Seven Swords

Chapter 62

Kendric looked around skeptically. 'Where? It's hardly bigger than a blade of grass."

'We'll find it,' Irissa promised.

They fanned out in four directions studying the trampled

grasses. Thane walked politely around the grooming cas How did my sword get all the way over here? Kendric asked. Irissa glanced up fondly. What we seek is long and

silver, but a bit smaller." 1 know what it is, but how in the name of all Withbour did a sword this heavy walk all the way to the tapestry of spectral doors?

Here it is lavelle unbent and waved a limp silver cord.

They gathered around it. Puny, isn't it, really? Thane noted.

It's lost the colors of Kendric's taint already, Irissa marveled. It seems weak, exhausted. That I can sympathize with

Kendric said. Don it again, Javelle: Irissa advised. It may gather some strength from you."

Javelle hesitated. She had never been free of the ser pent's migrating presence upon her person. To accept such an attachment again freely went against her

grain. It opens gates to Without, Thane encouraged.

No longer.

The last speaker was none of them. The voice had come from high above, and whistled like wind in the They instinctively

pinetops.

looked up. The pine trunks had softened into the folds of many towering gowns. Dark limbs shook gently above like shaking fingers. The voice of the wind admonished them further.

No gates to Without remain open. He who has taken has been given full measure of his treachery. Resume your circlet, child of Rengarth. As you have lost one birth-twin, so you owe sanctuary to another.

Javelle stared questioningly at her mother, then set the metal serpent on her forearm. It coiled there gratefully. as if weary, and stiffened unto unliving form again.

'Good.' The voice was not one, but many. It moaned high in the unseen pinetops, but it spoke as if it they - could see the party on the ground perfectly.

'We have come to claim our own. One returned of free

will and is welcome. One sought to overmaster us and is mastered. We call back a third who has served and is too weary to come on its own power.'

With a sense of dread, the four eyed each other. This terrible voice did not seem to brook disobedience. Had they all come so far, through so much, to lose one of their number now? Hands joined hands even as tongues kept a dread-filled silence.

'We call the creature of clouds and undying guard

ianship. This world will not welcome its unfortunate

semblance here and honor awaits it Without.'

Briarwhip staggered to its unwholesome paws, still

whining.

'It will find friends and surcease from its struggles,' the

voices promised. At that moment, the light of the three eyes died. A column of gray smoke drifted into the treetops. The voices intoned as one again.

'We call upon the guardians of many worlds, so tireless in their duties that they have splintered themselves to

better fulfill them, to merge their separated selves and become beings more apt to their worlds again." Felabba the Elder bristled. 'I, merge? Lose my hard

gained wisdom, my great age, my ... mystique? Never!' The younger was equally adamant. 'I sacrifice my

noble ruff, my liquid limbs? No-!' A cloud swept down from above, bruising them together. Two white cats spun in a fierce fight, spitting, yowling,

and hissing, turning over and over.

Irissa and Javelle ran to separate them, but found them

selves helplessly witnessing the fray. When the cloud

cleared, one disheveled cat stood blinking on four un

steady feet. 'Which one is dominant, I wonder?' Kendric inquired ominously

"Time will tell, Wrathman,' the surviving cat observed, 'and no doubt you will be the first to know.' 'One more an from Without remains illicitly in this world,' the voices resumed. 'We would summon it, but it

was false at its first inception and is doubly false in its

second. We would let it waste away here, but it has a

claim on one yet living.'

The four exchanged mystified glances. 'Seeress,' the voices howled, and the word was terrible in their disembodied mouths. The pinetops shook; grasses rasped and trembled at everyone's feet. 'No," Kendric said hoarsely, lifting his sword against

the depthless night of Without. 'Peace, Torloc,' the voices addressed him so surpris ingly that his anxiety vanished. The seeress shares her worlds with a stolen self she herself recalled. We cannot accept so severed a being into Without. Yet, unharnessed, this unanchored spirit will ever seek to claim a foothold on she who spawned it. The spirit also yearns for another portion of itself Without has already claimed.'

'Eeryon!' Irissa saw in an instant.

This shadow cannot return to Without except through the great dark waters that underlie all worlds. You who remain and the ... cat - must accomplish this last task before you can call your lives and your worlds your own

again.' 'How?' Kendric asked pointedly.

'You have many long years to consider it now,' the

voices replied with almost-mocking echoes, but we suggest you waste no time. Take your worlds and your magic and make of them what you will. Tresspass on

Without no more. You shall not be as welcome as before.'

""Welcome," they call it,' Thane muttered under his

breath.

The wind whooshed away, swirling loose pine needles and grass dust into the trees' dark arms. Those remaining in the clearing examined each other with a gingerly sense of wonder. The cat Felabba minced

spoke in vastly familiar,

-

stolen self?'

Where is this...

over on familiar feet and though singular, fashion. 'I suppose I must pull all your fat out of the fire again.

Irissa pointed wordlessly to the water. Felabba paused in distaste. 'Water. Not my favorite element, but then, Rule was never my favorite world. Hmm.'

Everyone gathered around while the cat inspected its own reflection in the dark pond with more than a trifle of vanity.