Wiz stood up too. As the man took his first step toward Moira he literally blindsided him and shoved him with all his strength, away from his beloved and toward the cliff edge.
The man whooped, tottered on the brink and then went over the cliff backwards, screaming all the way down.
The scream was cut off by an enormous splash and a second later the gorge resounded with curses. When Wiz peeked over the edge he saw that the stream made a pool in the bend of the canyon and the man was in the middle of it, treading water and swearing at the top of his lungs.
A laughing voice called out to him.
“By the nine netherhells I was pushed! They’re up there I tell you. Get after them!”
Again the laughing voice.
“Damn your mangy hide I am not drunk! There’s someone up there and they’re getting away.”
“Better search along that cliff, lads,” came a harsher, louder voice. “Who knows? There may actually be someone up there.”
Wiz and Moira ducked in among the trees and ran for all they were worth, never slowing until they were past the Gate and out on the forest floor again.
There were no sounds of pursuit, but just to be safe Moira led them back and forth through the stream several times and doubled back on their trail twice. All the while she said nothing to Wiz and shushed him when he tried to speak.
By the time Moira was satisfied the sun was dipping toward the horizon. She paused as if considering, and abruptly she changed direction and started angling back almost the way they had come. Finally she struck a track like a sunken road and led Wiz up it.
The road was canopied over with trees and thickly covered with fallen leaves, but there was not so much as a blade of grass growing on it. Here and there were bare spots where he could see paving blocks of blue-gray marble dressed square and neatly fitted together. Occasionally there would be another stone sticking up to one side with a runic inscription on it.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t the Forest Road. It was too wide and too well-built. More, there was a different—feel—about it, and Wiz wasn’t sure he liked the feel at all.
They came over a crest and Wiz looked down on a ruin. Delicate fluted columns and graceful arches protruded here and there from the trees and bushes. Wiz could make out the remains of a wall of the same blue-gray marble running around the place.
It was big, Wiz saw as they trudged down the road toward the ruin. The wall had to enclose several hundred acres. It was hard to imagine what the ground plan could have been, but Wiz formed an impression of a palatial, spacious building that had stood in the midst of extensive gardens.
Moira turned off from the road before they got to what should have been the main gate and searched until she found a breach in the wall. Without a word to Wiz she scrambled over the broken stones and onto the grounds.
She led deeper into the ruin, passing dry fountains surmounted by statues weathered almost to shapelessness, elaborate porticos and paved courtyards which had apparently never been roofed. At last she found a spot that seemed to suit her.
“We will camp here.”
“What was this place anyway?” Wiz asked, staring up at the ruined arches. The pillars were too tall and too thin and the arches themselves were too pointed. Like everything else about the ruin they were at once beautiful and unsettling.
“A castle,” Moira said as she dropped her pack beside him. “They say it belonged to a wizard.”
“I thought we were supposed to avoid magic.”
“It was not my plan to come this way,” the red-haired witch said tartly. “I hoped to be well beyond this part of the Wild Wood by nightfall, but we lost too much time playing hide and seek. This place still has the remnants of the owner’s guard spells and they offer some protection. If it does not meet with your approval I am truly sorry.”