Barbara Hambly - 05 Icefalcons Quest

But he couldn't say so, could only hold Tir fast, while behind the shoving ranks of clones Vair struck Bektis a blow that knocked the old man to the floor. Swords, halberds, spears in hand, the clones shuffled through the pillars, disappearing along the lines of green light and starshine into darkness.

Tir struggled, weeping, in the Icefalcon's grip. "There's nothing we can do."

Something beyond the vestibule outside caught with a deafening roar. Heat, exhaustion, and the strangling smoke made the Icefalcon light-headed, and he saw Hethya stagger and Loses His Way catch her on his uninjured arm to keep her on her feet.

For a moment, when there was a gap in the line of clones, the Icefalcon thought Vair would order his men to take the three of them and Tir-wasteful, in his opinion, but then Vair was wasteful.

But Vair seemed to realize what that was likely to cost in terms of men and in terms of time.

"Come, Bektis," he said softly to the trembling, furious old man who lay sprawled at his feet. "They'll follow us through. They must, or die. As you must. What about it, wench?" he called to Hethya. "Will you take servicing my men above death by fire? And you, Little King, if you hurry, you'll be in time to watch me rape your mother."

Dagger in hand, Tir flung himself in soundless rage at Vair. The Icefalcon dragged him back, holding the struggling child against him as the tall man turned, laughing, toward the crystal columns, the retreating lines of light.

His white-cloaked form blended into the shambling lines of the clones, visible among them for quite some time, fading back and back into the shadows.

After a long moment Bektis pulled himself to his feet, leaning against the wall and holding his ribs, a look of loathing and defeat in his eyes. He staggered into the marching line of the clones, catching their sweaty shoulders to hold himself upright, and was gone.

"Hyena," gasped Loses His Way, his breath like a bellows in the airless heat. "Coward and pig." His eyes never left the shambling ranks, shuffling, coughing, pouring sweat and staggering now as they passed through from the vestibule and down the length of the chamber to the first pair of pillars, the second...

Tir wept silently in the Icefalcon's grip.

"But he is right, my friend," the warchief murmured. "What will you? It is follow or die."

"Well, there might be a certain amount of satisfaction in following, of course." Ingold stepped from the rear ranks of the clones-who didn't appear to notice him-and strode quickly to Tir, dropping to his knees before the boy and putting his hands on his shoulders.

"My dear Tir, thank God you're all right!" Blood covered one side of his face and a fresh wound put streaks of gore in his hair, where the whole of him wasn't nearly black with smoke and ash. "Forgive me!

I never imagined the corridor to the control chamber was booby-trapped like that."

Tir flung his arms around the wizard, clutched him desperately with his face buried in the threadbare robes.

"It's all right," said Ingold. "It really is all right. I'd never have brought you with me if..."

"I'd have thrashed the life out of any man who'd send a child into what we just came through!" protested Hethya.

"No one in the Keep will be hurt," Ingold murmured, face bent over the weeping child's head. "I promise you." He held out his hand to the Icefalcon and used his grip on the young warrior's arm to get to his feet.

"We really have got to get out of here. The Aisle's in flames. I think I can damp us a way through to the Doors, but I'm afraid we're all going to get singed."

"Vair..." sobbed Tir. "Ingold, Vair said..."

"It's all right," said the wizard again. "Vair's not anywhere near the Keep of Dare. In fact he's farther from it than ever. As a final favor to us, Zay of Tiyomis told me how to change the destination of the transporter before he... he died. And he is dead," he added, as Hethya's lips parted in surprise.

"He left behind enough of his power to operate the transporter one final time, but, as I said, it opens no longer into the Keep of Dare. That was the Icefalcon's idea," he added, and Hethya regarded the Icefalcon in surprise.

"So you've turned tricky in your old age, have you, boy-o?"

With dignity, the Icefalcon replied, "Something I overheard Vair say while I was shadow-walking made me think there was a more suitable destination for him."

"What, you've found a way for the transporter to send him straight to Hell?"

"Nearly," said the Icefalcon after a moment's reflection.

Loses His Way wiped the sweat from his stubbly brow. "Where have they gone?"

"To the crypts of what used to be the great Southern Keep of Hathyobar," said Ingold, and coughed on the smoke. "It stood on the shores of the Lake of Nychee, on the site now occupied by the Imperial Palace of Khirsrit."

"Where this lady Yori-Ezrikos dwells?" asked Hethya. "That hasn't much use for our boy Vair, never mind that he's her lawful wedded husband?"

"The very one." Ingold smiled. "I was pleased to hear that Vair is looking forward to an encounter with her because he is going to have one a great deal sooner than he looked to."

There were spells of inconspicuousness a truly Wise One could place upon a man so that he might spend a day and a half in the camp of his enemies without them noticing that the person to whom they were bringing food, wrapping in blankets, sitting beside a fire-with whom they shared accounts of the game to be found on the Ice in the North: ice camels, lemmings, caribou, and once a pure white megatherium-would in any other circumstances be painted all over with messages to their Ancestors and have his bowels pulled out through his nostrils.

The Icefalcon was grateful for this circumstance. He was very, very tired of fighting.

He had no idea who the Empty Lakes People thought he was and didn't care. Nor had he any idea by what spells of illusion Ingold had guaranteed the absence of the Talking Stars People when the little party waded through fog, smoke, and steam up the dripping, hip-deep meltwaters of the collapsing gate-tunnel to the outer world again.

Mostly, once he woke in their emergency camp of snow-houses southeast of the ice-blister, the Empty Lakes People didn't address the Icefalcon by name at all. But the forms of speech they used toward him all indicated that they thought he was one of their kin.

The idea offended him deeply, but not deeply enough to buy his own death by mentioning it. He noticed they addressed Ingold, Tir, and Hethya as their kin as well. Cold Death they did not appear to see at all.

Cold Death was sitting by him when he woke up again, most of her hair on one side singed off from her fight with Bektis but otherwise looking much the same.

"How is it with you, o my brother?" she asked, and offered him a flat-baked cake of honey and fried insects, a specialty among the Empty Lakes People.

He was so exhausted and so hungry he even took it. "As well as can be expected after my own sister runs away and leaves me to die."

"Has it taught you a lesson about shadow-walking?"

"Yes," retorted the Icefalcon. "Never to put you in charge of it again."

And she laughed.

Later that day she helped him stand, and they emerged from the snow-house where he had lain, and walked together along the shore of the steaming lake that now stretched for miles along the feet of the black rock mountains.

The great ice-blister still rose in its center, and steam and smoke poured from a thousand rifts and crevices in its sides. The waters of the lake churned now and then as crevasses or pockets in the underlying ice collapsed, and columns of steam would jet upward, marble-white in the hard arctic sky.

"Ingold tells me that with the magic of the mad Ancestor gone out of it, the Keep itself will collapse."