Then they were drawn in to the wholeness of the mind which the Sisterhood sent outward, becoming only a part of a greater whole, a single, curving edge of searching thought.
The mind moved over the saddle of the Hill, into the little valley where the mists swirled, narrowed itself into a fine blade of thought and moved to cut away one swirl of mist, one bit of circling shadow. Into that bit the mind looked, questioned: ‘What are you? Who are you?’ and heard the agonized whisper in answer.
‘I am … I am … My name is … Give me … I need … I am…’
Reluctantly the mind turned from this swirl of mist to another, again questioned, again heard. ‘I am … Let me … I need …’ That was all.
Though the mind questioned again and again, it was answered only by a hollow, hungering, inexpressible need without identity. The mind withdrew, saddened. It gathered itself and fled away to the west like a cloud before wind, swiftly. It rested above the castle garth of Rhees, searching downward through fleecy clouds, knowing through Medlo’s intelligence what was seen.
Riders came from the gates of the castle. Medlo’s mother, the lady Mellisa, her brother, courtiers, the Master of Hawks, several gorgeously gowned ladies, three grooms, and a meaty, lumpish boy of eight or nine who glanced at the world from the back of a small horse, all swept out into an afternoon beautiful with blossom and sun. They were waved farewell by a stout, bearded man, the erstwhile Lord Hardel of the Marches, and he watched them long as they rode away, a curious look, part satisfaction, part regret.
On the heights above the road a half-completed temple towered, and the troop clattered past long lines of sweating black robes hitched to sledges loaded with dressed stone as they tugged them upward in endless procession to the heights. At one time an ancient keep of the Drossynian house had stood there. Now a Temple of Separation reared toward completion. The troop, to its last and youngest member, looked pointedly elsewhere. The mind could hear the thoughts of the Lady Mellisa as though she spoke aloud. There had been certain threats by the Keepers of the Seals. The Lord Hardel has negotiated. In return for being allowed to build the Temple without hindrance, and to take a levy of the common people into their group, the black-robed Gahlians had agreed to leave the lady and the lord in possession of their lands, titles, and enjoyments.
The lady mused that it would not have happened in the days of the High King at Methyl-Dain, but Methyl-Dain was in ruins and the High King survived only in certain esoteric references to oaths and guarantees formerly exchanged among the duchies of the kingdom. They would be exchanged no more. All the duchies had been ‘Separated’ as the Keepers put it.
Knowing all this, the troop made no reference to it. They spurred their horses into a clatter of rising dust and swept by, away to the riverside for an afternoon of fishing, hawking, and dalliance. The hovering mind followed their journey. As they neared the river meadows, one of the grooms fell back, his horse limping. The others went on to confront two iron wagons on the verge of the road. Two red-robed ones stood nearby. As the troop drew up, doubtfully, one of the Keepers raised his hand as if in greeting, and something round and shiny as a bubble flew from the raised hand to burst in the dust at the lady’s feet. She smelled something unpleasant, started to say something….
The lagging groom had seen the wagons from the curve of the road and had prudently dismounted, tugging his horse into a screening copse. He watched, round-eyed, until the wagons were gone, then returned in all haste to the castle. There, he learned that a council of black robes had been installed as the governing body of Rhees. The consort, Lord Hardel, was stating the doctrine of the Gahlians as though it had been his own. It was being said that the Lady Mellisa and her brother, Pellon, had gone to visit her sister in the lower reaches of Methyl-lees, by the sea. The groom, more sensible than many twice his age, changed his clothing for something less conspicuous and left Rhees by the straightest road. What the groom had seen and heard, the mind knew, having watched and listened long into the night hours.
The mind turned to flow southward, over the Outer Sea and the clustered islands, across beaches glimmering under starlight, over vast brown deserts, and into the jungles which edged the land of the Lion Courts. In the deeps of this jungle a clearing flowed beneath the mind, in the clearing one tree, a tree which seemed to brush the sky, xoxa-auwal, sky gatherer, Tree of Forever, looming and eternal, at its roots a tiny rock shrine which was being dismantled stone by stone by black-robed acolytes who worked by glaring torchlight while others plied axes against the giant trunk. An aged man tottered into the clearing, waving a leafy branch, crying out in remonstration. An axeman stepped forward, almost casually, and cut him down. Thewson’s perception allowed the mind to grieve for the shaman, faithful to the forest gods, dead.
The mind seemed to hear within itself a plangent, metallic call, a turning of the will toward the north. It drifted to the
