Tales From High Hallack, Volume 3 Read online

  “Look—with the eyes of the body!” The speaker sharpened those words into a compelling order.

  I opened my eyes. No Wheel any longer hung before them, but the dim light of the setting sun made of the window another sort of frame for the woman who had intruded. Now she took several long steps that brought her to me, holding out her still-cupped hands. That chalice of flesh she presented to me with a command I dared not disobey:

  “Drink!”

  Lowering my head, I sipped. The liquid was cool, and from it rose the scent of ripened fruit which, as I mouthed it, I knew for the juice of new-pressed apples.

  I drank—and I understood—but part of me still refused to believe.

  “I am not—” I began to protest.

  “Remember—do not deny memory!” Morgan gave her third order.

  A tapestry of doings and dealings that were certainly not mine in this life unrolled in my mind. So fast it happened, and so galling were many of the recollections, that I covered my face with my hands and felt them wet with tears.

  Fingernails dug painfully into my shoulder as the witch-woman brought me back to the present. “May Queen you no longer are,” she declaimed, “yet you remain the key that will open the door. I have not lost my power but have gained more while I slumbered. Mistress of the Wheel and of Time is Morgan, daughter of a king, wife of a king, sister and first love of a king!”

  “And,” I answered bitterly, “one who brought about the destruction of a world that might have been.” For the past was now mine, though I wanted none of it.

  Yet somber legends of an age agone seemed no more unreal than the waking nightmare of my present imprisoning. Dusk had now sealed the window behind me; however, light still lay all about within the room—it might have been flowing from the walls. As I fronted the frame with its stretched silk, I found I could see as well for my work as though the sun were standing at full noon.

  And labor I did, without hesitation and untiringly—needle and bead, green of this shade, blue of that hue. The picture before me grew magically, but in the border only—the very center of the scene being created remained blank.

  Time no longer had any meaning. All that mattered was the place I was bringing into existence; yet with the only part of my mind that remained my own, I did not forget the one whose predatory-bird gaze watched my efforts and whose power kept me at them.

  Those of the Wheel—those women I knew, as well. Queens they had been, and priestesses also; and in a time so distant from this that no mind could rank up the years between, they had held the rule of this land which had, in turn, mothered that of my birth.

  Dindrane . . . Kundry, the Old One of Death and Knowledge (the lore of both being intertwined). Enid, Lady of Joy . . . Ygraine, the Hallows Queen, bearer of Him Who Was, Is, and Will Be. Nimuë, holder of the strength of Merlin . . . Dame Ragnell . . . Argante, who dwelt beneath a lake and gave the world’s most famous Sword to the greatest of champions . . . Guinevere—

  Like a finger that touches flame, my whole being drew back from the last of those. With fierce concentration, I centered my mind wholly upon my task. I wanted to deny that I had ever answered to the name of that Queen who had compassed the destruction of another Wheel, the Round Table; but the same mystical sense that forced me to own that truth revealed what I now did—though in spite of myself—as another act of betrayal.

  Completed, the work I labored upon would, I knew, be seized by Morgan, and for a second time an act of mine would change the world. It was a world already deep-stained with blood and heart-gnawed by evil, true; yet the release of Morgan’s full power would transform it from a place merely shadowed to one utterly enshrouded by the Cloak of the Dark.

  That must never come to pass—not, at least, through my hand, my needle, my beads. Still I sewed and could not stop.

  Save for the empty space at its center, the picture was finished as the dawn’s rays touched the window, warring with the witch-light about me.

  “Done—well done!” The praise was not meant for me; it was my captor’s pleasure in her own accomplishment that she was voicing.

  Morgan had stood by my side as I labored through the night. Now she stepped in front of me, gripped the beading-frame, and swung it to face herself. A large needle gleamed suddenly in her hold, and she leaned forward until the point of that implement touched the fabric. There was a flash of pallid fire, then another, a third . . .

