Chronicles of Morgaine 03 – Cherryh, C. J.

Prologue

The qhal found the first Gate on a dead world of their own sun.

Who made it, or what befell those makers, the qhal of that age never knew or learned. Their interest was in the dazzling prospect it offered them, a means to limitless power and freedom, a means to short-cut space and leap from world to world and star to star-instantaneous travel, once qhalur ships had crossed space at real-time, to carry to each new site the technology of the Gates and establish the link. Gates were built on every qhalur world, a web of eye-blink transport, binding together a vast empire in space.

And that was their undoing … For Gates led not alone WHERE but WHEN, both forward and backward along the course of world’s and suns.

The qhal gained power beyond their wildest imaginings: they were freed of time. They seeded worlds with gatherings from the far reaches of Gate-spanned space . . . beasts, and plants, even qhal-like species. They created beauty, and whimsy, and leaped ahead in time to see the flowerings of civilizations they had planned-while their subjects lived real years and died in normal span, barred from the freedom of the Gates.

Real-time for qhal became too tedious. The familiar present, the mundane and ordinary, assumed the shape of a confinement no qhal had to bear . . . the future promised escape. Yet once that journey forward had been made, there could be no return. It was too dangerous, too fraught with dire possibilities to open up backtime: there was the deadly risk of changing what was. Only the future was accessible . . . and qhal went.

The first venturers found pleasure for a time, learned the age and tired of it, and restlessly migrated again, stage by stage, joined by their own children’s children, confounding law and society. In greater and greater numbers they moved on, evading tedium, forever discontent, seeking pleasures and lingering nowhere long-until they crowded into a future where time grew strange and unstable.

Some went further, pursuing the hope of Gates which might or might not remain where they were predicted to be. More lost their courage utterly and ceased to believe in further futures, lingering until horror overwhelmed them, in a present crowded with living ancestors in greater and greater numbers. Reality began to ripple with unstable possibilities.

Perhaps some desperate soul fled back; or perhaps the very weight of extended time grew too much. Might-have-been and was were confounded. Qhal went mad, perceiving things no longer true, remembering what had never been.

Time was ripping loose about them-from ripplings to vast disturbances, the overstrained fabric of time and space undone, convulsed, imploded, hurling all their reality asunder.

Then all the qhalur worlds lay ruined. There remained only fragments of their past glory … stones strangely immune to time in some places, and in others suddenly and unnaturally victim to it . . . lands where civilization managed to rebuild itself, and others where all life failed, and only ruins remained.

The Gates themselves, which were outside all time and space ... they endured.

A few qhal survived, remembering a past which had been/ might have been.

Last came humans, exploring that vast dark desert of the qhalur worlds . . . and found the Gates.

Men had been there before . . . victims of the qhal and therefore involved in the ruin; Men looked into the Gates, and feared what they saw, the power and the desolation. A hundred went out those Gates, both male and female, a force never meant to know a homecoming. There could only be forward for them: they must seal the Gates from the far side of time, one and the next and the next, destroying them, unweaving the deadly web the qhal had woven . . . to the very Ultimate Gate or the end of time.

World after world they sealed . . . but their numbers declined, and their lives grew strange, stretched over millennia of real-time. Few of them survived of the second and third generations, and some of those went mad.

Then they began to despair that their struggle was hopeless, for one Gate omitted would begin it all again; one Gate, anywhen misused, could bring down on them the ruin of all they had even done.

In their fear, they created a weapon, indestructible save for the Gates which powered it: a thing for their own protection, and containing knowledge of Gates, that they had gained-a doomsday force against that paradoxical Ultimate Gate, beyond which was no passage at all-or worse.

They were five when that Weapon was made.

There was one who survived to carry it.

“Records are pointless. There is a strange conceit/ In making them when we are the last-but a race should leave something. The world is going . . . and the end of the world comes, not for its, perhaps, but soon. And we have always loved monuments.

“Know that it was Morgaine kri Chya who wrought this man. Morgen-Angharan, Men named her: the White Queen, she of the white gull feather, who was the death that came on us. It was Morgaine who extinguished the last brightness in the north, who cast Ohtij-in dawn to ruin, and stripped the land of inhabitants.

“Even before this present age she was the curse of our land, for she led the Men of the Darkness, a thousand years before us; her they followed here, to their own ruin; and the Man who rides with her and the Man who rides before her are of the same face and likeness-for now and then are alike with her.

“We dream dreams, my queen and I, each after our own fashion. All else went with Morgaine.”

-A stone, on a barren isle of Shiuan,

Chapter One

The plain gave way to forest, and the forest closed about, but there was no stopping, not until the green shadow thickened and the setting of the sun brought a chill to the air.

Then Vanye ceased for a time to look behind him, and breathed easier for his safety … his and his liege’s. They rode farther until the light failed indeed, and then Morgaine reined gray Siptah to a halt, in a clear space beside a brook, under an arch of old trees. It was a quiet place and pleasant, were it not for the fear which pursued them.

“We shall find no better,” Vanye said, and Morgaine nodded, wearily slid down.

“I shall tend Siptah,” she said as he dismounted. It was his place, to tend the horses, to make the fire, to do whatever task wanted doing for Morgaine’s comfort. That was the nature of an ilin, who was Claimed to the service of a liege. But they had ridden hard for more than this day, and his wounds troubled him, so that he was glad of her offer. He stripped his own bay mare down to halter and tether, and nibbed her down and cared for her well, for she had done much even to last such a course as they had run these last days. The mare was in no wise a match for Morgaine’s gray stud, but she had heart, and she was a gift besides. Lost, the girl who had given her to him; and he did not forget that gift, nor ever would. For that cause he took special care of the little Shiua bay-but also because he was Kurshin, of a land where children learned the saddle before their feet were steady on the earth, and it sat ill with him to use a horse as he had had to use this one.

He finished, and gathered an armload of wood, no hard task in this dense forest. He brought it to Morgaine, who had already started a small fire in tinder-and that was no hard task for her, by means which he preferred not to handle.

They were not alike, she and he: armed alike, in the fashion of Andur-Kursh-leather and mail, his brown, hers black; his mail made of wide rings and hers of links finely meshed and shining like silver, the like of which no common armorer could fashion; but he was of honest human stock, and most avowed that Morgaine was not. His eyes and hair were brown as the earth of Andur-Kursh; her eyes were pale gray and her hair was like morning frost. . . qhal-faii, fair as the ancient enemies of mankind, as the evil which followed them-though she denied that she was of that blood, he had his own opinions of it: it was only sure that she had no loyalty to that kind.

He carefully fed the fire she had begun, and worried about enemies the while he did so, mistrusting this land, to which they were strangers. But it was a little fire, and the forest screened them. Warmth was a comfort they had lacked in their journeyings of recent days; they were due some ease, having reached this place.

By that light, they shared the little food which remained to them . . . less concerned for their diminishing supplies than they might have been, for there was the likelihood of game hereabouts. They saved, back only enough of the stale bread for the morrow, and then, for he had done most of his sleeping in the saddle-he would gladly have cast himself down to deep, well-fed as he was, or have stood watch while Morgaine did so.

But Morgaine took that sword she bore, and eased it somewhat from sheath … and that purged all the sleep from him.

Changeling was its name, an evil name for a viler thing. He did not like to be near it, sheathed or drawn, but it was a part of her, and he had no choice. A sword it seemed, dragon-hilled, of the elaborate style that had been fashioned in Koris of Andur a hundred years before his birth . . . but the blade was edged crystal. Opal colors swirled softly in the lines of the runes which were finely etched upon it. It was not good to look at those colors, which blurred the senses. Whether it was safe to touch the blade when its power was thus damped by the sheath, he did not know nor ever care to learn-but Morgaine was never casual with it, and she was not now. She rose before she drew it fully.

It slipped the rest of the way from its sheath. Opal colors flared, throwing strange shadows about them, white light. Darkness shaped a well at the sword’s tip, and into that it was even less wholesome to look. Winds howled into it, and what that darkness touched, it took. Changeling drew its power from Gates, and was itself a Gate, though none that anyone would choose to travel.

It forever sought its source, and glowed most brightly when aimed Gate-ward. Morgaine searched with it, and turned it full circle, while the trees sighed and the howling wind grew, the light bathing her hands and face and hair. An imprudent insect found oblivion there. A few leaves were torn from trees and whipped into that well of darkness and vanished. The blade flickered slightly east and west, lending hope; but it glowed most brightly southward, as it had constantly done, a pulsing light that hurt the eyes. Morgaine held it steadily toward that point and cursed.

“It does not change,” she lamented. “It does not change.”

“Please, liyo, put it away. It gives no better answer, and does us no good.”

She did so. The wind died, the balefire winked out, and she folded the sheathed sword in her arms and settled again, bleakness on her face.

“Southward is our answer. It must be.”

“Sleep,” he urged her, for she had a frail and transparent look. “Liyo, my bones ache and I swear I shall not rest until you have slept. If you have no mercy on yourself, have some for me. Sleep.”

She wiped a trembling hand across her eyes and nodded, and lay down where she was on her face, caring not even for preparing a pallet on which to rest. But he rose up quietly and took their blankets, laid one beside her and pushed her over onto it, then threw the other over her. She nestled into that with a murmur of thanks, and stirred a last time as he put her folded cloak under her head. Then she slept the sleep of the dead, with Changeling against her like a lover: she released it not even in sleep, that evil thing which she served.

They were, he reflected, effectively lost. Four days past, they had crossed a void the mind refused to remember, the between of Gates. That way was sealed. They were cut off from where they had been, and did not know in what land they now were, or what men held it-only that it was a place where Gates led, and that those Gates must be passed, destroyed, sealed.

Such was the war they fought, against the ancient magics, the qhal-born powers. Their journey was obsession with Morgaine, and necessity with him, who served her … not his concern, the reason she felt bound to such a course; his reason was his oath, which be had sworn to her in Andur-Kursh, and beyond which he had stayed. She sought now the Master Gate of this world, which was that which must be sealed; and had found it, for Changeling did not lie. It was the selfsame Gate by which they had entered this land, by which their enemies had entered, behind them. They had fled that place for their lives … by bitter irony, had fled that which they had come to this world to find, and now it was the possession of their enemies.

“It is only that we are still within the influence of the Gate we have just left,” Morgaine had reasoned in the beginning of their flight northward, when the sword had first warned them. But as the distance widened between them and that power, still the sword gave the same disturbing answer, until there remained little doubt what the truth was. Morgaine had muttered things about horizons and the curving of the land, and other possibilities which he by no means comprehended; but at last she shook her head and became fixed upon the worst of her fears. It was impossible for them to have done other than flee. He tried to persuade her that; their enemies would surely have overwhelmed them. But that knowledge was no comfort to her despair.

“I shall know for certain,” she had said, “if the strength of the sending does not diminish by this evening. The sword can find lesser Gates, and it is possible still that we are on the wrong side of the world or too far removed from any other. But lesser Gates do not glow so brightly. If I see it tonight as bright as last, then we shall know beyond doubt what we have done.”

And thus they knew.

Vanye eased himself of some of the buckles of his armor. There was not a bone of his body which did not separately ache, but he had a cloak and a fire this night, and cover to hide him from enemies, which was better than he had known of late. He wrapped his cloak about him and set his back against an aged tree. His sword he laid naked across his knees. Lastly he removed his helm, which was wrapped about with me white scarf of the ilin, and set it aside, shaking free his hair and enjoying the absence of that weight. The woods were quiet about them. The water rippled over stones; the leaves sighed; the horses moved quietly at tether, cropping the little grass that grew where the trees were not. The Shiua mare was stable-bred, with no sense of enemies, useless on watch; but Siptah was a sentinel as reliable as any man, war-trained and wary of strangers, and he trusted to the gray horse as to a comrade in his watch, which made all the world less lonely. Food in his belly and warmth against the night, a stream when he should thirst and surely game plentiful for the hunting. A moon was up, a smallish one and unthreatening, and the trees sighed very like those of Andur’s lost forests-it was a healing thing, when there was no way home, to find something so much like it. He would have been at peace, had Changeling pointed some other way.

Dawn came softly and subtly, with singing of birds and the sometime stirring of the horses. Vanye still sat, propping his head on his arm and forcing his blurred eyes to stay open, and scanned the forest in the soft light of day.

All at once Morgaine moved, reached for weapons, then blinked at him in dismay, leaning on her elbow. “What befell? Thee fell asleep on watch?”

He shook his head, shrugged off the prospect of her anger, which he had already reckoned on. “I decided not to wake you. You looked over-tired.”

“Is it a favor to me if you fall out of the saddle today?”

He smiled and shook his head yet again, inwardly braced against the sting of her temper, which could be hurtful. She hated to be cared for, and she was too often inclined to drive herself when she might have rested, to prove the point. It should of course be otherwise between them, ilin and liyo, servant and liege lady .. . but she refused to learn to rely on anyone . . . expecting I shall die, he thought, with a troubling touch of ill-omen, as others have who have served her; she waits on that.

“Shall I saddle the horses, liyo?”

She sat up, shrugged the blanket about her in the morning chill and stared at the ground, resting her hands at her temples. “I have need to think. We must go back somehow. I have need to think.”

“Best you do that rested, then.”

Her eyes flicked to his, and at once he regretted pricking at her-a perversity in him, who was fretted by her habits. He knew that temper surely followed, along with a sharp reminder of his place. He was repared to bear that, as he had a hundred times and more, intended and unintended, and he simply wished it said and done. “It likely is,” she said quietly, and that confounded him. “Aye, saddle the horses.”

He rose and did so, troubled at heart. His own moving was painful; he limped, and there was a constant stitch in his side, a cracked rib, he thought. Doubtless she hurt too, and that was expected; bodies mended; sleep restored strength . . . but most of all he was concerned about the sudden quiet in her, his despair and yielding. They had been travelling altogether too long, at a pace which wore them to nerve and bone; no rest, never rest world and world and world. They survived the hurts; but there were things of the soul too, overmuch of death and war, and horror which still dogged them, hunting them-to which now they had to return. Of a sudden he longed for her anger, for something he understood.

“Liyo,” he said when he had finished with the horses and she knelt burying the fire, covering all trace of it. He dropped down, put himself on both knees, being ilin. “Liyo, it comes to me that if our enemies are sitting where we must return, then sit they will, at least for a time; they fared no better in that passage than we. For us-liyo, I beg you know that I will go on as long as seems good to you, I will do everything that you ask-but I am tired, and I have wounds on me that have not healed, and it seems to me that a little rest, a few days to freshen the horses and to find game and renew our supplies-is it not good sense to rest a little?”

He pleaded his own cause; did he plead his concern for her, he thought, then that instinctive stubbornness would harden against all reason. Even so he rather more expected anger than agreement. But she nodded wearily, and further confounded him by laying a hand on his arm-a brief touch; there were rarely such gestures between them, no intimacy … never had been.

