The cloak, now little more than a fringe of tatters, was flung aside, and our sister, her face showing a scoring across one cheek that dripped blood, watched me come. She did not get to her feet but remained where she was, with the head of the wayfarer resting in her lap.

I dismounted swiftly and hurried to her side. Her horse had disappeared; doubtless the terrified beast had fled. She shifted a little, as I joined her, to show more clearly the face of the one she supported. Seeing him, a vast fear awoke in me. Such scavengers regarded eyes as a delicacy. If they had struck at his head- He still wore his buff coat. It was torn and caked with earth as if he had reached here by crawling. A freely bleeding gash gaped below one eye- below below, not through it, praise the Great One! One leg also lay at an unnatural angle and, as Bina shifted a little, he groaned.

Rogher opened his eyes and looked up at the one who held him. "Lady Sabina-" He moved his head a little to see me, and a confused frown crossed his face. With my cropped hair and men's clothing he did not know me for a moment. Then he actually grinned: "Lady Tamara-what game play you now?"

Some of the tension eased. "Rogher, our mother, father-?"

"Behind me-half day, perhaps. I rode out-scouting. My horse-"

He made as if to sit up but fell back.

"Mallord is not here," I said, needing to know more.

"He-stumbled," he continued in a halting voice, "fell, like one-bullet struck."

"Then came the birds?"

I was startled. Zolan had appeared behind me silently to ask that question.

"Yes." The squire frowned, seeming to disbelieve his own memory. "They-rained down as if a black cloud shook them loose. My Mallord-" down as if a black cloud shook them loose. My Mallord-"

His horse had been a cherished friend. Rogher had raised the mount himself from a foal and trained it, and astride it, had twice won races.

"Those accursed things went for him first. I-I crawled-to where there were some rocks-and they could not get at me."

Zolan loosed one of the water bags from his saddle and brought it, approaching with care against any spillage. Bina drew Rogher farther up against her shoulder. As our father's man drank in small sips, Cilla and Lo-lart joined us.

The armsman looked down at the squire.

" 'Tis out of nature," he said.

"The birds?" I caught his meaning.

"Aye. There was ravens, but with them enemies to their kind-rawheads, strike-bills, and other death-eaters. Suchlike do not company together. This be known."

Zolan, meanwhile, had gone over to Bina's mount, who had returned with sweat visible on her hide. He drew his hands down on either side of the head she lowered to him, and I saw her shivers lessen. Then he unbound the bag in which Bina carried her remedies and brought it back to us. As Cilla and I turned to take up the duties Bina usually held, tending both her and Rogher, he looked to Lolart.

"So those birds are never seen together? Then some mighty reason must have made them flock in company for attack this time."

Lolart was quick to catch the thought behind the statement. More grimace than frown now distorted what we could see of his face.

"Someone is dealing with deep Dark Powers."

Zolan nodded. "That much is manifest."

Now he turned to me. "The Warding-it did not hold to protect Lady Sabina, or did it?"

Bina looked up as I drew a strip of torn cloth from Frosmoor's spoilage to bandage her hand. "It-it did not!" Fear could be plainly heard in her tone.

I sat back on my heels to consider this new danger. Then our sister spoke again in a calmer voice: "Or did it?" She reached out her unbandaged hand and tugged at the slashed-to-fringes edge of the torn cloak. "I killed that bird; we survived. Perhaps the Warding kept the fliers from feasting. It is strong, yes, but what it stood against was-and is-more powerful still." She addressed Zolan rather than me, and he watched the sky now, looking away from her.

"Could those battle-birds have been called from the Dismals?" I demanded.

"Yes." He added nothing to that single word.

Lolart stared at us both. Though he asked no question, I took Zolan's brevity of speech as a warning and inquired no further.

Now a decision had to be made. Rogher had not only suffered tearing from bird beak and claw but he had also broken his leg, probably when his mount fell. Bina, with our help, set the break, which was luckily a clean one. She then bound it with two lengths of wood cut from a sapling Lolart had found. However, the squire refused the herb she offered to ease his pain.

"We know now what will happen next," he said. "I would not be muzzy-minded if another attack comes."

I reached over and drew the dagger Bina carried. A small ritual needed to be done to put Rogher under the protection of the Warding, if that barrier would guard; since the strike of the birds against Bina I could not be sure. I p.r.i.c.ked my finger deeply with the point of the old weapon, and a bead of blood issued forth.

Placing the now-bleeding finger to our patient's lips, I ordered him to suck and swallow. Trusting in his knowledge of us from of old, he obeyed. This act of Power would temporarily tie him to our company by blood, and the Ward would draw him in also.

