Five Senses Box Set Page 23

  PERHAPS IN HIS amazement the guard had not been able to stop the downward lash of his branch. Ylon might be lacking one major sense but he had been without sight long enough to refine those which remained to him. The swish of the branch through the air was answered by a sharp upward and outward thrust of the dagger.

  Wood met steel. There was a flash of light, and the guard went stumbling back. With a cry he threw from him what remained of his power weapon, for that was alive with a dancing flame seeping from the point of contact with Ylon's weapon.

  His scramble of retreat brought him against the wall of the corridor and then he rebounded, taking off as if he believed that wisp of fire still reaching for him.

  Ylon laughed. And there was a new note in that. It seemed to Twilla that he stood straighter, his head was held higher. “So,” he said, “this hound still has teeth!”

  Karla moved a step away. “That one will raise the alarm,” she said. She was looking at Ylon and there was a shadow of uneasiness in her eyes. “Without the mists we have far to go and those I dare not summon now.”

  “Then let us be on our way,” Ylon returned. But he did not return the dagger to hiding, keeping it in a tight grip—now and then moving his wrist so that the blade performed some slash in the air. Perhaps he was pulling from memory warrior knowledge. Karla kept well ahead, glancing back now and then at those threatening gestures.

  Twilla gave up all hope of trying to keep track of the ways they transversed. One passage curled away from the other. Sometimes they came to one of the treasure-walled halls and then Karla proceeded with care. It was in the second of such crossings into the brighter light that they met others for the first time.

  Four of the forest people appeared to be advancing with the same caution that they themselves were using. And of those four Twilla could name two—there was Fanna and his mother.

  Before Twilla could retreat, urging Ylon with her, Karla hailed the others.

  Musseline looked beyond Karla to Twilla.

  “So you reached them, sister?” She moved forward. “But there are searchers in the ways—and Lotis has brought in darkness we do not understand. And Oxyle—”

  “Oxyle has been successful,” Karla told her, “we go to him now. He has found the source of that which Lotis bends to her will.”

  One of the men accompanying Musseline nodded. “Well enough, then we go also. For now we do not know who is friend, who is another hand for Lotis.”

  Their party so increased they made a hurried trip down a section of the lighted passage and then into a narrow side track which led them again into the dusk of the other ways.

  Twilla lagged a little. She had been without rest for so long, and her mirror calling had eaten into what was left of her reserves of strength. Then Ylon, as if he saw that she was faltering, moved up beside her, his arm closing about her, lending her support. She wondered a little that he seemed to be able to keep the pace without any wavering. The strain which blindness set upon him, the fact that he must depend largely on the aid of others to travel at all, must be near as sapping as the mirror was to her. Yet he strode in even paces, a rock strong to her aid.

  Karla and Musseline were exchanging news and, from the bits she overheard, Twilla gathered that indeed the forces of the forest were split. Some held neutral, withdrawing to their own places of refuge, refusing to side with Lotis or be hunted down because they held to the council that had been.

  The interference with the mists had startled, even frightened, some for they had so long accepted such powers as natural and understood. It had in a manner crippled those who might have taken a stand earlier against Lotis, separating them from each other and from sources of their own powers.

  Still Karla kept on and the rest followed. Twilla lapsed into a strange dreamlike state wherein the walls flowed by her as if she was being borne along by the river current. She found herself blinking, fighting to keep her eyes open, for a fog was closing in around her.

  However, she was shaken out of this when Karla suddenly halted. They had come into a very short passage and before them was one of those unseamed walls which did not promise any entrance.

  Karla raised her hand and gestured, ending by pointing at the wall immediately before them. There was no change that Twilla could see. Again Karla went through her series of gestures and this time Musseline echoed her.

  “It is warded,” one of the men said. “Warded by other power.”

  Twilla felt a sudden tug at her arm and she blinked at Fanna.

  “Other power,” he repeated, “power you can break, lady?”

  She fumbled with the mirror. But as she raised it she saw a dimmed surface. She had drawn too much in her search for Oxyle. Bemused she shook her head.

  It was Ylon who spoke up. “This is forest power?” he demanded, as he gently put Twilla to one side.

  “It must be so,” Karla replied. “But the sealing does not answer to the proper spell, though this is the way Oxyle went and he must have passed this. Perhaps Lotis indeed set a trap. Of us all Oxyle has been the only one able to confront her.”

  Ylon held out his left hand to the woman. “Show me where this passage must be.”

  She shrank from him as did the others when they sighted the bared weapon in his right hand. “What would you do?” one of the men demanded harshly.

  “Iron is your greatest fear, is that not so? Could any of your spells hold against it?”

  Karla's surprise was as open as that of the man who had spoken.

  “To use that against spelling—” she said slowly.

  “We need some answer,” Musseline nodded. “Iron is our bane of body, can it not also be our bane of power? Show him, sister, where the door lies!”