“We will ride the bow of the forest today,” she said, “and see what game we may start, and I agree we should not overwork the horses. They deserve a little rest; their bones are showing. And you-I have seen you limping, and you work often one-armed, and still you try to take all the work from me. You would do everything if you had your way about it.”

“Is that not the way it is supposed to be?”

“Many the time I have dealt unfairly with you; and I am sorry for that.”

He tried to laugh, passing it off, and misliked more and more this sudden sinking into melancholy. Men cursed Morgaine, in Andur and in Kursh, in Shiuan and Hiuaj and the land between. More friends’ lives than enemies’ were to the account of that fell geas that drove her. Even him she had sacrificed on occasion; and would again; and being honest, did not pretend otherwise.

“Liyo,” he said, “I understand you better than you seem to think-not always why, but at least what moves you. I am only ilin-bound, and I can argue with the one I am bound to; but the thing you serve has no mercy at all. I know that. You are mad if you think it is only my oath that keeps me with you.”

It was said; he wished then he had not said it, and rose and found work for himself tying their gear to saddles, anything to avoid her eyes.

When she came to take Siptah’s reins and set herself in the saddle, the frown was there, but it was more perplexed than angry.

Morgaine kept silent in their riding, which was leisurely and followed the bendings of the stream; and the weariness of his sleepless night claimed him finally, so that he bowed his head and folded his arms about him, sleeping while they rode, Kurshin-style. She took the lead, and guarded him from branches. The sun was warm and the sighing of leaves sang a song very like the forests of Andur, as if tune had bent back on itself and they rode a path they had ridden in the beginning.

Something crashed in the brush. The horses started, and he came awake at once, reaching for his sword.

“Deer.” She pointed off through the woods, where the animal lay on its side.

Deer it was not, but something very like unto it, oddly dappled with gold. He dismounted with his sword in hand, having respect for the spreading antlers, but it was stone-dead when he touched it. Other weapons had Morgaine besides Changeling, qhalur-soit also, which killed silently and at distance, without apparent wound. She swung down from the saddle and gave him her skinning-knife and he set to, minded strangely of another time, a creature which had been indeed a deer, and a winter storm in his homeland’s mountains.

He shook off that thought. “Had it been to me,” he said, “it would have been small game and fish and precious little of that I must have myself a bow, liyo.”

She shrugged. In fact his pride was hurt, such of it as remained sensitive with her, that he had not done this, but she; yet it was her place to provide for her ilin. At times he detected hurt pride in her, that the hearth she gave him was a campfire, and the hall a canopy of branches, and food often enough scant or lacking entirely. Of all lords an ilin could have been ensnared to serve, Morgaine was beyond doubt the most powerful, and the poorest. The arms she provided him were plundered, the horse stolen before it was given, and their provisions likewise. They lived always like hedge-bandits. But tonight and for days afterward they would not have hunger to plague them, and he saw her slight hurt at the offense behind his words; with that he dismissed his vanity and vowed himself grateful for the gift.

It was not a place for long lingering: birds’ alarm, the flight of other creatures-death in the forest announced itself. He took the best and stripped that, with swift strokes of the keen blade-skill gained in outlawry in Kursh, to hunt wolf-wary in the territories of hostile clans, to take and flee, covering his traces. So he had done, solitary, until a night he had sheltered with Morgaine kri Chya, and traded her his freedom for a place out of the wind.

He washed his hands from the bloody work, and tied the hide bundle on the saddle, while Morgaine made shift to haul the remnant into the brush. He scuffed the earth about and disposed of what sign he could. Scavengers would soon muddle the rest, covering their work, and he looked about carefully, making sure, for not all their enemies were hall-bred, men of blind eyes. One there was among them who could follow the dimmest trail, and that one he feared most of any.

That man was of clan Chya, of forested Koris in Andur, his own mother’s people .. . and of his mother’s close kin; it was at least the shape he lately wore.

It was an early camp, and a full-fed one. They attended to the meat which they must carry with them, drying it in the smoke of the fire and preparing it to last as long as possible. Morgaine claimed first watch, and Vanye cast himself to deep early and wakened to his own sense of time. Morgaine had not moved to wake him, and had not intended to, he suspected, meaning to do to him what he had done to her; but she yielded her post to him without objection when he claimed it: she was not one for pointless arguments.

In his watch be sat and fed the fire by tiny pieces, making sure that the drying was proceeding as it should. The strips had hardened, and he cut a piece and chewed at it lazily. Such leisure was almost forgotten, in his life-to have a day’s respite, two-to contemplate.

The horses snuffed and moved in the dark. Siptah took some interest in the little Shiua mare, which would prove difficulty did she breed; but there was no present hazard of that. The sounds were ordinary and comfortable.

A sudden snort, a moving of brush … he stiffened in every muscle, his heart speeding. Brush cracked: that was the horses.

He moved, ignoring bruises to rise in utter silence, and with the tip of his sword reached to touch Morgaine’s out-flung hand.

Her eyes opened, fully aware in an instant; met his, which slid in the direction of the small sound he had sensed more than heard. The horses were still disturbed.

She gathered herself, silent as he; and stood, a black shape in the embers’ glow, with her white hair making her all too much a target. Her hand was not empty. That small black weapon which had killed the deer was aimed toward the sound, but shield it was not. She gathered up Changeling, better protection, and he gripped his sword, slipped into the darkness; Morgaine moved, but in another direction, and vanished.

Brush stirred. The horses jerked madly at tethers of a sudden and whinned in alarm. He slipped through a stand of saplings and something he had taken for a piece of scrub . . . moved: a dark spider-shape, that chilled him with its sudden life. He went farther, trying to follow its movements, cautious not least because Morgaine was a-hunt the same as he.

Another shadow: that was Morgaine. He stood still, mindful that hers was a distance-weapon, and deadly accurate; but she was not one to fire blindly or in panic. They met, and crouched still a moment No sound disturbed the night now but the shifting of the frightened horses.

No beast: he signed to her with his straight palm that it had gone upright, and touched her arm, indicating that they should return to the fireside. They went quickly, and he killed the fire while she gathered their provisions. Fear was coppery in his mouth, the apprehension of ambush possible, and the urgency of flight. Blankets were rolled, the horses saddled, the whole affair of their camp undone with silent and furtive movements. Quickly they were in the saddle and moving by dark, on a different track: no following a spy in the moonless dark, to find that he had friends.

Still the memory of that figure haunted him, the eerie movement which had tricked his eye and vanished. “Its gait was strange,” he said, when they were far from that place and able to talk. “As if it were unjointed.”

What Morgaine thought of that, he could not see. “There are more than strange beasts where Gates have led,” she said.

But they saw nothing more astir in the night. Day found them far away, on a streamcourse which was perhaps different from the one of the night before, perhaps not. It bent in leisurely windings, so that branches screened this way and that in alternation, a green curtain constantly parting and dosing as they rode.

Then, late, they came upon a tree with a white cord tied about its trunk, an old and dying tree, lightning-riven.

Vanye stopped at the evidence of man’s hand hereabouts, but Morgaine tapped Siptah with her heels and they went a little farther, to a place where a trail crossed their stream.

Wheels rutted that stretch of muddy earth.

To his dismay Morgaine turned off on that road. It was not her custom to seek out folk who could as easily be left undisturbed by their passing . . . but she seemed minded now to do so.

“Wherever we are,” she said at last, “if these are gentle people we owe them warning for what we have brought behind us. And if otherwise, then we shall look them over and see what trouble we can devise for our enemies.”

He said nothing to that. It seemed as reasonable a course as any, for two who were about to turn and pursue thousands, and those well-armed, and many horsed, and in possession of power enough to unhinge the world through which they rode.

Conscience: Morgaine claimed none . . . not altogether truth, but near enough the mark. The fact was that in that blade which hung on the saddle beneath her knee, Morgaine herself had some small share of that power, and therefore it was not madness which led her toward such a road, but a certain ruthlessness.

He went, because he must.

Chapter Two

There were signs of habitation, of the hand of some manner of men, all down the road: the ruts of wheels, the cloven-hoofed prints of herded beasts, the occasional snag of white wool on a roadside branch. This is the way their herds come to water, Vayne reasoned. There must be some open land hereabouts for their grazing.

It was late, that softest part of afternoon, when they came upon the center of it all.

It was a village which might, save for its curving roofs, have occupied some forest edge in Andur; and a glamour of forest sunlight lay over it, shaded as its roofs were by old trees, a gold-green warmth that hazed the old timbers and the thatched roofs. It was almost one with the forest itself, save for the fanciful carving of the timbers under the eaves, which bore faded colors. It was a cozy huddle of some thirty bundings, with no walls for defense . . . cattle pens and a cart or two, a dusty commons, a large hall of thatch and timbers and carved beams, no proper lord’s hold, but rustic and wide-doored and mainly windowed.

Morgaine stopped on the road and Vanye drew in beside her. A boding of ill came on him, and of regret. “Such a place,” he said, “must have no enemies.”

“It will have,” said Morgaine, and moved Siptah forward.

Their approach brought a quiet stirring in the village, a cluster of dusty children who looked up from their play and stared, a woman who looked out a window and came out of doors drying her hands on her skirts, and two old men who came out of the hall and waited their coming. Younger men and an old woman joined that pair, with a boy of about fifteen and a workman in a leather apron. More elder gathered. Solemnly they stood, … human folk, dark-skinned and small of stature.

Vanye looked nervously between the houses and among the trees that stood close behind, and across the wide fields which lay beyond in the vast clearing. He scanned the open windows and doors, the pens and the carts, seeking some ambush. There was nothing. He kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, which rode at his side; but Morgaine had her hands free and in sight … all peaceful she seemed, and gracious. He did not scruple to look suspiciously on everything.

Morgaine reined in before the little cluster that had gathered before the hall steps. All the folk bowed together, as gracefully and solemnly as lords, and when they looked up at her, their faces held wonder, but no hint of fear.

Ah, mistrust us, Vanye wished them. You do not know what has come among you. But nothing but awe touched those earnest faces, and the eldest of them bowed again, and addressed them.

Then Vanye’s heart froze in him, for it was the qhalur tongue that these Men spoke.

Arrhtkein, they hailed Morgaine, which was my lady; little by little as they rode, Morgaine had insisted to teach him, until he knew words of courtesies and threat and necessities. Not qhal in any case, these small dark folk, so courteous of manner . . . but the Old Ones were clearly reverenced here, and therefore they welcomed Morgaine, taking her for qhal, which she was to the eye.

He reasoned away his shock: there was a tune his Kurshin soul would have shuddered to hear that language on human lips, but now it passed his own. The speech was current, Morgaine had persuaded him, wherever qhal had been, in whatever lands Gates led to, and it had lent many words to his own language-which disturbed him to realize. That these folk spoke it nearly pure , . . that amazed him. Khemeis, they addressed him, which sounded like kheman: accompany . . . Companion, perhaps, for my lord he was not, not where qhal were honored.

“Peace,” he bade them softly in that language, the appropriate greeting; and “How may we please you and your lady?” they asked in all courtesy, but he could not answer, only understand.

Morgaine spoke with them, and they with her; after a moment she looked across at him. “Dismount,” she said in the qhalur tongue. “Here are friendly people.” But that was surely for show and for courtesy; he dismounted as she ordered him, but he did not let down his guard or intend to leave her back unguarded. He stood with arms folded, where he could both see those to whom she spoke and keep a furtive watch on the others who began to join the crowd-too many people and too close for his liking, although none of them seemed unfriendly.

Some of what was said he followed; Morgaine’s teaching with him had encompassed enough that he knew they were being welcomed and offered food. The accent was a little different than Morgaine’s, but no worse than the shift from Andurin to Kurshin in his mother tongue.

“They offer us hospitality,” Morgaine said, “and I am minded to take it, at least for tonight. There is no immediate threat here that I can see.”

“As you will, liyo.”

She gestured toward a handsome lad of about ten. “He is Sin, the elder Bythein’s grandnephew. He is offered to care for the horses, but I had rather you did that and simply let him help you.”

She meant to go among them alone, then. He was not pleased at that prospect, but she had done worse things, and, armed, she was of the two of them the more dangerous, a fact which most misjudged. He took Changeling from her saddle and gave it to her, and gathered up the reins of both horses.

“This way, khemeis,” the boy bade him; and while Morgaine went into the hall with the elders, the boy walked with him toward the pens, trying to match his man’s strides and gawking at him like any village lad unused to arms and strangers . . . perhaps amazed also at his lighter complexion and his height, which must seem considerable to these small folk. No man in the village reached more than his shoulder, and few that much. Perhaps, he thought, they reckoned him halfling qhal, no honor to him, but he did not mean to dispute it with them.

The boy Sin chartered at him busily when he reached the pens- and began to unsaddle the horses, but it was conversation all in vain with him. Finally the realization seemed to dawn upon Sin, who asked him yet another question.

“I am sorry; I do not understand,” he answered, and the boy squinted up at him, stroking the mare’s neck under her mane.

“Khemeis?” the boy asked of him.

He could not explain. I am a stranger here, he could say; or I am of Andur-Kursh; or other words, which he did not intend to have known. It seemed wisest to leave all such accountings to Morgaine, who could listen to these people and choose what to reveal and what to conceal and argue out their misconceptions.

“Friend,” he said, for he could say that too, and Sin’s face lighted and a grin spread across it.

“Yes,” Sin said, and fell to currying the bay mare with zeal. Whatever Vanye showed him, Sin was eager to do, and his thin features glowed with pleasure when Vanye smiled and tried to show satisfaction with his work … a good folk, an open-handed people, Vanye thought, and felt the safer in their lodgings. “Sin,” he said, having composed his sentence carefully, “you take care for the horses. Agreed?”

“I shall sleep here,” Sin declared, and adoration burned in his dark eyes. “I shall care for them, for you and for the lady.”

“Come with me,” Vanye told him, slinging their gear on his shoulder, saddlebags which held things they needed for the night, and food that might draw animals, and Morgaine’s saddle kit, which was nothing to be left to the curiosity of others. He was pleased in the company of the boy, who had no shyness or lack of patience in speaking with him. He set his hand on Sin’s shoulder and the boy swelled visibly with importance under the eyes of the other children, who watched from a distance. They walked together back to the hall, and up the wooden steps to the inside.

It was a high-raftered place, the center filled with a long row of tables and benches, a place for feasts; and there was a grand fireplace, and light from the many wide windows which-like the unwalled condition of the village-betokened a place that had never taken thought for its defense. Morgaine sat there, a bit of pallor black-clad and glittering with silver mail in the dusty light, surrounded by villagers both male and female, young and old, some on benches and some at her feet. At the edge of that circle mothers rocked children on their laps, keeping them still, themselves seeming curious to listen.