Now we lacked two mounts for our party, but Rogher could neither ride nor walk. So we made ready to camp close by, the squire being sure that the party from Grosper was not too distant. I knew that Mother would be able to pick up our presence without need for any Send, and to use such a Calling now, in the presence of the Dark Force that had summoned the birds, might betray us at once.

Cilla stewed a mixture of coa.r.s.e meal and herbs over a small fire, and Lolart, with a well-thrown stone, brought down another leaper. Not to be outdone in the kill by any mere two-legs, Climber mastered his limp long enough to catch a second gra.s.s-bounder, a reckless young one.

After we had eaten, the old soldier spoke. "I ride scout." The words were a statement, not a question. He rose and started toward the place where the horses grazed.

"No-" I stepped into his way. "Would you stir about and so give the Power that wants us another chance?"

"You said that we were under the Light's protection, Lady Tamara." Again he stroked his cheek where the beard covered it, almost as if he unconsciously traced an old scar.

"If we stay together, yes," I returned. Now I questioned Zolan. "Do you not agree?"

The man from the Dismals nodded. He had made no explanation of his own part in banishing the birds-if the vicious fliers had had been birds-and I had no right to ask for what he did not offer on his own. been birds-and I had no right to ask for what he did not offer on his own.

Lolart stirred restlessly. I knew he wanted to do what he, as an experienced armsman, believed was right, instead of sitting here to wait for what might come to him and us.

Diplomatically, Zolan a.s.signed both the guard and himself employment. "We shall bring up the ponies; then let us see what is of true worth among the goods we carry. Our plan of playing traders may not come to pa.s.s, and we must not keep useless burdens on the animals."

I took my turn beside Rogher while the rest of our party once more opened the bags and sorted through the loot of that long-ago raid, Zolan explaining to Lolart its source. Pain still showed in the squire's eyes. He began to talk feverishly, telling me all that had happened after it was learned we had vanished from Grosper.

"My lord-he had the ice-anger on him. He told the clan chiefs that, unless they aided in a search for you, he would believe the deed was a plot hatched amongst them all.

"Chief Starkadder-he made his son speak out before the company, then he drove away that Udo Chosen. He said the priest was a demon follower and the cause of what his son had done. And that lout's summoning, through Udo, of Maclan to do the actual taking was a cause of even greater rage to my lord."

"The men of Grosper came with sleuthhounds, and we went on the track, but not before my lord sent a message to King Arvor, which warned him of what such a threat to the Lord Warden might lead our queen to do. Then our lord came back-and he was a man locked within himself, letting no one learn his thoughts. Our lady sent one messenger to the nearest guard and another to the Green Grove. She stayed apart for a whole day and, when she returned, she said that you all still lived but that some Power alien to hers raised barriers between you.

"News came to us from Kingsburke that fighting had begun there. The Chosen had taken over, and their leader had made Arvor prisoner. Most of the clans then set upon them. Men babbled of monsters and such mad notions, and we could get no true news of what was happening in that place. But both our lord and lady said a task awaited that must needs be done, and so we came riding."

He ended, flushed and panting. I held the water bag for him to drink. Before it was more than midday by the sun, he was raving and had to be restrained, the fever leading him to believe that Father had summoned him and he must go. Lolart lent his strength to keep the squire from a struggle which might have undone Bina's tending, and she pressed a ma.s.s of wet, torn leaves against the bandages on his face until he lapsed into unconsciousness.

We strove to pile scoured-up turf and earth into walls of a sort; then Zolan used cloth drawn from among the loot to fashion a shade over Rogher. We saw no more birds, not even any of the hawks common to the air in these parts. Climber kept licking at his thorn-stabbed foot until at last he joined Zolan, who at intervals checked on the horses and draft ponies.

Waiting was far worse than traveling. No Send came to us, and we were certain that this in itself was a warning against trying to reach those from Grosper. Lolart, meanwhile, was busy with a hide thong he had sawed from one of the burden bags-a difficult job with only one of our rusted daggers to aid. At last he began searching about in the earth disturbed for our wall-building to produce five pebbles. We saw that he had now armed himself with a sling such as shepherds sometimes used, and he began to employ it at once. Five pebbles he released from the whirling hide loop, then retrieved them and tried again. His aim grew better with each throw, and I, intrigued, reached for another piece of hide to cut a strip of my own. A sling would be a new weapon for me but a weapon nonetheless.

Sabina

I laid the cooling pad once more on Rogher's face. My other hand, thick and clumsy with bandages, was useless when I tried to move my fingers. The strange lack of feeling raised wariness in me. Beaks and claws had torn my flesh, yes, and I had not suffered such wounds before. Only now our own herbs, gathered and mixed to the best of my supplies and knowledge, had brought no lessening of pain. And when I had last viewed Rogher's face, I discovered that the puffiness that had half blinded him had spread.

