"There are soldiers in the tunnels," the troll replied. "And others, too-Noms, I think, although we did not see them as we did the soldiers. But the dwarrows were certainly feeling them, and I do not think they were pretending for the benefit of me. They were full of terror."

"Norns? Here? But I thought they couldn't come to the castle!"

Binabik shrugged. "Who can say? It is their deathless master who is barred from this place, but I did not think it likely the living Norns would wish to enter here. Still, if everything I have been thinking was truth was now proved false, it would no longer be a surprising thing to me."

Yis-fidri approached, then stooped and crouched beside them, the padded leather of his garments creaking. Despite his kind, sad face, Miriamele thought that his long limbs gave him something of the appearance of a spider picking its way across a web.

"Here is your companion safe, Miriamele."

"I'm glad you found him."

"And not a moment too soon did we come upon him." Yis-fidri was clearly worried. "There are mortal men and Hikeda'ya swarming through the tunnels. Only our skill in hiding the doorway to this chamber keeps us safe."

"Do you plan to stay here forever? That won't help anything." The joy of Binabik's return had worn off a lit-tie, and now she felt desperation returning. They were all trapped in an isolated cavern while the world around them seemed to be moving toward some terrible cataclysm. "Don't you feel what is happening? All the rest of your folk felt it."

"Of course we feel it." For a moment Yis-fidri almost sounded angry. "We feel more than you. We know these changes of old-we know what the Words of Making can do. And the stones speak to us as well. But we have no strength to stop what is happening, and if we call attention to ourselves, that will be the end. Our freedom is of no use to anyone."

"Words of Making... ?" Binabik asked, but before he could finish his question, Yis-hadra appeared and spoke softly to her husband in the dwarrow tongue. Miriamele looked past her to where the rest of the tribe huddled against the cavern's far wall. They were clearly disturbed, eyes wide in the dim light, chattering quietly among themselves with much nodding and shaking of their large heads.

Yis-fidri's thin face wore a look of alarm. "Someone is outside," he said.

"Outside?" Miriamele pulled the pack closed. "What do you mean? Who?"

"We know not. But someone is outside the hidden door to this chamber, trying to get in." He flapped his hands anxiously. "It is not mortal soldiers, for whoever it is, they have some power over things-we shielded that door to the limits of the Tinukeda'ya's art."

"The Norns?" Miriamele breathed.

"We know not!" Yis-fidri stood and put his thin arm around Yis-hadra. "But we must hope that even though they have found the door, they cannot force it. There is nothing more we can do."

"There must be another way out, isn't there?"

Yis-fidri hung his head. "We took a risk. Hiding two doors makes both of them more vulnerable, and we feared to expend too much Art when things are so unbalanced...."

"Mother of Mercy!" Miriamele cried. Anger fought with hopeless terror inside her. "So we're trapped." She turned to Binabik. "G.o.d help us, what choice do we have?"

The troll looked tired. "Are you asking if we will fight? Of course. The Qanuc are not giving their lives away. Mindun.o.b inik yat, Mindun.o.b inik yat, we say-'my home will be your tomb.' " His laugh was grim. "But with certainty, even the fiercest troll would rather find a way to keep his cave without himself dying." we say-'my home will be your tomb.' " His laugh was grim. "But with certainty, even the fiercest troll would rather find a way to keep his cave without himself dying."

"I found my knife," said Miriamele, drumming her fingers nervously on her leg. She struggled to keep her voice steady. Trapped! They were trapped with no way out, and the Norns were at the door! "Merciful Elysia, I wish I'd brought a bow. I only have Simon's White Arrow, but I'm sure he would approve if I feathered a Norn with it. I suppose I can use it to stab someone."

Yis-fidri looked at them in disbelief. "You could not save yourself from the Hikeda'ya with a bow and a whole quiver full of Vindaomeyo's most perfect arrows, let alone with only a knife."

