05 Icefalcons Quest d-5

by Barbara Hambly

Blue fox fire outlined doorways and turnings, then vanished. Nearly on top of him something screamed in the ragged voice of a puma, what felt like claws raking his face. The Icefalcon's sword was in his hand and he was cutting, a checked stroke to avoid damaging the blade on the wall...

  And of course it met nothing. There was the puma scream again, claws ripping his sleeve. He felt them catch and pull, felt the seep of hot blood underneath, but there was no cold-the sleeve hadn't been torn.

  If it wasn't exactly an illusion, he thought, forcing himself to walk on, it was meant for the same purpose, to get him to run and lose himself in the labyrinth. The demons, too, took strength from the magic of the Keep.

  The thing screamed in his ear for another dozen yards, then let him alone. He heard it scream again, muffled by distance and by turnings; heard a man's shriek of terror and the thunder of running feet. Fool.

  "What happened?" gasped Hethya when he came into the chamber of Silence. He put up his hand to his face, and his fingers came away bloodied.

  "Demons. I need Hethya to help me, Scarface. The warriors of Vair are hunting for Ingold everywhere on this level." Time enough later to tell the boy Vair had found the transporter. "Is there some safer place where you can hide?"

  Tir nodded. "There's a room above this one, on the fourth level. You can't see the door. You have to count steps. Fifteen from the last corner before the wall. You can't see the door from inside, either."

  "Will you be well there?" Hethya asked worriedly, as if, thought the Icefalcon, Tir hadn't thought the matter out before speaking.

  Tir nodded. "I'll be fine."

  "You won't be afraid?"

  "No.

  "And what did you think the boy would say?" whispered the Icefalcon as they ascended a stone thread of stair to the level above.

  "Yes, I'lI be terrified? Of course he will be afraid." He watched while Tir counted careful steps and then pushed at the black stone of the wall. The wall yielded nothing. The Icefalcon paced off fourteen of his own long strides and tested the wall. As with Ingold's body, his hand seemed enveloped in shadow-it was indeed difficult to see anything in the dim lamplight-and he stepped through into a close-smelling blackness.

  He reached back immediately and drew the others in, Hethya holding up the lamp. A ribbon of water ran down the wall into a basin, and where the water came out, lichen and fungus and the ubiquitous vines choked the ancient spigot. The whole room was foul with leathery leaves.

  The Icefalcon thrust his sword into every vine and clump of toadstools, paced off the confines of the room, then cut the dead vines away, clearing a space for a fire and at the same time making something to burn.

  He was very tired now and though food had made him sick before, he felt the need of it desperately, muscles aching and all his flesh deathly cold. His hair had come unbraided from the he snatchings of demons, hanging down his back in a cloak the hue of moonlight and getting in his way every time he turned his head.

  He kindled a little fire and laid down two sticks of vine to show where the door was on the inside. "We'll be back," he said.

  Tir looked hopelessly tiny and hopelessly young. "I'm not afraid."

  The Icefalcon kindled the vine-stem torch. "You may be the only one in the Keep to be saying that. Sleep if you can."

  Though the dreams in this place, he thought, were not something that he would wish upon a friend, or on a friend's son.

  "They've found the transporter," he said to Hethya as they descended again. "Loses His Way has a plan, he says, to keep Vair from getting more men, but the Keep will need to be warned, if we can devise it."

  In the corridors of the second level a clone crawled along on his hands and knees, bawling out names at the top of his lungs. Elsewhere footsteps raced by them, ghostly and bodiless but fleet with the speed of panic, and the Icefalcon thought he heard the tearing intake of breath.

  The Keep was alive.

  "I never thought that it would be like this," whispered Hethya, hurrying at his side. "Never."

  "And what did you think it would be like?"

  "Like home, mostly." Hethya shook her head. "Only musty, empty. They can't have stayed here all that long, it's so... so tidy. I don't know if you've been to Prandhays Keep, me lanky friend, but it's a fair warren, worse than Renweth, at least what I saw of Renweth. Fat chance I'll ever have of them invitin' me back when this is over, and small blame to 'em. Mother..."

