After losing the tethered horses, the freed prisoners waved torches and blankets, sending the mounts racing away, snorting and kicking, into the darkness. Then Alon swung up on Monso’s back and aided Lydryth up behind him.
“To Lormt,” he said, turning the Keplian’s nose to the east.
Lydryth nodded. “To Lormt,” she echoed. “And may woe betide any who attempt to delay us further!”
Riding through the late-night darkness was frustrating, because they could not take advantage of their mount’s superior speed. Much of the way the woods were too thick, and in the open, the chance of Monso sinking a foot in some grounddweller’s burrow and breaking a leg was too great. The travelers were forced to keep to a walk or a jog trot, when everything urged them to run-run!
Still exhausted by the events of the day, Lydryth found her eyes closing again as she perched on the Keplian’s rhythmically swaying rump. In the waning moonlight, the landscape surrounding them appeared spectral, unreal. Her eyelids closed. . . .
She jerked awake when Monso stopped, realizing that she had been dozing with her cheek pressed against Alon’s shoulder. Warmth flooded her cheeks as she hastily straightened. “Are we there?”
“No, we are still perhaps an hour’s journey away,” he said.
The darkness was fading; a rosy glow tinged the east. Dawn was not far off.
The songsmith narrowed her eyes as she surveyed the shadowed land ahead of them, seeing upthrust ridges of grey rock and growths of new timber. In the far distance she could make out a cottage with a thatched roof. The entire countryside had a curiously raw, jumbled look to it. “What happened here to stir the land so? The Turning?”
“Yes,” Alon replied. “Lormt itself was protected, though. The Ancients who constructed its walls and towers embedded spheres of quan-iron-the blue metal like that found in the eyes of your gryphon-in the foundations of the towers. The base of one tower had crumbled, causing its sphere to be lost over the ages, so, when the ground heaved, that tower fell, taking part of another tower and the connecting wall with it. But the other two stood fast.”
They allowed Monso to crop the grass for a few minutes while they stretched their legs, shared a few bites of food, then laved their faces at a swift-running stream. The water had obviously flowed down from the mountains that now smudged the eastern horizon, for it was so chffl it made Lydryth’s teeth ache.
She could barely keep her eyes from searching their trail, her ears from straining for the sound of hoofbeats, though she knew that their captors would only now be awakening. The skin at the nape of her neck prickled as she envisioned the witch’s fury at discovering that her quarry had escaped once again. “The thrice-circle spell the beasts set will be wearing off by now,” she said. “We must not tarry, Alon.”
He remained unworried. “We have several hours’ start on them, and when we set off again, Monso can move at speed.”
“But they know our destination.” She remembered the witch’s cold grey eyes and swallowed anxiously. “And the witch . . . she will not give up easily.”
He tightened Monso’s girth, his expression sobering. “Then we must continue to elude them. I have no wish to spend my days rotting in some jail in Rylon Comers.”
Once they were astride again, he loosened the reins slightly and bent forward. “Go,” he whispered, and the Keplian, with a snort, plunged forward eagerly.
The land around Lydryth blurred as her wind-whipped eyes watered. She clung to Alon’s belt grimly, using every bit other riding skill and balance to stay on as Monso galloped, trying to spot obstacles and changes of direction so they would not catch her unawares.
The sun was nearly a handspan past the horizon when Alon drew rein, bringing their mount to a plunging halt. “Lormt,” he announced, breathing hard from the effort of curbing the sidling, wheeling K-eplian.
Lydryth peered out from behind his shoulder to see a river that ran past a cluster of half-timbered cottages and a larger building that might have been an inn. Just beyond them lay a high stone wall, and the outlines of massive stone towers. As Alon had mentioned, one comer of the structure was naught but a tumbled pile of rubble, while the outlines of another tower could still be seen, though it was perhaps half- demolished.
The travelers jogged slowly down the rutted track that served the small village as a main thoroughfare. Lydryth was conscious of eyes peering out at them from behind curtains and cracks in doorways, but the only inhabitants brave enough to venture forth were several barefoot children, still too young to be working in the fields, or aiding with the spinning.
Lydryth wondered whether they would beg, but they did not; two, a boy and a girl, accompanied them, while a fourth child, older, pelted off through one of the many gaps in the crumbled wall, evidently to warn of their arrival.
The metal-bound gate stood permanently ajar and askew, and they rode through that into a stone and dirt courtyard. On the doorstep of one of the intact towers, two people were waiting to meet them, a man and a woman.
The man held himself with the upright carriage of those who have borne arms and marched to battle. He was slightly above middle height, plainly of the Old Race, and went clean-shaven. Instead of the scholar’s robe Lydryth had expected, he wore a rust-colored tunic and leather jerkin, a horsehide belt with the hair left on, and breeches and boots.
The woman at his side wore a simple robe of rich autumn brown, with a light green shawl flung over her shoulders against the early-moming chill. Her hair was drawn back from her face and caught up in a loose knot at the back of her neck. Her features were strong and well cut, but a reddish birthmark spread over one cheek, marring her appearance.
Lydryth had to force herself to meet the woman’s eyes directly; it was hard to keep her eyes from fixing on that ugly mark. Compassion stirred within her, as she imagined all the cruel taunts children were wont to hurl at one whose difference was so plain to the eye.
But after a moment’s measuring glance, Lydryth realized that this woman had come to terms with herself long ago; pity was something she neither needed or wanted. As she hesitated, wondering how to begin, Alon cleared his throat and sketched a half-bow. “Fair fortune to this holding, and good morning to you both. I am Alon, and this is the songsmith Lydryth.”
The man nodded acknowledgment, his grey eyes never leaving the younger man’s face. “You are well-come to Lonnt, Alon and Lydryth. I am Master Duratan, and this is my lady, the lore-mistress, Nolar. How may we aid you?”
“The Lady Lydryth wishes to consult with you on a matter of healing.”
“Healing? That is a subject I know well.” Nolar spoke for the first tune in a soft, melodious voice. “Enter, please. We can speak in my study.”
Duratan waved the travelers past him with a courtly gesture. “I will have one of the stable lads attend to your mount.”
But Alon did not move as he shook his head. “It is better that I care for the stallion myself. Master Duratan. His temper can be … uncertain. I will join you in a few minutes.”
“Very well. I will show you to the stables.” He walked over to join Alon, and the songsmith saw that, though he held himself as straight as possible, and there was good breadth to his shoulders, Duratan moved with a distinct limp.
Lydryth followed the lore-mistress into the ancient building, and found herself reminded of the Citadel in Es City. The same aura of age pervaded the stones-nay, if anything, this place seemed to be even older. The two women passed room after room filled with shelves, each shelf holding hundreds of books, or, even more ancient, rune-scrolls in metal and leather containers. Robed scholars, both male and female, moved soft-footed through the corridors, carrying armloads of blank parchment, and fresh quills.
They climbed the stairs into one of the towers; then Nolar stopped before a door and opened it. The room within was large, with a window that looked out upon the eastern hills. Pots of herbs grew on the stone windowsill, and faded hangings gave a hint of soft color to the walls, though any pictures or stories they bore were nearly impossible to make out. The whitewashed walls were lined with chests, each holding many record-scrolls in bronze-reinforced or carved-wood cases.
Lydryth took a deep breath of the musty, vellum-scented air and thought that here, if any place in the world, there might be some scrap of healing-lore that would aid her father.