The flow of strength had renewed me; I felt that I could face whatever
came. I thrust Evarin's mirror into my pocket; flung a word to Narayan
and we were riding again, Gamine racing behind us. The blue shroudings
had been torn to ribbons by the snappings of falcon-claws; I could see
the pallid gleam of naked flesh through the torn veils. The noise of
battle behind us grew more distinct; I could make out the explosions
and the distant flashes of colored flame. I shuddered; even now that
frightful army of falcons might be winging to join Adric and Evarin.
The rebels could kill some of them, but for every falcon dead there
would be twenty more slaves for Narabedla! What could Narayan's men
with their scythes and pitchforks and rude rusty guns do against the
incredible science of a Toymaker? Narayan's strained face was ghastly
in the moonlight; I needed no telepathy to read his thoughts. Slaughter
for his men--what for his sister? Our horses seemed to lag, to drag
through a mire of motionless, yet they were at the full gallop of their
endurance. The sound of fighting grew closer. Everything in me cried
out that I was an utter fool, riding full tilt into a battle in which I
had no stake. Yet something else told me, coldly and with a grim truth,
that all I possessed was what I might win today, for this was the only
world I would ever know; that I would never see my own world again.
Never! And Adric should rot in a hell of his own choosing for that!
The sounds of fighting seemed very close. Narayan pulled up his horse
so quickly that it nearly sent Gamine plunging into his back. He
said in a low, concentrated voice, "Adric isn't at the battle! This
way--quick!" He whirled the horse and dashed down a side road at right
angles to the way we had been riding. If we had raced before, now our
horses seemed to fly. The battle raged behind us; I heard dim screams,
the neighing of wounded horses, the muffled sound of earth flying
upward, exploded in fire. But it had a dreamy unreal quality, like
noises through a nightmare. We had left the forest and were riding
across a dark and hummocky plain. Moss padded our hoof-noises; now
and then some small furry thing skittered across the track we were
following and twice my horse shied at swooping birds and my heart
stopped until I saw they were not the falcons of Evarin.
Stark and black against a treeless horizon I could see the Dreamer's
Keep, between the small crescents of the two lesser moons. The largest
one rode a golden orbit over my head. I rode hunched in the saddle, my
eyes on the vast cairn only a few miles away.
Suddenly a vast arch of lightning spanned the sky above the
Dreamer's Keep. Blue lightning. I heard Narayan groan like a man
in his death-agony. Twisting in my saddle, I saw brooding horror
on his face--mingled with pain--and a terrified satisfaction. "The
sacrifice--I still--feel it," he breathed in labored gasps, "I
still--take from it--Mike! Mike--" His voice held unbearable torture,
and the veins in the fair face stood out, black and congested with
effort. "If I start to work for--them--promise--promise to shoot me--"
"Oh God--" I gasped.
"Mike, promise! Gamine!"
Gamine spurred the horse to his side; I heard the low voice, sweet,
almost crooning. Again the vast arch of blueness spanned the sky.
Narayan dug spurs savagely into the side of his horse and raced ahead
of us. On the plain, limned starkly against the sky, a horseman
appeared. He rode low in the saddle, his horse carrying a double
burden, but racing fleetly--to the Keep of the Dreamers. I cursed--I
knew that lean crouched figure, knew it as well as my own! Adric rode
to the sacrifice--and before him, limp across his saddle, he bore
Cynara!
The rest of that nightmare ride is a blank in my mind. The next thing
I remember clearly is reining up beneath the lee of the gaunt pile of
rocks-on-rocks that was the Dreamer's Keep. There was no sign of Adric
or Cynara, no sign of any living person, nothing but the incandescent
blue lightning that rayed out now every four seconds or so; Narayan's
face was a white death-mask, and Gamine's breathing came in short
sobbing pants. I alone was free from the effect. My body throbbed and
tingled with the weird energy set free in the night. We flung ourselves
from our horses. Gamine tugged futilely at the torn veilings to conceal
her face, and for the first time the blurred invisibility wavered and I
caught a glimpse of one blue eye, blue as the sky lightnings that rose
and flared and died.
The lee of the tower dwarfed us with its massive bulk. Gamine clutched
my arm, the cruel fingers digging bruisingly into my flesh. "Listen!"
I strained my ears. All I could hear was a low, not unpleasant humming,
like the singing drone of great bees or high-tension wires; but the
sound struck both aliens with horror. Narayan opened his lips--
I dug frantically in my other pocket; brought out the Toy Rhys had
given me. At sight of it Narayan's haggard face relaxed a little. He
caught it from me with quick hands. "Free of Adric--" he breathed
with that swift erasure of tension I had seen before. He drew a long,
moaning sigh. He closed his eyes for a moment.
Somewhere above us a scream rang out; a cry bestial in its mad appeal.
It broke the static immobility that held us, and Narayan, sliding the
Toy inside his shirt, turned and began to run around the Tower, Gamine
and I panting at his heels.
We came around the corner beneath an arching outcrop of stone-work.
No one needed to give orders; as one, we scrambled up on the ledge,
crowding close together.
I gripped my hand on the knife in my belt. It had a comforting feel. I
needed that.
A framed archway let us look down into the inside of the Keep. Below
us a voice cried out despairingly--unbelievingly. "Adric--" we heard
Cynara cry out, "Adric, no--oh, no--" Under our combined weight the
glass shattered; we hurled inward. We found ourselves standing on a
great shelf, about ten feet above the interior floor of the Keep,
looking down at a scene framed in stark horror. Golden Karamy, dwarfed
Idris, Evarin--stood in a close circle about a ring of coffins which
gleamed crystal--glowed with scintillant radiance. In the hand of each
of them was a tiny, jewelled, faceted Toy, and in the coffins--
Gamine screamed.