Way was made for him, folk edging this way and that to let him through at once. He found a bench offered him, when his place was sitting on the floor, but he took it; and Sin managed to work eelwise to his feet and settle there against his knee.

Morgaine looked at him. “They offer us welcome and whatever we have need of, equipage or food. They seem most amazed by you; they cannot conceive of your origins, tall and different as you are; and they are somewhat alarmed that we go so heavily armed . . . but I have explained to them that you entered my service in a far country.”

“There are surely qhal here.”

“I would surmise so. But if that is the case, they must not be hostile to these folk.” She made her voice gentle then, and lapsed back into the qhalur tongue. “Vanye, these are the elders of the village: Sersein and her man Serseis; Bythein and Bytheis; Melzein and Melzeis. They say that we may shelter in this hall tonight.”

He inclined his head, assenting and offering respect to their hosts.

“For now,” Morgaine added in Andurin, “I only ask questions of them. I counsel thee the same.”

“I have said nothing.”

She nodded, and speaking to the elders, turned again to the qhalur language, with fluency he could not follow.

It was a strange meal they took that night, with the hall aglow with torches and with firelight from the hearth, and the board laden with abundance of food, the benches crowded with villagers young and old. It was the custom here, Morgaine explained, that all the village take the evening meal together as if they were one house, as indeed was the custom of Rakoris in Andur, but here even children attended, and played recklessly among their elders, suffered to speak at table with abandon that would have fetched a Kurshin child, be he lord’s son or peasant, a ringing ear and a stern march outside to a more thorough chastisement. Children here filled their bellies and then slid down from table to play noisily in the pillared wings of the hall, laughing and shouting above the roar of conversation.

It was not, at least, a hall where one feared an assassin’s knife or poison. Vanye sat at Morgaine’s right-an ilin should stand behind, and he would rather have tasted the food that she was offered to be certain, all the same; but Morgaine forbade that, and he gave up his apprehensions. In the pen outside, the horses fed on good hay, and they sat in this bright, warm hall amid folk who seemed more inclined to kill them by overfeeding than by ill will. When at last no one could eat any more, the children who did not wish to be quiet were cheerfully dismissed into the dark outside, the oldest of that company leading the youngest, and there seemed no thought in any one that the children might be in any danger in the dark outdoors. Within the hall, a girl began to play on a tall, strangely tuned harp, and sang beautifully with it. There was a second song which everyone sang, save themselves; and then they were offered the harp as well-but playing was long-past for him. His fingers had forgotten whatever childish skill they had once had, and he refused it, embarrassed. Morgaine also declined; if there was ever a time when she had had leisure to learn music, he could not imagine it.

But Morgaine spoke with them instead, and they seemed pleased by what she said. There followed a little discussion, in which he could not share, before the girl sang one last song.

Then dinner was done, and the villagers went their own way to beds in their houses, while oldest children were quick to make their guests a place nearest the fire . . . two pallets and a curtain for privacy, and a kettle of warm water for washing.

The last of the children went down the outside steps and Vanye drew a long breath, in this first solitude they had enjoyed since riding in. He saw Morgaine unbuckle her armor, ridding herself of that galling weight, which she did not do on the trail or in any chancy lodging. If she were so inclined, he felt himself permitted, and gratefully stripped down to shirt and breeches, washed behind the curtain and dressed again, for he did not utterly trust the place. Morgaine did likewise; and they settled down with their weapons near them, to sleep alternately.

His watch was first, and he listened well for any stirring in the village, went to the windows and looked out on this side and on the other, on the forest and the moonlit fields, but there was no sign of movement, nor were the village windows all shuttered. He went back and settled at the hearth in the warmth, and began to accept finally that all this bewildering gentleness was true and honest.

It was rare in all their journeying that there awaited them no curse, no hedge of weapons, but only kindness.

Here Morgaine’s name was not yet known.

The morning brought a smell of baking bread, and the stir of folk about the hall, a scatter of children who were hushed to quiet “Perhaps,” Vanye murmured, smelling that pleasant aroma of baking, “a bit of hot bread to send us on our way.”

“We are not going,” Morgaine said, and he looked at her in bewilderment, not knowing whether this was good news or ill. “I have thought things through, and you may be right: here is a place where we can draw breath, and if we do not rest in it, then what else can we do but kill the horses under us and drive ourselves beyond our strength? There is no surety beyond any Gate. Should we win through-to another hard ride, and lose everything for want of what we might have gathered here? Three days. We can rest that long. I think your advice is good sense.”

“Then you make me doubt it You have never listened to me, and we are alive, all odds to the contrary.”

She laughed humorlessly. “Aye, but I have; and as for my own plans, some of the best of those have gone amiss at the worst of times. I have ignored your advice sometimes at our peril, and this time I take it I reckon our chances even.”

They broke fast, served by grave-faced children who brought them some of that hot bread, and fresh milk and sweet butter besides. They ate as if they had had nothing the night before, for such a breakfast was not a luxury that belonged to outlawry.

Three days went too quickly; and the courtesy and gentleness of the folk brought something that Vanye would have given much to see: for Morgaine’s gray eyes grew clean of that pain which had ridden there so long, and she smiled and sometimes laughed, softly and merrily.

The horses fared as well: they rested, and the children brought them handfuls of sweet grass, and petted them, and combed their manes and curried them with such zeal that Vanye found nothing to do for them but a bit of smithing- in which the village smith was all too willing to assist, with his forge and his skill.

Whenever he was at the pens with the horses, the children, particularly Sin, hung over the rails and chattered merrily to him, trying to ask him questions of the animals and Morgaine and himself, little of which he even understood.

“Please, khemeis Vanye,” said Sin, when he leaned to rest on the edge of the watering-keg, “please may we see the weapons?” At least so he put the words together.

He recalled his own boyhood, when he had watched in awe the dai-uyin, the high-clan gentlemen with their armor and their horses and weapons . . . but with the bitter knowledge of bastardy, which-for he had been a lord’s bastard, gotten on a captive-made the attainment of such things desperate necessity. These were only village children, whose lives did not tend toward arms and wars, and their curiosity was that which they might hold toward the moon and stars . . . something remote from them, and untainted by understanding.

“Avert,” he murmured in his own tongue, wishing harm from them, and unhooked the side ring of his sheathed sword, slipped it to his hand. He drew it, and let their grimy fingers touch the blade, and he let Sin-which filled the boy with delight-hold the hilt in his own hand and try the balance of it. But then he took it back, for he did not like the look of children with such a grim thing, that had so much blood on it.

Then, pointing, they asked to see the other blade that he carried, and he frowned and shook his head, laying his hand on that carven hilt at his belt. They cajoled, and he would not, for an Honor-blade was not for their hands. It was for suicide, this one, and it was not his, but one he carried, on his oath to deliver it.

“An elarrh thing,” they concluded, in tones of awe; and he had not the least idea of their meaning, but they ceased asking, and showed no more desire to touch it.

“Sin,” he said, thinking to draw a little knowledge from the children, “do men with weapons come here?”

At once there was puzzlement on Sin’s face and in the eyes of the others, down to the least child. “You are not of our forest,” Sin observed, and used the plural you-surmise which shot all too directly to the mark. Vanye shrugged, cursing his rashness, which had betrayed him even to children. They knew the conditions of their own land, and had sense enough to find out a stranger who knew not what he should.

“Where are you from?” a little girl asked. And, wide-eyed, with a touch of delicious horror: “Are you sirreri?ⁿ

Others decried that suggestion in outrage, and Vanye, conscious of his helplessness in their small hands, bowed bis head and busied himself hooking his sword to his belt. He pulled on the ring of the belt that crossed his chest drawing the sword to his shoulder behind, hooked it to his side. Then: “I have business,” he said, and walked away. Sin made to follow. “Please no,” he said, and Sin fell back, looking troubled and thoughtful, which in no wise comforted him.

He walked back to the hall, and there found Morgaine, sitting with the clan elders and with some of the young men and women who had stayed from their day’s work to attend her. Quietly he approached, and they made place for him as before. For a long time he sat listening to the talk that flowed back and forth between Morgaine and the others, understanding occasional small sentences, or the gist of them. Morgaine sometimes interrupted herself to give him an essential word-strange conversation for her, for they spoke much of their craps, and their livestock and their woods, of all the affairs of their village.

Like, he thought, a village discussing with its lord their state of affairs. Yet she accepted this, and listened more than she spoke, as was ever her habit.

At last the villagers took their leave, and Morgaine settled next the fire and relaxed a time. Then he came and rested on his knees before her, embarrassed by what he had to confess, that he had betrayed them to children.

She smiled when he had told her. “So. Well, I do not think it much harm. I have not been able to learn much of how qhal may be involved in this land, but, Vanye, there are tilings here so strange I hardly see how we could avoid revealing ourselves as strangers.”

“What does elarrh mean?”

“It comes from arrh, that is noble, or or, that is power, The words are akin, and it could be either, depending on the situation . . . either or both: for when one addressed a qhal-lord in the ancient days as arrhtheis, it meant both his status as a qhal and the power he had. To Men in those days, all qhal had to be my lord, and the power in question was that of the Gates, which were always free to them, and never to Men … it has that distressing meaning too. Elarrh something belonging to power, or to lords. A thing of reverence or hazard. A thing which … Men do not touch.”

Qhalur thoughts disturbed him, the more he comprehended the qhalur tongue. Such arrogance was hateful. . . and other things Morgaine had told him, which be had never guessed, of qhalur maneuverings with human folk, things which hinted at the foundations of his own world, and those disturbed him utterly. There was much more, he suspected, which she dared not tell him. “What will you say to these folk,” he asked, “and when-about the trouble we have brought on their land? Liyo, what do they reckon we are, and what do they think we are doing among them?”

She frowned, leaned forward, arms on knees. “I suspect that they reckon us both qhal, you perhaps halfling, . . . but after what fashion or with what feeling I can find no delicate means to ask. Warn them? I wish to. But I would likewise know what manner of thing we shall awaken here when I do. These are gentle folk; all that I have seen and heard among them confirms that. But what defends them . . . may not be.”

It well agreed with his own opinion, that they trod a fragile place, safe in it, but perilously ignorant, and enmeshed in something that had its own ways.

“Be careful always what you say,” she advised him. “When you speak in the Kurshin tongue, beware of using names they might know, whatever the language. But henceforth you and I should speak in their language constantly. You must gather what you can of it. It is a matter of our safety, Vanye.”

“I am trying to do that,” he said. She nodded approval, and they occupied themselves the rest of the day in walking about the village and the edge of the fields, talking together, impressing in his memory every word that could be forced there.

He had expected that Morgaine would choose to leave by the next morning, and she did not; and when that night came and he asked her would they leave on the morrow, she shrugged and in talking of something else, never answered the question. By the day after that, he did not ask, but took his ease in the village and settled into its routine, as Morgaine seemed to have done.

It was a healing quiet, as if the long nightmare that lay at their backs were illusion, and this sunny place were true and real. There was no word from Morgaine of leaving, as if by saving nothing she could wish away all hazard to them and their hosts.

But conscience worried at him, for the days they spent grew to many more than a handful. And he dreamed once, when they slept side by side-both slept, for sitting watch seemed unnecessary in the center of so friendly a place: he came awake sweating, and slept again, and wakened a second time with an outcry that sent Morgaine reaching for her weapons.

“Bad dreams in such a place as this?” she asked him. “There have been places with more reason for them.”

But she looked concerned that night too, and lay staring into the fire long afterward. What the dream had been he could not clearly remember, only that there seemed something as sinister in his recollection as the creeping of a serpent on a nest, and he could not prevent it.

These folk will haunt me, he thought wretchedly. They two had no place here, and knew it; and yet selfishly lingered, out of time and place, seeking a little peace . . . taking it as a thief might take, stealing it from its possessors. He wondered whether Morgaine harbored the same guilt … or whether she had passed beyond it, being what she was, and impelled by the need to survive.

He was almost moved to argue it with her then; but a dark mood was on her, and he knew those. And when he faced her in the morning, there were folk about them; and later he put it off again, for when he faced the matter, the odds against them outside this place were something he had no haste to meet: Morgaine was gathering forces, and was not ready, and he was loath to urge her with arguments . . . when the geas fell on her, she passed beyond reason; and he did not want to be the one to start it.

So he bided, mending harness, working at arrows for a bow which he traded of a villager who was an excellent bowyer. It was offered free, once admired, but in his embarrassment Morgaine intervened with the offer of a return gift, a gold ring of strange workmanship, which must have lain buried in her kit a very long time. He was disturbed at that, suspecting that it might have meant something to her, but she laughed and said that it was time she left it behind.

So he had the bow, and the bowyer a ring that was the envy of his companions. He practiced his archery with the young folk and with Sin, who dogged his tracks faithfully, and strove to do everything that he did.

In the pen and agraze on the grassy margin of the fields, the horses grew sleek and lazy as the village’s own cattle … and Morgaine, always the one who could not rest in an hour’s delay, sat long hours in the sun and talked with the elders and the young herders, drawing on a bit of goatskin what became a great marvel to the villagers, who had never seen a map. Though they had the knowledge of which it grew, they had never seen their world set forth in such a perspective.

Mirrind, the village was named; and the plain beyond the forest was Azeroth; the forest was Shathan. In the center of the great circle that was Azeroth, she drew a skein of rivers, feeding a great river called the Narn; amid that circle also was written athatin, which was the Fires-or plainly said, the Gate of the World.

So peaceful Mirrind knew of the Gate, and held it in awe: Azerothen Athatin. Thus far their knowledge of the world did extend. But Morgaine did not question them on it closely. She made her map and lettered it in qhalur runes, a fine fair band.

Vanye learned such runes … as he learned the spoken language. He sat on the step of the meeting hall and traced the symbols in the dust, learning them by writing all the new words that he had learned, and trying to forget the scruples in such things that came of being Kurshin. The children of Mirrind, who thronged him when he would tend the horses or who had such zeal to fetch his arrows that he feared for their safety, quickly found this exercise tedious and deserted him.

“Elarrh-work,” they pronounced it, which meant anything that was above them. They had awe of it, but when there was no amusement to come of it, and no pictures, they drifted away-all but Sin, who squatted barefoot in the dust and tried to copy.

Vanye looked up at the lad, who worked so intently, and poignant recollection stirred in him, of himself, who had never been taught, but that he had sought it, who had insisted oo having the things his legitimate brothers were born to have-and thereby gained what learning his mountain home could offer.

Now among all the children of Mirrind, here sat one who reached and wanted beyond the others, and who-when they had taken their leave-would be most hurt, having learned to desire something Mirrind could not give. The boy had no parents; they had died in some long-ago calamity. He had not asked into it. Sin was everyone’s child, and no one’s in particular. The others will be only ordinary, he thought, but what of this one? Remembering his sword in Sin’s small band, he felt a chill, and blessed himself.

