He must have given one of those voiceless orders to his followers for they began to open boxes and casks and set out on the corner of the dais a gleaming circle, making it fast to that base.
It pleased, or amused Zandur to explain what they did for two reasons: to let me know there was no escape from what he planned for me, and to have an audience. Perhaps he had long gone lonely for one still sentient enough to match him in brain power, for it was plain to see that the gray men were no companions, rather servants and extra hands and legs for his use.
What they were doing was preparing a second pillar, this to encase me as Hilarion was held. And so encased I would add what Power I held, even as the adept did, to the protection and renewing of Zandur’s precious machines. He seemed almost to believe, as he talked, that once it was all explained to me I would indeed understand the justice and need for this action, and go docilely into the cage which would be far more permanent than the one which held me now, going so because I agreed that this was necessary.
The very ancient war between the towers and this place had existed so long as a way of life that he could not think of any other pattern. And aught which would make more secure his position was to be seized upon and incorporated in his defense. Thus I was another sword for his hand.
His followers worked with precision and no wasted motions, as if they needed little direction to the task. They had embedded the ring in the floor of the dais, and now they set certain small machines about it.
When they had done and stepped away, I made ready. They must release the force of my rod cage to free me from one trap before putting me in another. I would have seconds then to act. I tensed, ready, the wand now in my right hand. Yet I strove to give Zandur the impression of one cowed and easy to control.
Perhaps he thought speed best, to use surprise as a counter to any attempt at escape on my part. The glow from the rods flicked out without warning. Only I had been watching, was ready.
I did not try to leap away as he probably expected. Instead I hurled the wand and joyfully saw Ayllia catch it. Then, without hesitation, she turned and leaped up the last step to the top of the dais, dashing for Hilarion’s pillar with the wand held point out, as she might hold a sword against a human enemy.
Perhaps Zandur was not aware at once of what I had done. Or he could have been so sure of his own defenses and safeguards that such cooperation between me and one he believed utterly useless came as a shock he did not at first absorb. I think that absolute control for so many centuries had given him such confidence in his own power to rule his world that he could not foresee nor understand what had happened.
The point of the wand struck the pillar. In that moment all the installations in the chamber went wild, as if some vast storm, such as the Wise Women working in concert could summon, burst upon our unsheltered heads.
Flashes of raw light which blinded and hurt the eyes, noise as might have been thunder multiplied a thousand times, swept down and held us. Smoke rose in acrid clouds to make a stinking fog.
I moved now, running for the arch in the wall screen. I heard Zandur shouting, saw gray men blundering here and there as light whips of raw energy struck at them. There were things I saw only briefly, marveled at afterward, when I remembered them. There were worms of fire crawling on the floor, or dropping from air to writhe with a semblance of living creatures. I leaped over one and reached the front of the dais.
“Ayllia!” With mind call I pulled her and she came stumbling down to me. I need not so summon that other; he was already running for the arch, free as he had not been for untold centuries. In his hand was the wand, which he used as a pointer, aiming with it to send those serpents of fire hither and thither behind us. Whether they attacked Zandur and his men I could not see, for the stifling smoke was a yellow fog to set one coughing, with streaming eyes, but they did build behind us a formidable rear guard.
Hilarion looked at me and I read in his eyes something of what he felt in his moment of triumph. With his free hand he gestured us on toward the opening through the big screen; there was an alert wariness about him which told me that we were far from rid of what Zandur might summon.
On the other side of the screen we met the first of these ranks of the gray men, in their hands fire tubes such as I had seen used by those who cut their way into the transports. I drew upon the tripled power within me and built a hallucination. It was hastily constructed, unfinished, but for the moment it served. Ayllia, by my side, took on the appearance of Zandur. Seeing him with us, the gray men did not loose their fire, but fell back to give us an open passage, down which we fled.
We came to a plate in the floor beneath the balcony and huddled on this at Hilarion’s gesture. Once we were upon it, it rose under us, taking us to the higher level. None too soon, for the gray men had taken heart, or learned the deception, and were firing at where we had been only seconds earlier. As those fiery trails whipped back and forth under the rising plate, I saw smoke float out from behind the screen and heard the clamor of that storm Hilarion’s freeing had induced.
“Well done, sorceress,” For the first time he spoke. “But we are not free yet. Do not think that Zandur is one as easily handled as this girl you have so aptly used.”
“I do not underrate any enemy,” I told him. “But help comes—”
“So!” It appeared that with that I had startled him. “Then you did not come through the gate—you two—alone?”
“I am not alone.” I made him an answer, but more than that I did not say. Hilarion was a key now as Ayllia had been the key earlier, and I did not trust him. Only with my mother and father to stand with me would I dare to set any demands on him . . . for the old question stirred and dwelt ever at the back of my mind: some of the adepts, many, had turned to the Shadow. Was Hilarion even faintly so tainted, though he might not have been wholly of the dark? I had believed in and trusted Dinzil, who had in turn seemed one with the Valley people, been accepted as friend by them. And yet he had proved in the end to be one with the enemy. So it would seem there were those on the other side of our war who could take on the semblance of light while they were truly of those choosing to walk in the great dark.
A common danger can make temporary allies of unfriends and this might be true here. Suppose Hilarion did return us through the gate he had created, enter with us into Escore, and then prove to be such a one as those there had to fear? No, we must be ever on our guard until we knew—and how could we learn?
* * *
* * *
XIV
We faced now what seemed a solid wall, and I remembered how that had parted when I had been drawn here and closed behind me. How could we force our way out when this must be controlled by Zandur’s machines, and we had not even the fire shooting weapons of his followers? It would not take them long to reach where we stood, and then we might be crisped to ashes with no escape.
But Hilarion had no doubts. He approached the wall, though I noticed how he moved stiffly, as if long imprisonment in the pillar had frozen his body. But even if his muscles obeyed him slowly, he had every confidence in his Power. As Ayllia had done he used the wand in a swordsman’s move, laying its tip against that portion of the wall where we could see a fine line of division.
And I felt, though I did not add to it, the surge of will which emanated from him at that moment. From the tip of the wand leaped a blue spark which fastened to that line, sped down and up, running along it. There was a trembling through the floor on which we stood. Then the portal gave, very grudgingly, affording us only a narrow slit of passage. I pushed Ayllia through and followed myself, to have Hilarion bring up the rear.