Elossa shook her head. To allow such a vision any place in her mind was to carry out the very purposes of those who had created Atturn-whatever he was. She held her head high and was pleased that her voice was so steady as she asked:
“How do we go?”
Stans had been looking back along the path he had taken once.
“I think I go first-if we only had a rope!”
Elossa managed a laugh which did not sound too ragged. “Uniting us? To what purpose in disaster save that it would mean the loss of us both then. I do not believe that either of us could sustain the weight of the other were that one to slip. If it must be done, let us get to the doing of it!” Perhaps with that last outburst she had revealed her dismay. If so he did not let her realize, by even a look, that he knew how fear ate at her.
Instead, holding the torch close enough to him that the light shone well over his shoulder, he set forth with an air of steady confidence to again cross the tongue. Staff in hand, her cloak held tightly about her, Elossa followed.
It seemed only too soon that they must descend from walking to crawling on hands and knees. She tried to keep her eyes only for the stone way that the flame showed. But those edges drawing ever more closely together were a torment to watch. Maybe she was lucky in that complete darkness did fill the chasm. Was it better not to see? Only then imagination could paint what the eyes did not distinguish.
“Astride here,” his words floated back.
Elossa hitched high her robe, bunching it about her waist The stone, rough and cold, chafed the skin of her inner thighs as she edged slowly along, and the perch on which she rested grew ever more narrow. Her dangling legs appeared to gather weight, making her ever afraid of over-balancing.
Then Stans seemed to give a leap, if one could so express his quick thrust forward from a sitting position. The torch flashed down. He had laid its butt on a ledge, the flames out over the gulf. On his knees, he turned to reach both hands to hers.
Somehow the girl loosed her grip on the stone. The staff she had held across her lap she snatched up, angling it to him. He seized the length of wood, then there came a steady pull, to drag her over what was indeed the most shaky of supports-the very tip of the tongue, a bit of stone no wider than her hand, where it just touched the ledge.
She sprawled forward, her body landing full on Stans, pushing him back across the stone. For a moment or two she could not move at all. It was as if the demands she had put on her body and her courage had weakened both at once, leaving her as weak and empty as one who has been ill for a long time.
Stans’ arms closed about her. She was hardly aware of that fastidious dislike for touching another which was so much a part of her heritage. Elossa only knew at this moment the warmth of his body close against hers sent rushing back into the darkness of the gulf all the fear which had gnawed at her. They were across-there was stable rock under them.
Then the Raski loosed her as he made a lunge for the torch which was sputtering. He swung it up through the air so the flames took on new life. Elossa felt tears runneling the rock dust on her cheeks, but she bit back any sound. Using the staff for a support she was able to drag herself up and stand, though it felt to her for some space out of time that the solid rock which was her footing swayed from side to side.
Starts, torch in hand, held out that brand. There was no mistaking the way those flames were borne back toward them. Just as the current of air, which seemed to her as fresh as the wind from a mountain tip, blew from some space before them. There must be some way out waiting for them.
Elossa was hungry, her body ached from the journey. But she was in no mind to suggest that they halt, drink of what they carried in the water bottles strapped to their girdles, or eat the rest of her crumbs of journey bread. If there was a chance of winning out of here in the not too distant future, that was all that mattered.
The size of ledge on which they stood did have limits. It might not be as clearly defined as the tongue for a bridge, but there was space to be seen on either side. Only, before them loomed a new opening in a rock wall, unworked natural stone. It was down this passage that the air came.
Stans had thrown back his head, was drawing in deep breaths.
“We must be close to the outer world,” he commented. “There is no underground taint in this wind.”
He must feel as heartened by the thought of escape as she was for he moved on with a hasty stride and she hurried to catch up with him.
14.
They emerged into a night near as dark as the passage from which they came. Clouds massed overhead heavily enough to shut out all signs of moon or stars. And there was a wind which carried in it more than a promise of the winter season now not so distant. Having found their door they were not so determined to use it yet, at least not until they knew more of the world into which they had come. In mutual consent they withdrew again into the passage and, finding a niche which protected them somewhat from the wind, they crowded into its shelter, deciding to wait out the hours of dark there.
Elossa brought out the last of her journey cakes-a mass of crumbs. And they had the water in the bottles. Having eaten, they drank, and then agreed, though they lacked any method of telling time, to share sentry duties.
Stans arbitrarily claimed the first watch period and Elossa did not dispute him. The ordeal of the bridge crossing still was with her. She was content for now to huddle within her cloak and just rest. But sleep came upon her then with the suddenness of a blow.
When she roused from that state it was to feel Stans’ hand on her shoulder, shaking her into wakefulness. He grunted some disjointed words she did not clearly catch and settled down himself in the dark leaving her to look out upon the strangeness of this over-mountain country.
At first she sharpened her sleep-drugged wits by trying to place their present position. Their crossing of the valley had been mainly an east to west trail. But when Stans had sought the Mouth he had certainly gone north. Had their journey also within the ulterior of the heights been northward? She was certain that was so. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she believed that they were surrounded by peaks higher than the foothills among which they had earlier traveled. There was no mistaking a certain feel to which she was sensitive from her life among the heights.
Now that the pressure of the journey, the need to escape, was gone, she tried to marshal what little she knew, what she had observed and felt, into a logical sequence from which she might reason possible future action.
Two heritages had been very much in evidence in the way of the Mouth: Raski-even though Stans denied that he knew much of Atturn-Yurth in the mysterious figure who had attempted to slay them with the ancient weapon of her own people and then had vanished.
Yet because of their very heritage there was no reasonable motive for such a melding of menace. Until she and Stans had stood in the sky ship and made their own uneasy alliance there had been, to Elossa’s knowledge, no pacific meeting between Yurth and Raski.
She fumbled in folds of her clothing and brought forth the mirror pendant. There was no light of moon to give it life; she was able to see only a disc, and that very shadowy in her hand. Also to use that would open her mind, leave her defenseless to any other who had mind-send, mind-probe. Restlessly she fingered it, longing to put it to use, caution acting as a brake on her desire.
That Yurth call-concerning that she had not been mistaken. If that were only a mental illusion, to match what had been visual ones, then she was indeed lost. A chill of fear crawled along her body, far worse than any sold brought by the wind and the stone surrounding her. Mind must control illusion. But if the mind itself were to be invaded by such-against that not even the most strongly armed Yurth could stand! And she did not claim the completely trained powers of her elders.