“What do you, khemeis?” Sin asked.

“I wish you well.” He rubbed out the runes with his palm and rose up, with a great heaviness on him.

Sin looked at him strangely, and he turned to go up the steps of the hall. There was a sudden outcry somewhere down Mirrind’s single street . . , not the shrieks of playing children, which were frequent, but a woman’s outcry; and in sudden apprehension he turned. Hard upon it came the shouting of men, in tones of grief and anger.

He hesitated, his pulse that had seemed to stop now quickening into familiar panic; he hung between that direction and Morgaiue’s, paralyzed in the moment, and then habit and duty sent him running up the steps to the shadowy hall, where Morgaine was speaking with two of the elders.

He needed not explain: Changeling was in her hand and she was coming, near to running.

Sin lingered at the bottom of the steps, and tagged after them as they walked the commons toward the gathering knot of villagers. The sound of weeping reached them … and when Morgaine arrived the gathering gave way for her, all but a few: the elders Melzein and Melzeis, who stood trying to hold back their tears; and a young woman and a couple in middle years who knelt holding their dead. To and fro they rocked, keening and shaking their heads.

“Eth,” Morgaine murmured, staring down at a young man who had been one of the brightest and best of the village: hardly in his twenties, Eth of clan Melzen, but skilled in hunting and archery, a happy man, a herder by trade, who had laughed much and loved his young wife and had no enemies. His throat had been cut, and on his half-naked body were other wounds that could not have brought death in themselves, but would have caused great pain before he was killed.

They gave him his death, Vanye thought fearfully. He must have told them what they wanted. Then he reckoned what kind of man he had become, who could think foremost of that. He had known Eth. He found himself trembling and close to being sick as if he had never looked on the like.

Some of the children were sick, and clung to their parents crying. He found Sin against his side, and set his hand on the boy’s shoulder, drew him over to his clan elders and gave him into their care. Bytheis took Sin in his arms and Sin’s face was still set and stricken.

“Should the children look on this?” Morgaine asked, shocking them from their daze. “You are in danger. Set armed men out on the road and all about the village and let them watch. Where was he found? Who brought him?”

One of the youths stepped forward-Tal, whose clothes were bloody and his hands likewise. “I, lady. Across the ford.” Tears ran down his face. “Who has done this? Lady- why?”

Council met in the hall, the while the Melzen kindred prepared the body of their son for burial; and there was unbearable heaviness in the air. Bythein and Bytheis wept quietly; but Sersen-clan was angry in its grief, and its elders were long in gathering the self-possession to speak. The silence waited on them, and at last the old man of the pair rose and walked to and fro across the fireside.

“We do not understand,” he cried at last, his wrinkled hands trembling as he gestured. “Lady, will you not answer me? You are not our lady, but we have welcomed you as if you were, you and your khemeis. There is nothing in the village we would deny you. But now do you ask a life of us and not explain?”

“Serseis,” Bytheis objected, his old voice quavering, and he put a hand on Serseis’ sleeve to restrain him.

“No, I am listening,” Morgaine said.

“Lady,” said Serseis, “Eth went where you sent him: so say all the young folk. And you bade him not tell his elders, and he obeyed you. Where did you send him? He was not khemeis; he was his parents’ only child; he never went to that calling. But did you not sense that the desire was in him? His pride made him take risks for you. To what did you send him? May we not know? And who has done so terrible a thing?”

“Strangers,” she answered. Not all the words could Vanye understand, but he understood most, and filled in the rest well enough. At the feelings which gathered in the air of this hall now, he stood close to Morgaine. Shall I get the horses? he had asked her in his own tongue, before this council met No, she had answered, with such distraction that he knew she pulled both ways, with anxiety to be moving and guilt for Mirrind’s danger. She lingered, and knew better; and he knew better, and sweat gathered on his sides and trickled under the armor. “We had hoped they would not come here.”

“From where?” Sersein asked. The old woman laid her hand on the rolled map that lay atop the table, Morgaine’s work. “Your questions search all the land, as if you are looking for something. You are not our lady. Your khemeis is not of our village nor even of our blood. From some far land you surely come, my lady. Is it a place where things like this are common? And did you expect such a thing when you sent Eth out against it? Perhaps you have reasons that are valid, but it takes the lives of our children and you knew-could you not have told us? And will yon not tell us now? Make us understand.”

There was utter stillness for a time in which could be heard the fire, and from somewhere outside the bleating of a goat, and the crying of a baby. The shocked faces of the elders seemed frozen in the cold light from the many windows.

“There are,” Morgaine said at last, “enemies abroad; and they are spread throughout Azeroth. We watch here and rest, and through your young men, I have kept watch over you as best I could … for your young folk know these woods far better than we. Yes, we are strangers here; but we are not of their kind, that would do such a thing. We hoped to have warning-not a warning such as this. Eth was the one-as you say-who ranged farthest and risked himself most. I knew this. I warned him. I warned him urgently.”

Vanye bit his lip and his heart beat painfully in anger that Morgaine had said nothing of this to him … for he would have gone, and come back not as Eth did. She had sent innocents out instead, boys who little knew what quarry they might start from cover.

But the elders sat silent now, afraid more than angry, and hung on her words.

“Do none,” asked Morgaine, “ever come from Azeroth?”

“You would best know that,” Bythein whispered.

“Well, it has happened,” Morgaine said, “And you are near to the plain, and there are Men massed there, strangely armed and minded to take all the plain of Azeroth and ail the land round about. They could have gone in any direction, but they have chosen this one. They are thousands. Vanye and I are not enough to stop them. What befell Eth was the handiwork of their outriders, seeking what they could find; and now they have found it I have only bitter advice to give now. Take your people and walk away from Mirrind; go deep into the forest and hide there; and if the enemies come farther, then flee again. Better to lose houses than lives; better to live that way than to serve men who would do what was done to Eth. You do not fight; and therefore you must run.”

“Will you lead us?” Bythein asked.

So simple, so instant of belief: Vanye’s heart turned in him, and Morgaine sadly shook her head.

“No. We go our own way, and best for you and for us if you forget that we have ever been among you.”

They bowed their heads, one after the other, and looked as if their world had ended… indeed it had.

“We shall mourn more than Eth,” said Serseis.

“This night you will rest here,” said Sersein. “Please.”

“We ought not.”

“Please. Only tonight. If you are here, we shall be less afraid.”

It was truer than Sersein might understand, that Morgaine had power to protect them; and to Vanye’s surprise, Morgaine bowed her head and consented.

And within the same degree of the sun, there was renewed mourning in Mirrind, as the elders told the people what they had learned and what was advised them to do.

“They are naive people,” said Vanye heavily. “Liyo, I fear for what will become of them.”

“If they are simple enough to believe me utterly, they may live. But it will be different here.” She shook her head and turned away for the inside of the hall, for there came the women and children down the midst of the commons, to begin the preparation of the evening meal.

Vanye went to the horses, and made sure that all was in readiness for the morning. He was alone when he went but when he reached the gate, he heard someone behind him, and it was Sin.

“Let me go where you go,” Sin asked of him. “Please.”

“No. You have kin who will need you. Think of that and be glad that you have them. If you went where we go, you would never see them again.”

“You will never come back to us?”

“No. Not likely.”

It was direct and cruel, but it was needful. He did not want to think of the boy building dreams about him, who least deserved them. He had encouraged him too much already. He made his face grim, and attended to his work, in the hope that the boy would grow angry and go away.

But Sin joined him and helped him as he always had; and Vanye found it impossible to be hard with him. He set Sin finally on Mai’s back, which was Sin’s constant hope, whenever they would take the horses out to graze, and Sin stroked the mare’s neck, and suddenly burst into tears, which he tried to hide.

He waited until the boy had stopped his crying, and helped him down again, and they walked together back to the hall.

Dinner was a mournful time. There were no songs, for they had buried Eth at sundown and they had no heart for singing. There was only hushed conversation and few even had appetite, but there were no animosities, no resentment shown them, not even by Eth’s closest kin.

Morgaine spoke to the people in the midst of dinner, in a hush in which not even a child cried: babes slept in arms, exhausted by the day’s madness, and there was a silence on all the children.

“Again I advise you to leave,” she said. “At least tonight and every day hereafter, have your young men on guard, and do what you can to hide the road that leads here. Please believe me and go from this place. What Vanye and I can do to delay the evil, we will do, but they are thousands, and have horses and arms, and they are both qhal and Men.”

Faces were stricken, the elders themselves undone by this, which she had never told them. Bythein rose, leaning on her staff. “What qhal would wish us harm?”

“Believe that these would. They are strangers in the land, and cruel, even more than the Men. Do not resist them; flee them. They are too many for you. They passed the Fires out of their own land, that was ruined and drowning, and they came here to take yours.”

Bythein moaned aloud, and sank down again, and seemed ill. Bytheis comforted her, and all clan Bythen stirred in their seats, anxious for their elder.

“This is an evil we have never seen,” said Bythein when she had recovered herself. “Lady, we understand then why you were reluctant to speak to us. Qhal! Ah, lady, what a thing is this?”

Vanye filled his cup with the ale that Mirrind brewed and drank it down, trying with that to wash the tautness from his throat . . . for he had not shaped what followed them and now threatened Mirrind, but he had had his hand on it while it formed, and he could not rid himself of the conviction that somehow he might have turned it aside.

One thing of certainty he might have done, and that regarded the Honor-blade which he carried, a kinslaying that might have averted all this grief. In pity, in indecision, he had not done it. To save his life, he had not.

And Morgaine: indeed she had launched what pursued them, more than a thousand years ago as Men reckoned time . . . men who had not trespassed in Gates. Her allies once, that army that followed them-the children’s children of men that she had led.

There was much that wanted drowning this night. He would have gotten himself drunk, but he was too prudent for that, and the time was too hazardous for self-indulgence. He stopped short of it, and, likewise in prudence, ate-for the wolves were at their heels once more, and a man ought to eat, who never knew whether the next day’s flight would give him leisure for it.

Morgaine too ate all that was set before her, and that, the same as his, he thought, was not appetite but common sense. She survived well… it was a gift of hers.

And when the hall was clear, she gathered up what supplies they could possibly carry, and made two packs of it .. . more than to distribute the weight: it was their constant fear that they could be separated, or one fall and the other have to continue. They carried no necessity solely on one horse.

“Sleep,” she urged him when he would have stood watch.

“Trust them?”

“Sleep lightly.”

He arranged his sword by him, and she lay down with Changeling in her arm . . . unarmored, as they had both slept unarmored since the first night in Mirrind.

Chapter Three

Something moved outside. Vanye heard it, but it was like the wind, stirring the trees, and did not repeat itself. He laid his head down again and shut his eyes, drifted finally back to sleep.

Then came a second sound, a creak of boards; and Morgaine moved. He flung himself over and came up with his sword in hand before his eyes were even clear; Morgaine stood beside him, doubtless armed, confronting what suddenly appeared as three men.

And not Men. Qhal.

Tall and thin they were, with white hair flowing to their shoulders; and they bore that cast of features that was so like Morgaine’s, delicate and fine. They carried no weapons and did not threaten, and they were not of that horde that had come through at Azeroth: there was nothing of that taint about them.

Morgaine stood easier. Changeling was in her hand, but she had not unsheathed it. Vanye straightened from his crouch and grounded his blade before him.

“We do not know you,” said one of the qhal. “The Mirrindim say that your name is Morgaine and your khemetf is Vanye. These names are strange to us. They say that you send their young men into the forest hunting strangers. And one of them is dead. How shall we understand these things?”

“You are friends of the Mirrindim?” Morgaine asked.

“Yes. Who are your enemies?”

“Long to tell; but these folk have welcomed us and we would not harm them. Do you care to protect them?”

“Yes.”

“Then guide them away from this place. It is no longer safe for them.”

There was a moment’s silence. “Who are these strangers? And who, again, are you?”

“I do not know to whom I am speaking, my lord qhal. Evidently you are peaceloving, since you come empty-handed; evidently you are a friend of the Mirrindim, since they raised no alarm; and therefore I should be willing to trust you. But call the elders of the village and let them urge me to trust you, and then I may answer some of your questions.”

“I am Lir,” said the qhal, and bowed slightly. “And we are where we belong, but you are not. You have no authority to do what you have done, or to tell the Mirrindim to leave their village. If you would travel Shathan, then make clear to us that you are friends, or we must consider that what we suspect is the truth: that you are part of the evil that has come here, and we will not permit you.”

That was direct enough, and Vanye clenched his hand on the hilt of his sword and held his senses alert, not alone for the three who stood before them in the hall, but for the undefended windows about them. In the firelight, they were prey for archers.

“You are well-informed,” said Morgaine. “Have you spoken with the Mimndim? I think not, if you consider us enemies.”

“We have found strangers in the woods, and dealt with them. And we came to Mirrind and asked, and so we were told of you. They speak well of you, but do they truly know you?”

“I will tell you what I told them: your land is invaded. Men and qhal have come through the Fires at Azeroth, and they are a hungry and a dangerous people, from a land in which all law and reason has long since perished. We fled them, Vanye and I … but we did not lead them here. They are prowling, hunting likely prey, and they have found Mirrind. I hope your dealing with them let none escape back to their main force. Otherwise they will be back.”

The qhal looked disturbed at that, and exchanged looks with his companions.

“Have you weapons,” Morgaine asked, “with which you can protect this village?”

“We would not tell you.”

“Will you at least take charge of the village?”

“It is always in our keeping.”

“And therefore they welcomed us … not knowing us, save as qhal.”

“Therefore you were welcomed, yes.”

Morgaine inclined her head as in homage. “Well, I understand a great many things that puzzled me. If Mirrind shows your care, then it speaks well for you. This I will tell you: Vanye and I are going back to Azeroth, to deal with the folk who have it now . . . and we go with your leave or without it.”

“You are arrogant.”

“And are not you, my lord qhal? You have your right.. . but no more right than we.”

“Such arrogance comes of power.”

Morgaine shrugged.

“Do you ask leave to travel Shathan? You must have it. And I cannot give it”

“I should be glad of your people’s consent, but who can give it, and on what authority, if you will forgive the question?”

“Wherever you go, you will be constantly under our eye, my lady-whose speech is strange, whose manners are stranger still. I cannot promise you yea or nay. There is that in you which greatly alarms me, and you are not of this land.”

“No,” Morgaine admitted. “When we began our flight, it was not at Azeroth. It is your misfortune that the Shiua horde chose this direction, but that was not our doing. They are led by a halfling qhal named Hetharu; and by a halfling man named Chya Roh i Chya; but even those two do not fully control the horde. There is no mercy in them. If you try to deal with them face to face, then expect that you will die as Eth did. I fear they have already shown you their nature; and I wish above all else that they had come against me and not against Eth.”