"I don't think we will will save ourselves," Miriamele snapped. "But we have come too far to let them take us as though we were frightened children." She took a breath to calm herself. "You are strong, Yis-fidri-I felt it when you carried me off. Surely you won't just let them kill you?" save ourselves," Miriamele snapped. "But we have come too far to let them take us as though we were frightened children." She took a breath to calm herself. "You are strong, Yis-fidri-I felt it when you carried me off. Surely you won't just let them kill you?"

"It is not our way, fighting," Yis-hadra spoke up. "We have never been the strong ones-not strong that way."

"Then stay back." Inwardly, Miriamele thought she sounded like the worst kind of boastful tavern brawler, but it was already hard enough to think about what might be coming. Just looking at the trembling, terrified dwarrows sapped her resolve, and the fear that lay beneath felt like a hole into which she might tumble and fall forever. "Take us to the door. Binabik, let's at least pick up some stones. The good Lord knows this place is full of them."

The huddled dwarrows watched them with distrust, as though the very act of preparing a resistance made them almost as dangerous as the enemy outside. Miriamele and Binabik quickly gathered a pile of stones, then Binabik broke down his walking-stick and placed the knife section in his belt, then readied the blowpipe.

"Better to use this first." He pushed a dart into the tube. "Perhaps a death they cannot see will make them a little more slow for coming in."

The doorway appeared to be only another section of the striated cavern wall, but as Miriamele and the troll stood before it, a faint silvery line began to creep up the stone.

"Ruyan guide us!" Yis-fidri said miserably. "They have breached the wards!" There was a chorus of fearful noises from his fellow.

The silver gleam crept up the rock face, then coursed across the length of a man's reach and started down again. When a whole section was bounded by a thread of light, the stone inside the glow slowly began to swivel inward, sc.r.a.ping as it moved against the cavern floor. Miriamele watched its ponderous movement with terrified fascination, trembling in every limb.

"Do not step to the front of me," whispered Binabik. "I will tell you when it is safe for moving."

The door ground to a halt. As a figure appeared in the narrow opening, Binabik raised his blowpipe to his mouth. The dark shape tottered and fell forward. The dwarrows moaned in fear.

"You hit him!" Miriamele exulted. She hefted a rock, ready to try for the next one through while Binabik loaded another dart ... but no one else moved into the doorway.

"They're waiting," Miriamele whispered to the troll. "They saw what happened to the first one."

"But I was doing nothing!" said Binabik. "My dart is still unflown."

The figure raised its head. "Close ... the ... door." "Close ... the ... door." Each word was an agonized effort. Each word was an agonized effort. "They are ... behind me...." "They are ... behind me...."

Miriamele gaped in astonishment. "It's Cadrach!"

Binabik stared first at her, then at the monk, who had collapsed again. He put down his walking-stick and ran forward.

"Cadrach?" Miriamele slowly shook her head. "Here?"

The dwarrows rushed past her, hurrying to shut the door.

24.

The Graylands Graylands

The colorless fog went on forever, without floor or ceiling or any visible limit at all. Simon floated in the middle of nothingness. There was no movement, no sound. went on forever, without floor or ceiling or any visible limit at all. Simon floated in the middle of nothingness. There was no movement, no sound.

"Help me!" he shouted, or tried to, but his voice never seemed to leave his own head. Leleth was gone, her last touch upon his thoughts now grown cool and distant. "Help! Someone!"

If any shared the empty gray s.p.a.ces with him, they did not answer.

And what if there is someone or something here? Simon thought suddenly, remembering all he had been told about the Road of Dreams. It might be Simon thought suddenly, remembering all he had been told about the Road of Dreams. It might be something I something I don't want to meet. This might not be the Dream Road, but Leleth had said it was close. Binabik's master Ookequk had met some dreadful thing while he walked the road-and it had killed him. don't want to meet. This might not be the Dream Road, but Leleth had said it was close. Binabik's master Ookequk had met some dreadful thing while he walked the road-and it had killed him.

