“It is impossible,” he said. “I never came near the Stones.” “I would not wager anything on that memory,” she said. She turned her head; he rode behind her here, for the path was narrow at the bottom of the hill. He had view of the gray’s white swaying tail and Morgaine’s white-cloaked and insolent back; and the presence of this structure she called a Gate cast a pall upon all his thoughts. He had leisure to repent his oath in , this ill-omened place, and knew that in a year with Morgaine he was bound to see and hear many things an honest and once religious man would not find comfortable.
He had a sudden and uncomfortable vision as he saw her
riding ahead of him upon that stretch of the old paved road up between the lesser monoliths: that here was another kind of anachronism, like a man visiting the nursery of his childhood, surrounded by sad toys. Morgaine was indeed out of the long-ago; and yet it was known that the qujal had been evil and wise and able to work things that men had happily forgotten. Not needing transport, not needing such things as mortal weapons, qujal only wished and practiced sorceries, and what they wished became substance—until they grew yet more evil, and ruined themselves.
And yet Morgaine rode, live and powerful, and carried under her knee a blade of forgotten arts, in the ruins of things she might well have known as they once had been.
It was said that Thiye Thiye’s-son was immortal, renewing his youth by taking life from others, and that he would never die so long as he could find unfortunates on whom to practice this. He had tended to scoff at the rumor: all men died.
But Morgaine had not, not in more than a hundred years, and still was young. She found the hundred years acceptable. Perhaps she had known longer sleeps than this.
The higher passes were choked with snow. Gray and bay fought drifts, struggling with such effort that they made little time. They must often pause to rest the animals. Yet by afternoon they seemed to have made it through the worst places, and without meeting any of the Myya or seeing tracks of beasts.
It was good fortune. It was bound not to last.
“Lady,” he said during one of their rests, “if we go on as we are we will be in the valley of Morij Erd; and if we enter there, chances are you will not find welcome for either of us. This horse of mine is out of that land; and Gervaine its lord is Myya and he has sworn a great oath to have my head on a pike and other parts of me similarly distributed. There is no good prospect for you or for me in this direction.”
She smiled slightly. She had been in lighter humor since the morning, when they had quitted the valley of Stones and entered the more honest shades of pine woods and unhewn crags. “We bear east before then, toward Koris.”
“Lady, you know your way well enough,” he protested glumly. “Why was it needful to share me for a guide?”
“How should I know otherwise that Gervaine is lord of Morij Erd?” she asked, still smiling. The eyes did not. “Besides, I did not say that you were to be a guide in these lands, ilin,” •
“What, then?”
But she did not answer. She had that habit when he asked what displeased her. More human folk might dispute, protest, argue. Morgaine was simply silent, and against that there was no argument, only deep frustration.
He climbed back into his saddle and saw thereafter that they bore more easterly, toward Koris, toward that land that was most firmly in Thiye’s hands.
Toward dusk they were in pine forest again. Gray-centered clouds sailed across the moon increasingly frequent as the night deepened, and yet they rode, fearful of more storms, fearful for the horses, for there was little grain remaining in both their saddlebags, and they wished to make what easy time they could, hopeful of coming to the lower country before the winter set a firm grip on the passes before them. The bright moon showed them the way.