When the transformation was completed I lay back, breathing deeply, and listened to the wind. I was sheltered from its force by the stones and only its song came down to me. I felt vibrations from distant tremors of the earth and chose to take them as a gentle massage, soothing. . . . My clothes were in tatters, and for the moment I was too tired to summon a fresh outfit. My shoulder seemed to have lost its pain, and there was only the slightest twinge in my leg, fading, fading. . . .I closed my eyes for a few moments.
Okay, I’d made it through, and I’d a strong feeling that the answer to the matter of Julia’s killer lay in the besieged citadel below. Offhand, I didn’t see any easy way into the place at the moment, to make inquiry. But that was not the only way I might proceed. I decided to wait where I was, resting, until it grew dark-that is, if things here proceeded in a normal dark-light fashion. Then I’d slip downstairs, kidnap one of the besiegers and question him. Yes. And if it didn’t get dark? Then I’d think of something else. Right now, though, just drifting felt best. . . .
For how long I dozed, I was uncertain. What roused me was the clicking of pebbles, from somewhere off to the right. I was instantly alert, though I didn’t stir. There was no effort at stealth, and the pattern of approaching sounds-mainly slapping footfalls, as of someone wearing loose sandals-convinced me that only a single individual was moving in this direction. I tensed and relaxed my muscles and drew a few deep breaths.
A very hairy man emerged from between two of the stones to my right. He was about five and a half feet in height, very dirty, and he wore a dark animal skin about his loins; also, he had on a pair of sandals. He stared at me for several seconds before displaying the yellow irregularities of his smile.
“Hello. Are you injured?” he asked, in a debased form of Thari that I did not recall ever having heard before.
I stretched to make sure and then stood. “No,” I replied. “Why do you ask that?”
The smile persisted. “I thought maybe you’d had enough of the fighting below and decided to call it quits.”
“Oh, I see. No, it’s not exactly like that. . . .”
He nodded and stepped forward. “Dave’s my name. What’s yours?”
“Merle,”
I said, clasping his grimy hand.
“Not to worry, Merle,” he told me. “I wouldn’t turn in anybody who decided to take a walk from a war, unless maybe there was a reward and there ain’t on this one. Did it myself years ago and never regretted it. Mine was goin’ the same way this one seems to be goin’, and I had sense enough to get out. No army’s ever taken that place down there, and I don’t think one ever will.”
“What place is it?”
He cocked his head and squinted, then shrugged. “Keep of the Four Worlds,” he said. “Didn’t the recruiter tell you anything?”
I sighed. “Nope,” I said.
“Wouldn’t have any smokin’ stuff on you, would you?”
“No,” I answered, having used all my pipe tobacco back in the crystal cave. “Sorry.”
I moved past him to a point where I could look downward from between the stones. I wanted another look at the Keep of the Four Worlds. After all, it was the answer to a riddle as well as the subject of numerous cryptic references in Melman’s diary. Fresh bodies were scattered all over before its walls, as if cast about by the whirlwind, which was now circling back toward the point whence it had risen. But a small party of besiegers had apparently made it to the top of the wall despite this. And a fresh party had formed below and was headed for the ladders. One of its members bore a banner I could not place, but which seemed vaguely familiar black and green, with what might be a couple of heraldic beasts having a go at each other. Two ladders were still in place, and I could see some tierce fighting going on behind the battlements.