"The Dreamers--"
Not till then did we see Adric and what he was doing. In the center
of the ring of coffins a dais rose upright, horribly altar-like, and
a line of the mindless slaves, nude, vacant-eyed, defiled before the
altar. As each slave stepped forward there was a shuddering moan from
the others, the tiny swords rose and fell and in a brilliant flame of
blue light, the slave--was not! And Adric--Cynara struggling between
his hands--was thrusting her forward, into the space between the
coffins, toward the nexus of the blue light--toward the Sacrifice-stone
of the Dreamers!
The sight put us beyond caution. We threw ourselves from the ledge--and
went down into a writhing, sprawling mass of living flesh. A barked
command from Idris, and the slaves swarmed on us, drowning us in
smothering bodies. I kicked and sprawled and thrashed and scratched and
bit my way to the top of the heap and somehow for a second, I rolled
free. That instant was enough. I was on my feet, the knife in my hand.
Dragging bodies clung at my heels; I kicked out savagely, felt my boot
strike naked flesh, felt and heard the pulpy sound of a skull crushing
under the impact of my heel. The sound rocked my stomach, but I was
not in a position to be fastidious. My eyes were swimming in trickling
blood. Gamine clawed and thrust free and together we elbowed out of the
press.
Evarin sprang at me. I thrust blindly with the knife in my hand, ripped
into his shoulder, missing the throat by inches. I caught the Toy from
his hand as it fell free. A moment of the clinging, tearing melee--then
we three--Gamine and Narayan and I were standing back to back in the
centre of the ring of coffins. There was a long howl of pain and terror
from Evarin and the four Narabedlans flung themselves backward in a
panic terror. For within the coffins the Dreamers were waking!
But Adric was no coward. He threw himself quickly forward--caught
at Cynara again, and with all the force in his lean arms he flung
her--straight toward the nexus of blue light! Narayan and Gamine stood
frozen, bound by the Toys in their hands against the light, but I broke
free--I passed straight across the cone of blue lightning--
_Unharmed!_ The blasting energy tingled pleasantly in my body as
I caught Cynara in mid-air and reeled away from the force that would
have meant annihilation for her. Narayan broke away from the paralysis
momentarily and caught Cynara's staggering body from my arms. Then I
felt the impact as Adric's tall, heavy body crashed against me, felt
the shock as my fist smashed against his jaw and heard him grunt as we
locked into a clinch that carried us nearer--and nearer to that center
of blue energy. A moment we swayed there, at the very edge of the
lightning--then Evarin's tensed cat-body hit in the centre of my back--
Again the heat thrust needles through me. Adric was flung clear, but
there was an arch of blue that spanned the vault, a wild scream like
the death-cry of a panther, and the Toymaker was--
_Gone!_
Within the coffins the blue lights wakened, as if the last flare of
energy had freed them. Quickly Idris and Karamy ran forward, quickly
Adric leaped to join them, thrusting the Talisman Toys against the very
lids of the coffins--but too late. The Toys in the hands of Narayan
and Gamine spat glaring blue fire, and step by step the Narabedlans
retreated; farther, farther, farther--
The coffins were suddenly empty. As if by magic, three old men and a
woman of surpassing beauty materialized about Narayan and Gamine. In
their faces I could distinguish a curious likeness to Narayan and to
old Rhys--and Narayan, within the circle of the Dreamers, reached out
and flung the tattered veils from Gamine. A triumphant chant rushed
sweetly from the lips of the Spell-singer as the veils came away and
in the center of the mutants stood Gamine the Dreamer, dwarfing them
all by a pure majesty; the majesty of a Dreamer who had never slept!
A woman she was, slender and fair and very beautiful and as like to
Narayan as a twin sister, and I thought of Isis and the young Osiris
as the blue eyes blazed out and the lovely body arched upward in tall
freedom from the shrouding veils. Blue lightning swirled and faded
and the Dreamer's tower was bathed in trembling irridescent rainbows.
Karamy and Idris retreated step by step, slinking back into the
shadows. Only Adric stood his ground.
The Rainbows died. The air was void and empty of energy. The Dreamers
stood looking on the crouching Karamy with her hidden face, on the
bent, gnarled dwarf, on Cynara, kneeling white and radiant, on Adric,
who stood with his lips parted, staring at Gamine like a man released
from a spell. It was Gamine who spoke, her eyes resting on Karamy.
"She has done much evil."
The others clamored, but Gamine shook her head, long pale hair lifting
electrically around her face. "No," she disclaimed softly, "Why should
they die? They are only an old dwarf--a silly fool who could not make
up his own mind--" her eyes dwelt disquietingly on Adric. "And Karamy.
They have no power, now we are freed. Pity them--now we are freed."
Adric, slowly, drew himself upright. His slackly-parted lips set
firmly and he looked at Narayan with a dispassionate, stubborn shrug.
"Kill me, if you like."
"No, Gamine." Narayan stepped toward the man in crimson, "Adric," he
said in a strange, half-choked excitement, "I want to see what you saw
before--to see what sent you away--to see the thing that drove you mad.
Gamine's veils--Gamine, let him see! Show him, Gamine! Show him what he
saw then!"