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and dark. It has lain long in slumber "
' 'Those who once dwelt here had records. If this thing was old, could those
not be searched?"
There was a quick eagerness in the Hassitti's answer.
"That can be done, Noble One. It is true that one needs a lamp to search out
what must be found. Also, the dreamers will try again! This very hour they
shall try!"
With a swirl of his drapery he was gone.
Kadiya had drawn her dagger. The reality of that cherished weapon was an
anchor in this world of dreamers and shadow threats. The records she had seen
in one of those rooms crammed with the mem¬orabilia of the Vanished Ones
could the Hassitti read them? She was sure that such a task was beyond her own
talents.
"Farseer "
She turned quickly to Jagun.
"What may I do for you, comrade?"
She saw his wide mouth shape a half smile. "It is rather, King's Daughter,
what I may do for you. These skitterers with their dreaming and. their
hoarding of what they themselves do not know do not let them draw you into
standing for them."
"What do you truly know of these little people, Jagun?" she questioned.
His smile was gone. "Farseer, very little. Until I saw them for myself I
believed that that knowledge was of the same stuff as swamp mist or even less.
They are from the fashioning of the Vanished Ones,
even as were we of the Kin and the Skritek but they were said to have
gone with the Great Ones into the unknown. They were thought to have had no
real life apart from those others, whereas we were given the swamp mires to
hold and rule. They are not of our kind any more than the Skritek though
they are not of the Dark as are those."
"You have dreamed also, hunter."
He was silent for a moment, and turned his head a little away from her.
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"Yes, I dreamed." She saw him shiver. "Though I cannot remember it now.
Perhaps all this," he made a motion with his hand, "is a place of dreams.
Farseer, we would be better out of it."
Kadiya shook her head wearily. "I might say well to that save there is the
sword. It remains, and while it does I am not free to go my way. But you are
not bound, Jagun."
Now he looked straight at her and she felt shame for those last words.
"Comrade," she hastened to say, "I would not have you away except by your own
choice."
"Which I have made long since," he answered.
7
Kadiya had left one lamp burning. Even in its subdued glow she could see some
reflections from the patterns on the robe she had dis¬carded in folds across
the end of the bed. Within that shell hollow were not the sleep mats she was
used to but rather a fluff of stuff she decided must be culled from the seed
puffs of mak reeds, and into this nesting apparently the occupant was supposed
to burrow.
She lay with her wrists crossed behind her head and tried to face squarely
what might lie ahead. This was a blind seeking, unless she could find
something in that mass of records she had only glimpsed when the Hassitti had
taken her on the tour of their stor¬age rooms.
She had never been a delver into old records, even if they were inscribed in
words she could read which she greatly doubted. This should be Haramis's
task.
Haramis
Kadiya's hands went now to the amber amulet at her throat. Cupping it in both
her palms, she closed her eyes and tried to reach her sister using the mind
speech. There was no touching, no sense of any¬thing beyond. She had had only
a small hope that there would be.
Yet the amulet fed a warmth to her hands, down her arms, into the very heart
of her body. Kadiya, clasping the amulet tight against her breast, no longer
struggled to use that which she did not un¬derstand. Instead her thoughts
drifted to the gar¬den. In the morning she would go there
She awoke as suddenly as if she had been aroused to sentry duty. The lamp
still shone, a beacon against the night. Kadiya fought her way out of the
puffy fibers of bedding which had arisen like waves around her.
Crossing the room, she discovered that even in that short time the Hassitti
had dealt with her trav¬eling clothing. What could be cleaned had been; what
could be mended was. She could bear to wear it again.
The summons which had brought her out of sleep still rang in her head.
Pausing only for a mo¬ment to assure herself that Jagun slept, she crept out
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of the room.
There was a faint radiance from below as if an¬other lamp had been left
there. She descended the flight of stairs to ground level. There was a solid
door the first she had seen but it yielded to her push and then she was
out in the night.
Once more she held the amulet in hand. Even as
it had guided her moons ago to Binah's tower, so now was it aglow. That spark
of light within wreathed the tiny Black Trillium, waning and wax¬ing as she
swung it carefully this way and that.
Binah's birth gift was of the magic of the Van¬ished Ones. In this, the heart
of their territory, she believed it could be trusted anew. Obeying the
im¬pulse with which she had awakened, the girl moved off through the mists of
the night. She divided her attention between what she held and what lay about
her, remembering very well the vine trap.
Though she could see but little as she went, Kadiya was certain she was
beginning to retrace the ways which had brought her here. And she was not
surprised when at last she stood again before the garden stairway with its
silent and motionless Guardians.
Then she was among the columns, looking down to where the sparks of insects
wove patterns between bloom and bloom. The perfume seemed stronger than even
the spice lamps of the Hassitti as she de¬scended the inner stairway. One of
the sparks, a vivid blue-green, swung toward her, hovered for a second or two
over the amulet as she held it outstretched.
"I have come." Kadiya spoke aloud. She had moved to stand beside the sword
which still stood planted and unchanging.
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