"Certainly, there. Above all, there!"
She turned to one of the tall windows and looked out at the cliffs and
the high notch of the pass, touched with greenish silver by the little
moons.
"Ban Cruach was a great king. He came out of nowhere to rule the
Norlands with a rod of iron, and men speak of him still as half a god.
Where did he get his power, if not from beyond the Gates of Death? Why
did he go back there at the end of his days, if not to hide away his
secret? Why did he build Kushat to guard the pass forever, if not to
hoard that power out of reach of all the other nations of Mars?
"Yes, Stark. My men will follow me. And if they do not, I will go
alone."
"You are not Ban Cruach. Nor am I." He took her by the shoulders.
"Listen, Ciara. You're already king in the Norlands, and half a legend
as you stand. Be content."
"Content!" Her face was close to his, and he saw the blaze of it, the
white intensity of ambition and an iron pride. "Are you content?" she
asked him. "Have you ever been content?"
He smiled. "For strangers, we do know each other well. No. But the spurs
are not so deep in me."
"The wind and the fire. One spends its strength in wandering, the other
devours. But one can help the other. I made you an offer once, and you
said you would not bargain unless you could look into my eyes. Look
now!"
He did, and his hands upon her shoulders trembled.
"No," he said harshly. "You're a fool, Ciara. Would you be as Otar, mad
with what you have seen?"
"Otar is an old man, and likely crazed before he crossed the mountains.
Besides--I am not Otar."
Stark said somberly, "Even the bravest may break. Ban Cruach
himself...."
She must have seen the shadow of that horror in his eyes, for he felt
her body tense.
"What of Ban Cruach? What do you know, Stark? Tell me!"
He was silent, and she went from him angrily.
"You have the talisman," she said. "That I am sure of. And if need be, I
will flay you alive to get it!" She faced him across the room. "But
whether I get it or not, I will go through the Gates of Death. I must
wait, now, until after the thaw. The warm wind will blow soon, and the
gorges will be running full. But afterward, I will go, and no talk of
fears and demons will stop me."
She began to pace the room with long strides, and the full skirts of the
gown made a subtle whispering about her.
"You do not know," she said, in a low and bitter voice. "I was a
girl-child, without a name. By the time I could walk, I was a servant in
the house of my grandfather. The two things that kept me living were
pride and hate. I left my scrubbing of floors to practice arms with the
young boys. I was beaten for it every day, but every day I went. I knew
even then that only force would free me. And my father was a king's son,
a good man of his hands. His blood was strong in me. I learned."
She held her head very high. She had earned the right to hold it so. She
finished quietly,
"I have come a long way. I will not turn back now."
"Ciara." Stark came and stood before her. "I am talking to you as a
fighting man, an equal. There may be power behind the Gates of Death, I
do not know. But this I have seen--madness, horror, an evil that is
beyond our understanding.
"I think you will not accuse me of cowardice. And yet I would not go
into that pass for all the power of all the kings of Mars!"
Once started, he could not stop. The full force of that dark vision of
the talisman swept over him again in memory. He came closer to her,
driven by the need to make her understand.
"Yes, I have the talisman! And I have had a taste of its purpose. I
think Ban Cruach left it as a warning, so that none would follow him. I
have seen the temples and the palaces glitter in the ice. I have seen
the Gates of Death--_not with my own eyes, Ciara, but with his. With the
eyes and the memories of Ban Cruach!_"
He had caught her again, his hands strong on her strong arms.
"Will you believe me, or must you see for yourself--the dreadful things
that walk those buried streets, the shapes that rise from nowhere in the
mists of the pass?"
Her gaze burned into his. Her breath was hot and sweet upon his lips,
and she was like a sword between his hands, shining and unafraid.
"Give me the talisman. Let me see!"
He answered furiously, "You are mad. As mad as Otar." And he kissed her,
in a rage, in a panic lest all that beauty be destroyed--a kiss as
brutal as a blow, that left him shaken.
* * * * *
She backed away slowly, one step, and he thought she would have killed
him. He said heavily:
"If you will see, you will. The thing is here."
He opened the boss and laid the crystal in her outstretched hand. He did
not meet her eyes.
"Sit down. Hold the flat side against your brow."
She sat, in a great chair of carven wood. Stark noticed that her hand
was unsteady, her face the colour of white ash. He was glad she did not
have the axe where she could reach it. She did not play at anger.
For a long moment she studied the intricate lens, the incredible
depository of a man's mind. Then she raised it slowly to her forehead.
He saw her grow rigid in the chair. How long he watched beside her he
never knew. Seconds, an eternity. He saw her eyes turn blank and
strange, and a shadow came into her face, changing it subtly, altering
the lines, so that it seemed almost a stranger was peering through her
flesh.
All at once, in a voice that was not her own, she cried out terribly,
"_Oh gods of Mars!_"
The talisman dropped rolling to the floor, and Ciara fell forward into
Stark's arms.
He thought at first that she was dead. He carried her to the bed, in an
agony of fear that surprised him with its violence, and laid her down,
and put his hand over her heart.
It was beating strongly. Relief that was almost a sickness swept over
him. He turned, searching vaguely for wine, and saw the talisman. He
picked it up and put it back inside the boss. A jewelled flagon stood on
a table across the room. He took it and started back, and then,
abruptly, there was a wild clamor in the hall outside and Otar was
shouting Ciara's name, pounding on the door.
It was not barred. In another moment they would burst through, and he
knew that they would not stop to enquire what he was doing there.
He dropped the flagon and went out swiftly, the way he had come. The
guard was still unconscious. In the narrow hall beyond, Stark hesitated.
A woman's voice was rising high above the tumult in the main corridor,
and he thought he recognized it.
He went to the tapestry curtain and looked for the second time around
its edge.
The lofty space was full of men, newly wakened from their heavy sleep
and as nervous as so many bears. Thanis struggled in the grip of two of
them. Her scarlet kirtle was torn, her hair flying in wild elf-locks,
and her face was the face of a mad thing. The whole story of the doom of
Kushat was written large upon it.
She screamed again and again, and would not be silenced.
"Tell her, the witch that leads you! Tell her that she is already doomed
to death, with all her army!"
Otar opened up the door of Ciara's room.
Thanis surged forward. She must have fled through all that castle before
she was caught, and Stark's heart ached for her.
"You!" she shrieked through the doorway, and poured out all the filth of
the quarter upon Ciara's name. "Balin has gone to bring doom upon you!
He will open wide the Gates of Death, and then you will
die!--die!--_die!_"
Stark felt the shock of a terrible dread, as he let the curtain fall.
Mad with hatred against conquerors, Balin had fulfilled his raging
promise and had gone to fling open the Gates of Death.
Remembering his nightmare vision of the shining, evil ones whom Ban
Cruach had long ago prisoned beyond those gates, Stark felt a sickness
grow within him as he went down the stair and out the postern door.
It was almost dawn. He looked up at the brooding cliffs, and it seemed
to him that the wind in the pass had a sound of laughter that mocked his
growing dread.
He knew what he must do, if an ancient, mysterious horror was not to be
released upon Kushat.
_I may still catch Balin before he has gone too far! If I don't--_
He dared not think of that. He began to walk very swiftly through the
night streets, toward the distant, towering Gates of Death.