  When the sorceress stepped back, her contribution to the design was revealed: the Wheel, web of a spider freed once more to spin her nets of shadow. Yet the labor was still not complete, for she issued an order to me, her gaze still fixed on her work:

  “Crystals—”

  Again her power held me, moving my hand against my will. Crystals . . . yes, a small tube held such clear mineral spheres, part of the treasure Enid had sent. I laid them out in a line, eight in number—but a ninth I grasped tight in my hand and did not add to that gleaming row.

  This time I did not need to thread the needle I had set upon the edge of the sorting tray. Once the crystals had been released from their vial, they arose of their own accord and, flying toward that nine-pointed web, fitted themselves one by one to each star on the Wheel. Hidden in my palm, the remaining bead, icy cold, was stealing all sensation from my flesh. Still I clutched it close.

  Morgan gave a near-purr, a sound like a cat well satisfied; she seemed to have forgotten me. In that moment I took my chance. Clenching my left hand to match my right, I raised both fists and brought them down onto the work table with all the force I could summon. Under that assault, a rich shower of color geysered up as beads by the hundreds, the thousands, filled the air like a shattered rainbow.

  I heard words screamed out like a curse but paid no heed—I was intent on something else. The ninth crystal I held must be meant to center Morgan’s own star—the topmost on the tapestry—and I saw nothing but that. Groping without looking, I closed my free hand about chill metal: a pair of keen-honed scissors.

  The fist crimped round my own bead had numbed to the point of uselessness, yet my left hand still obeyed me. Leaping to my feet, I slashed down at the unfinished picture with the open blades. But I had leaned forward to aim that blow, and now I overbalanced and—dropped.

  Water closed about me—water, such as had ever been the medium of Power for the Sisters of Avalon, the Women of the Wheel.

  I fought as slime-laced liquid surged up to draw me down, hearing as I did so the thwarted sorceress screaming as a raven might screech above a battlefield. My right hand a weight dragging me to the depths, I flailed with my left, kicking my feet to keep my head above the surface. Knowing that I must open the clenched fist or be pulled to my death, I forced its fingers apart with a desperate order from my mind. The crystal, loosed, tumbled away. But now my other hand was a dead weight!

  Morgan was coming, striding across the surface of the water. Her features were twisted into such a malevolent mask that she seemed a very demon.

  Somehow I was able to raise the lifeless thing my left hand had become. As it moved up through the water, I could see a gleam of metal; but when it lifted into the air, that glimmer became a light. Yet I did not hold my work shears, as I believed; instead, I clutched a clump of reeds, each darkening fast, and growing heavy—oh, so heavy.

  The witch-woman was almost on me, no longer voicing a battle-bird cry but rather keening sounds in no language I knew.

  I made my last and greatest effort, swinging my leaden arm up to meet the blow she aimed my way. I was not even certain I had touched her, but she flinched away and bent over, nursing one of her own arms against her body. Then her mouth opened to show pointed teeth, and she howled, maddened and dangerous as a wounded beast.

  I was sinking, the noisome waters rising past my shoulders to neck, then chin. My resistance grew feebler as the last of my strength ebbed. Yet still Morgan made no move to slay me—instead, she retreated a little, mouthing words.

  “Sisters.” I could understan
d her now. “To me!”

  Did seven shadowy faces show for a moment behind her? And from whence came the cry that I myself choked out, fighting to keep my lips above the liquid?

  “Iron, cold iron!”

  I lost myself in darkness.

  Pain found me all too quickly and brought me out of that friendly nothingness; every bone in my body ached. But I was content to lie as I was for a space, eyes closed, for nothing threatened now—of that I was sure.

  Slowly, as one might assemble scattered pieces of a puzzle, I strove to understand. I opened my eyes. Above me rose the cobweb-curtained ceiling of the folly. By the light it was near to noon. My back protested, but I managed to lever myself up in spite of even greater discomfort in my palms—strange sharp stabs. My throat was painfully dry, and my head swam.

  Swam—

  In a rush, memory returned.

  Morgan! I scrambled up, catching hold of the edge of the table, and somehow got into my chair. For some moments I sat brushing beads from my clothing and dusting them from my hands, where many had left small bleeding pocks. At last I looked toward the tapestry.

