“Thiye is dead,” Erij said. “He is dead. Your oath to the witch is done. Now stop her.”
The fact of it hit him like a hammer blow: he stared helplessly at Erij, owning the justice of his claim, trying to think where his obligation truly lay. Then he shook off everything and suspended thought: his duty to either one lay in reaching Morgaine with all possible speed.
He turned and ran, taking the steps two at a time, until he came up, breathless, into yet another hall like the one below.
And confronted Morgaine, as Roh had warned him, hale and well and facing them both with the deadly black weapon secure in her hand.
“Liyo!” he cried, flung up his empty hand as if that alone could ward off harm, and with the other cast Changeling at her feet.
“No!” Erij cried in fury, but bit off further protest as Morgaine smoothly gathered the sheathed blade up, yet keeping the black weapon trained upon them. Then she lowered it.
“Vanye,” said Morgaine. “Well met.”
And she joined them, and began to descend the stairs from which they had come, carefully, trusting Vanye at her back; of a sudden he surmised what she sought thus cautiously.
“Thiye is dead,” he said.
Her gray eyes cast back an unexpected look of agony. “Your doing?”
“No. Roh’s.”
“Not Roh’s,” she said. “Thiye freed me—that being his only hope of defeating Liell and keeping his life. He gave me this slim chance. I would have saved his life if I could. Is Roh down there?”
“He ran,” said Vanye, “saying you meant to destroy this place.” Horrid suspicion came over him. “It was not Roh, was it?”
“No,” said Morgaine. “Roh died at Ivrel, in your place.”
And she raced them down the stairs, pausing only to be careful at the turning, and came into that dread hall of qujalin design.
It was empty, save for Thiye’s sprawled corpse in a widening pool of blood.
Morgaine ran, her footsteps echoing upon the floor, and Vanye followed, knowing that Erij was still with them, and little caring at the time. Anger seethed in him for Liell’s mocking treachery with him; and dread was in him too for what Morgaine might intend with these strange powers.
She reached the very end of the hall, where there rose a vast double pillar of lights, and her hand abandoned the sword upon the counter an instant, while she wove a sure, practiced pattern among the lights. Noise thundered from the walls, voices gibbered ghostlike in unknown languages. Lights flared up and down the pillars, and began to pulse in increasing agitation.
She made it all cease, as quick as a move of her hand, and leaned against the counter, head bowed, like one who had suffered some mortal blow.
Then she turned and lifted her head, her eyes fixed earnestly on Vanye’s.
“You and your brother must quit this place as quickly as you can,” she said. “Liell spoke die truth in one thing: it will be destroyed. The machine is locked in such a way I cannot free it, and Ra-hjemur will be rubble in the time a rider could reach Ivrel. You are free of your oath. You have paid it all. Good-bye.”
And with that she brushed past him and walked quickly down the long aisle alone, headed for the stairs.
“Liyo!” he cried, stopping her. “Where are you going?”
“He has locked the Gate open on a place of his choosing, and I am going after him. I have not much time: he has a good start on me, and surely he has allowed only what he thinks enough time for himself. But he is timid, this Liell: I am hoping that he has given himself too much grace, too much margin.”
And with that she turned again, and began to walk and more quickly, and at last to run.
Vanye started forward a pace. “Brother,” Erij reminded him. He stopped. She vanished down the stairs.
When the last sound of her footsteps was gone he turned again, of necessity, to face the anger in his brother’s face. He went down upon the chill floor and pressed his forehead to it, making the obeisance his oath made due Erij.