PROLOGUE (74 page)

A flash of gold caught his eye. He knelt at the base of one of the pillars. Sand poured over his hand as he fished out a gold necklace constructed of small squares of gold, each one impressed with the image of a winged goddess dressed in a layered skirt, attended by two lions and flanked on either side by rosettes like those that decorated the palaces of the Cursed Ones. How had it come to be lost here?

He held the necklace up against Adica's throat.” It looks most beautiful when worn by beauty." The gold squares looked uncannily cold against her skin, as chill as the touch of death despite their grave among the warm sands.

Shuddering, she pushed his hands away.” That is not mine to wear. Old magic haunts it."

Surprised at her vehemence, he buried it back in the sand.” I take not that thing which is not ours. Where are the lion women?"

She rose, glancing up at the heavens.” We must walk the loom. Come."

Rage growled softly, standing stiffly alert at the opening of a crevasse that thrust into the rock face blocking the lowest end of the defile. A threatening scent wafted out from the crevasse. Behind them, Laoina whistled a breathy melody as sinuous as a charm. Sorrow trotted over to Rage and took up the watch.

"Quick." Laoina pointed toward the dogs with her spear.” We go, quick quick. Some thing comes." The first stars popped into sight overhead.” I do not know how much time has passed," said Adica, backing away to find a vantage point to get her bearings.” Do you see the moon? Hei, let the days not have passed too rapidly, I pray you, Fat One. Let it not be too late."

"What must I look for?" asked Alain, coming to stand beside her.” Teach me how to help you weave the looms."

'Two Fingers' land lies west of here. So if we would travel west, I must weave west." She studied the sky, intent and purposeful as she held her mirror poised by her chest.” The stars do not move in relation to each other. But how high or low they stand in the sky can change. See there." She pointed to a bright curve of stars, glittering in the clear desert air.” At our village, the Serpent crawls along the hilltops. Here in the desert lands it gains invisible wings that allow it to soar. There is its red eye, that bright star. Yes, that one. Step back, now. I'll bind the first thread—"

Lifting her mirror, she angled the reflective face until the image of the star caught in it. She had already forgotten him as she fell into the rising and falling chant of her spell. So quickly, she pulled away from him, as though a chasm had ruptured between them. Yet how could he help but stare as she worked her magic? She looped her weaving around the stars known as the Holy Woman's Necklace, still high in the sky and setting toward the west, and wove a gate to western lands. He had never stood so close before. He could actually hear the thrum of the threads through the soles of his feet, deep in his bones. The gate arced into being just as the hounds yelped with fear and skittered backward. Alain raised his staff as they bounded into view. Night fell.

"Go!" cried Adica, caught in the maze of her weaving.

A sibilant hiss echoed along the stone cliffs around them. Laoina needed no more urging: she bolted through the threshold.

"Go!" cried Adica when Alain hesitated.” I will follow you."

"I won't leave you!" he cried. The hounds raced through the gateway, vanishing through the archway, abandoning them—or scared off.

What on Earth was dreadful enough to make his faithful hounds run off like that?

A grinding weight scraped along rock behind him. He whirled, holding his staff ready, keeping his body between the crevasse and Adica, but all he could see was shadow. A heavy footfall shuddered the ground as one of the lion women padded past him, eerily silent.” Alain!"

A hiss answered Adica's call. A serpentine creature emerged from the crevasse, winding sideways in the manner of a snake. Except it wasn't a snake.

It had creamy-pale skin and a torso like that of a woman with the face of a girl newly come to womanhood, fey and curiously aloof. Her hair writhed around her head as though in a whirlpool of air, or as if her hair itself were alive, a coil of hissing serpents.” Alain!" The gate glimmered, threads snapping. The sphinx leaped forward to attack, and Alain heard Adica's fading cry. He jumped back through threads sparking and hissing into a blinding sandstorm.

Drowning in sand, he flailed wildly. He could not breathe. Hands grabbed him. He stumbled as they dragged him along. Bowed down by the force of the sandstorm, he tugged up a corner of his cloak to shield his face. Sand dribbled down his chin. Dry particles coated his mouth, and every time he swallowed sand scraped the moist flesh of his throat until he thought his throat was on fire.

They stumbled over rough ground for an eternity as sand battered them, scouring his exposed skin. Certainly he could see absolutely nothing. All at once he felt a massive wall looming before him. A strong grip tugged him sideways, and he fell forward down a smooth slope and cracked his knees on stone. Far away up the tunnel, wind screamed. He spit and coughed and finally vomited a little, so choked with sand that he shook helplessly. His eyes stung with sand, and sand clogged his ears. His hair shed gritty particles with each shudder.

Where was Adica? Had she escaped the storm? He struggled to his feet just as a man spoke to him in a language he did not know. He spoke again in the tongue of the White Deer people, with an accent even stranger than that of Laoina but a rather better grasp of the niceties of the language.

"Rise, stranger. Walk forward, if it pleases you. A place we have for you to bathe yourself."

Alain squinted through sand-scoured eyes. A swarthy man with a proud face and an aquiline nose examined him. Was that compassion quirking up his mouth? With an elegant gesture, he indicated a tunnel lit by oil burning in a ceramic bowl. Alain glanced back the way he had come. Three robed figures hunkered down at the entrance, armed with spears. They stared out into the storm, a void of wind and earth and spirits howling in the air. What they feared beyond the storm itself he did not want to consider, not after he'd seen the face of that snake woman.