  She hesitated, her breath indrawn, then let it go. The Icefalcon touched her arm, holding her back.

  Something moved in the corridor ahead, near the rectangle of wavering light that marked where the Aisle would be.

  His sword was already in his hand. He scanned the walls quickly, looking for another door, a way to get behind whatever lay ahead of them.

  A voice whispered, "Icefalcon."

  Loses His Way. He felt Hethya's breath come in for reply-they'd doused the torch some way back-and he squeezed her arm, hard. There was more than one in the corridor.

  From another shadow, the same voice breathed, "It's all right." There was no mistaking the voice of Loses His Way.

  "By the Corn-Woman's hair-sticks, man, we have no time!"

  The voice-the same voice as the first two-spoke from yet another shadow, and they all stepped forward at once, outlined against the flickering reflections of the torchlight in the Aisle. Cold passed through the Icefalcon like the onset of mortal sickness.

  He made himself step forward, say, "I'm here."

  Beside him, Hethya whispered, "Dear God in heaven," and he heard the rustle of the mammoth-wool coat she wore as she made a sign to avert evil.

  But evil had already come-and gone. There were four of him. Them.

  No. My enemy, no.

  The process of shredding, of peeling the flesh from the screaming bones, remade as well as made. All four of Loses Their Way had their teeth once more, and none bore the bruises of Vair's beating.

  He looked different, with neither hair nor beard, the broad face far younger, the strong chin and generous mouth odd and prominent. The Icefalcon wondered if the scar he'd given Loses His Way at the Place of the Sugar Maples was gone.

  The words of Tir came back to him: That's where they put the needles in... And Ingold: The power is self-aligning...

  Who knew what he had learned from watching Bektis in the chamber before Hethya rescued him or what Tir had told him of what he had seen?

  His people being lured into danger, his daughter dishonored by Bektis' illusion...

  O my enemy, no.

  They had divided his clothing among them, like the sons of a man who has died. One wore his boots, another his shirt of wolfhide, another his leggings, under a makeshift assortment of garments stripped from the corpses in the vat-room, the commissariat where clothing and weapons were stored. One of them carried all four spiritbags, still bound at his belt.

  They were all armed, too.

  Hethya's eyes were wide, suddenly filled with tears. "O my friend," she said softly.

  Loses His Way-one Loses His Way-shook his head: "Woman, we have no friends among the people of the Real World but our kin." He spoke slowly, laboriously putting together the words with wits divided and dulled, and his voice was sad. "This my enemy"-he put a heavy arm around the Icefalcon's shoulders, hugged him hard-"he is dear to me as a son, but he is my enemy. My kin would kill him the moment they saw him."

  He drew their swords. "It is done," he said. "Vair and his warriors will be in the Aisle soon. And..." He frowned, groping for a thought that escaped him, and another of him said, "The Talking Stars People.

  The Talking Stars People will be back."

  "Ah." He nodded. "Yes. They are chasing a mammoth that doesn't exist." He smiled, and a flicker of his old self glinted in the blue eyes. "And well served. My enemy, let us go."

  The Icefalcon and Hethya pulled up the hoods of their coats, so when the six of them crossed the Aisle-four hairless clones and another who wore the rawhide footgear of the clones-non
e of the four clones on the Doors would notice.

  Not that they would anyway. The fight before the Doors was short and sharp. Other Alketch warriors were scattered about the Aisle and came running, but the cavern was long, and in the juddering gloom it took a few moments before any of them realized anything was amiss. By that time the Icefalcon and Loses Their Way had pulled open the Doors.

  Men fell on them from behind, and the Icefalcon turned, cutting and striking, his body falling into the practiced routines driven into him by Gnift, Swordmaster of the Guards, and before him by Noon and the other warriors of the Talking Stars People: feint, dodge, bob, slash, ducking to use his long legs to sweep the opponent's feet from beneath him, cutting with the dagger in his left hand.

  Loses His Way grunted in agony as a sword plowed up under his breastbone; the Icefalcon felt a sharp regret to see the light vanish from those blue eyes. But at the same instant Loses His Way half turned in the long black tunnel of the gates, and cold air swirled through as the outer doors were pulled open.

