The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [209]
I needed to get to Antonin face-to-face, and I suspected that he would let me, if only to get an explanation of how I had eluded him thus far. That was a gamble, but not a big one. Besides, I really didn’t have much choice.
So step by step I walked downhill, further from Gairloch with each stride, closer to the hidden fires that shimmered behind each stone of the white castle, closer to the fears that threatened to paralyze my spine.
LXV
NOT ONE SOUL—not even a demon—looked from the empty parapets as my feet scuffed the white stone of the road that arrowed straight for the white-oak bridge and the open gate beyond.
With each step a puff of white dust rose, then fell, in the noonday stillness. Not a breath of air carried down that narrow valley, and the winter day felt like a bone-dry summer afternoon. The ice-and snow-tipped peaks of the Westhorns glittered like glass on their heights to my left, as indifferent as to what might happen as they had been to the rise and fall of Frven or the honest and deadly strategy of Recluce.
Thud. My first step on the wooden span reverberated like muted thunder from the narrow ravine below, all red rocks, needle-pointed and razor-edged. At least there weren’t any bones, not that I could see.
Tharooom…thud…tharooom…Walking the white fir was walking across a massive drum. Antonin’s coach must have vied with the real thunder when it rumbled across his bridge…. Tharummmm…
Creaaakkkkk…The heavy wooden gate, set on massive bronze hinges, eased open even more widely as I watched.
No one appeared. No thing appeared, either, but I could feel the creatures of chaos beyond that open gate—red-sparked and dead-white beings that made the lingering demons of Frven seem merely plaintive.
My fingers were slippery on my staff, and I wanted to wipe the sweat off my forehead. Not all of that dampness was from the heat.
Tharuum…thump, thuuuud…The drum echoes of the bridge told me that my steps were not exactly even, or ordered. I repressed a laugh, but why I thought it was funny I couldn’t say.
Creakkkkk…The solid oak gate opened wide to the courtyard beyond the wall, and to the main floor windows, all casements, and all open to let in air and light. No figures appeared anywhere, even as my feet again touched the solid white stone beyond the bridge and outside the gate. Again, I could feel the unseen chaos-energies swirling around the courtyard.
I swallowed and stepped up to the gate.
“Hello the castle.” The stone swallowed my words, rather than echoing them.
No answer.
I looked around the gate, let my feelings sweep the courtyard, but the space was vacant. Not cloaked, the way the white knight had been, but vacant. I took one step up to the gate, and another around it. My feet carried me past the gate, and I looked back. The heavy oak structure remained on its hinges—open.
The white-paved courtyard, less than thirty cubits square, was empty and bare, except for a mounting block designed for a carriage, and a carved design above the doorway of the carriage-entrance. The open windows were hinged open slightly beyond the roof line.
Like the castle gate, the doorway above the carriage steps beckoned.
Both of its unadorned, gold-varnished double doors stood ajar. A glint of bronze told me that they, too, were set with bronze hinges.
Even with my feelings extended, I could sense nothing living nearby, just the swirling chaos-energies, a deeper underlying chaos, and a greater and a lesser concentration of living white fire on the floor above. That fire had to be Antonin—and some other white wizard.
Thrap! Thrap! I banged the heavy brass knocker far harder than necessary, and the sound echoed into the corridors beyond the doors.
This time I waited. One did not enter the domain of chaos totally uninvited. Standing there—staff in hand, shifting my weight from one foot to the