  Staying carefully away from the weapon, Karla came to his left side and with a light touch on his arm guided him on until he was within touching distance of the wall. Then she caught at his hand, lifting it up and drawing it in a straight line across the stone several inches above their heads.

  “So!” she said.

  “You must guide me,” he ordered. “Keep your touch well from the blade—but guide!”

  Her hold shifted gingerly to his other hand and she again drew that line, pushing his fist, fast closed about the dagger hilt, closer to the wall until Twilla heard the faint grind of the steel point against stone.

  And—as the double-held dagger moved, a dark line appeared there. Down to the right stooped Karla, the tip of her tongue showing between her tight lips, drawing Ylon with her until the point reached the rock under them. Another line.

  Now the forest woman pushed to the left and made a second descending journey for Ylon's guidance.

  There was truly the outline of a block which could be a door now before them but there was no sign of how they were to open it, for there was no visible latch.

  Ylon continued to front it, his sightless eyes in a set stare as if he could plainly distinguish what should be there. Then he shouldered Karla back. He might have been fronting again the guard who had threatened him as he went into a part crouch. His weapon moved out in a sweep which crisscrossed with flashing speed the space between those lines.

  Once again came a burst of light. This time so intense that Twilla cried out and covered her eyes, not sure for a moment that she had not shared Ylon's fate and her sight had been riven from her.

  She heard in turn cries from the others. Blinking hard she stared ahead and slowly (too slowly she thought) clear sight returned.

  Where there had been only the outline of a door a square of light beamed out to encompass all of them. Through that reached a tendril of that silver mist which had been swept from the ways. It seemed to beckon them in.

  Twilla took grip of Ylon who had not stirred from his place and urged him on, the rest crowding behind.

  The light ahead pulsed in a heartbeat pattern, and its birth seemed centered in a single artifact in the middle of what was a round chamber. A tree stood there, trunk, branch, twig, leaf, a miniature
in form of the forest giants yet not much taller than Ylon.

  That trunk, branch, twig, and leaf, though seemingly of silver, were not opaque, and through each flowed in rhythmic surges, a green fluid. Whether it was alive in some strange way Twilla could not be sure, but she swayed as that pulsing light lapped about her. Her skin tingled, her very hair stirred with a throbbing beat. Here was power such as she had never faced.

  There was a cry from those who had followed them in. Karla, Musseline, Fanna, the forest men, all had gone to their knees and were holding out their hands as if they might so draw to them that strength which this tree symbol was whirling outward with steady pulse.

  “Frosnost!” Karla cried out. There was awe, exultation, breaking the mask of her general expression.

  “Frosnost!” echoed the others, making that cry ring through the chamber.

  “What—!” Ylon retreated a step and Twilla spoke hurriedly to explain what stood there. His head swung from side to side slowly as if he were denying what she had to describe.

  One could watch forever that play of the green gleam within its silver prison. No! Twilla caught herself up short, and she felt for the mirror. This was high power, it could well enchain those who yielded to it. She was not one with those on their knees worshipping the tree.

  Instead she made herself break eye contact with the thing, survey the chamber in which it was planted. Planted—for there was no longer any rock surface under her worn boots, and it was plain that the trunk of that wonder arose out of that earth.

  Nor were the walls, she looked from side to side, of stone here either. There was instead a brown-red irregular surface—like—tree wood—a tree which had been hollowed to provide a hiding place.

  Those walls in turn were covered in neat netting of shelves, all of which were filled. There were boxes, almost crudely shaped from still barked wood—a heavy limb must have been cut and hollowed to make such. And there were small figurines.

  Her attention was first caught by a lumpy monster form. That was the creature which had menaced her in the wood, the one she had first believed to be an illusion. Next to it—the abomination loosed upon Wandi and her when they had fled Lotis's chamber—the first monster and also the rotting lichen which followed. There was drawn up here an army of nonhuman, horror-born things.

  Yet the array of monsters gave way to something else as her gaze traveled along their lines, here were creatures of another cast altogether, as fair to the sight as the others were foul. She recognized a representation of the asprites who had brought her healwell, and ones as entrancing. Nor was she surprised to find numbered among these the winged lizards of the underland.

  At one point the circular wall was broken by a narrow doorway and near that stood a table, a chair fashioned of age-polished, entwined branches pulled up to it. While on the table lay piles of ash-gray leaves, each patterned in green with a flowing script beyond her translation.

  She was not given much time to add to her knowledge for out of that silver of door came Oxyle, and he was followed by Vestel, the border guard.

  “Frosnost!” again that united cry from those who had come.

  Oxyle made a wide circle around the tree as if it were well not to approach that too closely.

  “How did you open the door?” he demanded of them at large. There was excitement plain to read in his pale face.

