They passed through the boundary of the eerie silent forest to low dry hills, their tops carpeted in broken rock and brittle thorny brush. A heap of stones crowned a number of the rises – each a burial cairn, Kellanved explained. One had obviously been demolished, its stones scattered all down the hillside, and this one he approached. Dancer followed, wary, hands on blades.
The little mage stood staring down inside for a time, and, after scanning the surroundings, Dancer joined him.
The cairn held a half-revealed corpse. Tattered cloth and leather wrapped its bare white bones, the dry environment having preserved the coverings well. The bones looked nearly human to Dancer, though somewhat too robust. ‘What are they?’ he asked.
‘Edur, I judge.’
‘Did you…’
Kellanved shook his head. ‘No.’
Dancer was relieved; not that he was overly superstitious. It just seemed … prudent … not to interfere in anything here until they understood the potential consequences.
A prickling brushed the back of his neck then, as of a faint awareness of something, and he spun, drawing his blades. There stood the man from the cairn – yet not him, less ragged in leathers, a spear straight at his side.
Kellanved turned, his brows rising, then bowed. ‘Greetings.’
The man, or Edur – it was hard to tell since he was covered in dust and obviously dead – did not respond, and after a time Dancer sent Kellanved a questioning look. The mage signed for patience.
As if carried by the wind, or the brush of the sands over the stones, there came faint words. ‘Disturb not the dead.’
Kellanved bowed once more. ‘We would not dream of it.’ He waited for a response, tapping his fingertips together.
Once again, after a long silence: ‘Disturb not the dead.’
Now Kellanved sent Dancer a look of exasperation. He bowed his farewell to the figure and waved Dancer on.
Together they abandoned the hilltop, Dancer walking backwards, weapons still readied. He glanced away for a moment to make sure of his footing and when he looked back the figure was gone. ‘A ghost?’ he asked.
‘We’re all ghosts here. Shadows of pasts and futures.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘Emurlahn is broken, shattered. Perhaps one may think of it as a repository of all the shadows of everything past and future, now spilling over and jumbled.’
Dancer scratched his chin, thinking. Finally, he gave up. ‘Sorry. Doesn’t help one bit.’
Kellanved raised a brow at him. ‘Really? I rather liked that one. Been working on it for a while.’
‘Try again.’
‘Critic.’
‘Now, now. So, where’s this gate?’
Kellanved raised the walking stick, pointing. ‘Beyond those hills.’
‘Couldn’t you have got us a little closer, then?’
The mage eyed him for a time, as if wondering whether he was being serious or not. ‘I don’t choose where to appear, you know. Anyway, we have to make it there before—’ He stopped himself.
‘Before the hounds find us,’ Dancer finished.
Wincing, Kellanved cast him a wary glance. ‘Ah … yes. Before that.’
‘Then we’d better hurry.’
They marched through the hills, passing more cairns and sand-choked scattered ruins. It struck Dancer that Shadow seemed nothing more than a gigantic mausoleum or trash heap of time and history. As if all the moments hidden by time in the world he’d left behind were all naked here, exposed and visible. Strangely enough, it made him rather sad to think of all that had been, or could have been.
He couldn’t relax, however, and kept glancing back over his shoulder to a dark smear in the sky – a lazily flapping creature like no bird he knew of, which seemed to be following them, or, at the very least, going their way.
They passed between two hills to find the dark arch of the gateway ahead, still half buried in sand. To Dancer, the gnawed stones of its frame seemed weary beneath the weight of unknown ages upon it. Kellanved began rummaging in the saddlebags at his shoulder. Dancer peered round, waiting for the inevitable.
While Kellanved set to work, muttering to himself, or mouthing invocations, examining his drawings, and touching the stones in precise places, Dancer kept watch. Why, he wasn’t certain, as there was nothing he could do in any case.
The Hood-blasted hounds remained a problem for them. Thinking about that, he probably should’ve brought a spear, like the one that ghost carried. He wanted to know Kellanved’s ideas on their history and why they kept coming, but the fellow was busy. Were they guarding Shadow? Or were they just damned hungry?
The first thing that happened was that the flying thing came circling down to land on a nearby hilltop. Like a bat it was; dark, with broad leathery wings. But bore a long pointed beak more like a pelican. Dancer watched it and it watched them.
Then the distant baying reached him.
He switched to his set of heaviest parrying blades and readied himself, crouching. This was it. The confrontation he’d been dreading, and hoping he wouldn’t really have to see through. To his surprise he found his mouth dry and his palms damp; no human opponent had ever raised such a reaction in him. Perhaps it was this damn waiting.
All he could do was to try to defend Kellanved to give the mage time to open the gate. Once it was open, they’d be gone.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked over his shoulder.
Kellanved was too engrossed even to answer.
He edged forward a half-pace, shifting his feet into the sands for better footing. The creature on the hilltop seemed to settle down on to its haunches, perhaps to watch the show.
Bastard.
A dark brown hound appeared on another hilltop. Scars matted its short-haired hide and its eyes blazed a glacier blue. Spotting them, it let go another of the howls that so shook and froze its quarry. Then it came charging down the slope in a flurry of kicked-up sands.
Dancer knew there was no way he could counter such a charge, except for dodging. And that would leave Kellanved undefended.
There was nothing for it. He knelt even lower, leaning forward, blades held straight out before him.
Light burst over his shoulder and a sudden thrust of power pushed him a good two paces forward. The beast veered off, slamming to a halt, warily eyeing not Dancer, but something behind him. Dancer straightened, backing up. A deep thrumming of power now vibrated the sands beneath his feet and he called over it, ‘Open?’
‘Ah … nearly,’ came the hesitant answer.
Oh, for the love of Oponn!
The beast had recovered from its surprise and was now edging forward, though still wary. Clearly it did not want to go bursting through a gate.
Dancer wove his blades, slashing at it, trying to force it back. Its haunches, he noted, came up almost to his own shoulders. It snapped at his blades as he slashed, but only half-heartedly; its attention, he noted, was fixed past his shoulder, on the gate beyond.
It was almost as if the creature was … fearful? No, not of the gate itself – of what might come through it.
Without taking his gaze from the massive beast, he called over his shoulder, ‘Kellanved! Perhaps this thing was sealed for a reason … Maybe we shouldn’t—’