Setting my attention on the peak she had pointed out I began the last stage of my journey.
* * *
* * *
VI
THE WINGED SENTRIES of the Valley had me in view long before I sighted them. A Flannan appeared out of nowhere to coast along over my head, then was gone with beating wings. I came up, not the road entrance I had known before, but a notch between two standing stones. Back door to the Green domain this might be, but here were also inscribed the Symbols on each wall. One of the lizard folk who helped patrol the heights peered down at me, jewel-eyed.
“Kemoc!”
Kyllan came running, throwing his arms about my shoulders, mind and eyes both meeting mine. In that moment our old closeness was as if it had never been broken.
It was like unto a high feast day as they brought me to the feather-roofed houses, asking questions all the way. But what I had to tell them of Krogan enmity made them quickly sober.
“This is ill hearing!” Dahaun had poured the guesting cup for me. Now she put the flagon back on the table as if she saw some evil picture. “With the Krogan ranged against us . . . water can be a bad weapon to face. But who can be these Great Ones of the Shadow whom Orias fears so much that he tries to buy their favor with a captive? The Krogan are not a timid folk. In the past they have been friends to us. Perhaps a seeking—”
Ethutur shook his head. “Not yet; not until we can learn in no other way. Remember, those who so seek may also find themselves the sought, if they are detected and the power on the other side is equal to, or greater than, their own.”
In the first excitement of my return I had forgotten something, but no longer. Kaththea—where was my sister? I looked to Kyllan for an answer. Surely she was not avoiding me. . . ?
He was quick with reassurance. “She rode east yesterday, when we believed you dead. It was her thought to go to a place, known here, where certain forces can be tapped; and where, with her witch knowledge, perhaps she could read your fate. Believe this, Kemoc; she was sure that you were not dead. For she said that she and I would know it if your life had been taken from you!”
I dropped my head into my hands. Suddenly it became so needful that I reach her, that I sent out a call, believing that here in the protected Valley, it could cause no harm. Kyllan’s thought twined with mine, making it twofold as it went forth, joyfully seeking.
Into that seeking I poured more and more strength. I felt the tide of Kyllan’s rise with it—out and out . . . Yet there came no answer. It was not as if Kaththea was absorbed in some spell of her own, for still we would have touched her mind and been warned off. No, this was a total absence of all Kaththea meant to both of us—as total as if the walls of the Wise Women’s Secret Place had once more closed about her.
Now my spear of thought grew swifter, shot in all directions. But there was no target, only that emptiness which in itself was ominous. I raised my head again from trembling hands and looked to Kyllan, saw the grayish shade beneath the weathering of his face and knew we were united in fear.
“Gone!” He said it first, in a whisper which still must have reached the ears of those about us, for they, too, looked startled and dismayed.
“Where?” To me that was most important. When I had called Kaththea from the island of the Krogan lake, her answer had been faint and hard to read, coming across miles of territory which the enemy held; still, I had reached her and she, me. In this protected Valley where there would be no barriers, I could not reach her at all.
I turned to Dahaun. “This place of power to which she went, where does it lie?”
“At the eastern tip of the Valley, up against the Heights.”
The Heights—Dinzil! To me the answer was as plain as if written out in fiery runes across the air between us. My thought was clear to her.
“Why?”
So Dahaun did not dispute the possibility of my guess; she looked for a reason.
“Yes, why?” That was Kyllan. “Kaththea looked upon him with favor; that is true. But she would not go to him thus without speech between us, especially after saying that she wished to seek you through the power.”
“Not willingly,” I answered aloud, between set teeth.
Dahaun shook her head. “Not unwillingly, Kemoc. One with her powers could not be drawn unwillingly past our defenses. And those guard every gate of this Valley.”
“I do not believe that she agreed—”
“How know you what arguments may have been used with her?” Kyllan asked.
I turned on him, and some of my fear became anger, to be directed at one within my reach: “Why did you not keep mind touch, to know what chanced with her?”
He flushed. But when he made answer he kept a rein on his temper. “Because she wished it so, saying she must hoard her energy to use in the seeing. She said that while she was learned in much, yet never had she taken the Witch Oath, nor received the Jewel, been admitted into full company. Thus she doubts at times and needs all her strength.”
That sounded as Kaththea’s own words, and I knew that he spoke the truth. Still . . . that he might have protected her, and had not, burned unfairly in me. I spoke now to Dahaun:
“Can Shil bear me to where Kaththea went?”
“I do not know. That he can go in that direction, yes. But whether you, who have little protection against the forces which gather there, can reach it, that is another question.”
“Which only trial may answer! But let me try—” Only I was not to have that chance. For, even before I finished speaking, one of the birds swooped down to perch on Dahaun’s shoulder. Instead of the usual trilled greeting, its cries were a scream, plainly meant to announce some disaster. Ethutur and the rest were on their feet, crowding for the door. Dahaun looked to us from Estcarp.
“They move upon the Valley, even as the Krogan maid warned you, Kemoc.”
So began our siege time and it was a bitter one. While the Symbols might bar the gates, yet there were miles of cliffs, and against those a motley crew of monsters climbed, flew, scrabbled to find a way at us. Storm clouds gathered about the rim we defended; wind and torrents of rain lashed at us. The gloom hid those who strove to make the ascent. The lightning strikes of the force whips were undistinguishable at times from the true lightning of the storm.
It was a wild series of battles. There would come lulls, even as the most vicious hurricanes know lulls. Then once more the rush, so we had to be on the alert, for we never knew when the next attack would muster.
Some of the enemy I had seen before. While the Rasti could not climb the cliffs, the Gray Ones put on their quasi-human shapes to find holds. There were other things . . . drifting mists which were perhaps the more feared by us from over-mountain because they had no substance to be hewed by steel, nor shattered by dart . . . and vast, armored things prowling about the base of the cliffs, unable to climb, but digging with taloned paws at our natural wall with sullen ferocity.
Flying things fought airborne over our heads where Flannan, bird, Vrang of the peaks cut and slew in turn. It was a struggle out of a nightmare; even those among our recruits who had gone up against the frightening other-world might of the Kolder long years past found this a more fearsome battle.
For how long we held that defense, I do not know, for day was nearly as darksome as night. When day came pillars of fire flamed green, high into the sky, from cressets along the cliff. In that light our adversaries seemed less inclined to press forward.
The Green People had their own magic that they called upon. Dahaun and others did not take actual part in the fighting, but summoned and marshaled forces which were not of any earth I had known.
I knew that the Lady of Green Silences feared the waters within the Valley, that some disaster might come from them since the Krogan were against us. But, though the lizard folk patrolled there, they found no sign that Orias had taken the field openly under the Shadow.