutely straight. In the distance, a mist kept them from seeing the long bend in the road or the Seven Towers at its end.
"We couldn't see all of the way to the Glade when we were at this point coming out," Bay reminded the others.
"True," Silvas conceded, "but the vista does look different. The mist appears to be glowing now."
"Doubtless we'll know more when we get closer," Bay said.
When they resumed their travel, they seemed to move more rapidly than their actual pace warranted, as if the road were in a hurry to get rid of their weight. The auroral glow over the far end of the road seemed to swell, mostly a peach color, with many different shadings of pink and orange visible, softly radiant.
"Quite different," Silvas commented. He reached over to touch Maria's arm and, together, they reached out with Silvas's telesight to investigate the visual mystery.
But they could not penetrate it.
"Someone has done something," Silvas decided, but he could not fathom it yet. "I'm anxious for a closer look. Now that we are beyond the valley of the Shining City, more speed would not be amiss."
Bay nodded and picked up his pace a little. Girabelle and the team pulling the wagon immediately accommodated themselves to Bay's increased speed. Silvas glanced back to make certain that Braf and his men weren't distanced, but Braf showed no sign that he found the new pace the least discomforting. His gurnetz soldiers picked up the tempo without complaint.
"If our valley lies under that glow, then the Seven Towers is either under attack or someone has somehow isolated it," Bay said.
"Let's hope it's not an attack, Bay," Silvas said, beginning to get anxious about the mist hanging over the far end of the road.
"It may be nothing serious at all," Maria said. "We don't know yet. Can you feel danger from the glow?"
Silvas reached out with his mind to test that before he shook his head. "I feel nothing at all from it, one way or the other. Stay with the others, Maria. I think that Bay and I should ride ahead to see what we can learn." Are you with me?
Closely, Maria assured him.
"Bay?"
The giant horse needed no further urging. He stretched out into a canter that looked effortless despite its speed, then into a hard gallop that could cover a three-mile league in three minutes, a pace no normal horse could match. It was rare enough that Bay found the opportunity to extend himself in this fashion.
Silvas had no difficulty maintaining his seat. He was even able to continue projecting himself forward, straining his telesight for some definition within the pastel shadings of the strange mist or aura that spread out across the road in the distance.
At first, Girabelle wanted to run with Bay, but Maria held her back until she settled down.
Braf came trotting around the wagon. "What's the trouble?"
"We don't know if it's trouble or not," Maria said. "You see that light over the road?"
"Aye, my lady."
"Silvas is going to see if there's any threat to it. Stay close to me. I'll know the instant he does."
Maria split her awareness as easily as if she had been doing it since birth. Her mind, and vision, rode with Silvas, far ahead. At the same time, she was fully aware of Braf and the others with her. She could even spare thought to guess that even a three-way split would pose no special difficulty, should that become necessary.
As Silvas drew closer to the pastel shroud, it was clear that it was a diffuse light, not a proper fog or mist. There was no dampness to it, and once he passed through its border, it no longer blocked his vision. The glowing road took its long bend into and under the light. The valley of the Seven Towers was there, completely covered by the light, a veil over the valley. Within it, he could see the Glade. He stopped Bay, just within the veil.
The Seven Towers still stand, Silvas told Maria.
I see. There's no sign of damage or danger. Will you ride on to the Glade?
Silvas hesitated for a moment. He moved Bay until they were right at the edge of the veil, where Silvas could see both into the valley and back out at the others on the road, still more than two leagues away.
No, I'll come back to you, Silvas told Maria. He turned Bay away from the valley, and they galloped back to the others.
"There's no special feel to it at all," Silvas said, looking at Braf and then at the two esperia on the wagon. "It shows no nature of evil or good. It merely is."
"Nor any idea of what it is," Bay added, sounding almost confused. "I know not what to make of it."
"We'll have to investigate it fully," Maria said.
"But first, we have to get home," Silvas said.
"We can bear a somewhat faster pace," Braf assured Silvas before he dropped back to rejoin his soldiers.
Bay took the gurnetz at his word. The group covered the remaining five miles to the edge of the aura in little more than twenty minutes. Then, within the edge of the glow, they stopped for a short break, more to give everyone full opportunity to see what lay before them than for any real need to rest.
"This lane from the Shining City permits no detours," Silvas said after trying to get off of it with Bay. "We'll have to go on home before we can
investigate."
