Ice and Shadow by Andre Norton Read Free Book Online Page A

pushed aside the Princess, ran to tear at the fall which had corked the entrance. She was able to scrape out some of the rain-slicked clay, pull at the branches in it. But underneath was a boulder she could not move. Though perhaps she could use the power of her tool to undercut it.
    “Are—are we trapped?”
    Roane had gone to her knees, was holding the beamer steady on the boulder. In one way her own problem was solved. For both their lives now depended upon help from outside—from the camp. Only the men there had the equipment to handle this easily.
    “Yes. I do not have power enough to undercut this. I shall have to call for help.” Should she warn the Princess of the results of that? Or continue to wait, always hoping that something might happen to make a hard choice easier?
    “This could be Och’s Hide. If we must wait for help, need we remain crouching here? For if it is the Hide and I can find the Crown—” She drew a deep breath. “For me, for Reveny, this could be the greatest day in a hundred years!”
    “What crown do you seek?” Roane thought of the many forms that Forerunner discoveries had taken in the past. There had been a few times when such had consisted of objects which could come under the age-old designation of treasure—gems, weird art forms of precious metal, and the like. Though what were more important by far, and what they had come to seek here, were machines, records, and the clue to such a find had been enough to make them risk search on Clio.
    “Our crown—the Ice Crown of Reveny.” The Princess answered almost absently. She no longer watched Roane but gazed into the shadowed passage. Then she did turn, and her face was stricken with a shadow of fear and her hands went to her mouth, covering her lips. When she spoke again it was in a very low and shaken voice.
    “That is a great secret, Roane Hume, one that only two people know—my grandfather the King, and I. And I have sworn by that which is most sacred to our people not to speak of it. Now I am forsworn.”
    “But I am not of Reveny, and I shall swear as you wish to say nothing.” Roane, made uncomfortable by the bleak look on the other’s face, was quick to answer.
    “If this is Och’s Hide, then the harm is small, covered and forgotten in a greater good. But I must know! Come, use your light and let us look—”
    If they stumbled on Forerunner remains and the Princess saw them—But what did that matter now? Roane had to do what she should have done long ago.
    “Let me first call for help to free us.” She fingered the com, moving its button in the camp call. Waited—and saw the answering code flash on the dial, demanding—But she interrupted with her own terse signal, of where she was and what she might have stumbled upon. Though she made no mention of the Princess.
    The answering flash was a jubilant series of dashes, promising all speed. She had forethought enough to add then a warning of people in the forest, thinking of the searchers which might be combing there.
    She half expected some question from Ludorica, but the Princess said nothing, only turned the beamer on the passage.
    “Can you not tell me more of what you seek?” Roane asked as they started on.
    “Knowing a part, there is no reason now for you not to hear it all. The Ice Crown is the crown of Reveny, given by the Guardians at the far beginning. Just as the Flame Crown is for the rulers of Leichstan, the Gold Circlet worn in Thrisk—but surely all this is known to you. My grandfather, King Niklas, came to the throne while he was yet a boy and his stepmother-under-second-rights, Queen Olava, was regent in his name—though she was no true kin, not even of the Blood Royal, having been taken in a marriage on the left hand by my great-grandfather when he was well into his dotage. She was of the line of Jarrfar. They once held this hill country and tried twice to make a kingdom of their own. However, having no crown power from the Guardians, they of