There were looks, and at last the foremost inclined his head. “Travel north along the stream; north, if you would live. A little delay to satisfy our lord may save your lives. It is not far. If you will not, then we shall count you enemies with the rest. Friends would come and speak with us.”

And without further word the three qhal turned-the one in the shadow was a woman. They departed as noiselessly as they had come.

Morgaine swore softly and angrily.

“Shall we take this journey?” Vanye asked. He had no eagerness for it, but likewise he had no eagerness to gather more enemies than they had.

“If we fought, we would work enough ruin that these innocent folk would lie exposed to the Shiua; and probably we would lose our own lives into the bargain. No, we have no choice, and they know it. Besides, I do not completely believe that they came here unasked.”

“The Mirrindim? That is hard to think,”

“We are not theirs, Sersein said. This afternoon when Eth was killed and they doubted us-well, perhaps they sought other help. They were anxious to keep us here tonight. Perhaps they saved our lives by holding us here. Or perhaps I am too suspicious. We shall go as they asked. I do not despair of it; I have felt from the beginning that the qhalur hand on this place was both quiet and not greatly remote.”

“They are gentler than some qhal I have met,” he said, and swallowed heavily, for he still did not like proximity to them. “It is said, liyo, that in a part of Andur’s forests that are called haunted, the animate are very tame and have no fear … having never been hunted. So I have heard.”

“Not unapt.” Morgaine turned back toward the fire. She stood there a moment, then laid down Changeling and gathered her armor.

“A leave-taking.”

“I think we should not linger here.” She looked back at him. “Vanye, gentle they may be; and perhaps they and we act for similar reasons. But there are some things-well, thee knows. Thee well knows. I trust no one.”

“Aye,” he agreed, and armed himself, drew up the coif and set on his head the battered helm he had not worn since their coming to Mirrind.

Then they departed together to the pen where the horses were.

A small shadow stirred there as they opened the gate . . . Sin, who slept near the horses. The boy came forth and made no sound to alarm the village … shed tears, and yet lent his small hands to help them saddle and tie their supplies in place. When all was done, Vanye gave his hand as to a man .. . but Sin embraced him with feverish strength; and then to make the pain quick, Vanye turned and rose into the saddle. Morgaine set herself ahorse, and Sin stood back to let them ride out.

They rode the commons quietly, but doors opened along their way all the same. Sleepy villagers in their nightclothes turned out to watch, silent in the moonlight, and stood by with sad eyes. A few waved forlornly. The elders walked out to bar their way. Morgaine reined in then, and bowed from the saddle.

“There is no need for us now,” she said. “If the qhal-lord Lir is your friend, then he and his will watch over you.”

“You are not of them,” said Bythein faintly.

“Did you not suspect so?”

“At the last, lady. But you are not our enemy. Come back and be welcome again.”

“I thank you. But we have business elsewhere. Do you trust yourselves to them?”

“They have always taken care for us.”

“Then they will now.”

“We will remember your warnings. We will post the guards. But we cannot travel Shathan without their leave. We must not. Good journey to you, lady; good journey, khemeu.ⁿ

“Good fortune to you,” Morgaine said. They rode from the midst of the people, not in haste, not as fugitives, but with sadness.

Then the darkness of the forest closed about them, and they took the road past the sentries, who hailed them sorrowfully and wished them well in their journey-then down to the stream, which would lead them.

There was no sign of any enemy. The horses moved quietly in the dark; and when they were far from Mirrind, they dismounted in the last of the night, wrapped themselves in their blankets and cloaks and slept alternately the little time they felt they could afford.

By bright morning they were underway again, travelling the streamside by trails hardly worthy of the name, through delicate foliage that scarcely bore any mark of previous passage.

From time to time there came a whispering of brush and a sense that they were being watched: woodswise, both of them, so that it was not easy to deceive their senses, but neither of them could catch sight of the watchers.

“Not our enemies,” Morgaine said in an interval when it seemed to have left them. “There are few of them skilled in woodcraft, and only one of them is Chya.”

“Roh would not be here; I do not think so.”

“No, I do doubt it. They must be the qhal who live here. We have escort.”

She was uneasy in it; he caught that in her expression, and agreed with it.

A hush hung all about them as they went farther. The horses moved with their necessary noise, breaking of twigs and scuff of forest mold . . . and yet something insisted there was another sound there, wind where it should not be, a whispering of leaves. He heard it, and looked behind them.

Then it was gone; he turned again, for the trail bent with the stream, and they were entering a place not meant for riders, where often branches hung low and they must lean in the saddle to pass under … a wood wilder and older than the area where they had entered the forest, or that which surrounded Mirrind’s placid fields.

Again something touched at hearing, leftward.

“It is back,” he said, becoming vexed at this game.

“Would it would show itself,” she said in the qhalur tongue.

They had ridden hardly around the next bending when an apparition stepped into their path-a youth clad in motley green, and tall and white-haired … empty-handed.

The horses snorted and shied up. Morgaine, in the lead, held Siptah, and Vanye moved up as close as he could on the narrow trail.

The youth bowed, smiling as if delighted at their startlement. There was at least one more; Vanye heard movement behind, and his shoulders prickled.

“Are you one of Lir’s friends?” Morgaine asked.

“I am a friend of his,” said the youth, and stood with hands in his belt, head cocked and smiling. “And you wished for my company, so here I am.”

“I prefer to see those who share a road with me. You are also going north, I take it.”

The youth grinned. “I am your guard and guide.” He swept an elaborate bow. “I am Lellin Erirrhen. And you are asked to rest tonight in the camp of my lord Merir Mlennira, you and your khemeis.”

Morgaine sat silent a moment, and Siptah fretted under her, accustomed to blows exchanged at such sudden meetings. “And what of that one who is still watching us? Who is he?”

Another joined Lellin, a smallish dark man armed with sword and bow.

“My khemeis,” said Lellin. “Sezar.” Sezar bowed with the grace of the qhal-lord, and when Lellin turned to lead the way, taking for granted that they would follow, Sezar went at his heels.

Vanye watched them ghost through the brush ahead, somewhat relieved in his apprehensions, for Sezar was a Man like the villagers, and went armed while his lord did not. Either well-loved or well-defended, he thought, and wondered how many more there were thereabouts.

Lellin looked back and grinned at them, waiting at a branching of the way, and led them off again on a new track, away from the stream. “Quicker than the other way,” he said cheerfully.

“Lellin,” Morgaine said. “We were advised to stay by the streamside.”

“Think nothing of that. Lir gave you a sure road; but you would be til tomorrow on that track. Come. I would not mislead you.”

Morgaine shrugged, and they went.

They called halt of their guides at noon, and rested a time; Lellin and Sezar took food of them when it was offered, but disappeared thereafter without a word, and did not reappear until they grew tired of waiting and began to follow the dim trail on their own. Now and again came birdsong which was unnatural with so much moving; now and again either Lellin or Sezar would disappear from the trail, only to reappear at some far turning ahead . . . there seemed even shorter ways, though perhaps none that a horseman could take.

Then in late afternoon there was the faint scent of wood-smoke in the air, and Lellin returned from one of his and Sezar’s absences to stand squarely in their path. Hands in belt, he bowed with flippant grace. “We are near now. Please follow me closely and do nothing rash. Sezar has gone on to advise them we are coming in. You are quite safe with me; I have the utmost concern for your safety, since I stand so close to you. This way, if you will.”

And Lellin turned and led them onto a trail so overgrown that they must dismount and lead the horses. Morgaine delayed to take Changeling from her saddle and hook it to her shoulder-belt, the matter of an instant; and Vanye took not only his sword but his bow and quiver, and walked last, looking over his shoulder and round about him, but no threat was visible.

It was not quite a clearing, not in the sense of Mirrind’s broad circle. Tents were placed here among wide-spaced trees-and one tree dwarfed all the tents: nine or ten times a man’s height it rose before it even branched. Others at the far side of the camp soared almost that high, and spread wide branches, so that shadow dappled all the tents.

Their coming brought a stir in the camp, with qhal and Men lining the aisle down which they walked, where the light came greenly down, and the only sky showed golden-white in comparison to the shadowing branches.

None threatened them. There were tall, white-haired qhal, male and female; and small dark human-folk … a few elders of both kindreds stood among them, robed, old Men and old qhal, alike even to the silver hair at the last, though Men were sometimes bearded and qhal were not; and Men balded, and qhal seemed not to. The younger folk whatever their sex or kind wore breeches and tunics, and some were armed and some were not. They were a goodly-looking folk together, and walked with a free step and cheerfully, moving along with the strangers who had come to them as if all that animated them were curiosity.

But Lellin stopped and bowed before they had quite crossed the camp. “Lady, please leave your weapons with your khemeis, and come with me.”

“As yon have remarked,” said Morgaine softly, “we two have outlandish ways. Now, I have no objection to handing my weapons to Vanye, but how much more are you going to ask?”

“Liyo,” Vanye said under his breath, “no, do not allow it.”

“Ask your lord,” said Morgaine to Lellin, “whether he will insist on it. For my own opinion, I am minded not to agree, and to ride out of here . . . and I can do that, Lellin.”

Lellin hesitated, frowning, then strode away to the largest of the tents. Sezar remained, arms folded, waiting, and they waited, holding the reins of the horses.

“They are gentle-seeming,” Vanye said in his own tongue, “but first they separate us from our horses, and you from your arms, and me from you. If they go on, we shall be divided into very small pieces, liyo.”

She laughed shortly, and Sezar’s eyes flickered, puzzled. “Do not think I mean to let that start,” she said. “But bide easy until we know their minds; we need no unnecessary enemies.”

It was a longish wait, and all about them the folk of the camp stood staring at them. No weapon was drawn, no bow bent, no insult offered them. Children stood with parents, and old ones remained in the forefront of the gathering: it was not the aspect of a people who expected violence.

And at last Lellin returned, frowning still, and bowed. “Come as you wish. Merir will not insist, only I do ask you leave the horses; you cannot expect to take them too. Sezar will see that they are safe and cared for. Come with me, and see that you keep peace and do not threaten Merir, or we will show you quite another face of us, strangers.”

Vanye turned and took from Siptah’s saddle Morgaine’s personal kit, and shouldered the strap of that. Sezar took the reins of both horses and led them away, while he trailed Morgaine, and she walked beside Lellin to the green tent, that largest one of all in the camp.

The flaps were back, reassuring, indicating less chance of outright ambush; and the qhal inside were elders, robed and unarmed, with old Men, who looked too advanced in years to use the daggers they generally wore. In their midst sat an old, old qhal, whose white hair fell thickly about his shoulders, confined with a gold band about his brow in the manner of a human king. His cloak was green as the spring leaves, the shoulders done in layers of gray feathers, smooth and minutely black-edged, a work of remarkable skill and beauty.

“Merir,” said Lellin softly, and bowed, “lord of Shathan.”

“Welcome,” Merir bade them, a low and gentle voice, and a chair was unfolded and offered Morgaine. She settled, while Vanye stood at her shoulder.

“Your name is Morgaine; your companion’s is Vanye,” said Merir. “You stayed in Mirrind until you took it upon yourself to bid its young folk venture into Shathan, and lost one of them. You say now that you are going to Azeroth, and you warn of invasion out of the Fires. You are not Shathana, neither of you. Are all these reports true?”

“Yes. Do not expect, my lord Merir, that we understand much of what passes in your land; but we are enemies of those who have massed out on the plain. We are on our way to deal with them, such as we can; and if we must have your permission, then we ask it.”

Merir gazed on her a long time, frowning, and she on him, nothing yielding. At last Merir turned and spoke briefly to one of the elders. “You have ridden far,” he said then. “You are at least due hospitality while we talk, you and your khemeis. You seem impatient. If you know of some imminent attack, say, and I assure you we will act; or if not, then perhaps you will take the time to speak with us.”

Morgaine said nothing, and sat easily, the while such hospitality was arranged, and while the old lord gave instruction for the preparation of a tent and shelter for them. For his part, Vanye stood with his hand on the back of Morgaine’s chair, watching every move and listening to every whisper … for they two had knowledge of Gates, and of the powers of them, knowledge which some qhal had lost and which some would kill to learn. Whatever the gentleness of the folk, there was that to fear.

Drink was brought and offered them both; but Vanye leaned forward and took the drink from Morgaine’s hand sipped at it first and gave it back to her before he took a drink of his own. She simply held the cup in her hand, though Merir drank of his.

“Are these your customs?” Merir asked.

“No,” said Vanye out of turn, “but they are, among our enemies.”

The other qhal looked displeased at that forwardness with the old lord. “No,” Merir said. “Let be. I shall speak with them. Go, all who should. We shall speak,” he added then, “of things belonging to the inner councils of our people. Although you have insisted that your khemeis must remain with yon, still it might be well if you dismissed him as far as the outside of the tent.”

“No,” said Morgaine. Not all the qhal had departed. Those remaining settled, some on the mats and the oldest ones in chairs. “Sit down,” she said aside. Vanye unslung his bow and tucked his sword aside to sit crosslegged at her feet. It was a posture less than formal, and he kept the cup in one hand the while, sipped at it a second time, for he had felt no ill from the first taste. Morgaine tasted hers then, and crossed her booted ankles and extended her legs before her, easy in her attitude and bordering on too much casualness for the qhal’s liking. She did it deliberately; Vanye knew her well enough to sense the tension in her. She sought their limits and had not yet found them.

“I am not accustomed to be summoned,” she said. “But this is your land, lord Merir, and I do owe you the courtesy I have paid in coming here.”

“You are here because it is expedient. . . for both of us. As you say: it is my land, and the courtesy I ask is an accounting of your purpose in it. Tell us more of what you told the Mirrindim. Who are these folk that have come here?”

“My lord, there is a land called Shiuan, the other side of the Fires … I think you understand me. And it was a miserable place, the people starving, Men first, and then qhal. Qhal had wealth and Men lived in poverty . . . but the floods that threatened their land were going to take them both all the same. Then came a Man named Chya Roh, who knew the workings of the Gates, which the qhal in that land had forgotten completely. He was not himself from Shiuan, this Chya Roh, but from beyond Shiuan’s own Gates. From Andur-Kursh, as we two are. And that is how we came to be in Shiuan: we were following Roh.”

“Who taught a Man these things?” one of the elders demanded. “How is it in the land called Andur-Kursh . . . that Men make free of such powers?”

Morgaine hesitated. “My lord, it is possible . . . that man and man may change by those powers. Is that known here?”

There was utter silence, and looks exchanged: terror; but Merir’s face remained a mask.

“It is forbidden,” Merir answered. “We do know; but we do not permit that knowledge outside our high councils.”

“I am encouraged to see so many elder folk in places of power among you. Old age evidently takes its course here; perhaps I am among people of restraint and good sense.”

“It is an evil thing, this changing.”

