There were many small dwellings and hamlets in the valley, walled and protected as though each might be a minor fortress. In the city walls the gates were accommodating, though strongly guarded, with a welcoming host of Sisters just inside to babble welcomes and lead the newcomers away to long barracks which smelled of cooking. Soon there were only three of them left, Leona leaning against her horse with Bombaroba shifting impatiently at her side, and Hazliah politely still. Bombaroba was very hungry. She patted him, gesturing him away toward the food smells. She did not want to go into the lighted buildings, did not want to chat and greet and learn the names and habits of a thousand more people, a hundred more, even ten more. Above her the sky began to pimple with stars. Hazliah still waited.
‘Will you come with me, Lady? There is a small room in the near tower where you will find wine, food, a fire.’
‘Maps,’ she said abstractedly. ‘Charts of this region …’
‘If you like.’
She assented without speaking. Yes. A small room in which one might be very still for a time, a time without speaking or making any decision. Hazliah guided her with small gestures, a finger movement, a glance. Suddenly she was aware that he was anticipating her every move.
‘You can read my mind!’ she accused.
‘No. Only your feelings, Lady. Because we are kindred, you and I.’ He did not explain, and she did not really wonder at that remark until later. Then it gave her something to think about in the long night hours as she lay upon her narrow bed, watching the circling of the stars, listening to the dogs’ breathing and her own.
Hazliah returned in the morning, bringing with him a woman who introduced herself as Systrys, daughter of Ephraim the Archivist.
‘I am told you travelled with one who knew Ephraim,’ she said. ‘One who knew Nathan, sent long ago to bring Ephraim home. I have come to learn what I can of them, for Ephraim was a parent to me and Nathan was a friend.’
They breakfasted while Leona tried to recall all Jaer had said about Ephraim and Nathan. Closely questioned, she tried to remember bits and pieces from Jaer’s book, confessing at last, ‘I heard Jaer read from it; Medlo mock it; Terascouros question it; but I paid little attention.’ When she had said all she could, Systrys wiped tears from her cheeks and put her notebook away.
‘Something of what you say about this book strikes memory, Leona of Anisfale. I think it is the reference to the Girdle of Binding. I remember that; remember Ephraim saying something to me about it, years – oh, how many years ago. I will seek in the archives for it. If I find it, I will bring it to you. Until then, thank you for your words about my parent. I will set a light in the Temple in his memory, and one for Nathan as well.’
When she had gone, Hazliah said, ‘She is a fine archivist, she was a fine student. Ephraim taught her for many years before he left Orena, and she mourns him. As we may all be mourned if we do not see to our defences.’
Leona tried to look neither startled nor amazed when Hazliah took her to the cliffs in a little wagon which moved itself, which clicked and hummed through a long, lighted tunnel; which Hazliah called a car. ‘Very old,’ he said. ‘Built by the builders of the city itself in the time of the wizards.’
On the cliff he showed her still other devices of the ancients, machines which peered through fog or darkness, machines which heard what was said at great distances, weapons which spat darts of light. Peering through these devices they could see how the stony hummocks had invaded all the canyon floors and level lands to the north. Above, on the more precipitous slopes, the devices showed bulky shadows which seemed to bleed from one shape to another as they stumbled toward the heights. And on the heights, not far from the ramparts in which they stood, clots of Gahlians in company with rearing monstrosities moved toward the walls. These creatures flung themselves upward to show endless pairs of pincer feet beneath nightmare jaws, voracious and deadly.
‘They do not attack the black robes who have brought them,’ said Hazliah. ‘We do not know why.’
All along the ramparts were these horrors, hummocks, shadows, monsters, hemming them in, pressing closer to the walls with every hour.
‘So,’ said Leona, ‘we are shut in. So soon. Can these creatures come down the cliffs?’
Hazliah shook his head. ‘Not the Tharnel worms, Lady. Not the black minions of Gahl, not alive.’
‘The black robes are easy to kill.’
‘So we know, Lady. But what remains when we have killed them can come over our cliffs like water falling into a pool.’ He turned the device to look south, and she saw mists roiling in the valleys, washing almost to the foot of the ramparts in menacing coils, sluggishly alive. ‘The Sisters tell us this is the result of killing Gahlians. Is this so?’
Leona was suddenly angered. It was the gryphon who had killed the Gahlians, the gryphon and Terascouros. ‘It is a result of one kind of killing. Who knows if it is the only result? There may be some here who would know.’
‘Some might know. The Remnant, perhaps.’
She drew her brows together in frustration. ‘Well, we must find out what we can, Hazliah. I must speak to those in authority, to your Remnant. Are they in authority here?’
‘The questions cannot be answered, Lady. I will take you to them. You can ask them, if you will.’
‘I do not understnad your calm!’ she burst out. ‘To the north are these things you have shown me. To the south, the mists. To the east, the Concealment hems this valley. To the west?’
‘The mists again, Lady, and more Gahlians.’
‘Then where is your hope? Where is your defence?’
‘The Choirs,
