"Shut your mouth," said Stanhelm. The henchman lifted his hand as if to strike, but suddenly several other forge men moved in on either side of him. Some of them held bits of iron sc.r.a.p, heavy and sharp-edged.

"You heard," one of them growled quietly at Inch's man. "Shut your mouth."

The man looked around, judging his chances. "You'll pay pretty when Doctor hears. He'll be done with that'un in a moment."

"Then go watch," spat another of the forge workers. The men seemed frightened, but somehow they had drawn a line: if they were not yet willing to fight back against the hulking overseer, neither would they stand by and see Inch's crony harm Simon or Stanhelm. The henchman cursed and backed off, then hurried to the safety of his master's vicinity.

"Now, lad," Stanhelm whispered. "Look to yon wheel."

Dizzied by all that was happening, Simon stared at the forge man as he tried to make sense out of his words. Then he turned slowly and saw.

The great wooden paddlewheel had been lifted up so that it hung almost twice a man's height above the watercourse. Inch, who had pursued floundering Guthwulf a short way down the sluice, now stood beneath the wheel.

Stanhelm extended a bent and shaking arm. "There. Them are the works."

Simon struggled to his feet and took a few shaky steps toward the vast framework. The lever which he had seen Inch use was c.o.c.ked, secured by a rope. Simon slowly tugged the rope free, straining his burning muscles and cramped hands, then grasped the lever itself in slippery, numbed fingers. Inch had pushed Guthwulf under again; he watched his victim's suffering with calm interest. The blind man was floundering away from his tormentor, toward Simon, and now appeared to be beyond the wheel's rim.

Simon said the few words of the Elysia prayer that he could remember, then heaved on the wooden lever. It moved only slightly, but the frame that held the wheel groaned. Inch looked up and around, then gradually turned his monocular gaze toward Simon.

"Kitchen boy! You ..."

Simon heaved again, this time lifting his feet from the ground so that all his weight hung on the lever. He screamed with the pain of holding on. The frame groaned again, then, with a grating squeal, the lever banged down and the wheel shuddered and dropped into the sluice with a thunderous splash. Inch tried to dive forward out of the way, but disappeared beneath the huge paddles.

For a moment nothing moved in the whole cavern but the wheel, which began, slowly, to revolve. Then, as if the frothing channel gave birth to a monster, Inch burst to the surface howling in anger, water running from his wide-stretched mouth.

"Doctor!" he spluttered, waving his fist. he spluttered, waving his fist. "Can't kill me! Not Doctor Inch!" "Can't kill me! Not Doctor Inch!" Simon slumped to the ground. He had done all he could. Simon slumped to the ground. He had done all he could.

Inch took a sloshing step forward, then began to fly. Simon stared, overwhelmed. The world had run entirely mad.

Inch's body lifted out of the water. Only when all of him was in view could Simon see that the foundry-master's broad belt had somehow caught on the fittings of one of the vast paddle blades.

The waterwheel bore Inch upward. The giant was in a frenzy now, bellowing as he was manhandled by something even larger than he was. He twisted at the end of the blade, struggling to free himself, reaching back to smash at the wooden paddle with his fist. As the wheel swung him up toward the top of its rotation, he reached out for the great chains which twined around its axle and climbed up out of sight into the shadows of the cavern ceiling. Inch's huge hands grasped the slippery links. He clung tightly. As they pulled upward past the wheel, he was stretched to his utmost for an instant. Then the buckle of his belt snapped loose and he fell free of the paddle. He clung to the ma.s.sive chain with both his arms and legs.

Inch was still not coherent, but his echoing roar changed to a note of triumph as the chains carried him slowly upward. He swung away from the wheel so he could drop into the water below, but when he let go, he fell only a little way and then tipped over. He slammed against the chain and dangled, head downward. His foot had slid through the center of one of the wide, oily links and was wedged there.

The overseer thrashed, trying to pull himself up to free his foot. Howling and sputtering, he tore his own leg b.l.o.o.d.y, but he could not drag his weight high enough. The chain carried him up toward the unseen heights.

His cries grew fainter as he vanished into the shadows overhead, then a horrendous agonized cry echoed down, a rasping gargle with nothing human in it. The wheel lurched in its rotation for a moment and stopped, bouncing a little from side to side as the current pushed at the immobilized paddle blades. Then the wheel began to turn again, forcing the obstruction through the monumental grinding gears that turned Pryrates' tower-top. A drizzle of dark fluids rained down. Bits of something more solid spattered across the waterway.

Moments later, what remained of Inch slowly descended into the light, wrapped around the huge chain like meat on a cooking skewer.

Simon stared idiotically for a moment, then bent, retching, but there was nothing in his stomach to bring up.

Someone was patting his head. "Run, lad, if you got place to go. Red priest'll come quick. His tower stopped turning for a good long time when wheel was up."

Simon squinted against the black flecks that danced before his eyes, fighting to make sense of things. "Stanhelm," he gasped. "Come with us."

"Can't. Nothing left of me." Stanhelm gestured with his chin at his twisted, badly-healed legs. "Me and others'll keep the rest shut up. Say Inch had a bit of accident. King's soldiers won't do us badly-they need us. You run. Didn't belong here."

