And now the little beasts snorted and danced. The cavalcade came to a halt beneath the leaning man.

Gelmar rode forward. "Kell a Marg," he said. "Skaith-Daughter." His voice had a flat quality, as though he were holding it in rigid check. "Fenn. Ferdic."

The figures were cloaked against the wind but their heads were bare except for diadems of wrought gold. The diadem of the foremost figure was set with a great smoky jewel. There was something peculiar about the three faces, very pale in the aurora-light.

Kell a Marg said, "Gelmar." The voice was like chiming bells. It was a woman's voice, imperious in spite of its music, with the innate arrogance of unquestioned power. A match for Gelmar, Stark thought. He had made out the peculiarity of the faces. They were covered in fine white fur, and the features, while not unpleasing, were distorted subtly from the human-the noses blunted, the jaws prominent. The woman had eyes as huge and dark and glowing as the jewel she wore. Night-creature's eyes. She said to Gelmar, "Did you think to pa.s.s through our mountains without pause?"

"Skaith-Daughter," said Gelmar, and now there was just the faintest edge of irritation in his voice, "we have an urgent mission and time is short. I thank you for this honor, but-"

"No honor," said Kell a Marg. She looked past him at the captives. "These are the wicked ones you were seeking?"

"Kell a Marg-"

"You've been setting the whole of the north by its ears; it's small wonder we know. Even in our deep caverns, we're not deaf."

The edge of irritation had sharpened. "Kell a Marg, I told you-"

"You told me there was a threat to Skaith, something new and strange that only you of the Citadel could deal with. You told me only because I asked you-because the Ha.r.s.enyi had brought us tales we could not understand."

"There was no need to concern yourself."

"You take too much on your shoulders, Gelmar. You intend to settle the entire future of Skaith-Our-Mother without consulting us, her Children."

"There is no time, Kell a Marg! I must take these people south as soon as possible."

"You will make time," said Kell a Marg.

There was a silence. The wind from the high north whined and chuckled. The hooded figures listened dutifully to the endless prayer of the leaning man. The cloaks of the Children fluttered.

Gelmar said, "I beg you not to interfere." Irritation had become desperation. He knew this woman, Stark thought. Knew her and feared her, disliked her intensely. "I understand these people, I've dealt with them, I know what must be done. Please, let us pa.s.s."

The ground shook, ever so slightly. Above their heads the leaning man seemed to sway.

"Kell a Marg!"

"Yes, Wandsman?"

A second small quivering. Pebbles rattled down. The leaning man bowed. The Ha.r.s.enyi began hastily to move themselves and their beasts out from under those tons of rock.

"Very well!" said Gelmar furiously. "I will make time."

Kell a Marg said briskly, "The Ha.r.s.enyi may enter and wait in the usual place."

She turned and walked with a lithe, undulant stride toward the cliff. There was a sort of lane between the stone figures. She went along it, with Fenn and Ferdic, and the cavalcade followed meekly. Gelmar's stiff back was eloquent of stifled rage.

Gerrith had straightened up. Her head was high. High and proud. Stark felt a qualm of alarm not connected with the Children or the threatening quality of the cliff which, he knew, was about to swallow them. They had already alarmed him, but this was different. He wondered again what she knew, and d.a.m.ned all prophetic visions for the thousandth time.

Halk's voice came from the litter, weak but still jeering. "I told you you could not escape the Children by talking them away."

A great slab of stone opened in the cliff face, moving easily on its pivots. The cavalcade pa.s.sed through.

The door swung shut. Kell a Marg flung back her cloak. "I do so hate the wind!" she said, and looked at Gelmar, smiling.

They were in a large cavern, evidently the place where the Ha.r.s.enyi customarily came to trade with the Children. Lamps burned dimly in the quiet air, giving off a scent of sweet oil. The walls were rough, the floor uneven. At its inner side there was a second door.

"The lesser Wandsmen are not needed," said Kell a Marg. "I think we'll get little good from the wounded man, so he may stay here as well. Those two-" She pointed to Stark and Gerrith. "The wise woman and the one called, I believe, the Dark Man. I want them. And of course, Gelmar, I require your counsel."

The green Wandsmen accepted their dismissal with bad grace; Vasth looked poisonous but held his tongue. Gelmar's jaw was tightly set. He could barely control his anger.

"I shall need guards," he said, cutting the words very short. "This man Stark is dangerous."

"Even in irons?"

