Chapter 11: The Last Sacrifice

The flow of strength had renewed me; I felt that I could face whatever came. I thrust Evarin’s mirror into my pocket; flung a word to Narayan and we were riding again, Gamine racing behind us. The blue shroudings had been torn to ribbons by the snappings of falcon-claws; I could see the pallid gleam of naked flesh through the torn veils. The noise of battle behind us grew more distinct; I could make out the explosions and the distant flashes of colored flame. I shuddered; even now that frightful army of falcons might be winging to join Adric and Evarin. The rebels could kill some of them, but for every falcon dead there would be twenty more slaves for Narabedla! What could Narayan’s men with their scythes and pitchforks and rude rusty guns do against the incredible science of a Toymaker? Narayan’s strained face was ghastly in the moonlight; I needed no telepathy to read his thoughts. Slaughter for his men--what for his sister? Our horses seemed to lag, to drag through a mire of motionless, yet they were at the full gallop of their endurance. The sound of fighting grew closer. Everything in me cried out that I was an utter fool, riding full tilt into a battle in which I had no stake. Yet something else told me, coldly and with a grim truth, that all I possessed was what I might win today, for this was the only world I would ever know; that I would never see my own world again.

Never! And Adric should rot in a hell of his own choosing for that!

The sounds of fighting seemed very close. Narayan pulled up his horse so quickly that it nearly sent Gamine plunging into his back. He said in a low, concentrated voice, “Adric isn’t at the battle! This way--quick!” He whirled the horse and dashed down a side road at right angles to the way we had been riding. If we had raced before, now our horses seemed to fly. The battle raged behind us; I heard dim screams, the neighing of wounded horses, the muffled sound of earth flying upward, exploded in fire. But it had a dreamy unreal quality, like noises through a nightmare. We had left the forest and were riding across a dark and hummocky plain. Moss padded our hoof-noises; now and then some small furry thing skittered across the track we were following and twice my horse shied at swooping birds and my heart stopped until I saw they were not the falcons of Evarin.

Stark and black against a treeless horizon I could see the Dreamer’s Keep, between the small crescents of the two lesser moons. The largest one rode a golden orbit over my head. I rode hunched in the saddle, my eyes on the vast cairn only a few miles away.

Suddenly a vast arch of lightning spanned the sky above the Dreamer’s Keep. Blue lightning. I heard Narayan groan like a man in his death-agony. Twisting in my saddle, I saw brooding horror on his face--mingled with pain--and a terrified satisfaction. “The sacrifice--I still--feel it,” he breathed in labored gasps, “I still--take from it--Mike! Mike--” His voice held unbearable torture, and the veins in the fair face stood out, black and congested with effort. “If I start to work for--them--promise--promise to shoot me--”

“Oh God--” I gasped.

“Mike, promise! Gamine!”

Gamine spurred the horse to his side; I heard the low voice, sweet, almost crooning. Again the vast arch of blueness spanned the sky. Narayan dug spurs savagely into the side of his horse and raced ahead of us. On the plain, limned starkly against the sky, a horseman appeared. He rode low in the saddle, his horse carrying a double burden, but racing fleetly--to the Keep of the Dreamers. I cursed--I knew that lean crouched figure, knew it as well as my own! Adric rode to the sacrifice--and before him, limp across his saddle, he bore Cynara!

The rest of that nightmare ride is a blank in my mind. The next thing I remember clearly is reining up beneath the lee of the gaunt pile of rocks-on-rocks that was the Dreamer’s Keep. There was no sign of Adric or Cynara, no sign of any living person, nothing but the incandescent blue lightning that rayed out now every four seconds or so; Narayan’s face was a white death-mask, and Gamine’s breathing came in short sobbing pants. I alone was free from the effect. My body throbbed and tingled with the weird energy set free in the night. We flung ourselves from our horses. Gamine tugged futilely at the torn veilings to conceal her face, and for the first time the blurred invisibility wavered and I caught a glimpse of one blue eye, blue as the sky lightnings that rose and flared and died.

