She did not answer him, but said rather to all of us, “Your gate lies ahead. Come if you wish to find it.”
Once more she set off, and we followed. But my misgivings grew the greater with each step.
The green turf made a carpet for our feet. My sandals of dried leaves were more comfortable than the wrappings. I felt as if I walked on cushions.
Finally we came to a place where stood a mound taller than any I had yet seen, covered thick with turf save on the side facing us, where that green had been cut away to show gray ground in the form of a symbol taller than a man. Against the green it was such a signpost as none could overlook.
Bartare halted at the foot of the mound, gazing up at the symbol. Then she turned to us with a triumphant smile.
“I promised to bring you to a gate. And that I have done. But opening it is another matter, and one I cannot do. So now how will you manage?”
Kosgro was a little behind her, also studying the symbol. I thought it must have some meaning for him. However, Bar-tare had hammered home our helplessness. We could be well within the power of reaching the sane world of Dylan and still find all our struggles worthless.
“What – ” I began when Kosgro waved me into silence. There was that about him which suggested dawning excitement. Did he see some way out of our dilemma?
He raised the notus and pointed its tip at the symbol. Bartare cried out and would have sprung at him, her hand outstretched to catch at the arm supporting the rod. I moved, setting my own thinner branch before her as a barrier. She fell back, her face convulsed as she babbled words I did not understand.
Kosgro moved again. With the tip of the notus staff he traced the lines of the symbol, painting them in the air, for that literally happened. The tip left a shining line in the air, copying in miniature (he greater drawing on the mound. Though he dropped the rod, that shining in the air held steady.
Then, raising the staff again, he balanced it as a man might balance a throwing spear. He shouted two words aloud and hurled the notus through the center of the symbol in the air. On and up it went, until it struck the center of the mound cutting and stood there quivering.
The words he had shouted were repeated and repeated again by such force of echo as I had never before heard, until the separate sounds made a single thunderous roll. From the quivering rod aloft burst a bright column of white fire.
The noise stilled. Bartare had folded into herself on the ground, her arms over her head for protection. Oomark similarly balled near her. But Kosgro stood erect facing the fire he had so oddly kindled, and I was shoulder to shoulder beside him.
I longed to ask what he was doing. Did he have the “power,” or whatever was needed, to open the gate? However, when I saw his attention so fixed upon the fire, I dared not speak.
No gate opened. But with another blast of sound, something appeared between us and that flaming rod. Kosgro reached out, though he did not look to me, and caught out of my hold the second notus rod, dropping its point a little, but holding it as a man would hold a weapon.
The whirl of light solidified. Once more we fronted the woman, if woman she truly was, who had been with Bar-tare in the city. She did not move or make any gesture, only watched us, her beautiful face expressionless.
That she was beautiful was true. And I think she was one who delighted in using that beauty as a weapon. But if she thought to do so now with Kosgro, she must have been disappointed.
“Melusa.” He greeted her briskly as one wanting to bargain and not waste time about it.
“That is one of my titles,” she replied, her words, though quietly spoken, carrying as dearly as the horn of the dark hunter. And they were as chilling as that sound also. She might be of the Folk, but to us she turned the face of a Dark One.
“What would you?” She came to the point as directly as he had done.
“A gate opened.”
Now a faint shadow of smile curved those too perfect lips. “Ah, little man, you know not what you ask, or you would not demand it of me.”
“I ask return for myself, for these who are not of this world. We have no proper place here – let us go.”
“Or what will you do?” She was an adult, amused by the importunities of a child.
“Use this.” He raised the rod he held a traction higher. “And that – ” I guessed what he wished and shook the flowering branch I carried.
“You use what you do not understand, perhaps to a purpose you will not wish. You are not an adept, nor even of the Folk. What you have rashly seized upon can destroy you the quicker.
“It has served us well so far. I think that you are the one who needs to fear it the most. We ask little of you – an open gate – for we are not of your molding and making.”
“One is.” Her voice was a little sharper. “She was sought and shaped to our needs. We do not bargain for our own.”
“Your own? Yet she could not stand against us when. you bade her show her powers. You had her shaping, yet she failed the test you set her. Look upon her! Is she yours to her heart?”
“Melusa!” Bartare was on her feet. Now she ran past us and began to climb the mound, her arms outstretched as if to embrace the woman who waited there. But Melusa made no answering gesture in welcome.
“So” – she spoke over the child’s head to Kosgro-“with you is it all?”
“It is. Nor do you wish that which is flawed in your eyes.”
“Melusa!” Bartare’s cry was one of pain. She had tried to reach the woman of the Folk. Now she swayed and beat with both hands on what seemed an invisible wall between them.
“If she was of your true kin, could she not pass the protection?” Kosgro continued. “You have set that up against any danger to you. Why, then, does it keep out one you have named ‘daughter’?”
“Melusa!” Bartare was screaming that name now. She had slipped to her knees, but still she beat on that surface we could not see, walled away from the woman.
“You argue with a serpent’s tongue!” flashed the woman. For the first time her calm cracked.
“I do not argue, I state such facts as we can all see. Bar-tare has not betrayed you, but it seems that you or yours stand aside from her. Would not your protection allow her past if she really was of your kith and kin?”
“She was one of our chosen ones, long schooled and waited for.” Melusa looked down at the girl who could not join her. “Why should the protection reject her?” She pointed one hand at Bartare, who lifted her head, her eyes streaming tears, in silent pleading.
There was a long moment of silence broken only by Bar-tare’s sobbing. Then Melusa spoke again.
“I know not why or how. But it seems she is not one of us. You have done this then – 1” There was about her such an aura of menace that I clutched the notus branch more tightly.
Once more she pointed her hand, this time at Kosgro. From the tips of her long fingers there shot a ray of green light. But as swiftly as she had moved, so did he counter by crossing that with the notus rod, which cut it as cleanly as if the ray were solid and a knife had sliced it. The portion that was so defected fell back at an angle to the ground, where a curl of smoke arose from a rapidly widening patch of black charring.
I was half expecting her next move and had the branch ready, for now she pointed to me. The heat of the ray she directed I could feel since, though I held the branch well out, it did not give me the length of reach Kosgro had. But he whirled half around and slashed at the ray held at bay by my frail shield and again deflected it.
“You see” – his voice was calm and confident – “we cannot be handled so. I know that the Folk are not of those who battle fruitlessly against odds. Let us go, for if we remain, we shall ever be a center of conflict. And your world has too many such now, for if we are still here when you open the gates to recruit, who knows what may happen? Like attracts like. We can sweep into our company those answering your beckoning. What would that do to your plans and needs?”