He laughed softly, bitterly, with such pain in the sound that Lydryth’s heart ached to hear him. “And it did not?” she prompted, when he sat in silence, head bowed.
“You have the right of it. We walked into an alley, peering
1Z6 at the doorways for the third one on the right, and they were upon us before we knew what had happened. Something kept me from sensing them, though my magic should have warned me. Hired toughs, four of them, armed with swords. Jonthal drew and engaged one, and I forced sleep upon the minds of two others. The fourth took to his heels. When I turned back to my friend, it was in time to see the cutthroat’s blade driving straight for his throat.
“With every bit of Will I possessed, I lashed out-and the Power went awry. I…” For the first time his voice faltered. “I will never know the reason why, but I must have made … a mistake. The force I unleashed struck Jonthal, while the assassin stood unscathed. My friend was dead before he struck the stinking cobbles of that thrice-cursed alley.” Alon stared fixedly at his hands. “I killed him.”
“You were trying to save him,” Lydryth pointed out. “If you had not struck, he would have died by the assassin’s steel.”
“Perhaps … or perhaps he might have parried it at the last moment. He was a good swordsman.”
“You did not harm him intentionally,” she continued earnestly. “It is not unknown in battle for a man to be slain accidentally by a comrade’s sword-thrust. Mistakes happen. What occurred was not your fault, and you should forgive yourself for it.” She sighed. “Guilt is a very crippling burden.”
He stared at her intently in the waning firelight. “You above all others should know, Lady. You are still blaming yourself for something that was in no way your fault.” Alon considered silently for a moment. “I will make a bargain with you, Lydryth.”
“What kind of bargain?” the songsmith asked warily.
“I will endeavor to forgive myself, if you will do likewise. You are not to blame for your mother’s disappearance, your father’s mind-clouding. You are, if anything, far less culpable than I.”
She bit her lip; then, slowly, she nodded. “Very well. I will try not to hold myself responsible, if you will do likewise.”
“Done,” he said, and held out his hand to seal their pact. Lydryth reached out across the coals of the campfire, feeling the heat of them on her skin, to grasp his fingers tightly.
Since the travelers were no longer troubled by worries of pursuit, they climbed at a much more leisurely pace the next day. The snowcapped peaks towered above them, but the pass toward which they toiled was no more than a half-day’s journey away. As they climbed higher, frost rimed the rocks underfoot, and the last of the underbrush was left behind. Now only grey-green lichens grew. Monso could find no forage at all.
Gasping from the thin air, Alon and Lydryth halted long before sunset to camp when they found a nearly level ledge that Alon reported as the only campsite this side of the pass. After they had rested and eaten, Alon insisted on taking on his sword and practicing a few lunges and parries. Huddled into her cloak, Lydryth watched, now and then correcting his stance or movements. But the young Adept was making praiseworthy progress, and she told him so.
Finally Alon halted, sweating despite the chill air, and sank down onto his bedroll, gasping. “Enough for tonight, teacher?”
“Indeed yes,” she said. “Tomorrow-if either of us has the strength after making the final pull through the pass-I will demonstrate another kind of parry for you to practice.”
“When will I be ready to match blades with a live opponent as opposed to a brave feed sack?”
She smiled. “At your current rate of progress? Oh … perhaps another month.”
His face fell, and she hastily amended, “But you are learning faster than most, Alon! You must cultivate patience, if you hope to succeed.”
He scowled. “Patience has never been one of my virtues.” With a sigh, he reached for a piece of journeybread. Since there was no wood to be had above the treeline, they were making a cold supper.
Later, as they sat together companionably, watching the shadows of evening close in around them, he suddenly asked, “What song is that? It has a lovely tune.” Lydryth started, not realizing she had been humming aloud. “I don’t know,” she said, feeling foolish. “What did it sound like?”
Alon produced a few off-key snatches of melody. Hearing him, the songsmith felt herself coloring and was grateful for the encroaching darkness. The words that accompanied the tune came unbidden to her mind:
Golden the sunlight on the hill, Silver the moonlight on the sea:
Though fair these things are to see, still, No fairer than my love to me!
Though merry the glint of dancing brook, Though sweet the carol when birds rejoice, No merrier than my sweetheart’s look, No sweeter than my sweetheart’s voice.
Not gold nor silver, brook nor bird, Nor sun nor moon, though wondrous all Can touch my heart as does his word Nor gladden me as does his call!
“It is an old song from High Hallack,” she said, reluctantly.
“Hearing you hum it just now reminded me that I haven’t heard you sing since that day at the fairground when you serenaded Monso. Your voice is so fair … can you sing it for me?”
Lydryth shook her head. “I have forgotten the words,” she lied, crossing her fingers behind her back in a gesture suddenly recalled from childhood.
“That’s a pity. Please . . . hum it again, so I can remember the melody.”
Lydryth complied, grateful that he could not see her blush. You have no time for entanglements! she reminded herself fiercely.
That night, they bedded down side by side, sharing their blankets, as was customary between companions on the trail when camping fireless in cold weather. Alon slung his cloak 1Z9 over Monso’s back, then commanded the stallion to fold his legs beneath him so they could huddle together in the windbreak created by the Keplian’s body. Tired from the day’s journey, both travelers fell asleep quickly.
Lydryth awakened late that night to find the waning moon shining on her face and Alon snuggled close against her beneath their blankets. In his sleep he had flung an arm across her waist. The warmth of his breath stirred the curls at the backofher neck.
The young woman bit her lip, wondering how to extricate herself gracefully before he could awaken. She was acutely conscious of his body pressed against hers, his hand so close to her breast, even beneath the bulky layers of her clothing. Each breath he drew seemed to echo inside her own body.
As she hesitated, strangely reluctant to move, a glimmer of light caught her eye from a nearby mountain slope. Lydryth squinted, certain that she had been mistaken, but as the quarter-moon emerged from behind a bank of racing clouds, it was there again, shining brightly. The light beckoned to the bard, beckoned with a pure white light in the darkness.
What is it? she wondered, feeling it tug at her with an almost physical pull. She seemed to hear a strange music, highpitched, uncanny-nothing that could be produced by any instrument or throat that she knew.
Wriggling gently out of Alon’s hold, she sat up, her teeth chattering in the cold as the chill struck her like a blow. The Adept mumbled something inarticulate as his fingers quested blindly, seeking after her vanished warmth.
The glow softened, waned, then went out as another cloud covered the moon. The songsmith stared, hardly daring to blink lest she lose the spot where it had been. Long heartbeats later, as the rag of cloud gusted past, it was there once more, shining . ., beckoning.
The songsmith heard a soft snort, then turned to see Monso’s head, an inky shadow against the light-colored rocks. The creature’s ears were pricked up. The glow of the unknown beacon reflected eerily in the Keplian’s eyes.
Hearing that high, eldritch music again, Lydryth turned to her companion and shook his arm impatiently. “Alon! Rouse you! Waken, please!”
He came to alertness quickly, as any wayfarer must learn to do if he is to survive long on the trail. “What is it?” he demanded, sitting up, then cursing softly in the cold and pulling the blankets up around his shoulders.
“I know not,” the bard said, pointing at the light and trying to repress her shivering. “Could it be some trap set by the witch?”
Alon handed over her cloak. “No … I would sense that one’s presence. This is … greater. Much greater. Not living, but still… it is of the Power.”
“What kind of Power? Surely not the Dark!” Lydryth protested. The light was so clean, so bright!