Gate of Ivrel

to know it, and her gray eyes grew wistful, and searched his, seeking understanding, some small appreciation of the only things she knew how to say with him.

“Tiffwy,” he said, “must have been a great man. I would like to have known him.”

“Immortality,” she said, “would be unbearable except among immortals.” And she smiled, but he saw through it.

She was silent thereafter, and seemed downcast, even while they rode. She thought much. He still did not know how to enter those moods. She was locked within herself.

It was as if he had snapped whatever thin cord bound them by that word: I would like to have known him. She had detected the pity. She would not have it of him.

By evening they could see the hills, as the forest gave way to scattered meadows. In the west rose the great mass of Alis Kaje, its peaks white with snow: Alis Kaje, the barrier behind which lay Morija. Vanye looked at it as a stranger to this side of the mountain wall, and found all the view unfamiliar to him, save great Mount Proeth, but it was a view of home.

And thereafter the land opened more to the north and they stood still upon a hillside looking out upon the great northern range.

Ivrel.

The mountain was not so tall as Proeth, but it was fair to the eye and perfect, a tapering cone equal to left and to right. Beyond it rose other mountains, the Kath Vrej and Kath Svejur, fading away into distance, the ramparts of frosty Hjemur. But Ivrel was unique among all mountains. The little snow there was atop it capped merely the summit: most of its slopes were dark, or green with forests.

And at its base, unseen in the distance that made Ivrel itself seemed to drift at the edge of the sky, lay Irien.

Morgaine touched heels to Siptah, startled the horse into motion, and they rode on, downslope and up again, and she spoke never a word. She gave no sign of stopping even while stars brightened in the sky and the moon came up.

Ivrel loomed nearer. Its white cone shone in the moonlight like a vision.

“Lady.” Vanye leaned from his saddle at last, caught the reins of the gray. “ Liyo, forbear. Irien is no place to ride at night. Let us stop.”

She yielded then. It surprised him. She chose a place and dismounted, and took her gear from Siptah. Then she sank down and wrapped herself in her cloak, caring for nothing else. Vanye hurried about trying to make a comfortable camp for her. These things he was anxious to do: her dejection weighed upon his own soul, and he could not be comfortable with her.

It was of no avail. She warmed herself at the fire, and stared into the embers, without appetite for the meal he cooked for her, but she picked at it dutifully, and finished it.

He looked up at the mountain that hung over them, and felt its menace himself. This was cursed ground. There was no sane man of Andur-Kursh would camp where they had camped, so near to Irien and to Ivrel.

“Vanye,” she said suddenly, “do you fear this place?”

“I do not like it,” he answered. “Yes, I fear it.”

“I laid on you at Claiming to ruin Hjemur if I cannot. Have you any knowledge where Hjemur’s hold lies?”

He lifted a hand, vaguely toward the notch at Ivrel’s base. “There, through that pass.”

“There is a road there, that would lead you there. There is no other, at least there was not.”

“Do you plan,” he asked, “that I shall have to do this thing?”

“No,” she said. “But that may well be.”

Thereafter she gathered up her cloak and settled herself for the first watch, and Vanye sought his own rest

It seemed only a moment until she leaned over him, touching his shoulder, quietly bidding him take his turn: he had been tired, and had slept soundly. The stars had turned about in their nightly course.

“There have been small prowlers,” she said, “some of unpleasant aspect, but no real harm. I have let the fire die, of purpose.”

He indicated his understanding, and saw with relief that she sought her furs again like one who was glad to sleep. He put himself by the dying fire, knees drawn up and arms propped on his sheathed sword, dreaming into the embers and listening to the peaceful sounds of the horses, whose sense made them better sentinels than men.

And eventually, lulled by the steady snap of the cooling embers, the whisper of wind through the trees at their side, and the slow moving of the horses, he began to struggle against his own urge to sleep.

She screamed.

He came up with sword in hand, saw Morgaine struggling up to her side, and his first thought was that she had been bitten by something. He bent by her, seized her up and held her by the arms and held her, she trembling. But she thrust him back, and walked away from him, arms folded as against a chill wind; so she stood for a time.

“ Liyo?” he questioned her.

“Go back to sleep,” she said. “It was a dream, an old one.”

“ Liyo—”

“Thee has a place, ilin. Go to it.”

He knew better than to be wounded by the tone: it came from some deep hurt of her own; but it stung, all the same. He returned to the fireside and wrapped himself again in his cloak. It was a long time before she had gained control of herself again, and turned and sought the place she had left. He lowered his eyes to the fire, so that he need not look at her; but she would have it otherwise: she paused by him, looking down.

“Vanye,” she said, “I am sorry.”

“I am sorry too, liyo.”

“Go to sleep. I will stay awake a while.”

“I am full awake, liyo. There is no need.”

“I said a thing to you I did not mean.”

He made a half-bow, still not looking at her. “I am ilin, and it is true I have a place, with the ashes of your fire, liyo, but usually I enjoy more honor than that, and I am content.”

“Vanye.” She sank down to sit by the fire too, shivering in the wind, without her cloak. “I need you. This road would be intolerable without you.”

He was sorry for her then. There were tears in her voice; of a sudden he did not want to see the result of them. He bowed, as low as convenience would let him, and stayed so until he thought she would have caught her breath. Then he ventured to look her in the eyes.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“I have named that,” she said. It was again the Morgaine he knew, well armored, gray eyes steady.

“You will not trust me.”

“Vanye, do not meddle with me. I would kill you too if it were necessary to set me at Ivrel.”

“I know it,” he said. “ Liyo, I would that you had listened to me. I know you would kill yourself to reach Ivrel, and probably you will kill us both. I do not like this place. But there is no reasoning with you. I have known that from the beginning. I swear that if you would listen to me, if you would let me, I would take you safely out of Andur-Kursh, to—”

“You have already said it. There is no reasoning with me.”

“Why?” he asked of her. “Lady, this is madness, this war of yours. It was lost once. I do not want to die.”

“Neither did they,” she said, and her lips were a thin, hard line. “I heard the things they said of me in Baien, before I passed from that time to this. And I think that is the way I will be remembered. But I will go there, all the same, and that is my business. Your oath does not say that you have to agree with what I do.”

“No,” he acknowledged. But he did not think she heard him: she gazed off into the dark, toward Ivrel, toward Irien. A question weighed upon him. He did not want to hurt her, asking it; but he could not go nearer Irien without it growing heavier in him.

“What became of them?” he asked. “Why were there so few found after Irien?”