Gate of Ivrel

A gnawed bone lay athwart their path. His horse shied from it.

They rode back into the valley of the Stones, crossing the frozen stream, cracking the yet thin ice, and rode the winding trail beside the great gray rocks, under the shadow of the mound called Morgaine's Tomb. Despite the snow, the sky shimmered between the two carven pillars with the look of air above heated rocks.

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Gate of Ivrel

Morgaine looked up at it as they rode. There was upon her face a curious loathing. He began to understand that it had been far from Morgaine's will to have ridden into such a thing with Heln's men behind her.

"Who freed you?" he asked suddenly.

She looked back at him, puzzled.

"You said that someone must free you from this place. What is it? How were you held there? And who freed you?"

"It is a Gate," she said, and into his mind there flashed the nightmare image of white rider against the sun: it was hard to remember such madness. Like dreams, it tended to fade, for the sake of sanity.

"If it is a gate," he said, "then from where did you come?"

"I was betweenuntil something should disturb the field. That is the way with Gates that are not set. It is like a shallow pool of time, ever so shallow. I was washed up again, on this shore."

He gazed up at it, could not understand, and yet it was as good an explanation of what he had seen as any other.

"Who freed you?" he asked.

"I do not know," she said. "I rode in with men at my heels; a shadow passed me; I rode out again. It was like closing my eyes. No— not that either. It was just between.Only it was thicker than any betweenI have ever ridden. I think that thee was— thee says, you— were— the one that did free me. But I do not know how, and I doubt that you know."

"It is impossible," he said. "I never came near the Stones."

"I would not wager anything on that memory," she said.

She turned her head; he rode behind her here, for the path was narrow at the bottom of the hill. He had view of the gray's white swaying tail and 29

Gate of Ivrel

Morgaine's white-cloaked and insolent back; and the presence of this structure she called a Gate cast a pall upon all his thoughts. He had leisure to repent his oath in this ill-omened place, and knew that in a year with Morgaine he was bound to see and hear many things an honest and once religious man would not find comfortable.

He had a sudden and uncomfortable vision as he saw her riding ahead of him upon that stretch of the old paved road up between the lesser monoliths: that here was another kind of anachronism, like a man visiting the nursery of his childhood, surrounded by sad toys. Morgaine was indeed out of the long-ago; and yet it was known that the qujalhad been evil and wise and able to work things that men had happily forgotten. Not needing transport, not needing such things as mortal weapons, qujalonly wished and practiced sorceries, and what they wished became substance—until they grew yet more evil, and ruined themselves.

And yet Morgaine rode, live and powerful, and carried under her knee a blade of forgotten arts, in the ruins of things she might well have known as they once had been.

It was said that Thiye Thiye's-son was immortal, renewing his youth by taking life from others, and that he would never die so long as he could find unfortunates on whom to practice this. He had tended to scoff at the rumor: all men died.

But Morgaine had not, not in more than a hundred years, and still was young. She found the hundred years acceptable. Perhaps she had known longer sleeps than this.

* * *

The higher passes were choked with snow. Gray and bay fought drifts, struggling with such effort that they made little time. They must often pause to rest the animals. Yet by afternoon they seemed to have made it through the worst places, and without meeting any of the Myya or seeing tracks of beasts.

It was good fortune. It was bound not to last.

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"Lady," he said during one of their rests, "if we go on as we are we will be in the valley of Morij Erd; and if we enter there, chances are you will not find welcome for either of us. This horse of mine is out of that land; and Gervaine its lord is Myya and he has sworn a great oath to have my head on a pike and other parts of me similarly distributed. There is no good prospect for you or for me in this direction."

She smiled slightly. She had been in lighter humor since the morning, when they had quitted the valley of Stones and entered the more honest shades of pine woods and unhewn crags. "We bear east before then, toward Koris."

"Lady, you know your way well enough," he protested glumly. "Why was it needful to snare me for a guide?"

"How should I know otherwise that Gervaine is lord of Morij Erd?" she asked, still smiling. The eyes did not. "Besides, I did not say that you were to be a guide in these lands, ilin."

"What, then?"

But she did not answer. She had that habit when he asked what displeased her. More human folk might dispute, protest, argue. Morgaine was simply silent, and against that there was no argument, only deep frustration.

He climbed back into his saddle and saw thereafter that they bore more easterly, toward Koris, toward that land that was most firmly in Thiye's hands.

Toward dusk they were in pine forest again. Gray-centered clouds sailed across the moon increasingly frequent as the night deepened, and yet they rode, fearful of more storms, fearful for the horses, for there was little grain remaining in both their saddlebags, and they wished to make what easy time they could, hopeful of coming to the lower country before the winter set a firm grip on the passes before them. The bright moon showed them the way.

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Gate of Ivrel

But at last the clouds were thick and the trail became hardly passable, trees crowding close and obscuring the sky with their bristling shadow. A downed tree beside the road promised them at least a drier place to rest, and wood for fire. They stopped and Vanye hacked off smaller branches and heaped them into a proper form for a damp-wood fire.

How the fire came to be, Vanye did not see: he turned his back to fetch more wood, and turned again and it was started, a tiny tongue of fire within the damp branches. It smoked untidily: wet wood; but it remained, Morgaine leaning close to encourage it, and he gingerly fed it tinder.

"There is a certain danger in this," he advised Morgaine, looking at her closely over the little fire. "There may be men hereabouts to see the light or smell the smoke, and no men in these woods are friendly to any other. I do not care to meet what this may attract, and it is best we keep it small and not keep it the night long."

She opened her hand and in the dim light showed him a black and shiny thing, queer and ugly. It revolted him: he could not determine why, only that it would not be made by any hand he knew, and there was a foul unloveliness about the thing in her fair slim hand. "This is sufficient for brigands and for beasts," she said. "And I trust you are somewhat skilled with sword and with bow. Ilininotherwise do not long survive."

He nodded silent acknowledgement.

"Fetch our gear," she bade him.

He did so, clearing snow from the great tree and resting all that could be harmed by damp upon that. She began to make a meal for them of the almost frozen meat, while he doled out a bit of the remaining grain to the poor horses. They nudged him in the ribs and coaxed pitiably, wanting the rest of it: but he steeled his heart against them, grieved and out of appetite for the good venison they had. Kurshin that he was, he could not eat with his animals in want. A man was to be judged by his horses and the fitness of them; and had it been grain they themselves were eating he would gladly have given them his share and gone hungry.