Had we both received some venom into our wounds? How greatly I longed for access to my own store of drugs, and to those books compiled from the learning of generations before me! Now, as I cradled my wounded hand against my breast, I knew what I must do. I looked to Cilla, and she read in that gesture what I wanted and came at once to sit beside me.

"I must go Deep," I told her in a whisper.

"To show yourself to-them?."

"Yes-and with no one to follow," I answered. Once before in my life I had tried this inward journey, but Mother and Duty had both held me then with Power.

Cilla continued to regard me, her lips pressed together. She laid a hand on my knee, but I shook my head. No company, no. I dared not make too great a stir in the force. We might not be as well Warded as we thought- did not pain eat at me now?

Slowly Cilla shook her head, but she withdrew her hand as she realized that this was my will and that I believed it necessary.

Closing my eyes, I pictured my heart beating, began to slow its steady pumping. Then around me, with the inner Sight, I raised walls on either side to serve as barriers. Down that open path between them, "I"-that which was my essence, for in truth my body had released me-traveled.

I stood now in a vast s.p.a.ce wherein were crowded multiple boxes: some narrow, some deep, but each with a sliding panel set into the side facing me. Slashes of color marked every container, symbols I could not translate as I paced along. If what I sought was stored here, I would know it.

Along one aisle I had come, and now I started down its neighbor. What I used for organs of sight within this place were beginning to dim. Yet I kept on and on. How long had I been searching? I could not tell, for time in the Deep Place cannot be reckoned.

Then one color flashed out more strongly, and I sped towards it. Green-the color of growing things, of natural life in my own time and place. The guarding panel slid to the side with no need of my touch. It was old, very old, of that I was sure. And within- I was never to see the contents wholly, for at that moment the scene that lay about me shivered, shook, and-

Drucilla

I watched Bina go into the Deep. What she faced now was death of body. Her form was already flaccid, and I caught her as she fell backwards to make sure that she was safely lowered. Her skin was pale under fainter brown painted by the sun. When I took her uninjured hand, it was limp and cold.

"What does she?" Tam pulled away from her employment, stood over us. With both hands raised to her head, her face a mask of horror, she fell to her knees beside us. "She is gone!"

"She searches for knowledge she believes she must have," I answered dully, "in the Deeps." I knew what Tam meant, though I had not ventured to confirm her condition for myself; Bina was no longer one who shared life closely with us.

"We must give her a guard on that road!"

I slapped down Tam's hand. "You dare not follow-her Deeps are not yours."

Even though we had been tied from birth, that was the truth. Certain memories are not ours to comb; they may lie far back in time and belong to one person alone. To gain knowledge from them, the searcher must turn to the All-Memory, which is of the spirit, not the body. Yet this is a matter of great danger, for the seeker may be trapped by some event of peril in the past and unable to win free. If the diver has none to tug her back from the wonders of those Deeps to the surface of physical life, then-

Tamara

I s.n.a.t.c.hed Bina's hand from out of Cilla's grip and held it in both of mine. It was cold-so very cold! Had what she sought been learned just at the point of death? I refused utterly to believe that. All at once, though I had not tried the way of the Deep, I flushed into the open a memory of my own. Within a moment I had ducked my head, and the bagged stone from the ruins slid down my breast. Placing Bina's hand by her side, I freed that gem and gazed into its heart.

A change commenced in its radiance; I felt it begin to warm. Cilla had watched me closely. Now she drew aside that rag of dress Bina wore and unlatched the top of the reptilian vest. I laid the ever-warm stone over my sister's heart. Did that center of life still beat? By the mercy of the Great One, it might, though I could not yet be sure.

Sabina

Suddenly I felt both heat and light, but both a.s.saulted me-these forces were meant as weapons, not for nurturing. I was Sabina of the Scorpys-I tried to cling to that ident.i.ty, even as I became aware that I was in a place and time I could not remember, and one where fear held me in thrall.

I was somewhere in the open-this I understood; also, I was captive. I had held out very long-too long to suit those who had taken me prisoner. More and more my sight cleared. I seemed to stand on a place much higher than those before me, for I looked down on a gathering of figures, all of whom wore drab-colored robes with hoods drawn up to hide faces.

From them issued a droning chant in which I could distinguish no separate words. I felt now the pressure of real chains about my wrists, though I did not look down to see those restraints. A similar band was tight about my waist also, and it anch.o.r.ed me past any real movement.

Then the throng before me parted, and down that open way came- Once more, darkness closed in and, welcoming an escape, I allowed myself to be borne away.

Twenty-three.

Drucilla