“But one known to a few ruthless folk in Andur-Kursh. Chya Roh . . . There was once a great master of the powers of the Gates . . . qhal, at least in the beginning, although I have no proof of it: all the guises I have known him to use were Men. Man after man he has murdered, taking bodies for his own use, extending his life over many generations of Men and qhal. He was Chya Zri; he was Chya Liell; and lastly he took the body of Chya Roh i Chya, a lord of his land -Vanye’s own cousin. So Vanye’s knowledge of Gates, my lord, is a bitter one.

“After that, Roh fled us, because he knew that his life was in danger from us … life: I do not know how many lives he has known from the begining, or whether he was first male or female, or whether he was born to Andur-Kursh or arrived there from beyond. He is old, and very dangerous, and reckless with the powers of the Gates. So for one reason and the next, we pursued him to Shiuan, and there he found himself trapped … in a land that was dying-a thing fearful enough for the people who were born there, who might have had several generations more before the end; but for a being who looked to live forever . . . that death was imminent enough. He went among the qhal of that land, and among Men, and declared to them that he had the power to open the Gates that had been so long beyond their own knowledge, and to bring them through to a new land, which they might take for their own . . . thus he had a way out and an army about him.

“We failed to stop him, Vanye and I. He was ahead of us on the road, and we simply could not overtake him in time. It was all we could do to come through the passage ourselves. We were exhausted after that, and we ran . . . until we chanced into the forest, and then into Mirrind. We rested there, trying to find out what manner of land this is and whether there was any force in it that could stop this horde from its march. We did not want to involve the Mirrindim; they are not fighters and we saw that: our watch was meant to protect them. Now we see that there is no more time left, and we are going back to Azeroth to see to the matter as best we can. That is the sum of it, my lord.”

There was dismay among them, murmurings, distressed looks cast to Merir. The old qhal sat with dry lips pressed tautly, the mask at last broken.

“This is a terrible tale, my lady.”

“Worse to see than to tell. Whether Vanye and I can do anything against them, well, we shall see. There is little hope that the horde will, not reach for Mirrind. They would have come there sooner or late . . . and on no account did I urge the Mirrindim to meet them. What I should have realized is that the Mirrindim would fear them no more than they feared us. I warned them; I warned them. But likely Eth walked innocently into their hands, fearing them no more than me, and that thought grieves me.”

“You had no authority,” said another, “to send Men into Shathan. They thought that you did, and they went, as they would go for us … eager to please you. You sent that Man to his death, beyond doubt”

Vanye glowered at that elder. The Man was warned.”

“Peace,” said Merir. “Nhinn, could one of us have done better, alone and with a village to defend? We were at fault too, for these two moved so skillfully and settled so peacefully among the Mirrindim that we never realized their presence until this violence came. There could have been a far worse result . . . for this evil could have come on Mirrind utterly by stealth, with no one there to protect them. We were remiss; let us not pass the blame to them. These two and the others passed our defenses in small numbers, and that was my fault.”

“Eth may have been questioned,” Morgaine said. “If so, that means some of the qhal of the horde came into Shathan, for only they could have spoken to Eth: Men in Shiuan do not speak the same language. Your folk speak of invaders killed; you might judge how much the horde now knows by knowing if qhal were among them and if any escaped. But either a report from Eth’s murderers or the mere failure of that force to return to the main body of the horde . . . will prick the interest of their leaders. Whatever else they are, they are not the sort to retreat from challenge. You might ask Lir. And I understand that you do not permit the Mirrindim to travel; if you have regard for them, I hope that you will reconsider that, my lord. I am very much afraid for their future there.”

“My lord.” It was Lellin, who had come in unnoticed, and all eyes turned to that young and uninvited voice. “By your leave.”

“Yes,” said Merir. “Go tell Nhirras to tend to that matter. Take no chances.” The old qhal settled back in his chair. “No light thing, this uprooting of a village; but the things you tell us are no light matter either. Tell me this. How do you two alone think to reckon with these enemies of yours?”

“Roh,” Morgaine said without hesitation. “Chya Roh is the principal danger, and next to him is Hetharu of Ohtij-in in Shiuan, who leads the qhal. First we must be rid of Roh; and Hetharu next. Leaderless, the horde will divide. Hetharu murdered his own father to seize power, and ruined other lords. His folk fear him, but they do not love him. They will split into factions without him, and turn on each other or on the Men, which is more likely. Men in the horde likewise have three factions at least: two kindreds which have always hated one another, the Hiua and the marshlands folk; and mere are the Men of Shiuan, for the third. Roh is the piece that holds the whole together; Roh must be dealt with first. . . and yet not so simply done; the two of them are surrounded by thousands, and they sit securely by the Gate in Azeroth. It is the Master Gate, is it not, my lord Merir?”

Merir nodded slowly, to the consternation of his people. “Yes. And how have yon means to know that?”

“I know. And there is a place which governs it … is there not, my lord?”

There was a stir among the elders. “Who are you,” one asked, ‘to ask such questions?”

“I had just right to know. And you may believe me, my lords, or you may go and ask Chya Roh his side of the tale . .. but I do not advise that .He has skill to use such a place; he has force to take it when he locates it… as he will. But for me, I come asking you: where, my lords?”

“Do not be in haste,” said Merir. “We have seen your handiwork and theirs, and thus far prefer yours. But the knowledge you ask … ah, my lady, you do not understand what you ask. But we-we cherish our peace, lady Morgaine. Long and long ago we were cast adrift here . .. perhaps you understand me, for your skill in the ancient arts must be considerable to make the passage you have made and to ask questions so aptly, and your knowledge of the past may match it. There were Men here, and ourselves, and our power had been overthrown. It could have been the end for us. But we live simply, as you see. We do not permit bloodshed among ourselves or quarrels in our land. Perhaps you do not understand how grievous a thing you do ask, even in seeking permission to pursue your enemies. We enforce the peace with our law; and shall we yield up our authority to keep order in our own land, and give you leave to hunt across the face of it and dispense life and death where and as you will? What of our own responsibility to our people? What then when another rises up from among us and demands similar privilege outside the law?”

“First, my lord, neither we nor our enemies are of this land; this quarrel began outside it and you are safest if it is contained in Azeroth and never allowed to affect your people at all. That is my hope, faint as it is. And second, my lord, if you mean that your own power is sufficient to deal with the threat entire, and to stop it at once, pray do so. I like not the odds, the two of us against their thousands, and if there were another way, believe me that I would gladly take it.”

“What do you propose?”

“Nothing. My intent is to avoid harming the land or its people, and I do not want any allies of your people. Vanye and I are a disharmony in this land; I would not do it hurt, and therefore I would touch it as little as possible.”

She bordered on admitting something they would not like to hear, and Vanye grew tense, though he tried not to betray it. Long Merir considered, and finally smoothed his robes and nodded. “Lady Morgaine, be our guest in our camp tonight and tomorrow; give us time to think on these things. Perhaps I can give you what you ask: permission to travel Shathan. Perhaps we shall have to reach some further agreement. But fear nothing from us. You are safe in this camp and you may be at ease in it.”

“My lord, now you have asked me much and told me nothing. Do you know what passes at Azeroth now? Do you have information that we do not?”

“I know that there are forces massed there, as you said, and that there has been an attempt to draw upon the powers of the Gate.”

“Attempt, but not success. Then you do still hold the center of power, apart from Azeroth.”

Merir’s gray eyes, watery with age, looked on her and frowned. “Power we do have, perhaps even to deal with you. But we will not try it. Undertake the same, lady Morgaine, I ask you.”

She rose and inclined her head, and Vanye gathered himself to his feet. “On your assurance that there is yet no crisis, I shall be content to be your guest, . . . but that attempt of theirs will be followed by worse. I urge you to protect the Mirrindim.”

“They are hunting you, are they not, these strangers? You fear that Eth betrayed your own presence there, and therefore you fear for the Mirrindim.”

‘The enemy would wish to stop me. They fear the warning I can give of them.”

Merir’s frown deepened. “And perhaps other things? You had a warning to give from the very beginning, and yet you did not give it until a man was dead at Mirrind.”

“I do not make that mistake again. I feared to tell them, I admit it, because there were things in the Mirrindim that puzzled me … their carelessness, for one. I trust no one whose motives I do not know … even yours, my lord.”

That did not please them, but Merir lifted his hand and silenced their protests.

“You bring something new and unwelcome about you, lady Morgaine. It adheres to you; it breathes from you; it is war, and blood. You are an uncomfortable guest.”

“I am always an uncomfortable guest. But I shall not break the peace of your camp while your hospitality lasts.”

“Lellin will see to your needs. Do not fear for your safety here, from your enemies or from us. None comes here without our permission, and we are respectful of our own law.”

“I do not completely believe them,” Vanye said, when they had been settled in a small and private tent. “I fear them. Perhaps it is because I cannot believe that any qhal’s interests-” He stopped half a breath, held in Morgaine’s gray and unhuman gaze, and continued, defying the suspicion that had lived in him from the beginning of their travels, “-that any qhal’s interests could be common with ours . . . perhaps because I have learned to distrust all appearances with them. They seem gentle; I think that is what most alarms me … that I am almost moved to think they are telling the truth of their motives.”

“I tell thee this, Vanye, that we are in more danger than in any lodging we have ever taken if they are lying to us. The hold we are in is all of Shathan forest, and the halls of it wind long, and known to them, but dark to us. So it is all one, whether we sleep here or in the forest.”

“If we could leave the forest, there would still be only the plains for refuge, and no cover from our enemies there.”

They spoke the language of Andur-Kursh, and hoped that there was none at hand to understand it The Shathana should not, having had no ties at all to that land, at whatever time Gates had led there; but there were no certainties about it,… no assurance even that one of these tall, smiling qhal was not one of their enemies from off the plains of Azeroth. Their enemies were only halflings, but in a few of them the blood brought forth the look of a pure qhal.

“I will go out and see to the horses,” he offered at last, restless in the little tent, “and see how far we are truly free.”

“Vanye,” she said. He looked back, bent as he was in leaving the low doorway. “Vanye, walk very softly in this spider’s web. If trouble arises here, it may take us.”

“I shall cause none, liyo.”

He stood clear, outside, looked about him at the camp, walked the tree-darkened aisles of tents, seeking the direction in which the horses had been led away. It was toward dark; the twilight here was early and heavy indeed, and folk moved like shadows. He walked casually, turning this way and that until he had sight of Siptah’s pale shape over against the trees . . . and he walked in that direction with none offering to stop him. Some Men stared, and to his surprise, children were allowed to trail after him, though they kept their distance . . . the children with them, as merry as the rest; they did not come near, nor were they unmannered. They simply watched, and stood shyly at a distance.

He found the horses well-bedded, with their saddle-gear hung well above the damp of the ground, suspended on ropes from the limb overhead. The animals were curried and clean, with water sitting by each, and the remnant of a measure of grain . . . Trade from villages, he thought-or tribute: such does not grow in forest shade, and these are not farmer-folk by the look of them.

He patted Siptah’s dappled shoulder, and avoided the stud’s playful nip at his arm . . . not all play: the horses were content and had no desire for a setting-forth at this late hour. He caressed little Mai’s brown neck, and straightened her forelock, measuring with his eye the length of the tethers and what chance there was of entanglement: he could find no fault. Perhaps, he thought, they did know horses.

A step crushed the grass behind him. He turned. Lellin stood there.

“Watching us?” Vanye challenged him.

Lellin bowed, hands in belt, a mere rocking forward. “You are guests, nonetheless,” he said, more sober than his wont. “Khemeis, word has passed through the inner councils . . . how your cousin perished. It is not something of which we may speak openly. Even that such a thing is possible is not knowledge we publish, for fear that someone might be drawn to such a crime . . . but I am in the inner councils, and I know. It is a terrible thing. We offer our deep sorrow.”

Vanye stared at him, suspecting mockery at first, and then realized that Lellin was sincere. He inclined his head in respect to that. “Chya Roh was a good man,” he said sadly. “But now he is not a man at all; and he is the worst of our enemies. I cannot think of him as a man.”

“Yet there is a trap in what this qhal has done-that at each transference he loses more and more of himself. It is not without cost. .. for one evil enough to seek such a prolonged life.”

Cold settled about his heart, hearing that. His hand fell from Mai’s shoulder, and he searched desperately for words enough to ask what he could not have asked clearly even in his own tongue. “If he chose evil men to bear him, then part of them would live in him, ruling what he did?”

“Until he shed that body, yes. So our lore says. But you say that your cousin was a good man. Perhaps he is weak; perhaps not. You would know that.”

A trembling came on him, a deep distress, and Lellin’s gray eyes were troubled.

“Perhaps,” said Lellin, “there is hope-that what I am trying to tell you. If anything of your cousin has influence, and it is likely that it does, if he was not utterly overwhelmed by what happened to him, then he may yet defeat the man who killed him. It is a faint hope, but perhaps worth holding.”

“I thank you,” Vanye whispered, and moved finally to pass under the rope and leave the horses.

“I have distressed you.”

Vanye shook his head helplessly. “I speak little of your language. But I understand. I understand what you are saying. Thank you, Lellin. I wish it were so, but I-“

“You have reason to believe otherwise?”

“I do not know.” He hesitated, purposing to walk back to their tent, knowing that Lellin must follow. He offered Lellin the chance to walk beside him. Lellin did, and yet he found no words to say to him, not wanting to discuss the matter further.

“If I have troubled you,” Lellin said, “forgive me.”

“I loved my cousin.” It was the only answer he knew how to give, although it was more complicated than that simple word. Lellin answered nothing, and left him when he turned off on the last aisle to the tent he shared with Morgaine.

He found his hand on the Honor-blade he carried: Roh’s … for the honorable death Roh had been given no chance to choose, rather than become the vessel for Zri-Liell. An oath was on him to kill this creature. Lellin’s hope shattered him, that the only kinsman he had yet living . . . still might live, entangled with the enemy who had killed him.

He entered the tent and settled quietly in the corner, picked up a bit of his armor and set to adjusting a lacing, working in the near dark. Morgaine lay staring at the ceiling of the tent, at the shadows that flickered across it. She cast him a brief look as if she were relieved that he was back without incident, but she did not leave her own thoughts to speak with him just them. She was given, often, to such silences, when she had concerns of her own.

It was false activity, his meddling with the harness-he muddled the lacing over and over again, but it gave him an excuse for silence and privacy, doing nothing that she would notice, until the trembling should leave his hands.

He knew that he had spoken too freely with the qhal, betraying small things that perhaps it was best not to have these folk know. He was almost moved to open his thoughts utterly to Morgaine, to confess what he had done, confess other things: how once in Shiuan he had talked alone with Roh, and how even then he had seen no enemy, but only a man he had once owned for kinsman. The weapon had failed his hand in that meeting, and he had failed her . . . self-deceived, he had reasoned afterward, seeing what he had wished to see.

