The Complete Morgaine by C. J. Cherryh

killed so casually.
    â€œYour work?” he whispered at Liell, in Morgaine’s hearing. He did not know whom he warned: he only feared, and thought it well that whoever was innocent mark it now and be advised.
    â€œHurry,” said Liell, easing open the great door. They were out in the front courtyard, where one great evergreen shaded them into darkness. “This way lie the stables. Everything is ready.”
    They kept to the shadows and ran. More dead men lay at the stable door. It suddenly occurred to Vanye that Liell had an easy defense against any charge of murder: that they themselves would be called the killers.
    And if they refused to come, Liell would have been in difficulty. He had risked greatly, unless murder were only trivial in this hall, among madmen.
    He stifled in such dread thoughts. He yearned to break free of Leth’s walls. The quick thrust of a familiar velvet nose in the dark, the pungency of hay and leather and horse purged his lungs of the cloying decay of Leth-hall. He had his own bay mare in hand, swung up to her back; and Morgaine thrust the dragon blade into its accustomed place on her saddle and mounted Siptah.
    Then he saw Liell lead another horse out of the shadows, likewise saddled.
    â€œI will see you safely to the end of Leth’s territories,” he said. “No one here questions my authority to come and go. I am here and I am not, and at the moment, I think it best I am not.”
    But a shadow scurried from their path as they rode at a quiet walk through the yard, a shadow double-bodied and small. A patter of feet hurried to the stones of the walk.
    Liell swore. It was the twins.
    â€œRide now,” he said. “There is no hiding it longer.”
    They put their heels to the horses and reached the gate. Here too were dead men, three of them. Liell sharply ordered Vanye to see to the gate, and Vanye sprang down and heaved the bar up and the gate open, throwing himself out of the way as the black horse of Liell and gray Siptah hurtled past him, bearing the two into the night.
    He hurled himself to the back of the bay mare—poor pony, not the equal of those two beasts—and urged her after them with the sudden terror that death itself was stirring and waking behind them.
Chapter 5
    The lake of Domen was ill-famed in more than the Book of Leth. The old road ran along its shore and by the bare-limbed trees that writhed against the night sky. It did not snow here: snow was rare in Korish lands, low as they were, although the forests nearest the mountains went wintry and dead. The lake reflected the stars, sluggish and mirrorlike—still, because, men said, parts of it were very deep.
    They rode at a walk now. The horses’ overheated breath blew puffs of steam in the dark, and the hooves made a lonely sound on the occasional stretch of stones over which the trail ran.
    And about them was the forest. It had a familiar look. Of a sudden Vanye realized it for the semblance of the vale of Aenor-Pyvvn.
    The presence of Stones of Power: that accounted for the twisting, the unusual barrenness in a place so rife with trees as Koriswood. It was the Gate of Koris-leth that they were nearing. The air had a peculiar oppression, like the air before a storm.
    And soon as they passed along the winding shore of the lake they saw a great pillar thrusting up out of the black waters. In the dim moonlight there seemed some engraving on it. Soon other stumps of pillars were visible as they rode farther, marking old and
qujalin
ruins sunk beneath the waters of the lake.
    And two pillars greater than the others crowned a bald hill on the opposite shore.
    Morgaine reined in, gazing at the strange and somber view of sunken city and pillars silhouetted against the stars. Even at night the air shimmered about the pillars and the brightest stars that the shimmer could not dim gleamed through that Gate as through a film of troubled water.
    â€œWe are safe from pursuit,”