'I'll be careful. Meanwhile, let's try and have patience with him, should he change his mind and rejoin us. Perhaps his instructor in alchemical matters was an indifferent one. Could you help him perfect his useful art?'
'I'm afraid my knowledge is of more practical matters. I do not dabble in arcane arts. But my opinion of this one,' —and he gestured back across the pool—'is that in an awkward situation he'd most likely transform himself into a crow and fly like mad for the nearest place of safety.'
'I think you do him an injustice. Still, there might be opportunities to test him further along the way.'
Ynyr still stared back at where the forest was swallowing up the campsite. 'No doubt there might be. If he rejoins us.'
It was very quiet in the woods. Much quieter than the town from which Ergo the Magnificent had so recently and hastily beat a retreat. The moon hung faint and bilious in the lowing sky, hardly lifting the spirits of the trees surrounding him. Indeed, with each step he took, their branches seemed to bend a little lower, reaching toward him with stiff, sharp fingers. Dead leaves and toadstools crunched beneath his feet, and night murmurs assaulted his hearing. He longed for the bright lights and cheerful cries of Moukaskar, the city he'd fled. He would even have paid for the rifled trifle.
There—a noise, off to his left! A rabbit or some other evening forager, he assured himself. Harmless as the wind. The sound came a second time and he stopped to peer close. Saints and devils, was that an eye? A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck. It surely was an awfully big eye. Much too big for a rabbit. It grew even larger as it moved suddenly toward him.
Then in the moonlight he saw a beardless face, and the source of the solitary stare was apparent. It was solitary I because that face held but a single eye.
He was too startled to cry out, but not too startled to whirl and break into a desperate sprint. Branches and leaves seemed determined to restrain him as he tore back toward the pool, retracing his steps in a third the time while glancing repeatedly back over his shoulder. The single eye vanished, outdistanced | by his mad flight. Or perhaps it had reasons for not pursuing.
He burst into the clearing bordering the stream and looked frantically about. No sign of the two men who'd witnessed his inglorious arrival. In panic he splashed through the water, crossing the stream where it narrowed again beneath the pool. Ah, there, just ahead! Movement among the bushes and the comforting sound of horses' hooves.
As he grew near he thought to slow to a stately walk and compose himself.
'Why, if it isn't Ergo the Magnificent. And the Breathless. Something give you a start?' Colwyn looked past the smaller man, back into the forest. He saw nothing.
'Nonsense,' Ergo replied haughtily. 'Ergo the Magnifi-cent is not frightenable.'
'Nor does he talk very well when he's out of breath. You are sweating, my friend.'
'My evening exercise. I never miss it.'
'I see,' Colwyn turned his attention back to the trail ahead. 'Then what brings you so soon into our company again?'
'I just remembered that I have some urgent business in this I direction.'
'I daresay, from the way you're breathing.' He reached a i hand toward the other man. Ergo hesitated, then took the offer and swung himself up onto the horse behind Colwyn. 'What business might that be?'
'Staying alive,' Ergo confessed, glancing nervously behind them. Whatever creature it belonged to, the eye stayed mercifully hidden.
Colwyn chuckled. 'Then it seems we are in the same business, my friend. And men who work the same business ought to stick together.'
'Most assuredly,' agreed Ergo quickly.
Lyssa had never thought of a nightmare as having walls and a floor, a ceiling and strangely hued hidden lights. A nightmare was thin and wispy, faint and impalpable. It ought not to ring hollowly beneath one's shoes or to twist and turn like the thoughts of an evil courtier.
Was she inside the Black Fortress or inside her own mind? She clung precariously to her sanity as she rushed down weaving, convoluted corridors that seemed spun of gold and ceramic instead of honest wood or stone. She could not imagine how such a place could have been built. Perhaps it had not been built in the sense men thought of as 'built.' Perhaps it had been grown, for certain of the tunnels and cavernous hallways she raced through resembled far more the inside of some stolid, immobile creature than the corridors of any building ever described to her in her lessons.
Occasionally a wall would ooze shut behind her, forcing her onward, or a tall white Slayer would appear to block her path. Then she would turn desperately down any unblocked passageway, her dress whirling around her legs, seeking even temporary freedom.
Freedom: it was little more than an intellectual exercise, since it was clear that even if she stumbled across the right tools she'd be unable to dig herself to freedom. But it was a useful abstract to concentrate on as she ran, and it helped to keep her from going mad.
She thought also of Colwyn and the burning fresh love that had drawn them so close so quickly, saw him buried under a wave of Slayers as he'd tried to hack his way through to her in the castle courtyard. What must he be thinking of her now? Would he be more at peace believing her still alive, with a chance for rescue, or better off thinking her dead?
No matter. She had no way of conveying a message to him. Her palm burned as she thought of him and she remembered the gentle, comforting heat of the flame she'd taken from the font during the ceremony. It gave her strength, that memory. Strength to keep hoping, strength to run on.
Once, a gown resplendent with jewels and metallic thread appeared like a vision before her. Above it floated a crown of precious metal and strange mien. It held her transfixed with its beauty for a long moment, until she saw the threat that lay beyond. To some it might appear raiment fit for a queen but Lyssa was far more perceptive than that. It was beautiful, yes, but so were many burial shrouds.
She turned from it and rushed on.
There were too many dead trees around for Colwyn's liking. They'd reached a defile in the rocks, a place of desolation and broken stone. At least the morning fog had dissipated. Walls without substance, his father had once called such fogs. The mark of difficult country.
The sun hung somewhere overhead, masked by the sheer walls that rose around them. Birds and other less wholesome things called out hesitantly, as though uncertain of safety. Lonely sounds fit for a lonely place. He would be glad when they had passed beyond.
Something nudged him in the small of the back and he felt his passenger shifting position. Ergo sat behind the saddle and by now it must be wearying to him.
'How are you doing back there, my magnificent little friend?'
'Not magnificently, I fear. I have spent all morning debating the benefits of riding thus versus walking. My feet opt for their present status but another part of me disagrees most strenuously.'
'I'm sorry. When we reach a town we'll have to see about acquiring a mount for you.'
'With what? I left my last place of residence in such a rush that I was compelled to leave the bulk of my fortune behind.'
'It's your help I need, not your money. I am willing to help those who help me.'
Ergo perked up, the soreness that attended his fundament temporarily forgotten. 'You have money, then?'
'Enough to provide you with a horse, anyway.' That told Ergo little, which was precisely what Colwyn wanted him to know.
Ergo peered around his companion's side, raised his voice. 'You are not a great chooser of roads, old man.'
' 'Our road has been chosen for us,' Ynyr replied importantly.
'I was referring to that which passes beneath our horses' hooves, not that which conveys our spirits.'
'As you prefer,' said Ynyr. 'To place your question on a less exhalted plain, this particular road avoids the most dangerous bogs and marshlands while saving us half a day of travel. No highways lead to our current destination. I should think that, given your present seat, you would be particularly appreciative of any time saved.'
Ergo's muttered reply was somewhat less than grateful.