  Loses His Way slashed the throat of an Alketch warrior, turned almost in the same movement and jerked free Twin Daughter's spirit-pouch from his belt, threw it whirling down the dark gate tunnel.

  Loses His Way in the outer Doors caught it, shoved it through his belt in the same instant that Loses His Way who had thrown it, the man born in magic and pain, but man nonetheless-took an Alketch hatchet between his shoulder blades, having taken his eyes from his enemies to make his throw.

  The Icefalcon gutted the man who killed him a second later, but it was too late and he knew it. Loses His Way collapsed on the inner threshold of the Doors, body spasming.

  There was understanding in his eyes the second before the awareness went out of them, understanding when the Icefalcon, Hethya, and Loses His Way, taking advantage of the fact that the next Alketch warriors were still some thirty feet away, turned and fled back into the hidden and secret halls.

  Loses His Way, warchief of the Empty Lakes People, flopped a few times on the steps of the Keep as his lungs tried vainly to expand in his rib cage, then died alone.

  "The spirit-pouch will-will break the illusion." Stumbling at the heels of the Icefalcon and Hethya as they wound their tortuous way through crossing corridors, Loses His Way brought out the words with effort, something memorized carefully and only half comprehended.

  "The spells of Bektis, the spells that make Breaks Noses and the others believe that this Prinyippos is Twin Daughter, will not endure in the presence of a part of her, the soul of her, the spirit that remains in the spirit-pouch. If he can reach them..."

  He turned and looked back over his shoulder, though all sight of the Aisle had been obliterated behind the ebon walls, the endless night around them.

  They were in a place of thick growth, dead vines crunching beneath their feet, and the creepers rustled with the movement of demons, droplets of what looked like blood on their leaves.

  "He'll reach them," said the Icefalcon. "If he is as strong as you, my enemy, and too stupid to know when to quit, he'll reach them."

  "Did it hurt you," Hethya asked softly, "when the other two died? Your-your other selves?"

  A foolish question, thought the Icefalcon-they were separate people after all-but Loses His Way said, "I felt it. I... it is a loneliness. Worse I think than when Twin Daughter died, or her sister, who perished when they were only babies."

  He looked down at her, a big generous kingly man, and oddly, no less so now, bald and shorn and stripped of the spear-point of his wit. His heart remained a king's heart. "I feel-empty. Hollow. As if all chance of ever being whole again were gone. But of course it was gone when I... when I climbed into the vat."

  "Do you remember it?"

  The lampflame wavered on glittering ice; the Icefalcon turned aside, guiding them, counting doorways and turnings.

  A great confusion filled him, horror and regret that he knew he should not feel Loses His Way was his enemy after all. But he could not rid his mind of the clones' dreams of agony, the only memories they possessed.

  In the darkness men's voices called out distantly, footsteps thudded far off; someone cried out in horror, cut short. Like a breath of wind a low laugh seemed to hover on the edge of hearing.

  "Not really. Just... like a beating in childhood. I don't..." Loses His Way turned, sword in his hand, listening, but only silence breathed from the choked passageway to their left, the wilderness of stalactites and wrinkled frost-mounds to their right. "I don't remember. Is all well with you, my friend?"

  The Icefalcon opened his mouth indignantly to disclaim friendship with any member of the Empty Lakes People but said instead, "All is well."

  He had a slash through his coat, but the tough mammoth hide had taken the force of the cut, which had not penetrated to the skin. His face smarted from the claws of the demons, and he felt cold to the marrow of his bones.

  "What now?" asked Hethya as they climbed the last long stair.

  "The transporter must be guarded," said the Icefalcon. "No magic will work in that chamber, so even if Bektis returns you will have little to fear. They so wrought it that one man outside could defend the vestibule from an army arriving by transporter-and of course any similar defense in the Keep of Dare has long since been taken out by those silly laundresses who have the rooms now. But such defenses work the other way as well. Vair may have men there already, but with luck they won't realize Loses His Way is anything but some White Alketch clone until it's too late."

