Roy C. Dudley BEYOND THE PLANES 1

CHAPTER 1

   The sun climbed through the mists enveloping the valley, a red sun which glared balefully at those below. Wyeth touched Dianne's amulet, and no blue fires appeared to warn him of sorcery. The mists and low lying fog slowly vanishing below his lofty perch were real mists in the act of dispersing.

   Wyeth stood at the crest of the pass, his sword drawn, the tip resting lightly against a booted foot. His brooding gaze studied the slope leading toward a wide opening in a cliff opposite him. In this cave were imprisoned the Lost Warriors of Balsoman.

   Notmen on their huge lizards guarded the slope. These guardians held to no formation, some toiling up the slope, some moving across the slope. There were droats and riders by the hundreds, but none fully formed for battle. Above the droats, flew fenzel and varlen, better prepared to fight, but all but useless on the forested slopes.

   Wyeth and his troop waited under the protection of a canopy of trees, and the slope below them was wooded, not heavily, but enough to break an attack by fenzel. This battle would be at such close quarters that the varlen dare not attack for fear of injury to their own forces.

   Wyeth studied a slight concavity that fell down the slope, a shallow shoulder to either side. This was the easiest route for an attack, and for some strange reason, guarded only loosely. Perhaps the Notmen considered the terrain too open to attack by fenzel, and too risky to use.

   A shimmering curtain swirled in front of the cave laying across the shallow valley. This curtain closed out the Notmen, a barrier they could not penetrate. Wyeth and his fifty men must cut a path through the Notmen, pass through them and enter past the curtain to safety.

   Balsomen's Warriors were trapped inside the cave. Only Wyeth and his forces could set them free.

   "First we give them a taste of arrows," Wyeth said quietly. "Then we maneuver to tangle the droats among the trees. After that, we charge the source of greatest confusion and slash our way through to that convenient swale." He pointed with one finger. "The swale all but leads to our destination, and should prove clumsy for the droats in maneuvering."

   He touched the patch upon his chest gently. "These patches enable you to see past any sorcery." He paused for emphasis. "And the touch of any one of you will awaken Balsoman's Warriors. Remember, you have but to pass through the curtain to release them. Any one of us who breaks free to reach the cave can enter through the curtain and free the warriors. It is my understanding these warriors are armed and prepared to fight on awakening."

   He paused again to draw attention to his words. "I will add a word of warning: cut your way out and be across Wildon before the Meremen can gather and deploy their forces. What faces us here is but a sprinkling. 'Twould seem we have caught them ill-prepared, many yet threading the swamps in search of us."

   Wyeth fingered the eagle feather in his helmet absently and glanced at Ester. Her face was grim, her features drawn. She could almost have been Eston.

   Feralain, his kercon, nudged at his shoulder. Wyeth scratched above the polished horns gently. "We are Wyneth Warriors. Never has a force of the Wyneth been defeated in such a battle. We each take our toll of ten or more among the best, and these who ride before us are not even the best of the Notmen.

   "Some of us will pass through the curtains that separate the planes this day. So some shall enter a new existence in a contiguous plane.

   This have I done before. Eventually shall we all come together in this new plane, I would suppose.

   "This day it is the destiny of Lady Ester and myself to pass beyond the Planes. Such was another of Lord Pyrol's conditions. He would find how Albalon defeated Lord Roth on three occasions. This passing will also serve Lord Pyrol's purposes by separating the powers of Lady Ester and Lady Dianne.

   "To those of you I leave behind: may Balon look upon thee with favor. To those who accompany me: may the Gods speed thy passage." He saluted them with his sword.

   He paused for a moment to study the movement of the Notmen. "Let's go."

   The kercon stayed beyond the effective range of the Notmen's short bows while Wyeth's warriors wreaked havoc with their long bows. The trees broke the charge of a flight of fenzel. Droats piled up in a tangle, dead, dying and living, the living trapped by their dead and by the trees. Wyeth lead the charge against this tangle.

   His forces cut and slashed their way forward, the agile kercon dodging trees and the flailing tails of the droats. The tails seldom were able to reach them, blocked by their dead and wounded, and by the trees. The heads and long necks of the droats were equally restricted.

   The press of trees did not offer enough maneuvering room for such huge beasts.

   All was confusion and noise, the familiar confusion of battle.

   With the droats all but immobilized by the trees, it was not difficult to weave a path between them. The warriors drove a wedge into the Notmen's ranks, holding to a compact group and wedge formation. They quickly exploited their advantage, widened the wedge and broke out on the far side, into the gully. Thos warriors remaining alive swooped down the rocky slope with little opposition. There was a full thirty five of them. Ester was gone. Below the troop loomed the curtain, comrades and safety.

   "Varlen," shouted Beldon; and they scattered like quail.

   Wyeth's ordinarily nimble mount stumbled, and before he could recover, fell on his side and rolled across his rider. A sudden pain struck Wyeth's body. The light grew dim and they heavens darkened to a deep violet, almost as if a veil were drawn between earth and sky.

   Feralain's limping shape came into Wyeth's line of vision, quartering the slope toward him where he lay. All about him was the confusion of battle, and of dying, but they had won the day, accomplished what must be done. He relaxed. Now he must pay his debt to the gods as ordained.