But would that be worse than just floating here forever, like a ghost? Soon there will be nothing left of me worth saving.

Hours went by with nothing changing. Or it might have been days. Or weeks. There was no time here. The nothingness was perfect.

After a long empty s.p.a.ce, his weak and scattered thoughts again coalesced.

Leleth was supposed to push me back, back to my body, to my life. Maybe I can do it myself.

He tried to remember what it felt like to be inside his living body, but for a long while could form only disjointed and disturbing images of the most recent days-burrowing diggers grinning into the torchlight, the Norns gathered whispering on the hilltop above Hasu Vale. Gradually he summoned a vision of the great wheel, and a naked body prisoned upon it.

Me! he exulted. he exulted. Me, Simon! I'm still alive! Me, Simon! I'm still alive!

The figure hanging on the wheel's rim was shadowy and without much form, like a crudely carved image of Usires on His Tree, but Simon could feel the intangible connection between it and him. He tried to give the shape a face, but could not remember his own features.

I've lost myself. The realization crawled over him like a blanket of killing frost. The realization crawled over him like a blanket of killing frost. I don't remember what I look like-I don't have a face! I don't remember what I look like-I don't have a face!

The figure on the wheel, even the wheel itself, wavered and became indistinct.

No! He clung to the wheel, willing its circular shadow to stay before his mind's eye. He clung to the wheel, willing its circular shadow to stay before his mind's eye. No! I'm real. I'm alive. My name is Simon! No! I'm real. I'm alive. My name is Simon!

He struggled to remember how he had looked in Jiriki's mirror-but first had to draw up the memory of the mirror itself, its cool feel beneath his fingers, the delicate smoothness of its carvings. It had warmed at his touch until it felt like a living thing.

Suddenly he could recall his own face prisoned in the Sithi gla.s.s. His red hair was thick and unkempt, slashed by a white streak; down his cheek from eye to jaw ran the mark of the dragon's blood. The eyes did not reveal all that went on behind them. It was not a boy who looked back from Jiriki's mirror, but a rawboned young man. It was his own face, Simon realized, his own face returned to him.

He narrowed his will, straining to force his own features onto the shadowy form hanging on the wheel. As the mask of his face grew upon the dim figure, everything else became clearer, too. The forge chamber grew out of the indistinct gray nothing, faint and ghostly, but unquestionably a real place from which Simon was separated only by some short, indefinable distance. Hope flooded back into his heart.

But no matter how he tried, he could not push any farther. He wanted desperately to return-even to the wheel-yet it remained tantalizingly out of reach: the more he struggled, the greater the distance seemed between the Simon that floated in the dreamworld and his empty, slumbering body.

I can't reach it! Defeat pulled at him. Defeat pulled at him. I can't. I can't.

With that realization, his vision of the wheel dimmed, then vanished. The phantom forge evaporated as well, leaving him adrift once more in the colorless void.

He summoned up the strength to try again, but this time could bring into existence only the faintest glimmering of the world he had left behind. It faded swiftly. Furious, despairing, he tried again and again, but was unable to break through. At last, his will flagged. He was defeated. He belonged to the void.

I'm lost....

For a while Simon knew nothing but hollowness and hopeless pain.

He did not know if he had slept or pa.s.sed over into some other realm, but when he could feel himself think again, something else had finally come to share the emptiness. A single mote of light glowed faintly before him, like a candle flame seen through a thick fog.

"Leleth!? Leleth, is that you?"

The spark did not move. Simon willed himself toward the gleam of light.

At first he could not say if it grew nearer, or whether, like a star on the horizon, it remained remote and beyond reach no matter how he traveled. But even though Simon could not be sure that the spark was any closer, things began to change around him. Where once there had been only airy nothingness, he now began to see faint lines and shapes which gradually became sharper and more distinct until at last he could make out the forms of trees and stones-but all were transparent as water. He was pa.s.sing along a hillside, but the very earth below him and the vegetation that shrouded it seemed only scarcely more real than the void that stretched overhead in place of the sky. He seemed to be moving through a landscape of clear gla.s.s, but when he lost his way for a moment and stepped into a rock in his path, he pa.s.sed through it.

