I dropped the globe to my breast, where it lay blazing.
There were no burns on my flesh where I had cupped that orb against my will, though in those moments when I had held it I might have been grasping a red-hot coal.
“Toross!” To move him might do his wound great harm; to leave him here certainly meant his death. I had no choice. I must get him on his feet and moving!
The blaze of the globe lit his crumpled body. As I bent over him, setting my hands in his armpits, he stirred, opened his eyes and stared straight up, not seeming to see me at all.
As my hands tightened on him, I had a curious sensation such as I had never experienced before. Spreading out from that blazing crystal on my breast came waves of energy. They coursed and rippled down my arms, through my fingers –
Toross moaned again and coughed, spewing forth blood and froth. But he wavered upward at my pull. When he was on his feet I set my shoulder under his, drew his arm about me, and staggered on. His feet moved clumsily, and most of the weight of his body rested on me, but I managed to keep him moving.
What saved us was that, though a screen of brush ringed the wood, there was comparatively little undergrowth beneath the trees, so we tottered along, heading away from the dangers in the open. I did not know how far I could manage to half-carry Toross, but I would keep going as long as I could.
I am not sure when I noticed that we were following a road-or at least a walk of stones that gave us almost level footing. In the light of the globe, for it continued to blaze, I could see the pavement, moss-grown, but quite straight. Toross coughed again with blood following. And we came out under the moon’s rays, the woods a dark wall as we stood in a paved place into which that white-silver radiance poured with unnatural force, as if it were focused directly on us with all the strength the moon could ever have.
Kvrovan:
On the hill-slope I, Kerovan of Ulmsdale, faced the wayfarer in trader’s clothing, who was no trader, as I knew when his staff beckoned me out of hiding against my will. I put my hand to sword hilt as I came, but he smiled, gently, tolerantly, as one might upon a frightened child.
“Lord Kerovan, no unfriend faces you.” He dropped the point of the staff.
Instantly I was freed from that compulsion. But I had no desire to dodge back and away again, for there was that in his face which promised truth.
“Who are you?” Perhaps I demanded that more abruptly than courtesy allowed.
“What is a name?” he returned. The point of his wand now touched the ground and shifted here and there, though he did not watch it, as if he wrote runes in the dust. “A traveler may have many names. Let it suffice for now that in these dales I am called Neevor.”
I thought he gave me a quick, searching look, as if to see if I knew that name. But my want of understanding must have been plain to read. I thought he sighed, as if regretting something lost.
“I have known Ulmsdale in the past,” he continued. “And to the House of Ulric I have been no unfriend – nor do I stand aside when one of his blood needs aid. Where do you go, Lord Kerovan?”
I began to suspect who – or what – he might be. And I was awed. But because he stood in the guise he did I felt no fear.
“I go to the forest lodge, seeking Riwal.”
“Riwal – he was a seeker of roads, worshiping knowledge above all things. Though he never entered the wide door, he stood on its threshold, and those I serve did not deny him.”
“You say of him ‘was.’ Where is he now?”
Again that wand-tip, which had come to rest, scrabbled across the earth.
“There are roads amany. Understand only that the one he had taken hence is not yours to follow.”
I snatched at what might lie behind that evasion, believing the worst, because of all I had seen and heard, not only this night but in the months in the south.
“You mean he is dead! And by whose hand?” Once more that cold anger possessed me. Had Hlymer also taken this friend from me?
“The hand that dealt the blow was but an instrument – a tool Riwal sought certain forces, and there were those who stood in opposition. Thus he was removed.”
Neevor apparently did not believe in open speech, but was fond of involvements that veiled the question rather than revealed it.
“He turned to the Light, not Dark!” I spoke for my friend.
“Would I be here otherwise, Lord Kerovan? I am a messenger of those forces he sought, to which he was guiding you before the war horns sounded. Listen well. You are one poised upon a mountain peak with before you two paths. Both are dark with danger; both may lead you to what those of your blood speak of as death. It is in your fate that you can turn to either from this night onward. You have it in you to become as your kin-blood, for you were born in the Shrine of – “ Did he utter some name then? I believe that he did. Yet it was one not meant to be spoken by man. I cowered, putting my hands to my ears to shut out the awful echoes from the sky above.
He watched me closely, as if to make sure of my reaction. Now his wand-staff swung up, pointing to me, and down its length came a puff of radiance that floated from its tip through the air and broke against my face before I could dodge the touch, though I felt nothing.
“Kinsman,” he said, in his gentle voice, losing that majesty of tone he had held a moment earlier.
“Kinsman?”
“It seems that when the Lady Tephana wrought her bargain, she did not understand what she achieved. However, she sensed it; yes, she sensed it. You were a changeling, Kerovan, but not for her purposes. In that she read aright. She had set to fashion an encasement of blood, bone, and flesh for her use. Only the spirit it enclosed was not of her calling. It does not advantage one to take liberties with Gunnora. I do not know who looks through your eyes. I think that he yet sleeps, or only half-wakes. But the time will come when you shall remember, at least in part, and then your heritage shall be yours. No, not Ulmsdale – for the dales will no longer hold you – you shall seek and you shall find. But before that you must play out what lies here, for you are half dalesman.” I was trying to understand. Did he mean that the Lady Tephana had worked with some Power before my birth, to make my body a vessel into which to pour some manifestation of the Dark? If so my hoofed feet might be the mark. But – what was I?
“Not what you fear in this moment, Kerovan,” he answered my unspoken thought swiftly. “Halfling you are, and your father’s son, though he was under ensorcellment when he begot you. But where that seeker of Dark Knowledge strove to make a weapon to be used for her own purposes, she gave entry to another instead. I cannot read the rune for you. The discovery of what you truly are, and can be, you must make for yourself. You can return now, ally yourself with them, and find she cannot stand against you. Or – “
His wand indicated the barren hillside. “Or you can walk into a world where the Dark and what you call death will sniff at your heels, ever seeking a way for which there is no guide. The choice is yours.”
“They speak of calling wind and wave to defeat the invader,” I said. “Is this good or ill for Ulmsdale?”
“To loose any Power carries great risk, and those who strive to follow the old ways but are not of the blood, risk double.”
“Can I prevent them then?”
He drew back. I thought his voice colder as he answered, “If you so wish.”
“Perhaps there is a third way.” I had thought of it once or twice as I climbed these slopes. “I can claim kin-right from Ithkrypt and gain a force to retake Ulmsdale before the enemy comes.” But even as I spoke, I knew how thin a chance I had. Lord Cyart was fighting in the south and must have stripped his dale of forces, save for a handful of defenders. There would be none there to be spared, even if I went as a beggar.