"n.o.body belongs here," Simon gasped. "I'll come back for you."

"Won't be here." Stanhelm turned away. "Go on now."

Simon clambered to his feet and stumbled toward the watercourse, pain arrowing through him with every step. A pair of forge workers had lifted Guthwulf out of the water; the blind man lay on the cavern floor, struggling for air. The men who had saved him stared, but did nothing further to help. They seemed curiously numbed and slow, like fish in a winter pond.

Simon bent and tugged at Guthwulf. The last of the strength Maegwin's sacrifice had lent him was eddying away.

"Guthwulf! Can you get up?"

The earl flailed his hands. "Where is it? G.o.d help me, where is it?"

"Where is what? Inch is dead. Get up! Hurry! Where do we go?"

The blind man choked and spat water. "Can't go! Not without ..." He rolled over and forced himself up onto hands and knees, then began scrabbling along the ground beside the watercourse, pawing as though to dig himself a hole.

"What are you doing?"

"Can't leave it. I'll die. Can't leave it." Suddenly, Guthwulf gave an animal cry of joy. "Here!"

"Aedon's mercy, Guthwulf, Pryrates will be here any moment!"

Guthwulf took a few staggering steps. He lifted something that reflected a yellow strip of torchlight. "I should never have brought it," he babbled. "But I needed something to cut the rope." He gasped in more air. "They all want to take it."

Simon stared at the long blade. Even in the shadowy forge chamber, he knew it. Against all sense, against all likelihood ... here was the sword they had sought.

"Bright-Nail," he murmured.

The blind man suddenly lifted his free hand. "Where are you?"

Simon took a few painful steps closer. "I'm here. We have to go. How did you get here? How did you come to this place?"

"Help me." Guthwulf put out his arm.

Simon took it. "Where can we go?"

"Toward the water. Where the water goes down." He began to limp along the edge of the channel. The forge workers drifted back to let them pa.s.s, watching with nervous interest.

"You're free!" Simon croaked at them. "Free!" They stared at him as though he spoke a foreign tongue.

But how are they free, unless they follow us? The forges are still locked, the doors still barred. We should help them. We should lead them out. them out.

Simon had no strength left. Beside him, Guthwulf was mumbling, shuffling his feet like a lame old man. How could they save anyone? The forge workers would have to make their own way.

The water ran foaming down through a fissure in the cavern wall. As Guthwulf felt his way along the stone, Simon was momentarily certain that the blind earl had lost what few wits he had left-that they had escaped drowning once, but would now be washed down into blackness. But there was a narrow track along the edge of the watercourse, one that Simon could never have found in the shadows. Guthwulf, to whom light was useless, made his way downward, tracking the wall with his fingers as Simon struggled to help him and still remain balanced. They pa.s.sed out of the last gleams of torchlight and into blackness. The water churned noisily beside them.

The darkness was so complete that Simon had to struggle to remember who he was and what he was doing. Fragments of the things Leleth had showed him floated up from his memory, colors and pictures as swirlingly confused as an oil film on a puddle. A dragon, a king with a book, a frightened man looking for faces in the shadows-what did all these things mean? Simon did not want to think any more. He wanted to sleep. To sleep ...

The roar of the water was very loud. Simon emerged suddenly from a haze of pain and confusion to find himself leaning sideways at a precarious angle. He grabbed at the cracked wall of the fissure, pulling himself upright. "Guthwulf!"

"They speak so many tongues," the blind man murmured. "Sometimes I think I understand them, but then I am lost again." He sounded very weak. Simon could feel him trembling.

"I can't ... go much longer." Simon clung to the rough stone. "I have to stop."

"Almost." Guthwulf took another stumbling step along the slender track. Simon forced himself away from the wall, struggling to retain his clutch on the blind man.

They trudged on. Simon felt several openings in the stone wall pa.s.s beneath his fingers, but Guthwulf did not turn. When the tunnel began to resonate with loud voices, Simon wondered if he were sliding into Guthwulf's madness, but after a short while he saw a gleam of amber torchglow on the cavern wall and realized that someone was coming down the sluiceway behind them.

"They're after us! I think it's Pryrates." He slipped and released his hold on the blind man to steady himself. When he reached out again, Guthwulf was gone.

A moment of complete panic ended when Simon found the opening to a spur tunnel. Guthwulf was just inside. "Almost," the earl panted. "Almost. The voices-Aedon, they're screaming!-but! I have the sword. Why are they screaming?"

He headed down the tunnel, lurching against the walls. Simon kept his hand against the earl's back as Guthwulf turned several more times. Soon Simon could no longer remember all the turnings. That was hopeful-whoever followed them should find it no easier.

The trudge through blackness seemed to go on and on. Simon felt bits of himself drifting away, until he thought himself a spirit again, an unhomed ghost like the one that had roamed the gray s.p.a.ces alone.

Alone except for Leleth. And Maegwin. Maegwin.

Thinking of those who had helped him there, he reached down for a last increment of resolve and struggled on.