"Even in irons."

"Four of your creatures, then. Though I fail to see how he could hope to escape from the House of the Mother."

There was a shuffle of dismounting. Kell a Marg stood easily, waiting with her courtiers. Stark knew without being told that she did not often stand this way, in this outer cavern, with the nomads. This was a special occasion, one of sufficient urgency to make her break precedent. She was looking at him with frank curiosity.

He looked at her. The cloak tossed back over slender shoulders revealed a lean body as arrogant as her voice, clad in its own sleek white fur and ornamented with a light harness of the same wrought gold as the diadem. A beautiful animal, a voluptuous woman. A great royal ermine with wicked eyes. Stark felt no stirring of excitement.

She lifted a shoulder daintily. "This one may or may not be as dangerous as you say, but it's bold enough." She turned and led the way to the inner door. It swung silently open.

Kell a Marg strode through it. Gelmar, his two captives, and his guards followed after, with the wiry white-furred courtiers bringing up the rear.

Attendants who had opened the door swung it shut again behind them, and they were closed into a strange and beautiful world.

Stark shivered, a shallow animal rippling of the skin.

The House of the Mother smelled of sweet oil, of dust and depth and caverns.

It smelled of death.

22.

They were in a corridor, wide and high, lighted by the flickering lamps. A group of people were waiting there. They bent their heads with the pale fur and the close-set ears and the golden diadems that varied in size and splendor according to rank. A murmur of voices repeated reverently, "Skaith-Daughter. You have returned."

Stark thought they had been waiting a long time and were tired of standing. At one side he noticed four of the Children gathered together, apart from the others. They bore themselves with a separate pride. They were clad in skull-caps and tabards of some black material, close-belted with golden chains, and they did not bow. Their collective gaze went immediately to the strangers.

Courtiers and officials, when they straightened up, also fixed Stark and Gerrith with cold and hostile eyes. Wandsmen they were apparently used to, for they spared Gelmar only an unwelcoming glance. The strangers seemed to disturb them deeply.

"I will speak with the Diviners," said Kell a Marg, and gestured the courtiers out of the way.

The black-clad ones fell in around Kell a Marg. They five walked ahead, speaking in low voices. The courtiers and officials had to be content with the last place in line.

They walked for what seemed a long while. The walls and roof of the corridor were covered with carvings, some in high relief, others almost in the round. They were done with great artistry. They appeared to have something to do with the history or the religion of the Children. Some of the history, Stark judged, might have been stormy. There were places where the carvings had been damaged and repaired, and he counted six doors in the first stretch that could be closed against invaders.

Chambers opened off the corridor. They had magnificently carved doorways, and what he could see of their interiors gave an astonishing impression of richness. Pierced lamps of silver picked out gleams of color, of inlay and mosiac, touched the outre shapes of things that Stark could only guess at. One thing was certain; these Children of Skaith-Our-Mother had little in common with their cousins of the Sea. Far from being animals, they had what was obviously a complex and highly developed society, working away here beneath the glittering peaks of the Witchfires.

Or ought he to say "had once had?"

Some of the chambers were unlighted. Others had only one or two lamps in their large darkness. There was that subtle odor of dust and death, a feeling that the comings and goings glimpsed in the branching corridors and the work, whatever it might be, that was going on, were all less than they should be in the House of the Mother.

The corridor ended in an enormous cavern, a natural one where the fantastic rock formations had been left untouched. There were lamps enough here, and a royal path of marble blocks set into the floor. Beyond was a series of jewel-box ante-rooms, and then the vaulted chamber that must belong to Kell a Marg, Skaith-Daughter.

It was perfectly plain. Walls and floor were faced with some luminous white stone, without carving or ornamentation. It was completely bare. Nothing was allowed to distract the eye from the focal point of the room, the high seat.

Kell a Marg climbed the broad steps to the dais and sat herself.

The high seat was carved from rich brown rock the color of loam, and the shape of it was a robed woman, seated to hold Skaith-Daughter on her knees, her arms curved round protectively, her head bent forward in an att.i.tude of affection. Kell a Marg sat with her hands on the hands of Skaith-Mother, and her slim, arrogant body gleamed against the dark stone.

The Diviners stood in a little group at her right, the others were scattered around the s.p.a.cious emptiness, close to the high seat; Fenn and Ferdic were at her left. Gelmar, Stark, Gerrith, and the guards were together at the foot of the steps.

