"Seek not the treasures of the sun," chanted the Spiritshadow as it slid over the balcony. Its voice was high-pitched and screeching, awful to hear. "I am the Keeper, and none may pass here, save those who know the Words."
Tal stared up at it, expecting at any moment to be totally consumed by the panic he had felt in his last encounter with the Keeper. But to his surprise he found himself quite calm. His hand was already coming up, his Sunstone glowing red as he instinctively prepared a Red Ray of Destruction.
"Adras, stand clear!" Tal ordered, his steady voice another surprise. "Crow, if you can do anything to this thing, do it!"
"I can if it gets close enough," said Crow. He was getting something out of the pouch on his belt, but Tal was too intent on the Keeper to see what it was.
The Keeper dropped onto the rod above them, twining itself around as it lowered its head for the next leap straight onto Tal.
Tal kept concentrating on his Sunstone. He fed it anger and rage, and the Red grew deeper and stronger, swirling in the depths of the stone.
As the Keeper opened its too-wide mouth and tensed to spring, Tal thrust his hand forward and released the pent-up power of the Sunstone.
A Red Ray too bright to look upon shot out, a thin spear of light that punched through the Keeper's head. Drops of shadow spurted out of the back of its head. It screamed and recoiled, in pain and surprise.
Tal's relief died as he saw the droplets of shadow leap from the bronze rod and the Tower wall and fly back into the Keeper. In a few seconds the hole drilled by the Red Ray had closed, and the Keeper was once again preparing to spring.
"None may pass here!" hissed the Keeper.
"Can you hold it still?" shouted Crow. There was no need for shouting, but Tal understood why he was.
"No… yes… I don't know," he shouted back. "Adras, grab hold of that thing."
Adras had only been waiting for the word. He roared a battle cry and unleashed two bolts of shadow-lightning at the Keeper. More shadow-drops flew, then Adras was upon it, gripping it in a bear hug with his mighty arms. But its snake body was as quick to wrap around him, and Adras grunted as the thing began to squeeze.
Its head lowered, too, and it bit at Adras's shoulder. Adras howled, squeezed even harder, and bit back.
"It's still moving too much!" shouted Crow. He was getting up on the bronze rod now, intending to climb up to the next one where the two Spiritshadows were wrestling and biting. He had a strange silvery bag in his left hand.
Tal stared down at his Sunstone. There had to be something he could do to immobilize the Keeper. A variation of the Hand of Light. A rope. Something! Anything!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As the spears flew, Odris leapt upon Milla, grabbed her, and glided with her only a half-stretch above the snow. The spears went overhead. Odris, with Milla tucked underneath, plowed through the line of Shield Maidens. Knives cut at the Spiritshadow's back as she passed, but only sank into the shadowflesh and rebounded.
Odris kept going. Ahead of her, a huge wall of golden metal loomed, part of some giant structure that disappeared up into the darkness. There was a doorway in the side, with fuzzy green lights all around it.
"Ruin Ship, Ruin Ship," Milla repeated. Odris understood that this metal house was Milla's target. Perhaps when she reached it she would come to her senses.
If she reached it. Odris felt several spears strike her in the back, some of them going far enough through her to at least scratch Milla. Even so, the Icecarl did not cry out.
Odris kept on gliding, as close to the ground as she dared, sometimes grazing it a little with Milla. Near the door, she swooped up, dropped Milla, and turned to face their pursuers.
No more spears flew. Thirty or more Shield Maidens drew their long knives and rushed forward in total silence.
Odris drew herself up to her full height and shadow bolts of lightning formed in her hands. She was about to throw them when she heard a voice behind her call out a rapid sequence of strangely familiar words, followed by the shouted command,
"Stop!"
The Shield Maidens stopped. Odris would have thrown the shadow-lightning, but she found herself unable to move. Whatever the words were, they had done something to the shadow in her heart, Milla's shadow. It had reached out and stilled her muscles.
Odris couldn't even turn to see who had spoken. Now all she could hear was Milla's voice. Milla was suddenly babbling on about the Aenirans and the veil and Sushin and Odris and Adras, but it was all mixed up and it didn't make much sense.
The voice spoke again.
