There were carved chests with symbols set in their lids. And those I knew for the keep-safes of record rolls. Perhaps it was from one like these that Utta had plundered her two. To go to the nearest, lift the lid and look upon such treasures was a vast temptation. But instead I linked hands with Ayllia and drew her with me in a slow circuit around the wall of that vast room, not venturing out upon the middle portion which was so clear and empty. But there was light enough to show the designs set in colored stones and metal strips which covered most of its surface.
Deeply inlaid, not just drawn for a single ceremony, were the pentagrams, the magic circles, all the greater and lesser seals, the highest of the pentacles. These lay a little out from our path around the walls. But beyond these symbols which were keys to so much knowledge were vaguer lines, not so well defined—as if when one advanced toward the center of the hall one advanced in knowledge, and concrete symbols were no longer needed as guides. Of those I did not know so many, and those I recognized had small differences from the ones I had seen before.
This might almost have been a school for the working of Power, such as the Place of Silence. But so much greater was this, and such suggestions did I read in those vague lines near the center, that I thought those who labored here might well look upon the Wise Women of Es as children taking their first uncertain steps.
No wonder a sensation of life lingered here. The stones of the walls behind these mirrored tapestries, those under our feet, must have been soaked in centuries upon centuries of radiation from Power; so that, inanimate though they were they now reflected what had beat on them so long.
We were a good distance from the door we had entered when I noted the chairs set out on the patterned floor. They were more thrones than chairs, for each rose above the surface of the pavement on three steps, and each was fashioned of the blue stone, having deep-set runes which glowed faintly, as if in their depths fire smoldered, unwilling to die.
They had wide arms and high, towering backs in which were set the glowing symbols. Laid across the seat of the middle one was an adept’s wand, as if left there only for a few moments while its owner went on an errand elsewhere.
The symbol in the back of that chair was one I had seen on the seals, the broken bridge, the door of this citadel—the wand and the sword. And I was sure it stood for the man—or more than man—under whom this pile had held domination over the countryside. I did not doubt that this had been the principal seat of some ruler.
As I glanced at the chair I again remembered the details of my dream. This was where he had sat to watch the glowing presence of the gate he had opened. What had happened then? Had he, as legend told us was true of so many of the adepts, gone through his gate to seek what lay on the other side?
Now I looked past the chair, seeking for some trace of the gate itself, so vividly had the dream returned to my mind. Where that arch had presented itself there was bare pavement; no symbols, not even the vaguest, were discernible on the floor. Had the master of this hall indeed reached a point where he needed none at all for the molding of energy? I had thought the Wise Women, then Dinzil, represented heights of such manipulation. But I guessed that had I met the sometime master of that third and middle chair I would have been as Ayllia, as Bahayi, one simple and lost. And in me that was a new feeling, for though I had been emptied of much which had once been mine, I could remember how it had been at my command. However, here I was conscious of something else, the belief that all I had ever learned would be only the first page of the simplest of runes for the master of gates.
Realizing that, I suddenly felt very small and tired, and awed, though the hall was empty and what I reverenced was long gone. I glanced to Ayllia, who at least was human and so of my kind. She stood where I had left her when my hand dropped from her arm. Her face had a strange emptiness, and I knew a flash of concern. Had bringing her here, into a place where such a vast residue of Power was still to be sensed, blasted her as I with my safeguards need not fear? Had I again, in my stubborn self-centeredness worked evil?
I put my hands gently to her shoulders, turned her a little to look into her eyes, used my seeking to touch her mind. What I sensed was not the blasting I had feared, but a kind of sleep. And I thought this was her defense, perhaps it would continue to work as long as we lingered here.
However it was well to go now lest that seeping of old Power was cumulative and would enslave us.
But to go was like wading through a current striving to sweep us in the opposite direction. To my alarm I discovered that there was an unseen current rising and that it swept around that third chair as if its goal lay somewhere near where I had seen the gate.
Ayllia yielded to it readily before I was fully aware that we might be in real peril. I had to grasp her tightly, pull her back, though her body strained away from me, her eyes stared unseeingly at that central emptiness. The arm I did not grasp swung out, the fingers of her hand groping blindly as if to seek some hold which would aid her to pull out of my determined grip.
I set up my mental safeguards. I was not strong enough to put a wall about both our minds, but if I could hold, surely I could keep Ayllia with me, work us both out of the hall. Beyond the door I thought we would be safe.
Only now it was all I could do to hold against that drag. And Ayllia pulled harder and harder until we were both behind the middle seat and I could have put my hand to its high back. There was the wand on the seat—could I snatch it up as we reached that point? And if so, what could I gain? Such rods of Power were weapons, keys governing shafts to be used in spells. But they also were the property of one seeker alone. What could I gain by trying to use it? Still, it remained so sharply in the fore of my mind that I knew it had some great importance, was not to be lightly overlooked in my present need.
We were level with the seat now. I must make my move to seize the wand or be pulled out of reach, for Ayllia was beginning to struggle against my hold and soon I must keep both hands on her.
I hesitated for a second and then took the chance. With a sharp jerk I dragged Ayllia closer to the chair, took the first step in a single stride, and groped for the end of the rod with my left hand.
* * *
* * *
IX
My fingers dosed about the wand, and then nearly did I drop it, for it was as if I had grasped a length of frosted metal, so cold it burnt the skin laid against it. Yet I did not release it—I could not—for at that moment it clung to me more than I grasped at it.
At the same instant Ayllia broke from my control. She threw herself forward, out of my reach before I could catch her again. As her feet touched the pavement she staggered and went down, falling on her hands and knees. Her weight upon those stones must have released some hidden spring, for a flash burst upward. As it had been in my dream, there stood the gate marked in fiery lines.
“No, Ayllia!” If she heard my shout it meant nothing to her ensorcelled mind. She scuttled forward, still on hands and knees like some tormented beast, and passed between the gateposts of that weird portal.
Though through it I could see the hall beyond, Ayllia vanished utterly once she went through the arch. Still clutching the wand, I leaped after her, determined that no more lives would be lost because of my lack of concern or courage.
There was a feeling of being rent apart, not altogether pain but rather a hideous disorientation because I passed through some space which a human body was never meant to penetrate. Then I was rolling over a firm surface, and I found myself moaning with the punishment I had taken in that brief instant of time or out of time.