   Wyeth felt the onslaught of pain, but pushed it away and climbed slowly to his feet. He examined this other self laying on the ground, this warrior of twenty-one whose age could well have been reckoned in the thirties, this warrior whose hair had whitened at the temples, this warrior who was himself.

   Giddiness clouded Wyeth's mind, followed by a greater darkening of the purple landscape. He leaned forward and grasped the broad war belt and bow of this other self; and hung on stubbornly, even against pounding waves of dizziness and pain.

   He uttered no sound, for it ill became a Wyneth Warrior to acknowledge pain. And was he not of the Wyneth? Yet he was of Albalon too in some inexplicable manner that eluded him.

   Wyeth muttered ritual words, words Ensyblla the Wise Woman had taught him, and Feralain nibbled at his sleeve. He became conscious of the blue eyes of the Lady Dianne, of her golden hair, of her anguish.

   Behind her slight figure, stood the mailed Lord Albon, his face grim, but soft in a way Wyeth had thought never to see. Lord Albon drew his sword and held it vertically, the edge bisecting his features, touching his brow. It was a warrior's salute, a salute from one warrior to another. There was a parting, a vast sorrow.

   The Planes of Antista shifted and Upastin opened the gate. The pain intensified. Wyeth clung stubbornly to the belt.

   The pain gradually eased. Wyeth became aware of an alien landscape under alien skies. The sky was a soft violet, the landscape a vast tableland of waving grass of a green too dark by far; and a pleasant warmth rode the breeze.

   Of this Wyeth was dimly conscious. Dangling from his right hand was an intricately carved leather belt holding a sword and knife in separate scabbards. One scabbard held a slender sword with a hilt of intertwined serpents. The basket of the sword was of a woven metal mesh, the weaving fading between the runes and difficult to define. The scabbard was also delicately textured with forms in bas-relief. The knife also had a hilt of serpents, the sheath embossed with signs of power.

   In his left hand, he held a war bow and a quiver of arrows. These arrows were heavier than normal, made of a dense wood that showed no grain. On the second finger of his left hand, he wore a curious ring set with a strange gem in which fires stirred restlessly. About his neck hung another queer jewel. This one was of blue, the amulet of Lady Dianne. There was nothing else. Wyeth was naked. Mechanically he belted on his sword and knife, then slung his bow and quiver of arrows across his broad shoulders.

   As he had once before, he knelt upon one knee and gave thanks to the Gods of his youth so long ago, to Gods to whom he no longer felt any great kinship.

   "I, Wyeth the Warrior, give thanks to thee, Balon, and pledge thee my sword to the score of three of my enemy. To thee, Upastin, I pledge my honor and promise help should thou see fit to use me. To thee, Padilon, I pledge the runes of my scabbard should thou so desire, and promise to be unremitting in the face of evil. To thee, Fair Madron, I pledge naught, for I fear I know too much of thy manipulations."

   Recalling the Lady Madron of Albalon, this last was spoken more harshly.

   The sounds of approaching feet, muffled by grass, brought Wyeth to his feet. Feralain, his kercon, stopped at his side and offered his head for petting. His strange mount from Albalon had made the journey through the Planes with him. This furnished him a grim sort of satisfaction. If the kercon had passed thorough Planes safely, it was likely his comrades had too. His glance swept the sea of waving grass without surface awareness, his mind occupied with thoughts of his companions who had passed through the Planes with him. Was Feralain the only one he would find?

   Somewhere in this plane were his warrior companions--Denton the Younger, Jarl, the peasant, Rydell, son of the House of Rinsdell, the Lady Ester, and Beldon. He had seen Beldon fall even as he fell. There would be more. And lastly, there was his Lady Eston, daughter of the House of Estonia and of Lady Ester. Eston, whose love had been so wild, whose time had been so brief before the shadows had claimed her. Eston of far Balsoman--would he find her and reach heart's ease?

   Wanting more attention, Feralain nudged Wyeth with an inquisitive nose. Wyeth scratched absently around the polished horns sprouting from the kercon's forehead, and Feralain closed his eyes in animal delight, content.

   Wyeth mounted the kercon and swept the far-reaching grassy sea with his eyes. Nothing stirred except for the monotonous grassy tops.

   The grass was shoulder high to Feralain, coarse, and with a cutting edge Wyeth soon discovered against his naked flesh.

   Untold hazards could lurk In such cover, and near at hand. He decided he did not care for the uninterrupted vista of grass with its inherent dangers. He unslung his bow, readied an arrow and urged Feralain toward a purplish haze on the horizon, a haze which hinted at something different.

   The grass teemed with life. Birds flushed in flocks and small animals disappeared with a burst of speed. Only once did a hint of a larger animal give Wyeth pause.

   Twin suns hung idly to either side, behind his line of travel, seeming to be impossibly close. They were red suns, suns whose fires were unstoked, or being stoked through the ages, had burned to glowing embers. The march of these suns was little faster than his own. How long was dusk to dawn in this ungodly place? Or did these travesties of a sun ever stretch from horizon to horizon?

   The grass cut his legs and crisscrossed these cuts, even with his legs drawn up and sitting cross-legged aboard Feralain. Each cut oozed its drop of blood, each cut adding its infinitesimal mass to the total of his suffering. He must have clothing.

   The grass had less effect on the kercon, but he must lower his head to protect his tender nose. This did not preclude an occasional bite of luscious greenery.

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