Loyse held the cup to the other's mouth. "Thanks from you to me are hardly necessary," she returned with what boldness she could muster. "It would appear that you carry with you a weapon as potent as any steel!"

Over the rim of the cup the witch's eyes were smiling. Loyse, meeting that kindliness, lost some of her awe. But she was still young, awkward, unsure of herself, sensations she resented bitterly.

"It was a weapon I could not use until you distracted the attention of my would-be bedfellow, the n.o.ble Lord Commander. For it is one I dare not risk falling into other hands, even to save my own life. Enough of that-" She lifted her hands, examined the bandages about her wrists. Then she surveyed the disordered room, noting the shawl on the floor with its burden of sheared hair, the saddle bags on the coffer.

"It is not to your mind to travel to your bridegroom, my lady d.u.c.h.ess?"

Perhaps it was the tone of her voice, perhaps it was her power compelling something within Loyse. But she answered directly with the truth.

"I am no d.u.c.h.ess in Karsten, lady. Oh, they said the words over me this morning before Yvian's lords, and afterwards they paid me homage on their knees." She smiled faintly remembering what an ordeal that had been for Siric. "Yvian was none of my choosing. I welcome this wedding only to cover my escape."

"Yet you came to my aid," the other prompted, watching her with those great, dark eyes which measured until Loyse smarted under their gaze.

"Because I could not do otherwise!" she flared. "Something bound me here. Your sorcery, lady?"

"In a way, in a way. I appealed in my fashion to any within these walls who had the ability to hear me. It would appear that we share more than a common danger, lady of Verlaine, or," she smiled openly now, "seeing that you have changed your guise for this outfaring, lord of Verlaine."

"Call me Briant, a mercenary of blank shield," Loyse supplied, having prepared for that days ago.

"And where do you go, Briant? To seek employment in Kars? Or in the north? There will be a demand for blank shields in the north."

"Estcarp wars?"

"Say rather that war is carried to her. But that is another matter." She stood up. "One which can be discussed at length once we are without these walls. For I am sure you know a road out."

Loyse draped the saddle bags across her shoulder, drew the hood of her cloak over her uncrested helm. As she moved to turn off the light globes, the witch jerked at the shawl on the floor. Vexed at her own forgetfulness, the girl caught it and threw the strands of hair into the dying fire.

"That is well done," the other commanded. "Leave nothing which could be used to draw you back-hair has power." She glanced to the middle window.

"Does that give on the sea?"

"Yes."

"Then lay a false trail, Briant. Let Loyse of Verlaine , die to cover it!"

It was the work of a moment to throw open that cas.e.m.e.nt, to drop her fine bride robe just below. But it was the witch who bade her fasten a sc.r.a.p of undergarment to the rough edge of the stone sill.

"With such an open door to face them," she commanded,"I do not think they will seek too a.s.siduously for other ways out of this chamber."

Back they went through the mirror door, and now their path led down through the dark where Loyse urged that they hug the wall to the right and take the descent slowly. Under their hands that wall grew moist, and dank smells of the sea, tainted with an ancient rottenness, were thick in the air. Down and down, and now the murmur of the waves came faintly thrumming through the wall. Loyse counted step after step.

"Here! Now there is the pa.s.sage leading to the strange place."

"The strange place?"

"Yes, I do not like to linger there, but we shall have little choice. We must wait for the dawn light to guide us out."

She crept on, fighting the building reluctance within her. Three times had she come that way in the past, and each time she had carried on this silent warfare with her own body as the field of battle. Again she knew that rise of brooding apprehension, that threat out of the dark promising more and worse than just bodily harm. But still she shuffled on, her fingers hooked in her companion's belt, drawing her also.

Out of the blackness Loyse heard the heavy breathing, a catch of breath. And then the other spoke, in a faint whisper, as if there crouched near that which might overhear her words.

"This is a Place of Power."

"It is a strange place," Loyse repeated stubbornly. "I do not like it, but it holds our gate out of Verlaine."

Though they could not see, they sensed they had come out of the pa.s.sage into a wider area. Loyse caught a glimpse of a bright point of light overhead-the beacon of a star hung far above some rock crevice.

But now there was another faint gleam which brightened suddenly, as if some m.u.f.fling curtain had been withdrawn. It moved through the air well above ground level-a round gray spot. Loyse heard a sing-song chant, words she did not know. And that sound reverbrated in the curiously charged air of the s.p.a.ce. As the light grew stronger she knew that it came from the witch's jewel.

