That the gryphon blazed so clearly puzzled me a little after I had schooled myself to accept the meaning of what I saw. It was as if life had poured into that globe. So – perhaps now I knew the reason why I had been so strangely moved to send it to her. Though I had been the finder and had treasured it, it was not mine to have and hold, but was meant rather to lie where it now rested, and was truly hers and not mine. I must accept that also.
How long did that farsight or vision last? I did not know. I knew only that it was true. The strange youth was dying, or would die, and she would mourn him thereafter.
But such a death argued that Ithkrypt was not the refuge I had looked to find. It was not usual for a daleswoman to wear a mail like a warrior, but we did not live in ordinary times. She was armored, and her comrade was dying; to that there could be only one explanation. Ithkrypt was either attacked or soon would be. Still that knowledge did not deter me. Rather it drew me – for I had a duty also to Joisan, whether or no she would ever now turn to me happily. If she were in danger, there was even more reason I should cross the ridges to her. Ulmsdale, once my father’s and now under the hands of those I knew to be of ill intent; Ithkrypt perhaps overrun – I was traveling from one danger to another. Death was surely sniffing at my heels, ready to lay claw-hand on my shoulder. But this road was mine, and I could take no other.
The vision was gone, and with its going my weariness settled so heavily upon me that I could not fight it. I slept the day away in my hole, for when I roused it was already dusk.
I wakened to the pony nudging against my shoulder, as if the beast were a sentry on guard.
Dusk-yes-and more. There was a gathering of thick clouds, such as I had seldom seen. So dark and heavy was that massing that I could not now sight the Giant’s Fist! And the pony crowded in against me as I scrambled to my feet.
The beast was sweating; the smell of it was rank. He pushed his head against my shoulder, and I gentled him with neck-stroking. This was fear the like of which I had seldom seen before in any animal. Emotion gripped me also: a vast apprehension, as if some force beyond understanding gathered, a force that was inimical to all my kind and could, if it would, sweep us like grains of dust from its path.
I backed against the rock wall, my hands still on the pony, waiting. I did not know for what, except I feared it as I never had feared anything before in my life.
There was no wind, no sound. That terrible stillness added to my fear. The dale, the world, cowered and waited.
From the east there was a sudden flash of light. Not the usual lightning, but rather a wide swath across all the heavens. Eastward – over the sea – Power of wind and wave they had spoken of – were they about to summon that? Then the invaders’ ships must lie near to Ulmsport, and they had had little time to ready their plans. What would happen?
The pony uttered a strange sound such as I had never heard from any mount before. It was almost a whimper. And that oppression increased until it seemed that the very air about us was kept from our lungs and we could not breathe freely. Still there came no wind, but sheet lightning flashed seaward. Now came a long roll – as if a thousand war drums beat together.
Above the clouds was a night of such darkness I could see no more than if I were blindfolded. Surely this was no ordinary storm, at least like none I had seen before in my lifetime. My lifetime. Deep in me a thread of memory stirred – but it could not be memory – for it was not of this life but another.
But that was foolishness! A man had but one lifetime and the memories of that – one lifetime –
My skin, where it was exposed to the air, itched and burned as if the atmosphere were poisoned. Then I saw light – but not in the sky – rather auras about rocks as if they were palely burning lanterns, their light a foggy discharge.
For the third time, sheet lightning blanketed the east, and after it came the drum roll. Then followed the wind –
Wind, but such wind as I swear the dale had never felt before. I crouched between the rocks, my face buried in the trembling pony’s rough mane, the smell of the beast’s sweat in my nostrils. He was steaming wet under my hands. There was no way I could shut out the sound of that wind. And surely we would be scooped out of our small refuge by its force, whirled out to be beaten to death in the open.
I braced my hoofs deep in the ground, used the rock at my back and side as best I could to anchor me, and felt the pony, iron-tense in my hold, doing likewise. If the poor beast whimpered now, I could no longer hear him, for the sound of the elements was deafening. The drum beat had become a roar to which there was no end.
I could not think; I could only cower in dull hope of escaping the full fury. But as it continued I grew somewhat accustomed to it, as one can when the first sharp edge of any fear is dulled by a continuation of its source. I realized then that the wind blew from east to west, and its power must be directed from the sea upon Ulmsport.
What such a storm might do along the coast I could not imagine, save that it would utterly devastate everything within its hammer blows. If there had been an enemy fleet drawing to port, that must be completely overwhelmed. But the innocent would suffer with the invader. What of the port and those who dwelt there? If this storm was born of the Power those in the keep thought to summon, then they had either lost control of it or had indeed drawn hither something greater than they had planned.
How long did it last? I lost all track of time. There was no night, no day – only black dark and the roaring – and the fear of something that was not of normal nature. What of the keep? It seemed to me that this fury could well shake even those great stones one from the other, splitting open the firm old building as if it were a ripe fruit.
There was no slacking off as would occur in a true storm. One moment the deafening roar, the fury – then silence, complete, dead. I thought at first that the continued noise, the pressure, had deafened me. Then I heard a soft sound from the pony. He pushed against me, backing into the open.
Above, it was once more dawn. The dark clouds, tattered as my father’s death banner, faded into nothingness. Had it been so long we had been pent there? I stumbled after the pony into the quiet open.
The air no longer held that acridness which had tortured our breathing, but was fresh and cool. And there was a curious – I could only define it as emptiness – in it.
I must see what had happened below. That thought drove me. Leading Hiku along the narrow rim of the dale, I headed back toward the Giant’s Fist. These heights had been scoured. Vast areas of trees and brush had been simply torn away, leaving scars in the earth to mark their former rooting.
So obvious were these signs of destruction, I was prepared in part for what I did sight at the foot of the heights. Yet it was far worse than I expected.
Part of the keep still stood, though its outline was not that of a complete building any longer. About it was water – a great sheet of water on the surface of which floated a covering of wreckage, perhaps part of it ships, part the houses of Ulmsport, but too tangled to be identified with any surety. And that water came from the east – the sea had claimed most of Ulmsdale.
Had those below escaped? I could see no signs of life. The village was under water save for a roof or two. So the disaster those below had wantonly summoned had fallen.
Were they caught up in the maelstrom of the force they could not control? That I hoped. But that Ulmsdale as I had known it was dead, was manifest. No man could have a future here. For I believed that what the sea had won, it would not surrender. If the invaders thought to use this as a foothold, they were defeated.