Walking in a daze, he did not notice that they had stopped until he felt Guthwulf abruptly drop forward; when Simon's hand found him again, the blind man was crawling. When Guthwulf stopped, Simon reached down and felt crumpled cloth strewn across the stone. A nest. Letting his hand travel farther across the floor, Simon touched the earl's quivering leg, then the cold metal of the sword.

"Mine," Guthwulf said reflexively. His voice was muddy with fatigue. "This, too. Safe."

At that moment, Simon no longer cared about the sword, about Pryrates or any soldiers who might be following, or even whether the Storm King and Elias might bring the whole world tumbling down around his ears. Every breath burned, and his arms and legs were a-twitch with agonizing cramps. His head hammered like the bells in Green Angel Tower.

Simon found a place of his own amid the scattered rags, then surrendered to the dark pull.

25.

Living in Exile

Jiriki took his hands off the dwarrow-stone. took his hands off the dwarrow-stone.

Eolair did not need to be told. "She is gone." The count stared at Maegwin's pale face, relaxed now as though in sleep. "Gone." He had been preparing himself for this moment, but still felt as though a huge emptiness had opened inside him, a void that would never be filled. He reached out and grasped her hands, which were still warm.

"I am sorry," said Jiriki.

"Are you?" Eolair did not took at him. "What can the short life of a mortal mean to your kind?"

The Sitha did not speak for a moment. "The Zida'ya die, just as mortals do. And when those we held in our hearts have pa.s.sed from us, we, too, are unhappy."

"Then if you understand," Eolair said, struggling for control, "please leave me alone."

"As you wish." Jiriki stood, a catlike unfolding from his seat on the pallet. He seemed about to say something more, but instead went silently out of the tent.

Eolair stared at Maegwin for a long time. Her hair, damp with sweat, lay in tight curls across her forehead. Her mouth seemed to hint at a smile. It was almost impossible to believe that life had left her.

"Oh, the G.o.ds have been cruel masters," he groaned. "Maegwin, what did we do to be so ill-treated?" Tears started in his eyes. He buried his face in her hair, then body was shaken by sobs. For a while he could only rock back and forth, clutching her hand. The dwarrow-stone was still in her other palm, held against her breast as though to keep it from theft.

"I never knew. I never knew. You foolish woman, why did you tell me nothing? Why did you pretend? Now all is gone. All is lost...."

Jiriki, white hair streaming in the wind, was waiting for him when he emerged. Eolair thought he looked like a storm-spirit-like a harbinger of death.

"What do you want?"

"As I said, Count Eolair, I am very sorry. But there are things I think you should know-things that I discovered in the last moments of the Lady Maegwin's life."

Oh, Brynioch preserve me, he thought wearily. The world was too much for Eolair, and he did not think he could bear any more Sithi riddles. he thought wearily. The world was too much for Eolair, and he did not think he could bear any more Sithi riddles.

"I am tired. And we must leave tomorrow for Hernystir."

"That is why I wish to tell you now," Jiriki said patiently.

Eolair stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. "Very well. Speak."

"Are you cold?" Jiriki asked this with the careful solic itousness of one who had learned that although he never suffered from the elements, others did. "We can walk to one of the fires."

"I will survive."

Jiriki nodded slowly. "That piece of stone was given to Maegwin by the Tinukeda'ya, was it not? By those you call domhaini?" domhaini?"

"It was a gift from the dwarrows, yes."

"It was much like the great stone you and I visited in Mezutu'a beneath the mountain-the Shard, the Master Witness. When I touched this small stone, I felt much of Maegwin's thought."

Eolair was disturbed by the idea of the immortal being with Maegwin in her last moments, being with her in a way he could not. "And can you not leave those thoughts in peace-let them go with her to her barrow?"

The Sitha hesitated. "It is difficult for me. I do not wish to force things upon you. But there are things I think you should know." Jiriki laid his long fingers against Eolair's arm. "I am not your enemy, Eolair. We are all hostages to the whims of a mad power." He let his hand fall. "I cannot claim to know for certain all that she felt or thought. The ways of the Dream Road-the path that Witnesses such as the dwarrow-stone open-are very confusing these days, very dangerous. You remember what happened when I touched the Shard. I was reluctant even to risk the Other Pathways, but felt that if there was a chance I could help, I should."

From a mortal Eolair would have found this self-serving, but there was something about the Sitha that suggested an almost frightening sincerity. Eolair felt a little of his anger slip away.

"In that muddle of thoughts and feelings," Jiriki continued, "I did understand two things, or at least I am fairly sure that I did. I believe that at the end her madness lifted. I did not know the Maegwin that you knew, so I cannot be certain, but her thoughts seemed clear and unmuddied. She thought of you. I felt that very strongly."

Eolair took a step backward. "She did? You do not say that to soothe me, as a parent might to a child?"

The Sitha's smooth face momentarily showed surprise. "Do you mean tell you something that is not true, deliberately ? No, Eolair. That is not our way."

"She thought of me? Poor woman! And I could do nothing for her." The count felt tears returning, but made no attempt to hide them. "This is no favor, Jiriki."