Am I the ghost? Or is it this place?

The light was nearer. Simon could see its warm glow reflected faintly in the fog of tree-shapes that ringed it round. He moved closer.

The radiance hovered on the edge of a ghostly valley, perched at the end of a jut of translucent stone. It was cradled in the arms of a dim, smoky figure. As he drew closer, the phantom turned. Ghost or angel or demon, it had the face of a woman. The eyes widened, although they did not quite seem to see him.

"Who is there?" The shadowy woman's face did not move, but there was no question in his mind that it was she who spoke. Her voice was rea.s.suringly human.

"I am. I'm lost." Simon thought of how he would feel, approached in this deathly emptiness by a stranger. "I mean no harm."

A ripple pa.s.sed through the woman's form, and for a moment the gleam of light she cradled against her breast glowed more brightly. Simon felt it as a spreading warmth inside him and was strangely comforted. "I know you," she said slowly. "You came to me once before."

He could make no sense of that. "I am Simon. Who are you? What is this place?"

"My name is Maegwin." She sounded uneasy. "And this is the land of the G.o.ds. But surely you know both those things. You were the G.o.ds' messenger."

Simon had no idea what she meant, but he was desperately hungry for the company of another creature, even this ghost-woman. "I am lost," he repeated. "May I stay here and talk to you?" It seemed somehow important that he have her permission.

"Of course," she said, but the uncertainty had not left her voice. "Please, be welcome."

For a moment he could see her more clearly; her sorrowful face was framed by thick hair and the hood of a long cloak. "You are very beautiful," he said.

Maegwin laughed, something Simon felt more than heard. "In case I had forgotten, you have reminded me. that I am far from the life I knew." There was a pause. The glowing light pulsed. "You say you are lost?"

"I am. It's hard to explain, but I am not here-at least, the rest of me is not." He considered telling her more, but was hesitant to open himself completely even to this melancholy, harmless-seeming spirit. "Why are you here?"

"I wait." Maegwin's voice was regretful. "I do not know who or what I am waiting for. But I know that is what I do."

For a time the two of them did not speak. The valley shimmered below, pellucid as mist.

"It all seems so far away," Simon said at last. "All the things that seemed so important."

"If you listen," Maegwin replied, "you can hear the music."

Simon listened, but heard absolutely nothing. That in itself was astonishing, and for a moment he was overwhelmed. There was nothing at all-no wind, no birdsong, no soft babble of voices, not even the m.u.f.fled b.u.mping of his own heart. He had never imagined a quiet so absolute, a peace so deep. After all the madness and uproar of his life, he seemed to have come to the still center of things.

"I fear this place a little," he said. "I'm afraid that if I stay here too long, I won't even want to go back to my life."

He could feel Maegwin.'s surprise. "Your life? Are you not already long dead? When you came to me before, I thought you must be an ancient hero." She made an unhappy sound. "What have I done? Could it be that you did not know you were dead?"

"Dead?" Shock and fury and more than a little terror surged through him. "I'm not dead! I'm still alive, I just can't get back. I'm alive!"

"Then what are you doing here with me?" There was something very strange in her voice.

"I don't know. But I'm alive!" And although he said it in part to combat his own sudden apprehension, he felt it, too-ties that had grown weak but were nevertheless quite real still bound him to the waking world and his lost body.

"But surely only the dead come here? Only the dead, like me?"

"No. The dead go on." Simon thought of Leleth flying free and knew he spoke truly. "This is a waiting place-a between-place. The dead go on."

"But how can that be, when I ..." Maegwin suddenly fell silent.

Simon's frightened anger did not dissipate, but he felt the flame of his life still inside him, a flame that had dimmed but had not yet blown out, and he was comforted. He knew he was alive. That was all he had to cling to, but it was everything.