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“ ‘Wait only for a moment…’
“ ‘Fear’s your enemy…’ she answered, but she did not stop
“She proceeded ahead of the light, feet sure, even as the tall grass gave way gradually to low heaps of rubble, and the forest thickened, and the distant tower vanished with the fading of theof the branches overhead Soon the sound and scent of the horses died on the loind ‘Be en garde,’ Claudia whispered, as she led vines and rock made it seem for moments there was a shelter But the ruins were ancient Whether plague or fire or a foreign eneed the toe couldn’t know Only the monastery truly remained
“Now so whispered in the dark that was like the wind and the leaves, but it was neither I saw Claudia’s back straighten, saw the flash of her white palm as she slowed her step Then I kneas the water, winding its way slowly down the h the black trunks, a straight,pool below Claudia e a bare root in thehand over hand up the overgrown cliff, her ar, then digging in to hold, then swinging free again The water was cold, and it ht all around it, so that for astirred aroundthe tune of the leaves, but nothing else stirred And then it struckover ht was too desolate, too lifeless It was as if even the birds had shunned this place, as well as all theabout the banks of this strea for the lantern, her cape brushing ht, like an eerie cherub She put her hand out for me as if, despite her small size, she could help ain, over the stream, up the mountain ‘Do you sense it?’ I whispered ‘It’s too still’
“But her hand tightened onsteeper, and the quiet was unnerving I tried to stare at the liht, to see each new bark as it loo didher sharply near to h the leaves with a whip of his tail The leaves settled But Claudia ainstthe cloth ofover the loose fabric of her own
“Soon the scent of the water was gone, and when the ht ahead of us what appeared to be a break in the woods Claudia firmly clasped the lantern and shut itswith hers; but then she said to me quietly, ‘Close your eyes for an instant, and then open them slowly And when you do, you will see it’
“A chill rose overwhich I held fast to her shoulder But then I opened , loalls of the h square top of the leamed the snow-capped peaks of the mountains ‘Coht’ And she started without hesitation right towards those walls, right towards whateverin their shelter
“In reat opening that was blacker still than the walls around it, the vines encrusting its edges as if to hold the stones in place High above, through the open roo in my nostrils, I saw, beyond the streaks of clouds, a faint sprinkling of stars A great staircase moved upward, from corner to corner, all the way to the narros that looked out upon the valley And beneath the first rise of the stair, out of the gloo rooms
“Claudia was still now, as if she had become the stones In the damp enclosure not even the soft tendrils of her hairwith her There was only the low backdrop of the wind She radually cleared a space in the moist earth in front of her I could see a flat stone there, and it sounded hollow as she gently tapped it with her heel Then I could see the broad size of it and how it rose at one distant corner; and an ie came to mind, dreadful in its sharpness, of that band ofit with a giant lever Claudia’s eyesdoorway beneath it The h a loftyThen Claudiamade a sound ‘Do you hear it?’ she whispered ‘Listen’
“It was so low no mortal could have heard it And it did not co,way that we had come up the slope, but another way, up the spine of the hill, directly fro, but it was steady; and then slowly the round trauish itself Claudia’s hand tightened on entle pressure she moved me silently beneath the slope of the stairway I could see the folds of her dress heave slightly beneath the edge of her cape The traan to sense that one step preceded the other very sharply, the second dragging slowly across the earth It was a li of the wind My own heart beat hard against hten, a treh ainstof the buttons against my cape
“Then a faint scent ca ainst my will, the war
, flowing and then I sensed the s flesh and I heard in ti But with it caled with the first, as the feet tramped closer and closer to the walls, the sound of yet another creature’s halting, strained breath And I could hear the heart of that creature, beating irregularly, a fearful throbbing; but beneath that was another heart, a steady, pulsing heart growing louder and louder, a heart as strong as h which we’d come, I saw him
’His great, huge shoulder eers curved; then I saw his head Over his other shoulder he was carrying a body In the broken doorway he straightened and shifted the weight and stared directly into the darkness towards us Every muscle in me became iron as I looked at hiainst the sky But nothing of his face was visible except the barest glint of the lass Then I saw it glint on his buttons and heard the bent as he ht towards us
“I held fast to Claudia, ready in an instant to shove her behind me, to step forward to meet him But then I saith astonishment that his eyes did not see ht of the body he carried towards the monastery door The moon fell now on his bowed head, on a mass of wavy black hair that touched his bent shoulder, and on the full black sleeve of his coat I saw so about his coat; the flap of it was badly torn and the sleeve appeared to be ripped froh the shoulder The huure stopped for a moment and appeared to stroke the human with his hand And at that moment I stepped forward from the wall and went towards him
“No words passed my lips: I knew none to say I only knew that I ht of the moon before him and that his dark, wavy head rose with a jerk, and that I saw his eyes