The lee of the tower dwarfed us with its massive bulk. Gamine clutched my arm, the cruel fingers digging bruisingly into my flesh. “Listen!”

I strained my ears. All I could hear was a low, not unpleasant humming, like the singing drone of great bees or high-tension wires; but the sound struck both aliens with horror. Narayan opened his lips--

I dug frantically in my other pocket; brought out the Toy Rhys had given me. At sight of it Narayan’s haggard face relaxed a little. He caught it from me with quick hands. “Free of Adric--” he breathed with that swift erasure of tension I had seen before. He drew a long, moaning sigh. He closed his eyes for a moment.

Somewhere above us a scream rang out; a cry bestial in its mad appeal. It broke the static immobility that held us, and Narayan, sliding the Toy inside his shirt, turned and began to run around the Tower, Gamine and I panting at his heels.

We came around the corner beneath an arching outcrop of stone-work. No one needed to give orders; as one, we scrambled up on the ledge, crowding close together.

I gripped my hand on the knife in my belt. It had a comforting feel. I needed that.

A framed archway let us look down into the inside of the Keep. Below us a voice cried out despairingly--unbelievingly. “Adric--” we heard Cynara cry out, “Adric, no--oh, no--” Under our combined weight the glass shattered; we hurled inward. We found ourselves standing on a great shelf, about ten feet above the interior floor of the Keep, looking down at a scene framed in stark horror. Golden Karamy, dwarfed Idris, Evarin--stood in a close circle about a ring of coffins which gleamed crystal--glowed with scintillant radiance. In the hand of each of them was a tiny, jewelled, faceted Toy, and in the coffins--

Gamine screamed.

“The Dreamers--”

Not till then did we see Adric and what he was doing. In the center of the ring of coffins a dais rose upright, horribly altar-like, and a line of the mindless slaves, nude, vacant-eyed, defiled before the altar. As each slave stepped forward there was a shuddering moan from the others, the tiny swords rose and fell and in a brilliant flame of blue light, the slave--was not! And Adric--Cynara struggling between his hands--was thrusting her forward, into the space between the coffins, toward the nexus of the blue light--toward the Sacrifice-stone of the Dreamers!

The sight put us beyond caution. We threw ourselves from the ledge--and went down into a writhing, sprawling mass of living flesh. A barked command from Idris, and the slaves swarmed on us, drowning us in smothering bodies. I kicked and sprawled and thrashed and scratched and bit my way to the top of the heap and somehow for a second, I rolled free. That instant was enough. I was on my feet, the knife in my hand. Dragging bodies clung at my heels; I kicked out savagely, felt my boot strike naked flesh, felt and heard the pulpy sound of a skull crushing under the impact of my heel. The sound rocked my stomach, but I was not in a position to be fastidious. My eyes were swimming in trickling blood. Gamine clawed and thrust free and together we elbowed out of the press.

Evarin sprang at me. I thrust blindly with the knife in my hand, ripped into his shoulder, missing the throat by inches. I caught the Toy from his hand as it fell free. A moment of the clinging, tearing melee--then we three--Gamine and Narayan and I were standing back to back in the centre of the ring of coffins. There was a long howl of pain and terror from Evarin and the four Narabedlans flung themselves backward in a panic terror. For within the coffins the Dreamers were waking!

But Adric was no coward. He threw himself quickly forward--caught at Cynara again, and with all the force in his lean arms he flung her--straight toward the nexus of blue light! Narayan and Gamine stood frozen, bound by the Toys in their hands against the light, but I broke free--I passed straight across the cone of blue lightning--

Unharmed! The blasting energy tingled pleasantly in my body as I caught Cynara in mid-air and reeled away from the force that would have meant annihilation for her. Narayan broke away from the paralysis momentarily and caught Cynara’s staggering body from my arms. Then I felt the impact as Adric’s tall, heavy body crashed against me, felt the shock as my fist smashed against his jaw and heard him grunt as we locked into a clinch that carried us nearer--and nearer to that center of blue energy. A moment we swayed there, at the very edge of the lightning--then Evarin’s tensed cat-body hit in the centre of my back--