The Stehnites were a valiant group and they ran at the enemy with the kind of self-restraint I was used to in Orgos, meaning none. Orgos himself was in the thick of things, of course, his sword sweeping in great lethal arcs. I think only Toth, who had hacked his way past at least a couple of the tall, pale soldiers, showed a similarly furious dignity. But there were dozens of the immaculately dressed and trained Arak Drul, and they burned with a deep, smoldering hatred for the goblins. High on the gallery stairs, an officer arranged his mail-clad archers and they showered us with arrows in audible sheets. Beside him was one of those who I had seen on the city walls during the battle. He was dressed in flowing pale vestments, his eyes shut but his fingers moving rapidly, as if he were drawing out invisible thread.
“Get down!” I shouted.
The arrows came again, but this time we were blinded by the flash of brilliant emerald flame that came with them. A cry of despair rose up from those around me, and the Stehnites that had survived the first wave of the flaming missiles scattered and ran for cover.
Except Toth. He sprang up the stairs four at a time, his great cleaver before him. The archers turned their sights on him, but by luck and speed they could not find their mark, and the volley was weak and erratic. Then he was almost upon them and their line quivered in panic as several fumbled for their swords. One of the wolves, the paler of the two, bound up after him and burst upon the line of soldiers, which buckled, then broke. Some fled, others just dropped in horror as their ancient enemy tore into them. The priestly figure’s eyes snapped open and he staggered back, his spells forgotten in the face of those ravenous lupine jaws.
Then Orgos leaped from the balustrade into the fray, and Lisha, seeing how the scattered Stehnites had taken heart, attacked the stairs, her dark spear flashing its electric blue fire before her. The Stehnites followed her lead with a shout of defiant unity, forcing the Arak Drul soldiers back up into the domed gallery. Renthrette, who had held off the skeleton soldiers almost singlehandedly, now emerged from the hole in the floor, looked briskly about her, and leaped after the rest. I broke cover and joined the pack. At the top of the stairs, the Arak Drul sentries were fighting a losing battle, many having fallen to the Stehnite onslaught. Those that remained were white-faced and wild-eyed. Several cast down their weapons in desperate submission, and it seemed it might be over.
But as I climbed the stairs to join the victors I heard the library’s great external doors clang wide and heard the unmistakable sound of horses-many horses. I turned, suddenly cold. Below me, polished and grim, came the pride of the Arak Drul cavalry, pouring in through the huge doors, riding two abreast. There were too many to count, and, at their head, still and resolute, rode Sorrail.
He wore silver armor made of rings and riveted plate, but he bore no helm and his hair was brushed back like spun gold. A cape of fur varying from gray to black was draped about his shoulders, and at its hem the pelts ended in half a dozen wolf heads, snouts hanging down around the flanks of his mount, eyes sightless in defeat. His face was hard and cold but his mouth held a hint of disdain, even amusement, that such rabble should dare to challenge him. He led his horse toward us, and his cavalry followed, a study in confidence and unnatural composure.
Their horses hesitated at the foot of the stairs, but only for a moment. Then-implausibly-they were coming, lances lowered like a gray thicket of death, and there was nowhere for us to go. I had never seen horses move like that. It was like they weren’t actually horses at all, or had been taken over by some controlling mind. The Stehnites shrank back and even Toth and Orgos lowered their weapons and stood watching as the horses clattered up the steps toward us.
“Any ideas?” Orgos asked me, a lightness in his voice that did not register in his face. “Any pearls of wisdom you picked up in their company that will give us an edge?”
“They’re afraid of cheese,” I suggested.
Through one of the high ecclesiastical windows I could see the city walls, where tall, pale soldiers fired volley after volley of arrows onto the army that boiled around the city. Mithos was out there with the Stehnites, but their only hope of victory was if we could open the breach to them. The walls-ironically, the walls they themselves had made-were too strong. I looked desperately around, but we were badly outnumbered, and fighting was useless. It was only a matter of time now before the Stehnite attack outside the city failed, our little incursion having been utterly contained before we could even threaten the walls from the inside. Now we would be captured or slaughtered, Sorrail would return to the siege, and the ancient mind that lived in the library would vanquish the Stehnites once more.
The mind in the library. The force that was guiding those horses and making the army behave as if it had one conciousness. The heart of the Arak Drul, their purpose, their guardian angel, their guiding, blinding light. .
And suddenly our path was clear to me, though the thought was dreadful and I immediately wished I could put it back and forget it,
Toth was the first to move and he was down the passage before I had taken a step. But as he stretched out his arm to the door handle, a throbbing pulse of light coursed up and down the brass and, in a brilliant flash, he was thrown heavily backward. One Stehnite ran to him, and another tried the door, with the same effect.
“Degenerate fools,” said a voice.
I turned and found Sorrail, still mounted, only feet from me, and watching us with a scornful leer distorting the features that had once seemed so perfect.
“Do you think we would leave our holiest shrine open to their defiling hands?” he snarled.
No one spoke. The Stehnites shrank back from him and his men, sensing that they were heavily outnumbered. Sorrail continued, still smiling nastily. “No one can enter there unless the soul of our people permits it.”
“I wonder,” I said, aloud.
“I thought I might find you here,” he said, “blending in with the sub-humans. And I see your lies have dragged the fair Lady Renthrette with you. That is unfortunate, but I suppose it was inevitable: Corruption cannot be washed away. Now, throw down your weapons.”
There was a moment of silence, then an irregular clatter as some complied. I knew beyond any doubt that he was lying about the door, but I didn’t want to prove it. I didn’t want to go back in there with whatever it was that looked like a hooded man but wasn’t. I couldn’t bear to let him inside my head again, let him tear out my thoughts like some creature scooping out my brains and entrails.
So stay right here, I thought. Surrender. You’re not a goblin. They may still spare you. It’s not your war. You don’t even belong here. You’re an Outsider.
And then I realized that those weren’t my thoughts at all. They appeared in my head, but they came from inside the chamber.
That rather changed things. I launched myself against the brass doors and threw them open easily. Before I even looked inside, I turned back to the astonished faces, Stehnite and Arak Drul alike, and I shouted, “You lie, Sorrail. Your whole world is a lie. The doors are guarded only against those who belong in your war. I, however, am an Outsider.”
He spurred his horse at me, and a dozen of his cavalry came with him, charging me down. I stood in the doorway of the huge ruined chamber with its wrecked furnishings and devastated manuscripts, and in the same instant Orgos leaped out between me and the horsemen, engaging them with a great swinging flourish of his sword. I permitted myself only the briefest glance at the clash which followed as Sorrail stormed into the fray before turning and stepping through the doors and into the great, ravaged room.
He was there, waiting for me, the ancient hooded figure whose mind I had felt moments before.
His thoughts caught me like a dozen hands and pinned me where I stood. Toth tried to come after me, but the moment he entered the chamber he was caught up, as if seized by a great wind, and flung heavily back against the wall. His weapon splintered at the handle, and he cried out in rage and pain. The cloaked figure in front of me had barely moved, and his eyes were still on me. Dimly I knew that only the Outsiders were a threat to him for the same reasons that only we could pass the great brass doors. We didn’t belong here in their world, their war. But what we could possibly do to him, I didn’t know. How do you harm someone you suspect is really a spirit or, worse still, an abstraction, an idea which holds a culture together? Even if I hadn’t already been paralyzed, my own indecision would have prevented further action.
Then the grip on my mind and body fluttered for a second, and I became aware of another figure entering the
