Fifty feet high was that curtain and twenty feet broad. Straddling it the ebon pillars rose. And above and beyond, towering breathtakingly to the dawn-clouded sky, squatted the Caer, a mountain-like structure that had never been built by man.
From Caer Llyr a breath of fear came coldly, scattering the woodsmen like leaves before a gale. They broke ranks, deployed out and drew together again as I raised my hand and Lorryn called a command.
I stared around at the low hills surrounding us.
'Never in my memory or my father's memory have men come this close to Caer Llyr,' Lorryn said. 'Except for Covenanters, of course. Nor would the foresters follow me now, Bond. They follow you.'
How far would they follow? My wondering thought was cut off as a woodsman shouted warning. He rose in his stirrups and pointed south.
Over the hills, riding like demons in a dusty cloud, came horsemen, their armor glittering in the red sunlight!
'So someone did escape from the Castle,' I said between my teeth. 'And the Coven have been warned, after all!'
Lorryn grinned and shrugged. 'Not many.'
'Enough to delay us.' I frowned, trying to make the best plan. 'Lorryn, stop them. If the Coven ride with then- guards, kill them too. But hold them back from the Caer until -'
'Until?'
'I don't know. I'll need time. How much time I can't say. Battling and conquering Llyr won't be the work of a moment.'
'Nor is it the work of one man,' Lorryn said doubtfully. 'With us to aid you, victory will fly at your elbow.'
'I know the weapon against Llyr,' I said. 'One man can wield it. But keep the guardsmen back, and the Covenanters too. Give me time!'
'There will be no difficulty about that,' Lorryn said, a flash of excitement lighting his eyes. 'For look!'
Angling across the hills, riding one by one into view, hotly pursuing the armored rout, came green-clad figures, spurring their horses forward.
Those figures were woodsmen's women whom we had left behind in the valley. They were armed now, for I saw the glitter of swords. Nor were swords their only weapons. A spiteful crack echoed, a puff of smoke arose, and one of the guardsmen flung up his hands and toppled from his mount.
Edward Bond had known how to make rifles! And the woodsfolk had learned how to use them!
At the head of the woods women I noted two lithe forms, one a slim, supple girl whose ashy-blond hair streamed behind her like a banner. Aries.
And at her side, on a great white steed, rode one whose giant form I could not mistake even from this distance. Freydis spurred forward like a Valkyrie galloping into battle.
Freydis and Aries, and the women of the forest!
Lorryn's laugh held exultation.
'We have them, Bond!' he cried, his fist tightening on the rein. 'Our women at their heels, and we to strike from the flank – we'll catch and crush them between hammer and anvil. Gods grant the shape-changer rides there!'
'Then ride,' I snapped. 'No more talk! Ride and crush them. Hold them back from the Caer!'
With that I raced my steed forward, lying low on the horse's mane, driving like a thunderbolt toward the black mountain ahead. Did Lorryn know how suicidal might be the mission on which I had sent him? Matholch he might slay, and even Medea. But if Edeyrn rode with the Coven guards, if ever she dropped the hood from her face, neither sword nor bullet could save the woodsmen!
Still they would give me time. And if the woodsmen's ranks were thinned, so much the better for me later. I would deal with Edeyrn in my own way when the time came.
Ahead the black columns stood. Behind me a shouting rose, and a crackle of rifle-fire. I looked back, but a fold of the hills hid the combat from my eyes.
I sprang from the horse's back and stood before the pillars – between them. The coruscating veil sparkled and ran like milky water before me. Above, towering monstrously, stood the Caer, the focus of the evil that had spread across the Dark World.
And in it reposed Llyr, my enemy!
I still had the sword I had taken from one of the woodsmen, but I doubted if ordinary steel would be much good within the Caer. Nevertheless I made sure the weapon was at my side as I walked forward.
I stepped through the veil.
For twenty paces I moved forward in utter darkness. Then light came.
But it was the light that beats upon a snow plain, so bright, so glittering, that it blinds. I stood motionless, waiting. Presently the dazzle resolved itself into flickering atoms of brightness, weaving and darting in arabesque patterns. Not cold, no!
Tropical warmth beat upon me.
The shining atoms drove at me. They tingled upon my face and hands. They sank like intangible things through my garments and were absorbed by my skin. They did not lull me. Instead, my body greedily drank that weird snowstorm of – energy? – and was in turn energized by it.
Tide of life sang ever stronger in my veins.
I saw three gray shadows against the white. Two tall and one slight and small as a child's shadow.
I knew them. I knew who cast them.
I heard Matholch's voice.
'Kill him. Kill him now.'
And Medea's answer.
'No. He need not die. He must not.'
'But he must!' Matholch snarled, and Edeyrn's sexless, thin voice echoed his.
'He is dangerous, Medea. He must die, and only on Llyr's altar can he be slain. For he is the Sealed of Llyr.'
'He need not die,' Medea said stubbornly. 'If he is made harmless – weaponless – he may live.'
'How?' Edeyrn asked, and for answer the red witch stepped forward out of the dazzling white shimmer.
No longer a shadow. No longer a two-dimensional grayness. She stood before me – Medea, witch of Colchis.
Her dark hair fell to her knees. Her dark gaze slanted at me. Evil she was, and alluring as Lilith.
I dropped my hand to sword-hilt.
I did
I could not move.
Beyond Medea the twin shadows bent forward.
'The power of Llyr holds him,' Edeyrn whispered. 'But Ganelon is strong, Medea. If he breaks his fetters, we are lost.'
'By then he will have no weapons,' Medea said, and smiled at me.
Now indeed I knew my danger. Very easily my steel could have bitten through Medea's soft throat, and heartily I wished it had done so long ago. For I remembered Medea's power. The mutation that set her apart from others. That which had caused her to be named – vampire.
I remembered victims of hers that I had seen. The dead-eyed guardsmen, the Castle slaves, hollow shells of men, the walking dead, all soul drained from them, and most of their life-forms as well.
Her arms stole around my neck. Her mouth lifted to mine.
In one hand she held her black wand. It touched my head, and a gentle shock, not unpleasant, crawled along my scalp. The – the conductor, I knew, and a gust of insane laughter shook me at the incongruity of the weapon.
But there was no magic here. There was science, of a high order, a science made possible only for those who were trained to it, or for those who were mutants. Medea drank energy, but not through sorcery. I had seen that wand used too often to believe that.
The wand opened the closed circuits of the mind and its energies. It tapped the brain, as a copper wire can