He wanted now desperately to seek Morgaine’s opinion on what Lellin had said to him . . . but deep in his heart was suspicion, long-fostered, that Morgaine had always known more of Roh’s double nature than she had told him. He dared not, for the peace which was between them, challenge her on that, or call her deceitful . . . for he feared that she had deceived him. She might not trust him at her side if she thought his loyalties might be divided, might have misled him deliberately to have Roh’s death: and something would sour in him if he learned her capable of that. He did not want to find out such a thing, more than he longed to learn the other. Roh’s nature could make no difference in his own choices; Morgaine wanted Roh dead for her own reasons, which had nothing to do with revenge; and if she meant to have it that way, then there was an oath to bind him: an ilin could not refuse an order, even against friend or kinsman: for his soul’s sake he could not. Perhaps she thought to spare him knowledge . . . meant her deception for kindness. He was sure it was not the only deception she had used.

There was, he persuaded himself at last, no help for himself or Roh in bringing the matter up now. War was ahead of them. Men died, would die-and he was on one side and Roh on the other, and truth made no difference in that

There would be no need to know, when one of them was dead.

Chapter Four

By night, fires blazed fearlessly throughout the camp, and in a clear space there burned a common-fire, where songs were sung to the music of harps. Men sang tunes that at times minded one of Kursh: the words were qhalur, but the burden of them was Man, and some of the tunes seemed plain and pleasant and ordinary as the earth. Vanye was drawn outside to listen, for their tent was near to that place and the gathering extended to their very door. Morgaine joined him; and he brought out their blankets, so they might sit as most did in the camp, and listen. Men came and brought them food and drink along with all the others as they sat there, for dinner was prepared in common as in Mirrind, and served in this fashion under the stars. They took it gratefully, and feared no drug or poison.

Then the harp passed to the qhalur singers, and the music changed. Like wind it was, and the harmony of it was strange. Lellin sang, and a young qhalur woman kept him harmony, that ranged the eerie scale fit to send chills coursing down a human back.

“It is beautiful,” Vanye whispered at last to Morgaine, “for all it is not human.”

This will pass, he thought looking out over all the camp of qhal and Men. It will pass when she and I have done what we came to do, and killed the power of their Gates. It cannot help but change them. We will destroy all this no less than we shall destroy Roh. It saddened him, with that sadness he had often seen in Morgaine’s eyes and never understood until now.

There came a stirring at their backs. Morgaine turned, and so did he; it was a young Woman who bowed to speak with them. “Lord Merir sends,” she whispered, not to disturb the listeners nearby. “Please come.”

They rose up and followed the young Woman, delaying to put their blankets inside, and Morgaine took her weapons, though he did not. Their guide brought them into Merir’s tent. One light burned there, and within were only Merir and a young qhal. Merir dismissed her and the Woman, so that they were quite alone.

Both trust and power, it was . . . that this frail elder received them thus; Morgaine bowed courtesy, and Vanye did.

“Sit down,” Merir offered them. He was himself wrapped in a cloak of plain brown, and a brazier of coals smoldered at his feet. Two chairs sat vacant but Vanye took the floor out of respect: an ilin did not insult a lord by sitting on a level with him.

“There is refreshment by you, if you wish,” said Merir, but Morgaine declined it and therefore Vanye refused it also. His place was comfortable, on the mat nearest the brazier, and he settled at his ease.

“Your hospitality has been kind,” said Morgaine. “We have been served all that we can use; your courtesy encourages me.”

“I cannot call you welcome. Your news is too grim. But for all that your steps lie easily on the forest; you bruise no branch nor harm its people . . . and therefore we make place for you here. For the same reason I am encouraged to believe that you do oppose the invaders. You are perhaps dangerous to have for enemies.”

“And dangerous to have for friends. I still ask nothing more than leave to pass where I must.”

“Secrecies? But this is our forest.”

“My lord, we perplex each other. You look on my work and I on yours; you create beauty, and I honor you for that. But not all that is fair is trustworthy. Forgive me, but I have not come so far as I have by scattering all that I know to every wind. How far, for instance, does your power extend? How much could you help me? Or would you be willing? And the Men here: do they support you out of love or of fear? Could they be convinced to turn on you? I do doubt it, but my enemies are persuasive, and some of them are Men. What skill have there khemi of yours in arms? Things here look to be peaceful, and it might be that they would scatter in terror from the first moment of conflict; or if they are practiced in war, then where are your enemies, and what would befall me at their hand if I took your part? How is this community of yours ordered, and where are decisions made? Have you power to promise and to keep your word? And even if the answer to all these questions should please me, I am still reluctant to let this matter pass into other hands, which have not fought this battle so long or so hard as I.”

“Those questions are direct and very apt. And I do read much of the nature of you and your enemies in the suspicions you hold of us. I do not think that I like that accounting. As for answers . . . my lady, that someone has passed the Fires and come here frightens me in itself. We have not found it good to make use of that passage.”

“Then you are wise.”

“Yet you have done so.”

“Our enemy has no reluctance in the matter. And he must be stopped. You know of other worlds. You are too knowledgeable of the Gates not to know where they lead. So you will understand me if I say that the danger is to more worlds than this one. This is a man who will not scruple to use Gates recklessly in all their powers. How much more need I say to a man who understands?”

A great fear crept into Merir’s eyes. “I know that much passing of that barrier may work calamity. One such disaster came on us, and we abandoned use of that passage, and made peace with Men, and gave up all that tempted us to that evil. So we have remained at peace . . . and there is none hungry but that we will feed him, none harmed-no thief or murderer nor abuser of his people. We live in the consciousness of what we can do … and do not. That is the foundation on which all law rests.”

“I was at first amazed,” said Morgaine, “that the qhal and Men are at peace. It is not so elsewhere.”

“But it is the only sanity, lady Morgaine. Is it not very evident? Men multiply far more rapidly than we. Shorter lives, but ever more of them. And should we not have respect for that abundant vitality? Is it not a strength, as wisdom is a strength, or bravery? They can always overcome us … for war with them we can never win, not over the passing of much time.” He leaned forward and set his hand on Vanye’s shoulder, a gentle touch, and his gray eyes were kind. “Man, you are always the more powerful. We reached beyond our knowledge in bringing your kind among us, and though you were not the beginning of our sorrow, you have the power to be the end-all of it… save we make you our adopted sons, as we have tried to do. How is it that you travel with lady Morgaine? Is it for revenge for your kinsman?”

The heat of embarrassment rose to his face. “I swore her an oath,” he said: half the truth.

“Long ago, Man, there was your like here. You are reckless in your lives, having so much life. But we took khemi, and that life agreed well with such Men and left others free to lead quiet lives in the villages. The hands of the khemi administer justice and do unpleasant things that want doing, and sometimes brave things, risking themselves in the aid of others. Such recklessness is natural to Men. But when a qhal dies young, he often leaves none behind him, for once and perhaps twice do we bear, and that after some years. In hostile times our number shrinks rapidly. It is always in our interest to keep peace, and to deal fairly with those who have such an advantage over us. Do you not see that it is so?”

The thought amazed him; and he realized how seldom he had seen children of the qhal, even among halflings.

Merir’s hand left his shoulder, and the old lord looked across at Morgaine. “I shall lend you help, lady, asked or unasked. This evil has come, and we must not let it touch Shathan. Take Lellin with you, him and his khemeis. I send my heart with you. He is my grandson, my daughter’s child, of a line that is fast fading. He will guide you where you will to go.”

“Has Lellin consented in this? I would not take anyone who did not clearly reckon the danger.”

“He asked to be the one, if I reached the conclusion that I should send someone.”

She nodded sorrowfully. “May he come home safely to you, my lord. I will watch over him with all the force that I have.”

“That is much, is it not?”

Morgaine did not answer that probing, and silence hung between them a moment. “My lord, I asked you once for help to reach the master-hold, that would control the Gate at Azeroth. And I still ask that.”

“Its name is Nehmin, and it is well defended. I myself would not be allowed to pass there freely. What you ask of me is more than difficult.”

“That comforts me. But Roh’s allies spend lives recklessly, and they will simply spend them until they have broken its defenses. I must have access there.”

Merir sat a moment the fires of the lamp leaping upon his downcast features. “You ask power over us.”

“No.”

“But you do … for with your hand there, you have choices, regarding more than your enemy. Perhaps you would choose what we would choose . . . but you are utterly a stranger, and I wonder if that is likely. And might you not, in that power, be as deadly to us as the enemy you fight?”

Morgaine had no answer, and Vanye sat still, fearful, for Merir surely understood … if not the whole truth, surely truth enough. But the old qhal sighed heavily. “Lellin will guide you; and there will be others along the way who will help you.”

“And yourself, my lord? Surely you will not be idle . . . and should I not know where you will be? I have no wish to harm you or to expose you to the enemy by mistake.”

‘Trust to Lellin. We will go our own way.” He rose stiffly. “The Mirrindim were amazed at your map-making. Bring the lamp, young Vanye, and let me show you a thing that may help you.”

Vanye gartered up the lamp from its hook and followed the ancient qhal to the tent wall. There was a map hung there, age-faded, and Morgaine came and looked on it.

“Here is Azeroth,” said Merir, stretching forth his hand to the great circle in the center “Shathan is all the forest; and the great Narn and its tributaries feed the villages-see: each has accessible water. And this is a walk of many days-Mirrind is here.”

“Such circles cannot be natural.”

“No. In some places the trees fail, and yet there is water; and Men have cleared the rest And where forest fails too much, thy have planted hedges and thickets to change the land so that trees may grow and wild things have their place. The circles are orderly and boundaries between farm and forest are thus distinct. It gives quiet passage for our folk … we do not like the open lands; and Men do, who farm and herd. Also . . .” he added, and laid his hand on Vanye’s shoulder, “it has prevented war and strife over boundaries Once men rode in great hordes where they would, and there was war. They endangered us … but the vitality of Shathan itself is even greater than that of Men; they turned fire against us, and that was worst. . . always we are vulnerable to that kind of attack. But the woods regrew in the end; and the barricades of hedges were maintained by Men who sheltered with us. We are not the only forest or the only place where such a thing has been done; but we are the oldest. There are places outside, where Men have run to themselves, and make wars and ruin and-in some places-make better things, beautiful things. Of these folk too we have hope, but we cannot live as their neighbors; we are too fragile. We cannot admit them here above all, to the place of power: that must remain outside their reach. The sirrindim, we call them, these Men outside; they are horsemen and avoid our forests. But do you perceive why I am distressed, lady Morgaine, with the like of the sirrindim suddenly camped about Azeroth?”

“Nehmin is one dire concern, and I suppose that H is somewhere close about Azeroth, though I do not see it on your map. But the Narn itself . . . could become a threat, a road to lead them through your heart.”

“Indeed you do see. It leads too close to the land of the sirrindim. It is a threat much beyond Mirrind … we do see that. In war, we would swiftly decline and die. The invaders must be held in Azeroth . . . above all they must not open a way to the northern plains. Of all directions they might have gone, that is the most deadly to us … and I think that is the direction they will choose, for you are here, and they will surely find that out.”

“I understand you.”

“We will hold them.” There was sorrow etched deep in the old qhal’s face. “We shall lose many of our numbers, I fear, but we shall hold them. We have no choice. Go now. Go and sleep. In the morning you will go with Lellin and Sezar, and we shall hope that you keep faith, lady Morgaine: I have shown you much that could greatly harm us.”

She inclined her head, respecting the old qhal. “Good night, my lord,” she murmured and turned and left. Vanye replaced the lamp carefully on its hanging chain near the old lord’s chair, thinking of his comfort, and when the aged qhal sat down, he bowed too, the full obeisance he would have shown a lord of his own people, forehead to the ground.

“Man,” said Merir gently, “for your sake I have believed your lady.”

“How, lord?” he asked, for it bewildered him.”

“Your manner-that you are devoted to her. Self-love shows itself first that qhal and Man cannot trust one another. But neither you nor she is afflicted by that evil. You serve, but not because you fear. You affect the manner of a servant, but you are more than that. You are a warrior like the sirrindim, and not like the khemi. But you show respect to an elder, and him not of your blood. Such small things show more truth than any words. And therefore I am moved to trust your lady.”

He was stricken by this, knowing that they would fail that trust, and he was frightened. All at once he felt himself utterly transparent before the old lord, and soiled and unclean.

“Protect Lellin,” the old qhal asked of him.

“Lord, I will,” he whispered, and this faith at least he meant to keep. Tears stung his eyes and choked his voice, and a second time he inclined himself to the mat, and sat back again. “Thank you for my lady, for she was very tired and we are both very weary of fighting. Thank you for this time you have given us, and for your help to cross your lands. Have I leave to go, my lord?”

The old qhal dismissed him with a soft word, and he rose and left the tent, sought Morgaine’s in the dark, on the rim of the gathering. The merriment there still continued, the eerie sounds of qhalur singing.

“We shall both sleep,” Morgaine said. “And the armor is useless. Sleep soundly; it may be some time before we have another chance.”

He agreed, and put up a blanket for a curtain between them, suspended from the cross-pole; gladly he stripped of the armor, and of clothing, wrapped himself in a blanket and lay down, and Morgaine did likewise, a little distance away on the soft furs provided for their beds. The makeshift curtain did not reach the floor, and the light of the fires outside cast a dim glow within. He saw her gazing at him, head pillowed on her arm.

“What kept thee with Merir?”

“It would sound strange if I said it.”

“I ask.”

“He said that he trusted you because of me . . that if there were evil in us, it would show-between you and myself; of course they take you for one of their own.”

She made a sound that might have been a laugh, bitter and brief.

“Liyo, we shall ruin these people.”

“Be still. Even in Andurin, I would not discuss that; Andurin is laced with qhalur borrowings, and I do not feel secure in it. Besides, who knows what tongue these sirrindim speak, or whether some qhal here may not know it? Remember that when we travel with Lellin.”

“I shall.”

“Yet thee knows I have no choice, Vanye.”

“I know. I understand.”

Her dim face seemed touched by that, and a great sorrow was on it

“Sleep,” she said, and closed her eyes.

It was the best and only counsel in the matter.

Chapter Five

Their setting out was by no means furtive or quiet The horses were brought up before Merir’s tent, and there Lellin took leave of his grandfather and his father and mother and great-uncle . . . grave, kind-eyed folk like Merir. His parents seemed old to have a son as young as Lellin, and they took his leaving hard. Sezar too they bade an affectionate farewell, kissing his hands and wishing him well, for the khemeis seemed to have no kinfolk among the Men in the camp: it was of Lellin’s family that he took his leave.

