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THE STAIRS WENT UP and up in a long slow spiral, and Aerin followed, turning round and round till it see the well of the sky and at the end of the staircase she would step onto the reen earth For a little while she could hear her friends, aited restlessly at the foot of the stair; once she heard the thinnest thread of a whine, but that was all None tried to follow her Then she could no longer hear anything but the soft sound of her footsteps and the occasional slow stutter of a guttering fla, and her back ached with tension, and her neck ached with keeping her head tipped up to look at the endless staircase; and her ht had disappeared long since, had gone with the last sounds of her beasts; the light in her eyes was red In the edges of her vision she saw gaping black doors that led into chaaze to see; and soely on a stair that opened into such a roorew heavier with every step up She recognized the weight, though she had never felt it thus before: evil Maur’s breath had stunk of evil, and its words had set evil tracks in her mind; but she had faced Maur on the earth and under the sky, not in a dark endless airless tower She struggled on With each step she felt her ankles and shinbones jar against the floor, and tendons grate across her kneecaps, the heavy thigh rind in their sockets Her right ankle began to ache
She was still carrying the surka wreath, and as she thought of Maur she remembered the red stone she had taken with her from its ashes, and remembered that she carried the stone even now She had aher own betrayal into Agsded’s lair; but she put her hand into the breast of her tunic, and drew out the little soft pouch where the stone lay The stone was hot to the touch when she let it fall into her palers; she alht of spiders and surka leaves, and held on; then shook it back into its pouch, and curled her fingers around it_
Still she clier felt alone Evil ith her; red evil shone in her eyes, rode on her shoulders, harried her heels; waited in the dark doorhere she would not look, fell like ash and rose like smoke from the torches Evil was all around her, and it watched her, eyelessly, watched for her first stumble Still the stairs rose before her, and still her weary legs carried her up; she wondered howstairs, and if her army had disbanded by now, and she worried about Talat, earing his saddle and gear She should have remembered to strip it off before she entered the dark tower
The red light throbbed in tiun by its fluctuations; the sweat that ran into her eyes was red, and it burned And now she had so else to worry about, for where she had touched the tender skin of her throat with her surka-sticky fingers when she pulled at the thong that held the dragon stone’s pouch, it burned too But its throb had nothing to do with the tower It throbbed angrily and self-consciously, and her h to think, This is typical On ods knohat unspeakable doohtened the evil a little; she did not notice this as such, only that she toiled on in a slightly better spirit Idly she pulled one end of her collar loose and pressed it against the surka rash, which didn’t help at all
Up And still up Everything ached; it was i cra about her that still bore any individuality was the surka rash on her chest, which was spreading Up She had been cli forever She would be a new god: the God That Cliods: the God That Isn’t There, for example (more often known as the God That Follows or the God That Goes Before), which was the shadow-god at un to itch, and she had to curl her surka-stained fingers into fists to stop herself fro the too sensitive skin on her neck and chest And still she climbed The heat in the red stone now beat at one hand even through the pouch; and the crisp leaves of the surka pinched the fingers of the other hand
When she came to the top she did not believe it She stood du from a black doorway like all the other doorways she had straitly passed on her long spiral ascent; but now the stairs were ended, and she o back There were no torches lighting this hall; the last of them threw their shadows at her from half a dozen steps below And suddenly those shadows flickered, though there was no draught, and she knew there was soed forward into the darkness
She would have said she had no strength left for running, but she did run Gonturan banging painfully against her ankle, although her feet were nu Then she saw that the hall was quite short, for the blackness before her was that of double doors, their fraht; and she stopped abruptly a few strides fro to du up the stairs to find
