“Not now,” she reported after a moment. “But this crack leads to one of their burrows. We had better not linger.”
She was right. The entrance to a Thas run was no place in which to take our ease—especially not when a slight push could send us both over and down. I got to my feet, tried to forget the pain in my shoulders, the aching weariness of my arms. Behind lay the longest stretch. Keep my mind only on the few inches before me—the next hand hold—and then the one after that—
It was a slowly rising agony, that last part of the climb. My maimed hand was numb. I could watch it move and hold, but I could not feel the stone beneath the awkward fingers. Always with me was the fear that that grasp could slip.
But that was the hand which I at last pushed through the opening into the outer world. The light was not that of the sun and I wondered if we were coming out into a storm. But, as I struggled through, I discovered we were still at the bottom of a rift. The stream which made the falls in the cavern poured along there. The rest was only rock walls and sand. I turned to draw Orsya up beside me.
We were a wild looking pair, our clothing tattered, with raw red scraps of skin on our arms and legs, along with dark bruises, the grime of mud and other signs of our journey. But the sheer relief of getting out of those ways made me feel light of head and heart—though some of that might have been due to lack of food.
Orsya went to the edge of the stream, fell on her knees by it, staring into the water intently, as Loskeetha might have consulted her bowl of sand. Then she made a quick dart with one hand and brought it up clasped about a wriggling, fighting creature which was so long and slim of body it seemed more snake than fish. She knocked this against a rock and left it there, then made another grab. Hungry as I was, I could not find any appetite for her catch. But she gathered them together carefully and put them in the bag from which she dumped the quasfi shells.
We started along the cut, I on the narrow bank, Orsya in the stream. Twice more she made a raid into the flood swirling about her feet and added to her bag.
Twilight was dim about us as the ravine widened out and vegetation and grass began to show in ragged clumps. We drew away from the water a little and I found a place where a boulder and part of an ancient slide from the heights, together with the cliff wall, gave us a corner of protection. Orsya borrowed my knife to work upon the fish, while I piled stones to add to our shelter.
I did not relish the thought of raw fish, but when she handed me some, I accepted it and tried not to think what I was eating. It was not as unpleasant as I had expected and, while I would not choose to live upon such foodstuffs, I could chew and swallow my share.
It was already dark, but Orsya brought out the cone-rod, unwrapping Kaththea’s scarf. This she sat on the ground before us with much care.
When it stood point up to her satisfaction, she bent her head and breathed upon it. Then, with her hands she made certain signs, one or two of which I recognized, for I had seen Kaththea sketch their like. I knew better than to disturb her concentration at such a time. But I wondered what Orsya was, and if she were indeed the Krogan equivalent of a Wise Woman.
She sat back at last, rubbing her hands together as if they were either cold, or she would free them of something clinging to her skin.
“You may sleep without fear of surprise,” came her thought. “We have such a guardian as has not been known since my mother’s mother’s mother’s time.”
I longed to ask her what manner of magic she had wrought. But the first law of power is that explanations must not be asked for—if they are volunteered, well and good. And, since she did not tell me, I could only wonder. Yet I believed in her promise of safety. This was good, for I do not think I could have stood any watch that night, my fatigue of mind and body was as a burden heavy enough to push me to earth.
When I awoke Orsya was not curled in sleep, but rather sat, her hands arched over the cone-rod, not quite touching it, her position being that of one who warms herself at a fire. She must have heard me stir, for she gave a start as one awakened out of deep thought and turned her head to look at me.
Her hair, well dried now, was a silvery cloud about her head and shoulders. Somehow at this moment she looked more unhuman, more alien, than she had since our first meeting by the guest isle.
“I have been screeing . . . Eat.” She nodded at what rested just beyond my hand. “And listen!”
There was about her such an air of command as I had seen in the Witches of Estcarp, and automatically I obeyed. Screeing? The term was new to me, but I though she meant foreseeing, after Loskeetha’s pattern, and I wanted no more of that.
Orsya read my thoughts and shook her head. “I deal not with futures, possibly or impossible, but with dangers which walk this land. There is much abroad here—”
I glanced from her to the wider stretch of valley. There was nothing I could see except scanty growths of brush and the stream.
“The eyes of the head cannot be trusted here,” she answered my thought once more. “Whatever you see, look twice, and thrice, and with the mind also.”
“Illusions?” I guessed.
Orsya nodded. “Illusions. They are deft at weaving such, these who deal in the powers of the Shadow. Look now.” She placed her right hand so that the point of the cone must touch the palm, then she leaned forward to touch my forehead.
I blinked, startled.
A rock not too far away was no longer a thing of rugged stone, but rather of warty gray hide, of large, questing eyes, of claws to tear.
“Look now upon your sword,” Orsya’s thought commanded.
I must have unconsciously reached for its hilt when I sighted the rock-monster. Along its blade red runes glowed; they might have been written in freshly shed blood. But they were in no language I knew.
“Illusion? Or is it really there? And, if it is, why does it not attack?”
“Because we have also a protection of illusion about us.”
She raised her hand from the cone and I saw only a rock. “How long we can maintain our cover and—” She hesitated and then continued, “there is also this. We can go together only while we travel by water. I can not take wholly to land. Thus the last part of the journey will be yours.”
“None of it need be yours,” I told her swiftly. “You have the means to make yourself safe. Stay here—” I could not say “stay here until I return,” for I was sure that returning was not one of the things I could read into any future. This quest was mine alone and Orsya need not bear any of its burdens.
It was as if she neither heard my words, nor read them in my mind. Instead she had gone back to studying the cone-rod.
“The sword will warn you. It is not in my power to read its history, for it is of war and warriors. My gifts lie with the waters and, a little, of the earth across which they run. But there are tales which travel from one people to another across this riven land of ours. A blood runs on that blade when evil is nearby, as you have seen. Therefore, when we must part, you must use it as a touchstone to try the truth of what you see: the fair, the safe, those may seem foul or dangerous. The seeming foul may be harmless. Do not trust your unaided sight. Now, it is day—let us go.”
“That thing out there—” I stood up, sword in hand, half expecting to see the rock turn into a monster ready to charge.
“It is a guardian, I think.” Orsya was rewinding the cone in Kaththea’s scarf. “Give me your hand, and walk softly with me in the stream. It may be able to sense that we pass, but it will not see us.”
I kept my eyes upon that rock—fearing that the illusion might hold so that I would still be seeing it while what it covered was stalking us.