Her skin tingled, the air about them was charged with energy. Loyse knew an avid hunger-for what she could not have told. In her other visits to this place, the girl had been afraid and had made herself linger to control that fear. Now she left fear behind, this new sensation was one she could not put name to.

The witch, revealed in the light of the gem on her breast, was swaying from side to side, her face set and rapt. The stream of words still poured from her lips-pet.i.tion, argument, protective incantation-Loyse could not have said which. Only the girl knew that they were both caught up in a vast wave of some energizing substance drawn from the sand and rock under their feet, from the walls about them, something which had remained asleep through long centuries to come instantly awake and aware now.

Why? What? Slowly Loyse made a complete turn, staring out into the gloom she could not pierce by eyepower. What lurked just beyond the faint pool of light the jewel granted them?

"We must go!" That came urgently from the witch. Her dark eyes were widely open, her hand moved clumsily to Loyse. "I cannot control forces greater than my own! This place is old, also it is apart from human kind and from the powers we know. G.o.ds were worshiped here once, such G.o.ds as altars have not been raised to these thousand years. And there is a residue of their old magic rising! Where is your outer gate? We must try it while yet we can."

"The light of your jewel-" Loyse shut her own eyes, pulling forth her memory of this place, as earlier she had used her memory of the other wall-hidden ways. "There," she opened them again and pointed ahead.

Step by step the witch moved in that direction and the light went with and around her as Loyse had hoped. Steps wide and roughly hewn, rounded by ages of time, loomed to their right. They led, Loyse knew, to a flat block with certain sinister grooves which lay directly under a break in the roof, so that at intervals light from the sun, or from the moon, bathed it in gold or silver.

Around that platform fashioned of broad steps, they crept on to the far wall. The light of the jewel caught the fall of earth which lay below Loyse's gate. It would be risky to climb that tumble of stone and clay in this gloom, but she was impressed by the urgency of the witch.

The climb was as great a task as Loyse had feared. Though her companion made no complaint, she knew that to use those swollen hands must be torment. When and where she could the girl pushed and pulled the other, tensing together when the rubble shifted under their feet, threatening to plunge them both to the bottom once again. Then they were out, lying on coa.r.s.e gra.s.s with the salt air about them, and a grayish glimmer in the sky telling them that the night was almost gone.

"Sea or land?" asked the witch. "Do you seek a boat along the sh.o.r.e, or do we trust to our two feet and head into the hills?"

Loyse sat up. "Neither," she replied crisply. "This lies at the end of the pastures between the hold and the sea. At this season the extra mounts are turned loose to range here until they are needed. And in a hut near the gate is the horse gear of the rangers. But that may be under guard."

The witch laughed. "One guard? Little enough to stand between two determined women and their desire this night, or rather this morning. Show me this hut with the horse gear and I shall make you free of it with no man the wiser thereafter."

They went across the end of the pasture. The horses, Loyse knew, would be close to the hut, where block salt had been set out two days before the storm. The jewel had gone dead when they had emerged from the cavern and they had to pick their way carefully.

A lantern burned over the door of the hut and Loyse saw horses moving back and forth. The heavy war chargers bred to carry an armored man in battle did not interest her. But there were the rough coated, smaller mounts kept for hunting in the hills, able to withstand hardship and keep going far past the exhaustion point of the costlier animals Fulk fancied for his own riding.

Out into the circle of the lantern light moved two such ponies-almost as if her thought had called them. They seemed uneasy, tossing their heads until their ragged manes flopped on their necks, but they came. Loyse put down the saddle bags, whistling softly. To her delight the small horses came on, snuffling to one another, their forelocks looping over their eyes, with s.h.a.ggy patches of their winter coats making them look dappled in the dim light.

If they would only prove tractable once she had the gear! She circled about them slowly and approached the hut. There was no sign of the guard. Could he have deserted his post for the feasting? It would be his death if Fulk discovered it.

Loyse pushed inward on the door and it creaked.

Then she was peering into a place which smelt of horses and oiled leather, yes, and of the strong drink the village people brewed of honey and herbs, which was enough to make even Fulk blink into sleep at the third tankard. A jug rolled on its side, away from the touch of her boot, and sticky stuff dribbled sluggishly from its mouth. The guardian of the pastures lay on a truss of straw snoring l.u.s.tily.

Two bridles, two of the riding pads used by hunters and swift riding messengers. They were easy to lift from pegs and ledge. Then she was back in the field and the door pulled to behind her.