"Perchance this aura will disappear once the road does," Bosc suggested. "It may be no more than part of that phenomenon."
"It wasn't here when we left," Bay reminded him. "Yet, I must confess that what you say is possible."
The road led them right to the gate of the Seven Towers. Once the group had crossed over the drawbridge and through the castle's gate, the spectral road did vanish.
But the glow overhead remained.
CHAPTER NINE
The birds of the Seven Towers came out to greet Silvas and the others as soon as they emerged in the courtyard. The dirge was gone from their song. They wove cheerful music over the travelers, welcoming them home. If the peach-colored tint to the sky bothered the birds, they did not show it in their song, or in the way they capered about.
"It doesn't appear to be a threat," Silvas conceded, his head tilted back so he could look directly up at the colored sky, "but I don't like not knowing what it's about. I think we should have a look immediately."
"Yes." Maria had not bothered to dismount, since Silvas had not. The cats had leaped down from the wagon, but everyone else was waiting.
"I'll see to our defenses here," Braf said.
"Bosc and I'll see to the rest," Koshka said.
Silvas and Maria turned their horses back to the gate. They crossed the drawbridge—the normal vista of the valley lay outside the walls of the Seven Towers now—and headed toward the nearest edge of the valley, now to the west of the Glade.
"The folk in the village will have questions," Silvas said as they cantered toward the forest that covered the slope. "But I'd like to have answers before we hear the questions."
"I'm surprised there weren't people from the village waiting for us when we arrived," Maria said.
"They knew we were gone, no doubt, but they couldn't know when we would return. Our people here have seen a lot, and have tales about more than they've seen. Having all three sorts of people makes this village unique. It takes more to frighten them than it does the good people of Mecq—or most other villages in the realm."
Within the valley, the peach-colored sky did not have the appearance of a bubble or aura as it had had from the outside. The sky was a strange color, but the sky seemed normal apart from that. There were a few high clouds, an even lighter tint of the basic peach color on top and a rust color below, and on the shadow sides. The sun was still visible, moving toward mid-afternoon. The sky gave the greens of grass and trees an unusual cast, but the overall visual impression was pleasant, almost an improvement over what nature had granted. It had a warm, comfortable feel to it.
But neither Silvas nor Maria felt comfortable. The sky might yet harbor some dire menace.
The hillside forest never came within two hundred yards of the Glade's moat. There was no deep cover for any enemy close to the walls. Silvas and Maria followed a path that led up the slope toward the edge of the valley. The Seven Towers itself was on high ground, but not the highest ground in sight.
Where the forest canopy was thickest, there was little hint of the strange sky. The greens and grays of nature seemed to remain undisturbed, somber, quiet.
"A beautiful place," Maria said. They had to ride slowly climbing the tree-covered slope. "I never dreamed any place could be this lovely."
"Given a few years of proper water, the valley of Mecq will be as beautiful," Silvas replied. "There's no special magic making this valley look the way it does—save for whatever this new magic is."
The trees thinned out as they approached the top of the hill. And the pink-peach-orange sky dominated again.
"It seems to follow the ridgeline exactly." Maria moved her arm and pointed to emphasize her words. "It jumps from peak to peak and dips down into the passes between them."
Bay stopped for a moment. He looked one way and then the other. "To my eyes, it seems to be a veil, a distinct line, as if someone has cast an immense sheet of some gossamer fabric over the valley."
"Let's test the veil then," Silvas said, and Bay moved forward.
Bay moved right to the edge of the veil and stopped again. He seemed to have a better perspective on it than either Silvas or Maria did. To them, there was a fuzziness rather than a distinct border.
"There's no feel to it at all," Silvas said. "I can see it, but I can't touch it with my mind, or identify the signature to the magic."
"Shall I press through?" Bay asked.
"Go ahead."
But Bay encountered a problem. His head seemed to press against a physical barrier.
"It wasn't like this before," Bay said.
Silvas could feel the resistance that Bay had met. He reached forward with his mind and pressed with Bay against the barrier. Only then could Bay make any progress. Slowly, he stepped forward, into the barrier, forcing it to stretch around him. Finally, he broke through, and the barrier snapped shut behind. Maria followed on Girabelle, keeping her horse's nose as close to Bay's tail as possible. Even so, Girabelle had more difficulty getting through the veil than Bay did. Maria had to be especially firm with the horse to keep her from shying away from the attempt.