"Libbe! Go to Crone Dalim, ask her to come quickly with her medicines. Breg, go to the Mother and ask her for a shadow-bottle. Run!"
Odris kept trying to turn around. She could feel the shadow inside her going back to sleep or whatever it normally did, and she was regaining control of herself. Slowly, she began to turn.
A silver-eyed woman in black furs was cradling Milla, her hand placed firmly on the Icecarl girl's heart. As Odris turned, the woman looked at her and rapidly spoke the same words again.
This time, they had less effect. Odris felt the shadow stir inside her, but it could not hold her. She turned completely around and took a step forward.
A glowing knife appeared in the woman's other hand. A shorter version of the Merwin-horn sword Milla had lost when she had impaled Sushin.
"Come no closer, shadow," ordered the woman. "You shall not have this girl."
Odris sighed and sat down.
"I don't want to have her," she said.
The woman started, and there was a gasp from the Shield Maidens. Apart from the ones who had run off, they were standing still, as the woman had commanded, in a ring around Odris, none closer than thirty stretches.
"You speak," said the woman. "It is long since we have seen a shadow that speaks."
"Is Milla all right?" asked Odris. "She feels sort of sick to me and she's been acting very strange."
"Milla?" asked the woman, looking down. "If that is her name, she has gone far into the Tenth Pattern. I do not know if we can guide her out. If we cannot, she will die."
"I don't want her to die!" wailed Odris. "What will happen to me?"
The Spiritshadow started to weep, huge shadow-tears rolling on to lie black upon the snow.
"Beware the strategems of shadows," muttered the woman. "Lemel, you had best call the Mother Crone herself, and not just a shadow-bottle."
"No need," said a calm, quiet voice. "I am here."
A very old, tall woman spoke. Odris saw that this one had strangely milky eyes. She walked forward with confidence, pausing to look down at Milla. Another Crone, younger and less bright-eyed than the one with the knife, followed her. She went straight to Milla, took something from the bag she carried, and broke it under the girl's nose.
"Ah, I thought it would be Milla," said the Mother Crone. "She got her Sunstone, I see."
/> "She spoke of strange things," said the first Crone. "Words she had laid upon herself to deliver, dead or alive. I have them."
"Then I will hear them, in due course," said the Mother Crone. "Can she be saved?"
"If you wish it," said the younger Crone. "She is at the choosing of the ways."
"Bring her back," the Mother Crone instructed. "I think I will want more than a few words. Now, Speaking Shadow, what is your name and kind?"
"I am Odris, Storm Shepherd, once of Hrigga's Hill," said Odris. "Who are you?"
"I am the Mother Crone of the Ruin Ship," said the Mother Crone. "I am the Wisdom of Danir, the Living Sword of Asteyr."
"Oh," said Odris. She got up and bowed.
"No Aeniran is permitted upon the Dark World, by the ancient law of Danir," continued the Crone.
"By what right do you come here?"
"I came with Milla," Odris explained. "She wanted to tell you about the Veil being in danger, and the Keystones being unsealed, and"
"Stop!" ordered the Mother Crone. "We will speak of this with Milla herself. I say again, by what right do you come to the Dark World?"
"I don't know," said Odris miserably. "I just wanted to get away from the Hill and then I had to follow Milla."
"You must be taken for judgment," said the Mother Crone. "Will you go willingly to your prison, or must I force you?"
Odris looked around. The Shield Maidens probably couldn't hurt her, though there was that Crone with the glowing knife. The Mother Crone also seemed very confident Odris could be made to obey her.
"I'll do what you want, on one condition," Odris answered.
"We do not make conditional agreements," said the Mother Crone. "Yet you can tell me what you want. Perhaps it is not a condition after all."
"I want you to stop Milla from giving herself to the Ice."
The Mother Crone looked down at Milla. She seemed to be merely asleep now, breathing normally, as the younger Crone cleansed and bandaged her wounds.
"We cannot promise that," she said. "It is every
Icecarl's right to go to the Ice. Besides, Milla herself must be judged. Perhaps our judgment will be that she must go to the Ice."
Odris frowned and shot up into the sky. But she knew she couldn't go very far from Milla. Even if she could escape that binding, there was no light out in the world. She would fade to nothing.