"Now," said Kell a Marg, "tell me again of this danger that has come to Skaith."

Gelmar had taken firm hold of himself. His voice was almost pleasant.

"Certainly, Skaith-Daughter. But I would prefer to do it more privately."

"These about me are the Keepers of the House, Gelmar. The Clan Mothers, the men and women who are responsible for the well-being of my people. I wish them to hear."

Gelmar nodded. He looked at Stark and Gerrith. "Only let these two be taken out."

"Ah," said Kell a Marg. "The captives. No, Gelmar. They stay."

Gelmar began an angry protest, smothered it, inclined his head, and began to tell the story of the ships.

Kell a Marg listened attentively. So did Fenn and Ferdic, the Clan Mothers and the counselors. Under the attentiveness was fear, and something else. Anger, hate-the instinctive rejection of an intolerable truth.

"Let me be clear about what you say," said Kell a Marg. "These ships. They come from outside, from far away?"

"From the stars."

"The stars. We had almost forgotten them. And the men who fly in these ships, they also come from outside? They are not born of Skaith-Mother?"

The glowing eyes of the Clan Mothers and the counselors looked at Stark, looked at blasphemy.

"That is so," said Gelmar. "They are alien to us, completely. We let them stay because they brought us things we lack, such as metals. But they brought us worse-off-world ways, foreign ideas. And they corrupted some of our people."

"They corrupted us with hope," said Gerrith. "Skaith-Daughter, let me tell you how we live under the rule of the Lords Protector and their Wandsmen."

Gelmar would have liked to stop her, but Kell a Marg silenced him. She listened while Gerrith spoke. When she had finished, Kell a Marg said, "You and your people wished to get into these ships and fly to another world, away from Skaith? You wished to live on alien soil, which never gave you breath?"

"Yes, Skaith-Daughter. It may be difficult for you to understand. We looked upon it as salvation."

It was the wrong thing to say. She knew it. Stark knew it. Yet it had to be said.

"We found a different salvation," said Kell a Marg. "We returned to the womb of the Mother, and while your people starved and clawed and died under Old Sun, we lived warm and fed and comfortable, secure in the Mother's love. Do not expect me to weep for you, nor to care about what the Wandsmen do in their own place. I have a larger concern than that."

She turned to Gelmar. "This revolt still goes on."

Reluctantly, he said, "It does."

"Well," said Stark, "and we knew that."

Kell a Marg continued. "You intend to take these people south. Why?"

"There was a prophecy-"

"Yes," said Kell a Marg. "The Ha.r.s.enyi brought us some gossip about that. It concerned this man, did it not?" She looked at Stark.

Gelmar appeared anxious to hurry by this point. "It sparked the revolt. If I prove to them that the prophecy was false-"

Kell a Marg interrupted him, speaking to Gerrith. "Was this your prophecy, wise woman?"

"My mother's."

"And what did it say about this man?"

"That he would come from the stars," said Gerrith, "to destroy the Lords Protector."

Kell a Marg laughed, silvery spiteful laughter that touched Gelmar's cheekbones with a dull flush.

"I can see your concern, Gelmar! Too bad if he destroyed them before you had your turn."

"Skaith-Daughter!"

"But surely they know?" She turned to the strangers, wicked eyes alight. "Surely you know by now? The Lords Protector are only Wandsmen grown older."

Stark's heart gave a great leap. "They're human?"

"As Gelmar. That's the great reason they must remain invisible, here in the hidden north, behind their mists and their myths and their demon Northhounds. Invisibility is a condition of G.o.dhead. If folk could see them, they would know the truth, and the Lords Protector would cease to be divine. Or immortal. They would be only Wandsmen, clever enough and ambitious enough to put on white robes and spend their declining years at the Citadel wrapped in all the rewards that faithful service to their G.o.d of Goodness can bring. And these rewards are many."

Stark laughed. "Human," he said, and looked at Gelmar.

Gelmar's expression was venomous. "You need not mock, Skaith-Daughter. We serve the needy, which is more than the Children do, who serve only themselves. In the time of the Great Wandering you were asked repeatedly to give sanctuary here in the House of the Mother to folk who were dying for the lack of it, and you turned them all away."

"And so we have survived," said Kell a Marg. "Tell me, how many sufferers were taken past the Northhounds into the Citadel, to save their precious lives?"

"The Citadel is sacred ..."

"So is the House of the Mother. The Children were here before the Citadel was built..."