They were offered food, and they took it, for it was well-prepared for keeping on the trail. Then Merir came forward and offered to Morgaine a gold medallion on a chain, intricate, beautiful work. “I lend this,” he said. “It is safe passage.” And another he brought forth and gave to Vanye, a silver one. “With either of these, ask what you will of any of our people save the arrha, who regard no authority of mine. Even there it might avail something. These are more protection in Shathan than any weapon.”

Morgaine bowed to him in public respect, and Vanye likewise . . . Vanye at his feet, and not grudgingly, for without the old lord’s help, the passage which now lay so easily before them would have been a terrible one.

Then they went to their horses, Siptah and Mai glistening from a bath and content with good care. Someone had twined star-like blue flowers in long chains from Siptah’s mane, and white in Mai’s-the strangest accouterment that ever a Kurshin warrior’s horse bore, Vanye thought … but the gesture was like these graceful folk, and touched him.

There were no horses for Lellin or Sezar. “We will have,” Lellin explained, “farther.”

“Do you know where we are going?” Morgaine asked.

“Where you will, after I have taken you clear of this camp. But the horses will be there.”

And by this it was clear that they would be under more eyes than Lellin’s during their journey.

They set out down the main aisle of the camp, while the people both Men and qhal inclined to them in a bow like the rippling of wind through tall grass-as if they honored old friends; the rippling flowed with their passage almost to the edge of the wood.

There Vanye turned and looked back, to convince himself that such a place had been real at ail. There was the forest shade on them, but a golden-green light fell over the encampment, which was all tents and movable-and would, he suspected, swiftly vanish from the place.

They entered the forest then, where the air was at once cooler. They took a different path than that by which they had come: Lellin avowed they must follow it until noon. And Lellin strode along by Siptah’s head, while Sezar vanished shadow-wise into the brush. The qhal whistled a few clear notes from time to time, which were echoed from ahead, evidence where Sezar might be … and sometimes, for what seemed Lenin’s own joy, the notes trilled into a snatch of qhalur song, wild and strange.

“Do not be too reckless,” Morgaine bade him after one such. “Not all our enemies are unskilled in the forest.”

Lellin turned as he walked and swept a slight bow … he seemed too happy by nature to keep the spring from his step, and a smile came naturally to his face. “We are surrounded at the moment by our own people .. . but I shall remember your warning, my lady. “

He had a fragile look, this Lellin Erinhen, but today, against what seemed the habit of his people, he went armed … with a smallish bow and a quiver of brown-feathered arrows. It was probable, Vanye reckoned to himself, that this tall, delicate-looking qhal could use them, with the same skill that he and his khemeis could travel the woods unheard. Doubtless the noise they must make in riding seemed so loud to their young guide that he felt he might as well whistle songs into the bargain . . . but thereafter he heeded Morgaine’s wish and signaled only. He still seemed cheerful, songs or no.

They rested at noon, and Lellin called Sezar back, to sit beside them at a streamside, while the horses drank and they took the leisure for a bit to eat. They had become well-fed in their recent travels, accustomed to meals at regular times and abundant provisions, when before, their travelling and their scant rations had worn them so that they had made new notches in their armor straps. Now they were back to the old, and rested in a patch of warm sun. It would have been easy to fall under Shathan’s whispering sell. Morgaine’s eyes were half-lidded and lazy, but she did watch, and observed their two guides as if her thoughts much turned upon them.

“We must move,” she declared sooner than they would have wished, and rose; dutifully they gathered themselves up, and Vanye took up their saddle-kits.

“My lady Morgaine says our enemies are forest-wise,” Lellin said then to Sezar. “Be most careful in your walking.”

The Man set his hands in his belt and gave a short nod. “It is quiet all about, no sign of trouble.”

“There is bloodshed likely before we are done with this journey,” Morgaine said. “And now we come to a point where we are clear of your camp and choose our own way. How far will you two be with us?”

“And if I bid you guide us to Nehmin?”

Now Lellin faced her with more directness than he was wont, and his look was sad. “I was warned that this was your desire, and now I warn you, my lady: the place is dangerous, and not alone because of your enemies. It has its own defenders, the arrha, against whom my grandfather warned you. Your safe conduct is not valid there.”

“But it will take me there.”

“So will I, my lady, but if you attack that place-well, you would not be wise to do that.”

“If my enemies attack it, it may not stand; and if it falls, then Shathan will fall. I have discussed it with my lord Merir, and he likewise warned me, but he set me free to do what I would in the matter. And he set you to watch me, did he not?”

“Yes,” said Lellin, and now all joy and lightness in his face was replaced by dread. “If you have deceived us, doubtless Sezar and I could not stand against you, for you could always take us by stealth if nothing else. Yet I wish to believe that this is not the case.”

“Believe that it is not I have promised lord Merir that I will see you come home safely, and I will keep that promise to the best of my ability.”

“Then I shall take you where you wish to go.”

“Lellin,” said Sezar, “I do not like this.”

“But I cannot help it.” said Lellin. “If Grandfather had said do not go to Nehmin, then we should not be going; but he did not and therefore I must do this.”

“At your-” Sezar began to say, and stopped; and all froze in each small movement. A horse moved, untimely, drowning the faint sound that had come to them, a bird calling. It was caught up again, nearby.

“We are not safe any longer,” said Lellin.

“How do you reach such signs?” Vanye asked, for it seemed a good thing to know; and Lellin bit his lip in reluctance, then shrugged.

“It is in the pulses. The more rapid the trill, the more certain and imminent the hazard. There are other songs for other purposes, and some carry words, but this was a watchsong.”

“We should be moving,” said Sezar, “if we wish to avoid the matter, and I hope that is your wish.”

Morgaine frowned, and nodded, and they quit the place and rode farther.

There were warnings sometimes about them, and all that day they tended east, bending about the arc of Azeroth . . . and it seemed, though the route they took was different, the lay of the land was familiar. “We are near Mirrind,” Morgaine observed finally, which agreed with Vanye’s own sense of direction, abused though it was by their crooked journeyings and the strangeness of another sky.

“You are right,” Lellin said. “We are north of it; best we stay as much withdrawn from the rim of Azeroth as possible. So the signals advise.”

By evening they had passed the vicinity of Mirrind and crossed one little stream and another, hardly enough to wet the horses’ hooves. Then they came upon a stand of trees many of which were bound with white cords, a-flutter in the breeze.

“What are those?” Vanye asked of Lellin, for he had seen them about Mirrind; and because they had ominous meaning in Shiuan, he had avoided asking. Lellin smiled and shrugged.

“Cut-mark. We are nearing the village of Carrhend, and so we mark the trees for them that are proper to cut, for wood at need, so that the best trees live and they take the least shapely. This we do throughout Shathan, for their use and ours.”

“Like tenders of gardens,” Vanye observed, amazed by such a thought, for in Andur, forested as it was, and even in Kursh, men cut where they would and the trees still outpaced them.

“Aye,” said Lellin, and seemed amused and pleased by such a thought. He patted the shadowy trunk of an old tree they passed in the gathering dusk. “We wander, but I have wandered more in this wood than in any other, and I daresay I know these trees as villagers know their goats. That old fellow has guided me since I was a boy and he was a little slimmer. Gardeners indeed! And if weeds spring up, why, we tend to that too.”

That, Vanye thought, had a chilling undertone to it, having nothing at all to do with trees.

“It is coming time for camp,” Morgaine said. “And have you a place in mind, Lellin?”

“Carrhend. They will take us into their hall.”

“And shall we endanger another village? I would rather the woods than that.”

Lellin sketched a bow, a backward step as they walked. “I believe you would, my lady, but there is no need. Our horses will find us there in the morning, and everything there is quite secure. You will find folk there you know: some of the Mirrindim have elected to come to Carrhend for their safety, such as did not choose to stay by their own fields.”

Morgaine looked to Vanye, and he ventured no opinion, but he was privately glad when she accepted. More than two years he had spent under the open sky, but Mirrind had retaught him the luxuries he had put from his mind forever, being Morgaine’s companion. In his mind was a strong memory of Mirrind’s mornings, and fine hot bread and butter, so vivid he could taste it. He was, he thought, losing his keen edge. The Shathana style of travel seemed all too easy … and yet they had covered much ground in the day’s ride, and evaded some manner of trouble.

Sezar turned up again in their path, walking with them in the gathering dark. Soon enough they saw the forest’s edge and a broad expanse of fields. They skirted that open space, keeping within the forest shade, and came into Carrhend at the very last of the daylight.

The village spilled out to meet them. “Sezar! Sezar!” the children cried with abandon, and they trooped round the khemeis and caught his hands and made much of him.

“This is Sezar’s village,” Lellin said as they dismounted. “His parents and sister and four brothers live here, so you see we could not pass by this hospitality; I would not be forgiven.”

They had been maneuvered, but not to their hurt, and even Morgaine took it in good humor, smiling as the elders of Carrhend presented themselves. Three clans lived here: Salen, Eren, and Thesen . . , and Sezar, who was of clan Thesen, kissed his elders both, and then his parents, and his brothers and sister. There was not overmuch astonishment in this visit, as if it were a frequent thing; but Vanye felt for the young khemeis they took perforce into danger with them, and reckoned why he would have been anxious to make this particular stop on their way to Nehmin.

Lellin also had his welcome with them. Neither young nor old had much awe of him. He took the hands of the kin of Sezar, and was kissed on the cheek by Sezar’s mother, which gesture he repaid in kind.

But suddenly there were the Mirrindim, spilling down the steps of the common-hall, as if they had waited on their hosts’ courtesies. Now they came, Bythein and Bytheis, and the elders of Sersen and Melzen, and the young women . . . some of them running in their joy to greet them.

There was Sin, among the other children. Vanye caught him up out of their midst and the boy grinned with delight when he lifted him up to Mai’s back. Sin set himself astride and looked quite dazed when Vanye passed him up the reins … but Mai was too tired to give him trouble and would not leave Siptah.

Morgaine received the elders of Mirrind-embraced old Bythein, who had been their staunches friend, and there was a chorus of invitations to hall and meal.

“Some of the men are still in Mirrind,” Bytheis explained when Morgaine asked after their welfare. “They will keep the fields. Someone must. And the arrhendim are watching over them. But we know that our children are safest here. Welcome, welcome among us, lady Morgaine, khemeis Vanye.”

And perhaps the Mirrindim were no less pleased to find them now in the company of their own legitimate lords, assurance that they had not given their hospitality amiss.

“See to the horses,” Morgaine said, when all the turmoil was past; and Vanye took Siptah’s reins and Sin followed on Mai, the proudest lad in Carrhend.

Sezar walked with him to show him the way, while a cloud of children walked about them, Carrhendim and Mirrindim, male and female. They crowded in behind as they put the horses in the pen, and there was no lack of willing hands to bring them food or curry them. “Have care of the gray,” Sin was quick to tell them, lord over all where it concerned the horses. “He kicks what surprises him,” which was good advice, for they crowded too close, disrespecting the warhorse’s iron-shod heels; but Siptah as well as Mai had surprising patience in this tumult, having learned that children meant treats and curryings. Vanye surveyed all that was done and clapped Sin on the shoulder.

“I will take care of them as always,” Sin assured him; he had no doubt this would be so.

“I will see you in hall at dinner; sit by me,” Vanye said, and Sin glowed.

He started back to the hall then, and Sezar waited for him at the gate, leaning on the rail of the pen. “Have a care. You may not know what you do.”

Vanye looked at him sharply.

“Do not tempt the boy,” said Sezar, “to seek outside. You may be cruel without knowing.”

“And if he wishes to go outside?” Anger heated him, but it was the way of Andur-Kursh itself, that a man was what he was born . . . save himself, wtio had always fought his own fate. “No, I understand you,” he admitted.

Sezar looked back, and a thoughtful look was in his eyes. “Come,” he said then, and they walked back to the hall with a few of the children at their heels, trying to imitate the soft-footed stride of the khemeis. “Look behind us and understand me fully,” Sezar said, and he looked, and did. “We are a dream they dream, all of them. But when they grow past a certain age-” Sezar laughed softly, “they come to better sense, all but a few of us … and when the call comes, we follow, and that is the way of it. If it comes to that boy, let it come; but do not tempt him so young. He may try too early, and come to grief for it.”

“You mean that he will walk off into the forest and seek the qhal.”

“It is never said, never suggested . . . forbidden to say. But those who will come, grow desperate and come, and there is no forbidding them, then, if they do not die in the woods. It is never said . . . but it is a legend among the children; and they say it. At about twelve, they may come, or a little after; and then there is a time that it is too late . . . and they have chosen, simply by staying. We would not refuse them … no child dies on his journey that we can ever help. But neither do we lure them. The villages have their happiness. We arrhendim have ours. You are bewildered by us.”

“Sometimes.”

“You are a different kind of khemeis.”

He looked down. “I am ilin. That-is different.”

They walked in silence, almost to the hall. “There is a strangeness in you,” said Sezar then, which frightened him. He looked up into Sezar’s pitying eyes. “A sadness … beyond your kinsman’s fate, I think. It is about both of you. And different, for each. Your lady-“

Whatever Sezar would have said, he seemed to think better of saying, and Vanye stared at him resentfully, no easier in his mind for Sezar’s intimate observations.

“Lellin and I-” Sezar made a helpless gesture. “Khemeis, we suspect things in you that have not been told us, that you- Well, something weighs on you both. And we would offer help if we knew how.”

Prying after information? Vanye wondered, and looked on the man narrowly; the words still afflicted him. He tried to smile, but it was effort, and did not come convincingly. “I shall mend my manner,” he said. “I did not know that I was such unpleasant company.”

He turned and climbed the wooden stairs into the hall, where dinner was being prepared, and heard Sezar on the treads behind him.

The village had already begun the cooking before they came, but there was enough for guests and to spare … a prosperous place, Carrhend, and the Mirrindim in their well-ordered fashion took a share of the word as well as of food. Cooks laughed together and children made friends, and old ones smiled and talked by the fireside, sewing. There seemed no strife from the mixing: the elders could lay down stern edicts when they must, and the qhalur law was clearly set forth and respected.

“We have so much to exchange,” said Serseis. “We long for Mirrind already, but we feel safer here.” Others agreed, though clan Melzen still mourned for Eth, and they were very few here: most of the younger folk of Melzen, male and female, had elected to stay in Mirrind, a determination for Eth’s sake, and showing a tough-mindedness that lay deep within the Men of Shathan.

“If any of these evil strangers pass through,” Melzein said, “they will not pass back out again.”

“May it not happen,” Morgaine said earnestly. To that, Melzein inclined her head in agreement

“Come to the tables,” called Saleis of Carrhend then, desperate effort to restore cheer. Folk moved in eagerly, and the benches filled.

Sin scurried in and wedged himself into his promised place. The lad had no words during the meal, contenting himself with quick looks and much listening. He was there; that was enough for Sin; and Sezar caught Vanye’s eye during the meal and nicked a glance at the boy, strangely complacent- as if he had seen something clear to be seen.