Swordmistress of Chaos by Robert Holdstock, Angus Wells Page B

battle. Now the opportunity seemed lost to her.
    ‘Can we not follow him?’ She turned to Spellbinder as Mistress Clara left them, her eyes fervent within the cowl. ‘He can not be far ahead.’
    ‘Wait,’ murmured Spellbinder. ‘There are greater games afoot than your vengeance. In time, perhaps, we shall catch him; until then, be patient.’
    That night, for the first time in many days, Raven did not go to the warrior’s bed. When he sought to enter hers, she pushed him roughly away, mumbling curses as tears of frustrated rage coursed over her cheeks.
    Spellbinder accepted the rebuke, returning to his own pallet with a silent smile upon his lips. Calm, he settled himself for sleep, freeing his mind to wander through the possibilities and the plans of the greater design that stood around him. And around Raven. After a while, the images and the voices that wafted through his mind went away and he slept as sound as a child contented with its day’s work.
    The next morning they toured Lyand; wandering those parts Raven, as a slavegirl, had never seen. By day’s light the hall of the Weaponmaster appeared a grim, forbidding hulk of mingled wood and stone, decorated with the shields of past masters. Here and there, gaps showed in the lines of shields, and Spellbinder pointed to where Argor’s buckler had once hung, and Raven, unaided, found the empty spot that should have carried Donwayne’s roundel.
    Outside the slavepens and the wharves, she realised, Lyand was a beautiful city; as an orchid, effete and dependant on support, is beautiful. Its streets wound in concentric circles from the great outer walls to the sea, wide-paved chariotways alternating with smaller avenues designed for pedestrians, the latter lined by small taverns and eating houses, the stalls of street vendors-and the dwellings of the citizens. Between the encircling streets, like the spokes of a wheel, ran tiny alleyways, from which emanated dark openings, miniscule windows, still smaller shops, and the rich smells and tiny noises of a bustling city. Food smells mingled with the sweat-stink of horses and Xands, the odour of tanning leather and fresh-butchered meat; wine hung in the air around the many taverns, and closer to the seafront there was the sharp, exhilarating tang of ozone and cured fish.
    Over all the city of Lyand, there appeared a golden glow. It came from the cupolas surmounting the houses and the towers, beating down from the metal plates that spanned each rich dome, reflecting the desert sun onto the teaming multitudes scurrying the streets like ants in a hive.
    When they toured the outer walls the smell changed. There it became a rank odour of sweat and pain and blood, heavy with the growling of dogs. They stayed only a short time there, for they were too close to the slavepens, and Raven was full of too many memories.
    They left the city before sun’s set, Raven anxious to pursue Karl ir Donwayne, and Spellbinder bent upon some other purpose he would not reveal to her. Their going was as inauspicious as their entry, and they reached the desert country beyond the walls without suspicion or pursuit. Beyond the view of the city’s watchmen, they shed their pilgrim robes in favour of armour: even around Lyand’s walls there was danger from the great beasts that stalked the outland wastes. Twice in the night they heard the snuffling of some great monster such as stalked the southern sand, and came to their feet with sword or bow set ready for use. But none came close enough to present any real danger, and in the morning they started out again, heading northwards to Quell.
    ‘Why Quell?’ Raven asked. ‘Speaking of the Stone, you dismissed it as a foolish illusion. Why do we not ride straight for Karhsaam?’
    ‘I said,’ Spellbinder muttered from under the folds of his cloak, ‘that foolish people worship the stone as a god. It is no more than a chunk of star-spawned rock, but it does hold certain properties that may be used by