The horses remained docile as she bridled them and slapped on the pads, cinching them as tightly as she could. But when both women were mounted and on the upper trail which was the only way out of Verlaine, her companion asked for the second time: "Where do you ride, blank shield?"

"The mountains." Most of Loyse's concrete plans had dealt only with the mechanics of her escape from Verlaine. Beyond this point where she now rode, equipped, mounted, she had foreseen little. To be free and out of Verlaine had seemed so impossible a happening, so difficult an achievement that she had bent all her wits to the solving of that, with little thought of what would happen after she gained the mountain trails.

"You say Estcarp wars?" She had never really thought of venturing through the wild band of outlaw territory between Verlaine and the southern border of Estcarp, but with one of the witches of that land as a riding companion it might now be the best choice of all.

"Yes, Estcarp wars, blank shield. But have you thought of Kars, lady d.u.c.h.ess? Would you look upon your realm in secret and see what manner of a future you have tossed away?"

Loyse, startled, almost kneed her mount into a trot unsafe for the way they threaded.

"Kars?" she repeated blankly.

Something in that worked in her mind. Yes, she had no mind to be Yvian's lady d.u.c.h.ess. But on the other hand Kars was the center of the southern lands and she might find a kinsman or two there if she needed help later. In so large a city a blank shield with money in his purse could lose himself. And should Fulk manage to discover something of her trail he would not think to search for her in Kars.

"Estcarp must wait yet awhile," the other was saying. "Trouble stirs through the land. And I would know more of it, and of those who do the stirring. Kars is a starting point."

She had been managed; Loyse knew that, but there was no feeling of outrage in her. It was rather that she had at long last found the end of a tangled cord, one which, if she dared to follow it through all its coils, would bring her where she had always wanted to be.

"We shall ride to Kars," she consented quietly.

PART III: VENTURE OF KARSTEN.

THE HOLE OF VOLT.

Five men lay on the wave-beaten sand of the tiny cup of bay and one of them was dead, a great gash across his head. It was a hot day and shafts of sun struck full on their half-naked bodies. The smell of the sea and the stink of rotting weeds combined with the heat in a tropic exhalation.

Simon coughed, bracing his battered body up on his elbows. He was one great bruise and he was very nauseated. Slowly he crawled a little apart and was thoroughly sick, though there was little enough to be ejected from his shrunken stomach. The spasm shook him into full consciousness, and, when he could control his heaving, he sat up.

He could remember only parts of the immediate past.

Their flight from Sulcarkeep had begun the nightmare. Magnis...o...b..ric's destruction of the power projector, that core of energy supplying light and heat to the port, had not only blown up the small city but must have added to the fury of the storm which followed. And in that storm the small party of surviving Guards, trusting to the escape craft, had been scattered without hope of course keeping.

Three of those vessels had set out from the port, but their period of keeping together had lasted hardly beyond their last sight of the exploding city. And what had ensued had been sheer terror, for the craft had been whirled, pitched, and finally shattered on coastwise rock teeth in a period of time which had ceased to be marked in any orderly procession of hours and minutes.

Simon rushed his hands over his face. His lashes were matted with a glue of salt water and caught together, making it hard to open his eyes. Four men here-Then he sighted that half crushed head-three men, maybe, and the dead.

On one side was the sea, quiet enough now, washing the tangles of weed ripped loose and deposited on the sh.o.r.e. Fronting the water was a cliff face, broken, with handholds enough, Simon supposed. But he had not the slightest desire to essay that climb, or to move, for that matter. It was good just to sit and let the warmth of the sun drive out the bitter cold of storm and water.

"Saaa . . ."

One of the other figures on the strand stirred. A long arm swept the sand, pushing away a ma.s.s of weed. The man coughed, retched, and raised his head, to stare blearily about. Then the Captain of Estcarp caught sight of Simon and regarded him blankly, before his mouth moved in an effort at a grin.

Koris hunched up, his over-heavy shoulders and arms taking most of his weight as he crawled on hands and knees to a clear s.p.a.ce of water-flattened sand.

"It is said on Gorm," he spoke rustily, his voice hardly more than a croak, "that a man born to feel the weight of the headsman's ax on his neck does not drown. And, since it has ofttimes been made clear to me that the ax is my fate-see how the oldsters are proven right once again!"