  Loses His Way grinned. "Now this," he said, "this sounds like good hunting. I and my other selves, we will need to split our tally of enemies killed when we come before the ki of battle," he explained to Hethya. "Naturally I need to kill a good many more, and an army coming at me through a single door...

  Ah!"

  "I couldn't help but be noticing," said Hethya, "about this 'you will have little to fear.' And just where does this you come out of, me lanky boy?"

  "It comes out of one of us having to find Ingold and find him quickly," retorted the Icefalcon. "He must have told someone at the Keep of Vair's intention, so if worse came to the worst they will not be taken completely unawares, but without Ingold we cannot warn them, by transporter or by other means. The boy Tir may recall something of where he might be, something of this Keep."

  They reached the last turning of the corridor. Darkness stretched all around them, waiting. Somewhere the Icefalcon could hear Zay whistling, that maddening, haunting tune. On the floor before him glinted a handful of jewels, a woman's headdress and rings, pale-green jewels whose heart glinted black as mile-deep ice. Whose?

  Stepping around them, he counted out fourteen of his long strides, picking by touch the pattern of lichen and molds on the wall, familiar now.

  "We are here, Scarface; we've sent an envoy to the Empty Lakes People. Now we need..."

  He stepped into the little room and stopped. Tir was gone.

  Chapter 20

  Tir waited a long time.

  Far off he could hear the voices of men calling and the ghostly chiming of the clock. These didn't frighten him the way the whispering did, endlessly telling over in darkness the names of people whose faces Tir remembered but whom he'd never met. The voice was tiny, but it was right there in the room with him, like a worm-stuffed rat crouching in the corner.

  Sometimes the voice said other things to him, too. Things about what Vair would do to him when he caught him. Things about his mother beating him for being stupid when he got back to the Keep. Things about Hethya and the Icefalcon being dead.

  It was illusion and Tir tried to ignore it, but time stretched out, and it might have been true. Vair was out there, and the image of the Icefalcon's body-cold asleep, as he had been when Hethya and Loses His Way brought him in-would not leave his mind. He loved Hethya, and since everything and everybody else he loved had been taken away from him, why not her, too?

  Curiously, he knew exactly where Ingold was. He didn't know whether this was somethin
g he remembered or something the Keep told him, but he knew where he was and how to get there. After Renweth, the Keep of the Shadow was ridiculously easy to navigate, or would be except for the vines.

  It was just that he had an idea of what the place was and didn't want to go there.

  The Icefalcon had said, Wait.

  Tir drank a little water from the bottle at his belt and waited, trying to shut the voice from his ears.

  But there was something wrong with the room. It seemed smaller than it had a few minutes-but how many minutes?-ago. The crinkly mats of fungus on one wall, the blobby lichens on the ceiling, appeared thicker in the tiny flare of the lamp, and it seemed to him that they'd begun, ever so slightly, to pulse. And there was something he couldn't see moving in the corners.

  There was another place that was safer.

  Safe forever, within enclosing walls, where he'd never have to go outside again. Wind and sunlight and open air tangled with the images of Vair's hand and Vair's voice, and the terror that other boy had felt in the open-waiting in the circle of the wagons for the Dark ones to come-merged with the gnashing onslaught of pain and grief and guilt and dread.

  Darkness safe and still. Darkness where nobody could get to him again, nobody could hurt him, ever.

  Darkness warm within these walls. The Icefalcon and Hethya and Loses His Way were dead-he had a horrible dream-vision of the chieftain dying on the threshold of the Doors, gasping for breath that would not come, a hatchet stuck bloody in his back. They were never coming back for him.

  And that was all his fault, too.

  Only Vair would come. Any minute. Any minute. Unless he got out fast.

  "Huh. I thought White Raiders were supposed to be able to track fish through water." Hethya folded her arms and contemplated the black stretch of corridor, barely to be seen in the guttering flicker of the makeshift torchlight.

  "A dog of ten thousand Ancestors cannot track a ripe fish if that dog's nose is covered." The Icefalcon spoke without even raising himself up on his elbows, stretched full-length among the scuffed creepers, the broken mosses, a burning vinestalk held in one hand a little over his head.