He had never expected to see so many strange things, like visions drawn out of the distant past. The forest around Lavas Castle boasted a herd of aurochs and the occasional chance-met unicorn, swiftly seen and as swiftly gone, and there were always wolves, but the great predators that plagued humankind in the old legends, the swamp-born guivres, the dragons of the north, the griffins that flew in the grasslands, did not wander the northern forests and in truth were scarcely ever seen and commonly believed to be nothing more than stories made up to scare children. Maybe the three men were only guarding against their enemies, the Cursed Ones. It just seemed impossible that anyone could navigate through such a storm.” Where is the Hallowed One?"

"She came before you, before the storm hit. Come with me." "I must see that she is safe."

The guide's glance was honed like a weapon, cutting and sharp.” This to me she says you will ask. She already goes to Two Fingers. I shall show this to you, from her, to mark she is safe." He opened a hand to display one of Adica's copper bracelets.” The dogs also came safely to our halls. Now, we go." He turned and walked away down the tunnel.

Ceramic bowls had been placed just far enough apart along the tunnel that the last glow of light from one faded into the first share of light from the next as they walked. In this way, they never quite walked in darkness and yet only at intervals in anything resembling brightness. The rock fastness smelled faintly of anise. Alain shed sand at every step. Probably he would never be rid of it all. The tunnel emptied onto a large chamber fitted with tents of animal skins stretched over taut ropes. The chamber lay empty. A goldworker had been interrupted in the midst of her task: her tools lay spread out on a flat rock next to a necklace of surpassing fineness, a pectoral formed out of faience and shaped into two falcons, facing each other. Two looms sat unattended; one of the weavings, almost finished, boasted alternating stripes of gold, blue, black, and red. A leather worker had left half-cut work draped over a stool. A child's wheeled cart lay discarded on the ground; a wheel had fallen off, and the toy cart listed to one side.

His guide waited patiently while Alain stared about the chamber, but at last the man indicated the mouth of a smaller tunnel.” If it pleases you."

This second tunnel, shorter and better lit, opened into a circular chamber divided by a curtain. The guide drew the curtain aside and gestured toward a pool. He wasn't one bit shy. He watched with interest as Alain stripped, tested the waters, and found them gloriously warm. With a sigh, Alain ducked his head completely under. Sand swirled up all around him before pouring away in a current that led out under the rock.

"You are the Hallowed One's husband," said the man as he handed a coarse sponge to Alain.” Are you not afraid of her fate eating you?"

"I am not afraid. I will protect her."

The man had a complexion as dark as Liath's, and bold, expressive eyebrows, raised now in an attitude of skepticism.” Fate is already woven. When the Shaman's Headdress crowns the heavens, then the seven will weave. No thing can stop what befalls them then " He touched a finger to his own lips as if to seal himself to silence.” That we may not speak of. The Cursed Ones hear all things."

"Nothing will befall Adica," said Alain stubbornly.

The man grunted softly but, instead of answering, rinsed out Alain's clothing in the pool.

After Alain had gotten almost every last grain of sand out of the lobes of his ears and from between his toes, he examined his body. Winter had made him lean, and the work had strengthened him. He had welts at the girdle of his hips where the sand had worked down, and his heels were red and raw. Yet the sunburn he had gotten in the desert was utterly gone, not even any trace of peeling skin, as though days or even weeks had gone by in the instant it had taken him to step through the gate.

"You are a brave man," said the guide solemnly, handing Alain his wet, wrung, and somewhat less sandy clothing.

Alain laughed. It sounded so ridiculous, said that way.” Who is brave, my friend? I want only to keep the one I love safe." He began to dress, dripping as he talked.” What are you called, among your people?" "It is permitted to call me Hani. What is it permitted to call you?"

"I am called Alain. Do your people always live in the caves?"

"No. Here we take refuge from the attacks of the Cursed Ones."

Here was a subject Alain could understand. When had the Cursed Ones first attacked? How often did the raids come these days, and from what directions? Hani answered as well as he could.” Do you believe the Cursed Ones walk the looms?" Alain asked.

"It may be. Or it may be they beach their ships along the strand and hide them. That way they can make us think they know how to walk the looms."

"Then you would fear both their raids and their knowledge because you do not know how much they know."

Hani gave Alain an ironic smile, peculiar to see on that proud face.” This I am thinking, but the Hallowed Ones and elders of my people do not listen to me."

As they talked, each in his halting command of their common language, they walked back to the main cavern before ducking behind a hide curtain that concealed yet another tunnel. They made so many twists and turns, passed so many branching corridors, that Alain knew he would never find his way out again without a guide.

At intervals he heard down the maze of tunnels the sound of the storm screaming outside. Sand stirred up by its passage dried out his lips. But the sound faded as the passage dipped down to a circular aperture carved into the rock. Alain stepped high over a band of rock thrust across the corridor at the same time as he ducked to avoid the low ceiling; and passed into a world bathed in red, walls painted with ocher.

Hani bent, bowed, and murmured a prayer. A stickily sweet per fume hung in the air. They came into an antechamber carved out of the rock, stairs and doors, carved niches and stepped ceilings, all painted reddish orange. It was like stepping into a womb, the ancient home of the oldest mothers of humankind.

People waited here, sitting or kneeling in silence, shawls draped over their hair. He saw no children. Laoina knelt here, head bowed, by a second doorway, this one carved out of the stone in imitation of a lintel and frame made of timber.

She shaded her eyes with a hand as though to shield them from a bright light. When Alain paused beside her, she glanced up with a grimace of relief.” We did not lose you! Wait with me."

He still did not see Adica. Ignoring Hani's startled protest, Alain stepped over the threshold.

Inside, torches illuminated three people, two of them veiled and the third Adica. The cloud of incense choked him. Sorrow and Rage sat on either side of the threshold, waiting for him.