Painfully he moved on to the nearest of the still p.r.o.ne men, and rolled the limp body over, exposing a face which was grey-white under its weathering. The Guardsman's chest rose and fell with steady breath and he appeared to have no injuries.

"Jivin," Koris supplied a name, "an excellent riding master." He added the last thoughtfully, and Simon found himself laughing weakly, pressing his fists against his flat middle where strained muscles protested such usage.

"Naturally," he got out between those bursts of half-hysterical mirth, "that is an employment most needed now!"

But Koris had gone on to the next intact body.

"Tunston!"

Dimly Simon was glad of that. He had developed, during his short period of life with the Guard in Estcarp, a very hearty respect for that under officer. Making himself move, he helped Koris draw the two still unconscious men above the noisome welter of tide drift. Then clawed his way to his feet with the aid of the rock wall.

"Water-" That sense of well-being which had held him for a short s.p.a.ce after his own awakening was gone. Simon was thirsty, his whole body now one vast longing for water, inside and out, to drink and to lave the smarting salt from his tender skin.

Koris shuffled over to examine the wall. There were only two ways out of the cup which held them. To return to the sea and strive to swim around the encircling arms of rocks, or to climb the cliff. And every nerve within Simon revolted against any swimming, or return to the water from which he had so miraculously emerged.

"This is not too hard a path," Koris said. He was frowning a little. "Almost could I believe that once there were hand holds here and here." He stood on tiptoe, flattened against the rock, his long arms stretched full length over his head, his fingers fitting into small openings in the cliff wall. Muscles roped and knotted on his shoulders; he lifted one foot, inserted the toe of a boot into a crevice and began to climb.

Giving a last glance at the beach and the two men now well above the pull of the water, Simon followed. He discovered that the Captain was right. There were convenient hollows for fingers and toes, whether made by nature or man, and they led him up after Koris to a ledge some ten feet above the level of the beach.

There was no mistaking the artificial nature of that ledge, for the marks of the tools which had shaped it were still visible. It slanted as a ramp, though steeply, toward the cliff top. Not an easy path for a man with a whirling head and a pair of weak and shaking legs, but infinitely better than he had dared to hope for.

Koris spoke again. "Can you make it alone? I will see if I can get the others moving."

Simon nodded, and then wished that he had not tried that particular form of agreement. He hugged the wall and waited for the world to stop an unpleasant sidewise spiral. Setting his teeth, he took the upgrade. Most of the journey he made on his hands and knees, until he came out under a curving hollow of roof. Nursing raw hands he peered into what could only be a cave. There was no other way up from here, and they would have to hope that the cave had another opening above.

"Simon!" The shout from below was demanding, anxious.

He made himself crawl to the outer edge of the ledge and look down.

Koris stood there below, his head thrown far back as he tried to see above. Tunston was on his feet, too, supporting Jivin. At Simon's feeble wave they went into action, somehow between them getting Jivin up the first climb to the ledge.

Simon remained where he was. He had no desire to enter the cave alone. And anyway his will appeared to be drained out of him, just as his body was drained of strength. But he had to back into it as Koris gained the level and faced about to draw up Jivin.

"There is some trick to this place," the Captain announced. "I could not see you from below until you waved. Someone has gone to great trouble to hide his doorway."

"Meaning this is highly important?" Simon waved to the cave mouth. "I do not care if it is a treasure house of kings as long as it gives us a chance of reaching water!"

"Water!" Jivin echoed that feebly. "Water, Captain?" he appealed to Koris trustfully.

"Not yet, comrade. There is still a road to ride."

They discovered that Simon's chosen method of hands and knees was necessary to enter the cave door. And Koris barely sc.r.a.ped through, tearing skin on shoulders and arms.

There was a pa.s.sage beyond, but so little light reached this point that they crept with their hands on the walls, Simon tapping before him.

"Dead end!" His outstretched hands struck against solid rock facing them. But he had given his verdict too soon, for to his right was a faint glimmer of light and he discovered that the way made a right-angled turn.

Here one could see a measure of footing and they quickened pace. But disappointment waited at the end of the pa.s.sage. For the light did not increase and when they came out into an open s.p.a.ce, it was into twilight and not the bright sun of day.

The source of that light riveted Simon's attention and pulled him out of his preoccupation with his own aches and pains. Marching in a straight line across one wall were a series of perfectly round windows, not unlike ship's portholes. Why they had not sighted them from the strand, for it was apparent that they must be in the outer surface of the cliff, he could not understand. But the substance which made them filtered the light in cloudy beams.