over grass and the worn-down nubs of rock outcroppings. Jogging south, they wasted no breath on talk.
Arriving at the top of a small bluff overlooking a tarn, they disturbed two gulls, which rose from the dark waters, leaving silent circles spreading ripple by ripple across the surface. The gulls wheeled silently overhead, grey feathers in flight in a grey sky, and then were gone.
The four scrambled down the rock face of the bluff and skirted round the edge of the tarn; underneath grass, mud quaked beneath their weight. Another slope confronted them; up they went.
The hunted men began to feel they were moving in a dream, where there was no end to the cool, odourless air, the black pools, the salt-wind grasses, the silent grey rocks and the grey sky reaching away to the horizon.
Then they heard the white riders hallooing behind them: 'Yo-dar! Yo-dar!'
'Sa-say!'
Then it was no dream any more: it was sweat, heat, strain and gut-wrenching effort as they tried to force themselves along faster. Finally they paused on a high point, panting, faces flushed, limbs shaking with fatigue.
'We can't outrun them,' said Miphon. Hearst drew his sword. 'So it ends, then,' he said.
– So make a stand, song-singer, sword-master, leader of men. Make a stand, Hast, my hero, my brother in blood.
'Lpt's split up,' said Ohio. 'If we separate, one of us might get away, if we run quick enough.'
'You run,' said Hearst. 'I'll take my chances here.' if you take odds like that, I'll gamble against you any time,' said Ohio. 'Don't be a fool: run.'
The riders were having difficulty getting their animals down a slope that was almost sheer, but soon they would be past that obstacle.
'They will remember me as a brave man, at least,' said Hearst.
'I'd rather be remembered as an old man,' said Ohio.
'No chance of that,' said Hearst.
'Yes,' said Blackwood. 'There's still one chance.'
He held up the green bottle which they had been carrying with them, and which they had avoided entering for all these days, believing Elkor Alish to be waiting inside.
'If we go in there, we'll have to face Alish,' said Hearst.
'He's one man, we're four,' said Miphon. 'It's a good idea – the only idea. Come on.' 'What's this about?' said Ohio. 'Follow,' said Blackwood.
They left the high point and plunged down a slope, so they were out of sight of the pursuers. Blackwood threw the green bottle so it fell into the dark waters of a tarn.
'Ohio,' said Blackwood, 'Hold my shoulder.'
'Why?' said Ohio.
'Do as you're told.'
When they were all in contact, Miphon, who was wearing the ring commanding the green bottle, turned the ring.
Green went the world.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
'The man who rules this rules the world,' said Elkor Alish.
He held the death-stone in his hand; in the green bottle, it could do no harm.
'It's a greater thing for a man to learn to rule himself,' said Blackwood.
'So our woodsman plays philosopher,' said Alish. 'How did he come by such pretensions?'
They could talk freely and without fear: they were in separate halves of a room divided by a wall that was covered with carvings of wizards, warriors, dragons and creatures of the Swarms; a portcullis blocked the only way through that wall.
'Do you think me ignorant?' said Blackwood. 'I remember the council of war in Castle Diktat on the island of Ebonair, the battle of the Bluesky Waters, the wreck of the Dalmanasturn. I remember the Long War, the Empire of Wizards, the court of Talaman. You know what I know.'
Ohio hung back, watching. Miphon stood beside him, letting Hearst and Blackwood do the talking.
'What's this nonsense?' said Ohio. 'There's no castle on Ebonair. The Dalmanasturn is only a children's story. And what and where are the Bluesky Waters? And who was -'
'Listen,' said Miphon. 'Weil explain later.'
Elkor Alish was pacing backwards and forwards on the other side of the portcullis, declaiming in a loud voice: '… then south to conquer. Ancient wrongs will be righted. The battle-banners of Rovac will fly from the towers of the Castle of Controlling Power. The Confederation of Wizards will be broken, destroyed.'
'You're mad,' said Hearst, and meant it.
'Mad?' said Elkor Alish. He laughed. 'No, Morgan, this isn't madness. It's destiny! In me you see the manifest destiny of Rovac. I have proof.'
'Proof?' said Hearst. 'And how did you come by it? From eating the moon and drinking salt water? Or -'
'Ahyak Rovac!' screamed Alish, drawing his sword.
Keen steel glittered in the gloom.
'I see,' said Hearst, 'that you've not yet lost your voice along with your sanity.'
T found this sword,' said Alish, his voice hissing, 'deep in the red bottle.'
'It's a wonder that you can find anything,' said Hearst, 'seeing that you're navigating with your head stuck half way up your backside.'
Alish screamed at him: 'Ahyak Rovac!'
Echoes woke in the gloom of the green bottle. The sword swept toward the portcullis. Metal met metal with a rending scream. Fire blazed white and blue. Five bars of the portcullis, each as thick as a man's thumb, were cut through by that single sword-blow.
'Now bite off your prattling tongue,' said Alish, his voice intense. 'Or use it to name this blade.'
'Raunen Song,' said Hearst, unwillingly.
The sword figured in the Black Blood Legends, the song cycle telling of wrongs suffered by the people of Rovac, and past attempts to right them.
'That is one of its names,' said Alish. 'Arbiter is another – and it has others. But, yes, Raunen Song names it well. Look. See? Rune-writing on the blade. A death-pledge from our yesterdays.'
'Alish,' said Hearst, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. 'We're talking of ancient history. That was a different world. We're born into the daylight, not into the shadowland of memory.'
'You talk treason!'
'Treason?' cried Hearst, outraged. 'You talk of treason? You? An oath-breaker? You cost me my hand!'
'Yes! And you would have cost us a continent,' said Alish. 'You were too weak for our purposes. But now is your chance to serve your people. I've waited here for weeks, sleeping safe from assassins behind this portcullis – if it can be raised, I've not yet found the method -and I'm not disposed to wait any longer. Take the ring from the wizard so we can leave here.'
Slowly Hearst raised his right arm, bringing his steel hook up to the level of his face. The metal was green in the green light.
'First explain this.' 'I already have,' said Alish. 'A hand is a small price for a continent.' 'You broke your oath!' i was not born to serve my own words,' said Alish, his voice strong and clear, 'but to keep the oath sworn by my ancestors on this blade: Raunen Song. We have a dispensation for those times when we treat with the ancient enemy.'
'Oh yes? And to try to kill me along with the rest by using the death-stone?'
'You made an alliance with the enemy.'
T took the same vows that you took. We walked in the same shadow: then you betrayed all of us. The only way for you to make amends is to yield up the death-stone. Now!'
Elkor Alish screamed: 'Ahyak Rovac!'