The sky beyond the veil was normal. Looking west, or anywhere but back into the valley, the sky was blue, the clouds untinted white and gray.
"It is just our valley," Silvas said as Maria emerged from the veil. "The land looks different as well here just outside."
"It does look strange," Maria said, "all twisted awry."
"If we were to go on a little ways and look back?" Bay suggested.
"Yes, let's," Silvas said.
The slope on this side of the hill was steeper than it was within the valley of the Seven Towers, but Bay and Girabelle were able to pick their way down and away from the ridgeline, moving somewhat to the north in the process.
"There's a road, about a half mile from this point," Silvas said. "If we follow that road for a few hundred feet, we should be able to get a good look."
It was a strange ride that seemed to defy natural law. The scenery seemed to press close against horses and riders on either side, while stretching away oddly before and behind. Riding side by side, or in line, Maria and Silvas could even see the distortion in each other.
"Has something gone wrong with our eyes?" Maria asked after they had examined both sorts of distortion.
"No. Whatever this is, it's part of the magic that cups its hand over the valley," Silvas said. "I can still get no grip on that."
As soon as they reached the road, they looked back toward the ridge. There were trees obscuring the immediate view, but both Maria and Silvas noticed instantly that they were not seeing what they expected to see.
"The halo is almost invisible," Maria said.
Silvas shook his head. "I know the ridgeline here. I've seen it often enough over the centuries. That is not the line that exists at this point. Let's move farther on along the road. We should have a better vantage just past that bend."
When they reached the outlook, Silvas pointed up at the ridgeline again. Now, there was no hint of the peach-colored aura hanging over the valley. "That's wrong. It's as if the valley of the Seven Towers no longer exists."
"Let's go on to the crossroads," Bay suggested.
That was another mile and a half along the narrow track they had been following. There were two roads that crossed the valley of the Glade, one from east to west across the narrow diameter of the valley, the other north to south, along its length. The road coming in from the west toward the valley ended at the lane that Silvas and Maria had been following. Rather, it merged with the lane, going south, back the way they had come.
Silvas closed his eyes and concentrated.
"The road is still there," he announced after a moment. "It's simply not visible. Bay, head along the road, as you remember it, not as you see it now."
"It's an effort," Bay said after he had taken several steps. "There's a dizziness in my head that I have to fight against."
"We feel it as well," Silvas said. He glanced
back. Girabelle was fighting Maria's control. Silvas gave a quick spell of calming for the other horse. "Keep her nose as close to Bay as you can," he told Maria. "She'll follow Bay, no matter how impossible the view is to her."
At first, it looked merely as if the horses were trying to climb the hill without a path, fighting their way up a difficult slope. Then, the terrain seemed to scrunch in against them from the sides, as if they were figures on a painting that someone had wadded up. There was no sign of the aura hanging over the valley beyond the hill in front of them.
...Until Bay came right up to the ridgeline and pressed against the barrier. Then, the road was visible directly beneath his feet. The pastel coloring was in front of him, and—through that filter—they could see the valley of the Seven Towers, but only as dark shadows.
Once more, Bay had to exert himself to break through the barrier. Girabelle found it almost impossible to follow. When Maria finally did get Girabelle's nose through the shroud, by exerting her own will, she found Silvas waiting. Bay had turned around to watch the veil during the struggle to get Girabelle through.
"Someone has very effectively quarantined our valley," Silvas said. Girabelle was panting hard from the effort. It had quite clearly taxed her strength almost to the limit.
"Barreth?" Maria suggested.
Silvas shrugged. "His name does come to mind first, but it could as easily have been Mikel, or any of the others. One or more of the gods doesn't want us contaminating the rest of this world. Doesn't want the world to know about our valley. We needed to use real power to break through. I doubt that any mortal could do it alone, even a wizard."
"They'll be anxious about this in the village," Bay said.
"Yes, we need to go there next," Silvas said. "And then beyond. We need to check the other passes."
"I don't think Girabelle is up to another effort like this last," Maria said. "It is completely beyond her."
"We'll test the veil on foot after this," Silvas said.
Bay held his pace to a slow walk as they followed the road down the slope of the hill toward the village. Even so, Girabelle quickly lagged behind, tired from the trek back from the Shining City and from all that had been required of her since. The villagers had plenty of time to see them coming, even though they were not coming from the direction of the castle. People—of all three sorts who worked in the Seven Towers—started to gather at the crossroads at the exact center of the valley, just on the southern edge of the village.
