Andre Norton - Dragon Scale Silver

He reached within the throat of his mail shirt and drew forth a pendant of moon-silver wrought into a looped cross, and I knew he was right. Unless I expended on him strength I would need later, I could not overcome the protection that carried. But it was a shield for him where we went. Though I wondered at the Dame sending after me anyone unlearned in any Wise Craft.

“So be it,” I surrendered. “But this I lay upon you—if you feel aught—any compulsion—say so at once. There are spells to turn friends into enemies and open gates to great peril.”

“That I agree to.”

Thus I did not ride alone for the rest of the day. And at nightfall, which came early at that season, we halted on a ridge top where there were two great spires of rock standing. Between them we dismounted.

“You know where you go?” Jervon had traveled in silence most of the afternoon. Were it not for the sound of his passage behind me from time to time, I might well have forgotten I had a trail companion.

“I am drawn.” Though I did not explain farther. Now I was too much aware of something in this country before us, a troubling, an uneasiness, as if something which usually slumbered deep now stirred. And I was well aware, that learned as I was, I certainly could not provide an equal match for such as the Old Ones.

“Are we yet near or far?” he asked.

“Near—we must be near.” For so I read that troubling. “Which means—you must remain here.”

“Remember what I said.” His hand was on the loop cross. “I follow where you lead.”

“But in this country you need not fear any human,” I began, then read in his eyes that no word of mine would move him. Short of attacking him with sword, or spell, I had no chance at staying him. Though I wondered at his stubbornness, for which I could see no reason.

“You face a peril you cannot understand.” I put into that warning all the force I could muster. “We deal now not with those who fight with steel and strength of arm, but with other weapons you cannot dream of—”

“Lady, since I saw what the weapons of the Hounds did to Dorn, I keep an open mind concerning all and any arms.” Again there seemed to be a quirk of humor in his speech. “Also, since that day I have been, in a sense, living on time not mine, since by rights I should have died with those I loved and who made up my world. Thus I do not wager my life—for that I feel I no longer own. And there is in me a great desire to see how you wage war with these unheard-of strengths and unknown arms you speak of so knowingly. If we are close—let us to the battlefield then!”

There was so much decision in his words that I could not find any to answer him. But went to look down-slope before us, seeking the safest path, for we were about to descend into a country which stretched wide and unusually dark, even though twilight still lay along the ridges.

What I saw was surely one of the Old Roads, or rather a trail, and that ran in the right direction so we could follow it. It was a narrow way, suffering us only at intervals to ride abreast. And it led into a woodland, wandering back and forth between trees with trunks so huge in girth that they must have been centuries growing.

Very still was this wood, only now and then the sigh of falling leaves. But never the cry of a night bird, nor rustle of ground animal such as was normal. And always the feeling of something awakening slowly.

“We are waited—” Jervon’s voice was low, yet it was almost like a shout in my ears. “We are watched—”

So he was sensitive enough to feel it too. Still, as yet, there was no arising of menace, no threat in that stir. Just the sense that our coming registered in some way.

“As I warned you.” For the last time I tried to move Jervon to withdraw before it was too late. “We deal with other ways than those of men. Yes, we are watched. And what will come of that watching I cannot say—”

But he did not answer me and I knew that no argument I could use would move him.

Within the maze of trees the path turned and twisted so much I lost all sense of direction. But I did not lose that thread which tied me to what I sought. And I knew this way would bring me there.

We came at last from under the shadow of the trees into moonlight. And there I saw what had been in the far-seeing—the spiral of pillars. They stood gleaming, ice-cold and frost-white, in the center of an open space.

I heard a sharp exclamation from Jervon and turned my head, startled. On his breast the loop cross had sprung to vivid fire, as if it had been fashioned not of moon-silver but of some huge gem. And I knew that what powered it had been awakened into the strongest life it could possess by the emanations from the spiral.

There was warmth also against my knee, and from the saddlebags came a dim radiance. I fumbled with the clasp, brought out the cup. There was left only a thin rim of silver undarkened—so little time had I left! But even that thread responded, too.

“Stay you here—” I gave that order. He might not obey it, but I must keep my mind on my own actions, think only of Elyn and what must be done to save him. Jervon had made his choice—on him be the result.

With the cup in one hand and in the other one of the things the Dame had pressed upon me, a wand of rowan peeled clean and then steeped in the potent juice of its own fruit, being after laid for the nights of the full moon exposed in a place of Old Power, I went forward. That was light enough weight, nothing compared to the sword which dragged at my hip. Yet I did not free myself of that, for it was wrought of metal which my mother and father had sought in strange places, so that in its way it was a talisman.

Thus with wand and cup, the knowledge that I alone could face what lay there, I stepped past the first pillar and began the winding path it marked.

There was a drawing at first, as if a current pulled at me, urging me on. Then came a sharp reversal. That which lurked here must have sensed that I came not bemused and ready as had its other victims. A pause, while I advanced steadily, cup and wand held as sword and shield ready for battle. Then—

What I had braced myself to meet from the beginning struck hard. It was like a blow, with force enough to stagger me. Yet it neither drove me to my knees nor into retreat. I had to fight as one might fight facing a buffeting storm wind.

Where I had gone easily and steadily before, now I wavered in spite of all my efforts, from side to side, winning only inches where I had taken strides. However, I schooled myself to think only of what I must do, put aside all uneasiness. For the least break which fear might make in my guard would leave me defenseless.

I held to one warming spark of hope. What I faced here was strong, yes, stronger than anything Aufrica and I had ever thrown skill and energy against, but it was not spun from the power of an adept. Part of its strength must be rooted in the fact that for a toll of years it had not been successfully withstood. Thus the very fact that I did battle was enough to slightly shake its belief in what it could and would do.

And I discovered that, though those pillars seemed to stand well apart from each other with space in between, there was a force field uniting them. So that once within the spiral one could not look out any more than one could through a wall. Also—

Almost I had been captured in the simplest of traps. I rated myself for my momentary inattention. I had been moving in a pattern, my attention so on the fact that I must keep moving that I was unaware my steps fitted the purposes of another, not my own. Straight-away I sought to break the lulling spell, stepping long, short, from side to side, even giving a small hop now and then, anything to keep from what might hypnotize mind and body.