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Gate of Ivrel
hands of men, not by wishes upon wands and out of thin air. Is that not so?"
"What has this to do with me and you?"
"Show me how these things are done. Keep your oath to kill Thiye if you will: but with my help. Remember that you are of human blood; and remember what loyalties you owe to your own kind. —Listen to me!
Listen. Not since Irien has there been a power in Andur-Kursh save that of Hjemur, and this was of her making, out of her lies and her leading. Our father's kingdom once ranked high in the Middle Realms. The old High Kings are gone now and so is that power we once held, thanks to her. And it is within our hands to win it back again, yours and mine. Look at me, little brother! I swear to you— I swear to you that you will be second only to me."
"I am still ilin," he protested, "and I am safe from all your promises.
Morgaine's power is in what she wields, and unless you are a liar, she still holds it. Do not challenge her, Erij, or she will be the death of you: she will kill. And I do not want to see that happen."
"Listen to me. Whatever she means to do with the Witch-fires, whatever she means to do with Thiye's power once she has possessed it— she is no friend of ours. We exchange one Thiye for another, she holding what he held, and she more unhuman than ever he was. Look at what Thiye has done with it, and he at least in some part man. But she… the use of such powers is like the breath of air to her, the element in which she moves; and she is ambitious, for revenge, for power, for what else we do not know.
What were you to her against the ambition that moves her? Think on that, brother."
"You said that she is camped near Baien-ei," Vanye answered. "That does not sound to me like what she would do if she had utterly deserted me. She is waiting. She expects me to come if I can."
Erij laughed, and the grin slowly died in Vanye's cold, unhappy stare.
"You are naive," said Erij then. "What she is waiting for is not you, not so small a thing as that to her."
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"What, then, would that be?"
"Will you show me the ma
"She means to break the power of Thiye," he said, "there was nothing said of creating any other power."
"Oh, come," said Erij. "And having rained him… what? To live in poverty, to retreat to obscurity? Or to risk being overtaken by the bloodfeuds of so many enemies? Having taken power— she will hold it.
You are nothing to her; I offered her to have you back, at the exchange of her word to go south again. She refused."
Vanye shrugged, for he had known of her that he had no importance when he ceased to serve her purposes: she had never deluded him in that.
"She simply threw you aside," said Erij. "And what might a heart like that do once in power in Hjemur, when she needs nothing? She will grow the more cold, and the more dangerous. I had rather an enemy with tempers and honest hates. I had rather a human enemy. Thiye is old and half-mad; he muddles about with his beasts and his self-indulgence, and seldom stirs.
He has never made war on us, neither he nor his ancestors. But can you see the like of Morgaine being content with things as they are for long?"
"And what would you create of it, Erij?" he asked harshly. "The like of what I have seen in Ra-morij?"
"Look about you at Morija," said Erij. "Look at its people. It does not fare too badly. Did you see anything amiss, anything in the land or the villages that would be better changed? We have our law, the blessing of church, the peace of our fields and our enemies in Chya fear us. That is my work. I am not ashamed of what I have done here."
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"It is true that Morija is faring well now," Vanye said. "But you, yourself, you ca
"Like the ten thousand at Irien that she and her allies helped?"
"She did not kill them. That much is a lie."
"But that is what came of her help, all the same. And I would not lay Morija and Nhi open to the same kind of thing. I would not trust her. But this— this— I would trust, that she values powerfully." Excitedly he rose from his place and from the cabinet near the table he drew out a cloth-wrapped bundle. When he took it in his hand the cloth fell away at the top and Vanye saw to his dismay the dragon-hilt of Changeling."This is what holds her encamped at Baien-ei, her desire for this. And I would wager, brother, that you know something of it."
"I know that she bids me keep my hands from it," said Vanye. "Which you had better heed, Erij. She says there is danger in it and that it is a cursed blade, and I believe it."
"I know that she values this above your life," said Erij, "and more than all else she possessed. That was plain." He-jerked it back as Vanye tentatively extended his hand toward it. "No, brother. But I will hear your explanation of what value it bears to her. And if you are my brother, you will tell me this willingly."
"I will tell you honestly that I do not know," he said, "and that if you are wise you will let me return this thing to her before it does harm. Of all things she possesses, this is one she herself fears."
A second time he reached for it, begi
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And Erij shook the sheath from the blade one-handed, and held it naked in his hand. The blade went from translucent ice to a shimmer of opalescent fire, and all the air sang in their ears, a horrid shimmer of air at its tip that of a sudden Vanye knew.
"No!"he cried, flung himself aside. The air roared into a darkness and a wind that sucked at them, and the Myya were gone, whipped away into some vast expanse that had opened between them and the door.
Erij flung the blade away, sent it slithering sideways across the floor, ripping ruin after it, and of a sudden Vanye caught the sheath and scrambled for the abandoned blade, caught it up in his hand as other men poured through the door. The same starry dark caught them up, and his arm went numb.
He knew then the sensation that had prompted Erij to drop the blade, gut-deep loathing for such power, and suddenly he heard his brother's voice shout and felt a hand claw at his arm.
He ran, wiser than to turn and destroy… free down the hall and free upon the stairs downward once the uyinthere saw the unworldly shimmer of the witchblade in his hand.
He knew his way. There was the outer door. He heaved back the bolt and ran for the stable court, feverishly cursed the weeping stableboy into saddling a good horse for him; and all the while from Ra-morij there was a silence. He kept himself clear from the arrow-slits of the windows, knowing that for his grea est peril, and bade the boy creep down in the shadows and open the gate for him.