'Sanctuary,' said Pazel. 'Stath Balfyr means Sanctuary-Beyond-the-Sea. '
Broad daylight. Somehow Pazel had slept the night away, chained once more in his corner. He shook his head fiercely. He had no memory of waking at all.
He was on horseback, clinging to the saddle horn, startled out of his trance. Birds were singing; the great black horse pranced in the mud; and around him a million leaves and fronds and flowers glittered from a recent downpour.
It was already hot; Pazel felt as though some great animal were breathing on him. Yet the noise of the sea was close and loud, and off to his left he saw a place where the trees ended, and blue sky began. He knew suddenly where he was: atop the cliffs, on the edge of Bramian's great wilderness. It felt like trespassing, like putting a toe through some forbidden doorway just to see what would happen.
Ott climbed into the saddle behind him. Pazel stiffened: it was frightful to be so close to the assassin, with his scarred and deadly hands gripping the reins on either side. Pazel had heard the phrase Stath Balfyr whispered among the Ixchel. Only once or twice, when they forgot his abilities; and they spoke it with reverence, like a holy name. He had given something sacred to the most profane man he'd ever known.
Ott turned the horse in a half-circle, and Pazel caught a glimpse of the cave mouth, low like a burrow and all but invisible with greenery. There were other horses: one bore Chadfallow, another Alyash. Swift and Saroo were mounted also; their horses carried large leather purses secured to chaps before the riders' knees. The last and largest steed bore Drellarek and Erthalon Ness, the latter gazing in horror at the jungle about them.
Ott waved his men back underground. Then he turned to the other riders and raised a cautioning hand.
'The first part of this journey is likely to be the foulest,' he said softly. 'Stay close to me, and do not stop unless I do. Trust your horse's footing: these are the noblest animals His Supremacy could provide, and mountain- trained from birth. Away, now! Ride fast and silent, as you value your lives.'
With that he spurred his horse into the bush. There seemed no path at first, and they crashed (far from silently) through great sprays of palm and ferns and creepers. But very soon the underbrush thinned. Huge trees loomed over them, craggy black-barked monsters laden with vines and mosses and dangling epiphytes. The horses were indeed magnificent. They dodged roots and rocks, and somehow guarded their riders' balance at the same time.
They began a steep ascent, criss-crossing a gurgling stream. In patches of sunlight over the water Pazel saw butterflies of iridescent blue, rising in sapphire clouds at their approach.
'Where are you taking us?' he asked.
'Quiet!' said Ott. 'Or you'll find I've taken you only to your grave. We are ascending the mountain known in the Outer Isles as Droth'ulad. An evil corner of a vast, evil isle.'
'Evil?' said Pazel. 'But it's beautiful. Look at it.'
'I am most certainly looking,' said Ott, who was in fact peering deep into the trees ahead. 'Yes, evil: the name means Skull of Droth, the Demon-Prince. But it is not Droth who threatens us now. I am looking for the Leopard People. This has been their part of Bramian for longer than anyone from the outer world has been coming here. Fortunately for us they fear to climb Droth'ulad, but they will slip around its base sometimes, to hunt monkeys or wild dogs. They are master archers, and will kill us if they can.'
'Why do they fear the mountain?'
'Because something lives at the summit that kills them. Not the demon himself, I think, but perhaps something not greatly to be preferred. We would do better to avoid that place ourselves. But the ridgetop is the only swift path to our destination, and Elkstem swears we must put to sea in a matter of days or be kept from all hope of safe passage by the Vortex.'
'But what in the Nine Pits do you want on Bramian?'
'Nothing whatsoever. It is our allies' wants that concern me.'
'Allies?'
'Be silent, lad.'
The way grew steeper yet, and they were forced to slow the horses to a walk. There was a path of sorts, now: a meandering mud track, full of roots and snags and fallen trees. Weird shocks of colour met their eyes: a fleshy orange fungus that seemed to glow in the shadows, a scarlet hummingbird, a metallic-gold moth. Now and then the path left the cover of the forest to skirt clifftops, jutting like grey teeth from the blanketing green. At such moments Pazel looked down on steaming valleys, over lakes and serpentine rivers, and once he saw a ring of standing stones upon a treeless hilltop, and a thread of rising smoke.
But the sounds were a torment. Whistles, hoots and howls: the noise of countless birds and beasts, never seen except as shadows, flickers of movement, hints of wings. Worst of all were the insects. His altered hearing made their whines, drones, chirps and buzzings hideously distinct. When they bit him near his ears he heard the piercing of his skin.
Up they went, hour upon hour. Rain came and went with astonishing force. When it grew strong enough to blind them Ott would signal a halt, and the horses would stand steaming in the cold spray as the path became a river gushing about their legs. Pazel covered his ears, deafened. But the downpours were brief, and it seemed that the instant the last drops fell the sun came dappling through.
Once more Pazel's mind became clouded, and he lost all sense of time. One minute he would be clinging to the horse's mane as the animal struggled up some narrow ravine; the next he would be staring at a hairy vine as thick as his arm, only to discover that it was a monstrous centipede, scurrying up a trunk.
At still another moment he found himself listening to the half-hearted daytime hoot of an owl. No one else seemed able to hear the bird, and Pazel could not find it in the canopy overhead. But he heard its mate answer, and a soft flutter of wings. And then (Pazel caught his breath sharply) the first owl spoke in words. Its voice was black and velvety, the voice of a night hunter woken by day.
'I should like to know where they think they're going.'
'You could ask,' said the other, in a higher voice.
'They're savages, my dear fool. They speak no tongue of Bramian.'
The second owl trilled uneasily. 'I do not like this mountain. I can taste sea air, and it frightens me. The shorebirds' talk is always full of fear, warships, movements of men. Let us go inland tonight. Where the world is still whole.'
'We will go to the Court of Grethim,' said the first owl. ' The priest will welcome us, and let us hunt in the spice gardens, and perhaps I will read another story from his book of leaves.'
Pazel never told anyone about the woken owls. He had an awful image of Sandor Ott trying to shoot them from the branches. He stopped searching for them with his eyes, and the birds did not speak again.6
Onwards, upwards. At last Pazel's acute hearing diminished, and he began to feel more like himself. Far above them, he thought the texture of the forest changed, as though something immense stood among or behind the trees. Then Drellarek reined in his horse. He pointed up into a nearby tree. A large white monkey dangled there, its back to them, motionless, dead. It was pinned to the trunk by an arrow.
Ott cursed. 'We've startled them,' he said. 'The Leopard People don't just abandon their kills. And blood is yet leaking from that wound. Forward! It is a race now, and we must win.'
He said a soft word to his horse and it charged up the slope, abandoning the trail in favour of a straight line for the summit. Pazel heard the other horses thundering behind.
Suddenly a human voice spoke from the jungle. 'What are they, Uncle?'
Pazel jumped, startling both Ott and the horse.
' They are men like us,' replied another, older voice. 'But they are slavers from across the sea. Don't fear them, boy. They will take no slaves today.'
'Damn you, be still!' growled the spymaster.
'Mr Ott,' said Pazel, struggling to keep his voice low and calm.
'They've found us. They're watching.'
Suddenly Erthalon Ness gave a squeal of terror, pointing a finger at the jungle to their left. Pazel turned and saw them: scores of long-limbed figures, racing through the forest with the swiftness of cats. They wore loincloths only, and their pale yellow bodies were dabbed all over with spots of black. Some of the men carried strange iron hooks, and all had bows over their shoulders.
The riders cried out, and the horses increased their speed. But the footing was terrible now that they were running sidelong to the slope, and more than once Pazel would have been thrown from the saddle if Ott had not
