jutting out from sockets in the cliff wall. One could almost imagine that it was half a mansion, and that the other half lay within the cliff: the tiled roof slanted upward to meet the stone, and ended there. Many balconies and scores of windows looked out upon the lake. From its chimneys rose the smoke Pazel had seen from below.
“They’re the ones to ask about that bite of yours,” said Vadu.
“Who are they?” asked Pazel.
“Didn’t Olik tell you?” said Ibjen. “They’re Spider Tellers, like the prince himself. Vasparhaven is the oldest temple on the peninsula.”
Hercol was gazing across the lake. “Fulbreech has reached the far shore,” he said, “and begun to descend the other side of the mountain. But he has not gone far; something has impeded his progress.” He turned to the soldiers. “Gather brush here and set it aside-enough for a large bonfire. Tonight I must signal Prince Olik.”
“What will you tell him?” asked Ibjen.
“That will depend on what we learn here, and what we choose to do about it. Lead on, Counselor; another day is waning.”
They rode along the southern shore, past boulders fallen from the slopes and chunks of ice ten feet thick: shards, perhaps, of the lid that sealed the lake in winter. As Vasparhaven loomed nearer Pazel saw a pair of massive green doors at ground level, just beneath the temple.
More bells began to ring. Pazel saw faces leaning down from the balconies. Strange faces, belonging to many peoples: dlomu, mizralds, Nemmocians… and then a face peered down at him that set his mind suddenly a-whirl. It was a girl’s face, thrust through the rail of the balcony, staring right at him with joy and fascination. But that mouth, those eyes! All at once he could not stand it, and cried out, “I’m here! It’s me!”
He succeeded in drawing her attention-and everyone else’s. Three horses shied, including his own, and the rooster they had heard before launched itself from one balcony to another, and came near to falling to its death. Pazel had not shouted I’m here, at least not in any familiar tongue. The sound he made was a wailed, inhuman skrreeee, followed by four emphatic clicks of his tongue.
“Rin’s mercy,” said Neeps, shaken. “Pazel, you’ve got to stop that right now.”
“I know,” said Pazel, heart thumping. He had shouted in Sea-Murthish, a tongue no human should be able to pronounce, but one his Gift had forced on him. The face that had looked down at him was that of the murth-girl, Klyst.
Only it wasn’t, of course; it couldn’t be. The girl in any case had disappeared from the balcony, and those who had not withdrawn stared down in fright. Some of the soldiers in his own party were doing the same.
“Well done, Pathkendle,” said Hercol with a sigh. “Humans-animals on horseback, to them-appear suddenly on their doorstep, and you treat them to a murthic howl.”
“He sounded like a stabbed monkey,” said one of the soldiers. “What’s wrong with him? The prince said he was safe.”
“Oh, he’s far from that,” said Neeps.
“Undrabust!” snapped Hercol. “Listen, all of you: Pazel has fancies, but they are harmless. The only danger that should concern us is the one we chase. All else is foolishness.” He shot a hard glance at Pazel. “We have no time to spare for foolishness.”
A chain dangled from a small hole in the wall beside green doors. Vadu pulled it, and somewhere deep in the cliff another bell sounded faintly. But thanks to Pazel’s outburst, perhaps, they stood a long time waiting for an answer, colder by the minute.
“Neeps,” whispered Pazel, “didn’t you see her?”
“Which her?”
“The girl on the balcony. It was Klyst, mate. She looked right at me.”
“A sea-murth,” said Neeps, looking up at the hanging mansion, with its icicles and frost. “You’re barking mad, you know that?”
“That’s insulting,” said Pazel. “I tell you, it was Klyst.”
Through the crowd of men, horses and sicunas, Thasha’s eyes found him suddenly. Amusement shone in them, but also a wariness that was nearly accusing. She knew about the murth-girl too.
At last the doors groaned open. In the doorway stood an ancient dlomic man, straight-backed and very thin. Like all dlomu he was without wrinkles, his old skin tight and smooth, but his neatly combed beard was white as chalk and hung almost to his knees.
“I am the Master Teller, father to the people of Vasparhaven,” he said. “I regret that I cannot permit you within our walls.”
The soldiers glared at Pazel; Neeps’ look was only slightly more benign. But what the old dlomu said next made them forget their irritation. They were not, he declared, the first humans to appear at the temple door. Two days earlier, others had presented themselves, seeking shelter. One was a youth, dirty, frightened, but clever with his words. Another was an abandoned creature who stared at nothing, whose left hand twitched constantly and whose lips formed words it did not speak: a tol-chenni dressed up like a thinking being, and able to walk erect. “A freak of nature, I thought,” said the Master Teller. “The youth held him by a rope about the neck, as one might a donkey, or a dog.”
The third figure, he said, was a terror to behold: tall, gaunt, with eyes that looked famished and cruel, and a tattered white scarf at the neck. “He was their leader, but he was cruel to the youth, who seemed to have no value to him except as the keeper of the tol-chenni. He required the youth to keep the creature warm, to make it eat and drink.”
“We seek those three, Spider Father,” said Vadu. “Did they depart in the night?”
“Yes,” said the old man. “The tall one was anxious to be gone, and tried to demand our help to cross Ilvaspar. But what could we do? There is no commerce beyond the lake-not in fifty years, since the Plazic general summoned the accursed Black Tongue. The three waited long upon the shore, the tall one pacing and cursing, until at last a fisherman returned and was persuaded-or bullied, perhaps-into taking them where they wished to go. You must seek passage with the fisherfolk as well, if you really want to pursue those three.”
“It is the last thing we want, good Father,” said Hercol, “and yet pursue them we must. How did they come here, though? For they made the journey from Masalym faster than seems possible for man or beast.”
The old man frowned and closed the doors. At first they wondered if they had given some offense, but soon the doors creaked open again and a younger dlomic man dressed like the Master Teller stepped out nervously. The old man stood behind him, a hand on his shoulder.
“Have no fear, they are courteous folk,” he said. “Tell them what you saw.”
The young man struggled to find his voice. “A gandryl,” he whispered. “A winged steed. They rode upon its back, all three of them, and it put them down beside the Chalice of the Mai. I saw it. I was checking my rabbit snares.”
The soldiers murmured, wonder-struck: “A gandryl! The mage rides a gandryl!”
“They are not all gone,” said the Master Teller. “More goatish than horse-like, as befits life in the peaks, but the size of warstallions. They are woken creatures, long-lived and crafty. We never see them today, only their footprints on the lake isles, where no goats live. I was not sure I believed our young novice here, until you spoke.”
“Why didn’t the creature fly them on, past the lake?” asked Thasha.
Stumbling over his words, the novice explained that Arunis had tried to demand just that. But the gandryl had replied that he had bargained for a flight to the shores of Ilvaspar, and that his payment was barely worth that much trouble, and certainly no more. It had left them right at the Chalice, and the mage had cursed it as it flew away.
“He may have set out on horseback from Masalym, and called the creature down from the sky,” said Vadu. “The great mages of old were said to do that, upon the plain of the Inner Kingdom.”
“At least he no longer has the creature’s service,” said Hercol. “He has gained an advantage, but not escaped us altogether.”
“You should sleep here tonight,” said the Master Teller. “I cannot let you enter Vasparhaven, but there is a Ilyrette, a way-cave, not far from here, and it is safe, and sheltered from the wind. In happier days it was a place where travelers rested often, before crossing the lake or descending to the plain. I will send food from our kitchens, and bedding too.”
“Both would be welcome,” said Hercol, “though we will only nap on the bedding, I fear. The one we chase is