She leaned against the outer edge of one door, her back to the narrohere it joined the corridor wall; her breath whined in her throat Thank Luthe for the thoroughness ofinto the bottoful captured The rash on her chest throbbed with extra enthusiase had to heave and subside , she aht of him, had not quite said his name even in the dimmest, most private recesses of her mind, since she had left hi eased; even the evil air seemed to taste less foul Luthe She looked down the hallway, but saw nothing coht Perhaps that is what follows here She looked down at her hands She could not open the doors behind her - supposing they opened in the usual fashion - with both hands full She knelt down, kicking the tip of Gonturan to one side so she jaave Aerin’s armpit a sharp poke with her hilt, and put the hidden stone and the green wreath on the stone floor Slowly she upended the leather bag, and the hot red stone spilled out, burning in its own light, long red tongues of that light snaking down the corridor and up the walls It made her dizzy She prodded the wreath and made a small hollow in the twined steers, and dropped it in It sizzled and hissed, but the surka seeht subsided Aerin pulled the leaves back over it again, shook the wreath to be sure it could not fall out, and stood up
By the wings of the mother of all horses, her rash would drive her mad soon She rubbed it helplessly, the heel of her hand chafing it against the inside of her shirt, and it responded gleefully by feeling as if it had caught fire; but as she dropped her hand again and then tried to bow her shoulders so that her shirt and tunic would fall away froht be creeping up the stairs behind her Bowing her shoulders did no good either Irritably she turned to face the door, her free hand pressed flat against her chest again with shirt and tunic between; and pushed at the doors with the hand that held the surka The leaves rasped against the inside edge of the doors, and the doors exploded
There was a roar like all the thunder gods came down off their mountain to howl simultaneously in her ears; and winds spun around her like endless spiral staircases, bruising her with their edges There was torn redness before her eyes, rent with blackness, clahite and yellow; she felt that her eyes would be haered forward, still clutching the wreath, the hand that held it outstretched She could not see floor nor walls nor ceiling, nor anything; only the shards of color, likepast Her other hand fell to Gonturan’s hilt, though she knew she hadn’t a chance of drawing her in this vortex of storave comfort to clutch at her
The wind lifted her entirely off her feet for a ain and she stuain and threw her to one side, and only luck let her fall feet first the second tiht, and braced herself as best she could I’ll probably lose her - and with a wild heave she pulled Gonturan free of her scabbard
Blue fire blazed up and whirled around her, and the winds and thunders backed off Aerin gave Gonturan an experirim note, and the shards of red and black and claws of yellow and white disappeared into shadows and beca overhead with things painted on it, fell things of red and black, with fangs and yellos
And at the far end of the chairt at his side, and she knew hih in her mirror
She opened her reater, deeper, with terrible echoes that led harmonies, and those harmonies found the places in her own mind that she had never looked into, that by their existence had long frightened her; that she had hoped always to be able to ignore The air reeled over her in thick waves, and Gonturan’s blue fire dimmed and flickered as her hand trehter," he said His voice was low and soft and courteous; a thoughtful, philosophical, wise, and kindly voice, a voice anyonelike Aerin’s own
"Not well led voice, which seely holes in the air currents between them, which destroyed the harmonies that still hummed in her mind; but by the sound of her own voice she felt she had lost soht have forever been hers "Not well met You killed my mother and you would kill my people and my country"
He raised his shoulders, and his white robe rippled and fell in long graceful folds that glinted softly, like the petals of spring flowers His hazel eyes blinked gently at her; her own eyes, but larger and set her brow "And why, my dear, should you care? You never met your mother, so you cannot hters would be glad to have escaped the tender ministrations of their mothers
"And when has your land ever cared for you?" His voice sank lower yet, purring, and he shter - and so you are, and e mark had she not fled too soon - and they should revere you for it But in their small vicious way they choose to revile you
"Your father is kind - why should he not be? You have never been any trouble - you have never dehter and his only child; and lately you have been of soons, so that he need not send out his valuable lorious a task You have kept to the shadows, and he has let you stay there, and has done nothing to deny his people’s voices when they whisper, ohter
"And Tor?" He chuckled "Honest Tor He loves you, you know You know that So does everyone They all say that you are your hter - I think even the worthy Arlbeth wonders just a little, soet that Tor hi about this And as you are your hter, even when you do not reain, but it seemed very full of teeth