Down he swung on his rope, and he felt about for handholds, but the surface was smooth with no places to grip, all the way down the extent of his line. Side to side he swung, and yet there was only vertical stone.
Finally he clambered back up to the top. Which way, I wonder, would the witch walk? Ah, yes, I know: sinister, what else?
Hoping he would not need it, Borel left the rope behind as a marker and sidled leftward through utter darkness along the very verge of the precipice. Slowly, ever so slowly, the dimness began to lighten. And then he emerged along the flat top of a stark desert cliff two hundred feet above the Endless Sands.
A pathway led steeply down.
“My lord,” cried Flic joyously, he and Buzzer circling about.
But Borel paid him no heed, for a half a league away lay a lush vale trapped between endless dunes, and in the very center a great green heap mounded up a hundred feet high or more, its length and breadth a furlong or so in each direction.
“What is it, Flic?” asked Borel.
“What is what, my lord?”
“That,” said Borel, pointing.
Flic turned about. “Oh, my, there’s green in the desert. How did it get here?” He turned back to Borel. “I do not know what it is, my prince. I was so concerned about you and the crossing, that I didn’t see it ere now. Ah, me, some scout I make, eh?”
“I pray it be Roulan’s vale carried here by the black wind,” said Borel. “You and Buzzer scout ahead, Flic, while I make my way down. And be certain to look at that mound in the middle; it sits where the manse should be.”
“Oui!” cried the Sprite, and away he flew, Buzzer at his side.
Down the steep path Borel trotted, and when he reached the sands he found the terrain barren and rocky, and off he loped toward the green vale with the great mound in the middle, a mile and a half away.
Before he had covered two furlongs toward the heap, he came unto the sand, and running became difficult in the shifting footing. Yet on he loped, for the sun angled down through the sky, and the moon would soon rise.
He had covered perhaps half the distance when Flic and Buzzer came winging back. “The mound: ’tis vines with thorns: great huge vines with thorns as long as your own forearms, my lord. Yet beware, for unto my Fey vision there is an aura about them, as of magie.”
“Daggers,” said Borel, not pausing in his run. “These must be the daggers of Chelle’s dream. Did not Lady Wyrd say ‘Neither awake nor in a dark dream are perilous blades just as they seem’? And these blades, these daggers, are not as they seemed, for they are instead thorns.”
“We guessed they weren’t really daggers,” said Flic.
“Indeed, we guessed, and now we know,” said Borel. “-Is there a turret within?”
“I could not tell, my lord, for the thorn vines are much too thick. Yet there is a higher place at the center where a turret could be.”
Yet running, Borel said, “Lord Roulan had a turret nigh the center of his manor.”
“Perhaps that is it, then,” said Flic. “But there is something else, my lord: as I flew near, I could hear a squeaking coming from somewhere within… close to the center, I think.”
“A squeaking?”
“Oui, just as you told me was in your dream, as of a wagon wheel long without grease and turning.”
“Never mind, Flic. We will find what it is when we get in,” said Borel.
“Oh, my lord, I think there is no way to penetrate the thorns,” said Flic. “I mean, not even Buzzer could make her way through.”
“There’s got to be a way, else Chelle is fordone.”
“But I flew all ’round,” said Flic, “and I simply don’t see how we can enter.”
“Again I say, there must be a way, Flic, else the Ladies Wyrd and Lot and Doom would not have sent us here.”
“Perhaps they did so to make certain Rhensibe is killed,” said Flic. “I mean, we will avenge Chelle should worse come to worst. Surely Rhensibe will arrive to gloat if that happens.”
“I will not think of such,” snapped Borel, and in that moment he trotted into the green vale, and now the running eased. Onward he sped toward the massive mound and he came unto pavestones just before reaching the vast tangle of thorns.
“My lord, again I caution you, there is something of magie about the vines,” said Flic. “I do not know what it might be, yet there is an enchantement upon them.”
“Indeed,” said Borel, “else how could they have grown so large? The entire vale must be ensorcelled, to be so green among these dry sands.”
“Oui, lord, yet the vines seem somehow… I don’t know… different from the rest of the vale. ’Ware, lord prince, be chary.”
“What kind are they, Flic? — The vines and thorns I mean.”
“Blackberry, I think, my lord, though perhaps there are rose vines as well.”
“Pink-blooming shamrock and blushing white roses and thorn-laden blackberry vines,” murmured Borel. “I deem you are right-roses and blackberry-but these are monstrous, most as thick as my leg and more.”
Cautiously, Borel moved forward along the pave. “I think this is the footpath to Roulan’s gates,” said Borel. “I vaguely remember such.-It has to be the way in.”
“Take care, my lord,” said Flic, as Borel came to the snarl of Of a sudden, one of the massive vines lashed out at Borel, and without thinking he snatched his long-kni-Nay! Not his long-knife. Instead it was the jagged remainder of the rusted sword he wrenched from his scabbard to parry the attack, even as Flic shrieked, “Look out, my lor-!”
But in that moment the blade touched the lashing thorn vine, and lo! just as had the rider, the vine withered, shriveled, blackened and fell to dust, as if it had aged a thousand years in but an instant of time.
“Hai!” cried Borel, staring at the weapon he had taken as an afterthought from the remains of one of the Riders Who Cannot Dismount. “Indeed not all perilous blades are just as they seem. Oh, d’Strait, d’Strait, your death was not in vain.”
And Borel stepped forward, wading into the massive thorn tangle, striking left and right with the rusted blade at the giant lashing briars, their long thorns seeking to stab, the vines striving to grasp.
“Hurry, my lord, hurry!” cried Flic. “The sun is low and ready to set, and the full moon nigh to rising.”
Hacking and slashing, onward went Borel, and attacking vines fell before him, yet with each vine turned to dust, the sword grew shorter, rust flaking away, and the farther he penetrated into the mass, the less of a blade he had.
“Mithras, be with me,” cried Borel, and onward he hewed, leaving a wide tunnel through the entanglement behind. Yet Borel did not come off unscathed, for as vine after vine lashed at him, the thorns stabbed and tore at his flesh. But still he pressed on, his leathers gashed, blood seeping, and his sword diminishing with each strike.
But at last, bleeding and with no blade left, he came the remaining few feet to the end of the vines and stepped into a clear forecourt before the gates of Roulan’s manor.
The portal was open and warded beyond by sleeping guards wearing blue tabards with a silver sunburst centered thereon: Roulan’s sigil.
And drifting through the air from within came a strange, squeaking noise.
And the rim of the sun just then touched the horizon, and the limb of the moon peeked above the edge of the Endless Sands.
“Hurry, my lord,” said Flic, “for the sun is even now setting and the full moon rising, and we must save Lady Chelle.”
Borel looked at the bladeless hilt of d’Strait’s sword, and he reverently laid it down, and then into the courtyard stepped the prince, Flic and Buzzer coming after. The moment Borel stepped through the gate, the squeaking became a soothing but atonal squealing flutelike sound, and Flic, entering just behind, flew past Borel and partway across the courtyard but then fluttered down to the pave, where he fell sound asleep.
Buzzer agitatedly flew about, and Borel crossed to the Sprite and took him up and set him within the rim of the tricorn. With the bee angrily circling ’round and ’round, onward Borel headed, running for the doors of the manor