  The picture showed a great rent scoring its center, and caught in the frame hung a streamer of green that, even as I watched, crumbled into gray ash.

  The wreckage in this room might be thought proof of my victory. I must accept it as that—accept it, yes, but never let it be known. Though how I had done it I might never understand, I had won my way from the Wheel—

  Wheel! On the floor near my feet lay an object bright enough to attract my attention even now. A crystal star, its symmetry marred by two broken points. Steadying myself in the seat, I stamped it ruthlessly into dust.

  Had my actions destroyed those others—the Ladies of the Lake? I do not know, but I remain free, and of this I am sure: the triumph I gained was not a passing thing, but for all time, and perhaps, also, not for me alone, but for all the world.

  Three-Inch Trouble

  A Constellation of Cats (2001) DAW

  Tailed banners, bearing the codes of many trading companies, snapped in a brisk wind over the booths jammed together. A constant din of voices, raised in argument or in praise of this or that ware, assaulted the ears.

  Raven tightened his claw-hold on the perch where he rode with the ease of long practice. As a crew member of the Free Trader Horus, he had experienced such gatherings before. Cargo Master Grospar was in no hurry. Once the main cargo was aboard, the star-sailors combed these fairs for personal gambles of their own, a tradition going far back to a time when ships were borne on planet-bound seas and men never dreamed that the next port could be another world. Fortunes had been gained from more than one lucky private deal.

  “You choose, Raven. Or are you more eager for offerings to satisfy the innards?”

  Raven butted his black-furred head against that of the man on whose shoulder he rode. Such a crude suggestion! He’d provide an answer to fit. Languidly, he drooped his tail to one side.

  “Ros-rats? You’re losing it, mate!” Grospar sneered, but, disdain notwithstanding, he pushed through the crowd in the direction the cat indicated.

  Ros-rats were nasty vermin, but even they had value: they could clear alien wildlife out of a cargo hold in a very short time. As a result, every warehouse had cages of the creatures.

  However, a booth to one side displayed distractingly exotic offerings. A pile of furs lay heaped there, with two other spacers arguing over prices. Cages of brilliant-hued flying things hung on display chains. Raven spat at a hand-sized dragon from Kartum as it flickered a forked tongue at him. Transporting live cargo was twice as hard as hauling nonliving wares, and only a few large ships could do it successfully; but even reduced to bundles of bright plumes, lengths of scaled skin, mounds of sensuous fur, outworld creatures would attract buyers.

  A woman squeezed around a booth and stepped directly into Grospar’s path. “Moon be clear for you, Cargo Master.”

  Martin Grospar laughed. “You here, Lasseea? I hope fortune favors you, as well, and I trust your moons are clear indeed.”

  The tall, thin female was not in space uniform, but rather wore a colorful flowing robe. Her hair was hidden by a glitter-sewn scarf, and the breeze played with the fringes of twin shawls about her shoulders. Lasseea was a star-reader, and justly famous: several of her important predictions had been accurate.

  The seeress leaned forward and tapped Raven between his golden eyes.

  “Greeting to you, brother-in-fur.” Feline eyes and green human ones locked in a deep gaze. “Sooo—” Now she spoke directly to Grospar again. “There will be work for this little one soon, and then he will prove the worth of all the cargo you have checked into your ship.”

  The cargo master’s smile faded. Lasseea may have insisted, planet-years ago, that Raven shared an important birth star with her and was a bringer of good fortune, but Grospar prided himself on being free of the superstitions that spacefarers could collect. Star-voyaging brought much that was difficult to believe when experienced, and the unusual—even more so than for other adventurers—was the usual for Free Traders.

  “He’s already earned his rations several times over,” the man answered gruffly. “What will we have to thank him for now?”

  “One sees ahead but little.” The star-reader pulled her top shawl closer about her. “Watch and wait.”

  Then she was gone.

  Grospar and Raven continued on to the booth that had attracted the cargo master. As they arrived, the dealer was occupied with a sale, bargaining with two spacers who wanted the shining furs of Arcalic Night-Bats. The Horus’ officer took advantage of the chance to survey the wares. He was attracted first by a string of small bone carvings hanging against a display rack. Then his eyes shifted to a box below them—a container that looked vaguely familiar. Grospar picked it up. The clasp proving loose, the box opened, and man and cat looked inside.

  Within lay six slender bottles, or maybe “vials” was the word. Each was frosted down its length, except for a space at one tip, but those areas were so small that they afforded no glimpse of the tubes’ contents. The cargo master caught sight of markings on the nearest and held the box closer. Raven nearly lost his shoulder-seat as he leaned down to sniff.

  The Free Trader glanced at the dealer, who was now collecting credit slips. Grospar did not know him, but that was not to say he was a jack dealing in stolen goods. The fact that he had openly displayed this container meant he believed he had nothing to fear. On the other hand, both box and contents were stamped “SURVEY PROPERTY,” and such artifacts were usually strictly guarded.

  “You have an eye for a mystery, Cargo Master?”

  The booth-keep, Grospar guessed, was a fellow Solarian—from Mars, to judge by the brown skin that nearly matched his thinning hair.

  “Mystery?”

  “That there—” the dealer jabbed a showman’s finger at the vial-holder “—come in ‘bout ten days ago. Ast’roid miner found it hooked on the belt of a floater who’d got caught in the rocks he’d been blastin’.”

  Grospar pointed in turn. “That’s a Survey stamp,” he said. “The law is—”

  The hawker’s laugh interrupted him. “Laws! They don’t hold much, ‘cept when a gov’ment man’s there to back ‘em up. Who’s gonna make an extra flight to Jason or Silenea to turn in somethin’ that little? Gimme ten credits, you can take it, and,” his eyes narrowed shrewdly, “maybe get yourself a reward.”

  “Eight,” the Trader countered, then automatically turned his head. “Worth that, Raven?”

  The cat gave a small chirp of encouragement. There was something decidedly interesting about their find.

  “Eight an’ a half.” The merchant fell into the natural rhythm of a sale.

  The haggling went on for a few moments. When the cargo master left the booth, the box and some of the bone carvings were tucked into his shouldertote.

  As the partners made their way back to the ship, Grospar stopped now and again to examine
other offerings. Raven, however, paid no attention. He was keeping an eye on the bag that held his companion’s selections and striving to pick up the thread of a very strange scent. Nor did he go off on his own when they were once again in the Horus but instead kept close to the cargo master’s heels after he had leaped from his moving perch.

  Grospar opened a chest built in under his bunk to stow away his most recent purchases, but before he closed the storage place, he opened the box again to view the six vials.

  “What—!” The cargo master grabbed for a hand light and shone it into the interior, full on the transparent portions of the tubes. A—head? Some kind of carving?

  There was no time now to make sure, for the liftoff alert had sounded, and that meant strap-down. He paused to boost Raven into the cat’s hammock, then made his own preparations for ship-rise.

  Raven wriggled until he could still see the box, which Grospar, for some reason had never placed in the chest. His lips shaped a soundless snarl. What was it? His feline senses were strained to the limit, but he was still frustrated. There had been no movement, no increase in that curious scent—nothing to sound the alarm, yet his inner warning system was clamoring ever more loudly.

  The cargo master held the box with both hands, peering within. Carvings? No, he was seeing heads, with staring eyes—heads hardly bigger than his own thumbnails. Well, Survey often brought back samples of strange life—insects, plants—and this container bore their seal.

  Found on a space-suited body . . . how long had its owner floated in the void, cast to a lingering and horrible death by some starship disaster? If the vials had once contained specimens living at that time, they were surely dead by now.

  Once more Grospar inspected the tubes, tilting the chest to see their tiny clear windows. One of the half dozen had somehow worked loose. Before he could push it back into the padded crevice that had held it, the vial broke completely free and rose in the now-gravityless air of the cabin, moving upward with surprising speed.