  Ylon's head swung around until he was facing the forest lord he could not see.

  “With this,” he answered simply and raised his hand. The blade of his weapon flashed almost as vividly silver in this light as the tree.

  “Gold iron!” Oxyle laughed. “So there was an answer to her seal-spells which we had not thought about. This,” he made a gesture which indicated all which surrounded them, “is Wood heart—where roots Frosnost—which Khargel held and sealed. It was lost until Lotis pried and called on strange powers. Even then she could not have broken into this stronghold had it not been for outland magic,” now his gaze was bent on Twilla and there was a challenge in his voice as he demanded:

  “What strange skills have your blood brought into this land, Moon Daughter? Lotis has long sought power—but she could not have gained what she now holds unless it was fed from elsewhere. She has been here, she has scavenged and thieved, she has thought to seal it against us, capture so we who were able to trace her here. And that she did—only because she drew on strength we do not know. I ask you again, Moon Daughter, what being of power now strives to blot us out?”

  “The Dandus priest.” It was Ylon who replied before Twilla could summon words. “And do not ask us, Lord Oxyle, what power that one can summon. His kind once ruled a dark dynasty which brought my people groveling before all their mage kind. Their power is founded on blood, on fear, on all which hides from the light of day. When my father was sent to this land, the Dandus priest was made a part of his company by a will my father could not deny.

  “I will swear, by whatever oath you ask of me, that my father does not willingly dabble in the slime of such shadows. But how much control that priest exerts I do not know. When those of our blood before us cleansed the land of their evil most of those who stood for the light died. And it became a thing forbidden among us to keep any knowledge of what those of Dandus had, least fools be tempted to try to revive what had been stamped out. There were still priests of Dandus, but we were assured that those among them who had the great powers were safely gone from this world. It would seem that our teachers were wrong. I tell you truthfully, Lord Oxyle, I do not know what that one now in the outlander's company can summon.”

  “So, you have brought more than men of greed to threaten us. You, Moon Daughter, what does your power?”

  “This much I can also swear to—by blood if it need be—I have no touch with the dark. The Dandus priest is my enemy; when I was brought here he made it plain. Over mountain my mistress was of the circles who once fought the dark. The learning I gained from her was that of healer and uniter, not destroyer. And—”

  She spoke very slowly now hoping that each word would have meaning to arrest the forest lord, to turn his thoughts to what might be done.

  “Lord Oxyle, I have been twice with the undermen. They have no love for the invaders who threatened them even as they do you. Now they labor on certain weapons of their own. Perhaps their powers and yours united can stand fast now. Once more they make you an offer—free their women and they will make truce with you.”

  “Free their women. Another secret of Khargel's. We have been searching—” he waved his hand toward the table with those piles of leaves. “Lotis rummaged here. I think she would have destroyed some things to keep them from us, but Frosnost protects its own. Yes,” his shoulders sagged a fraction. “We would be willing to make a common cause—those of us who have not fallen to Lotis's glamorie. But where does one hunt for a secret? And time is now our enemy. There was news that they send over mountain strange weapons, fearsome and unknown to us. When those arrive they will not linger about the use of them.”

  Ylon gave a sigh which perhaps only Twilla clearly heard. “I think not,” he agreed.

  “Then,” the forest lord straightened again, “we shall do what we may. In this chamber lies knowledge which has been kept since the great tree itself was but a seedling.”

  Karla and Musseline moved a little closer. “Point to where we begin this hunt, Oxyle. There are five of us, and—”

  “Myself and Vestel,” Oxyle agreed.

  Thus there passed a time which Twilla could not reckon. Oxyle and his companion had brought packs of food and drink with them not knowing how long their search might continue. Since Twilla and Ylon could not aid in the examination of those fluttering leaves the others were fast turning out of the boxes and sorting out in piles on the floor. She and Ylon went into the room beyond where there were some rolled sleeping mats and stretched out side by side.

  Sleep came quickly and it was not dream-disturbed—at first. Then Twilla was aware of passing out of the safe sof
t dark which had welcomed her into another place.

  This had the gray of dusk, the gray of death, and ashes. Yet not too far away there stood, pillar tall, a flame. It was not of honest scarlet as a fire should be, rather a strange yellow, and around it curled oily black smoke. It must have been near as tall as one of the forest trees for those at its foot looked very small.

  In spite of her will Twilla was forced toward that flame. Those who moved about the foot of its pillar were human of body as she could clearly see for their bodies were bare of any covering. They capered, jiggling from one foot to another, on the move around the base of the pillar. But there was another who stood so close to that sick flame as to be enwrapped now and then with a fluttering wisp of the oily smoke. And his cloak she saw clearly—the Dandus priest.

  Whether she witnessed something now taking place afar, or whether this was a dream born out of her fears she could not tell. The priest raised his arms high. That smoke gathered and coiled around him. The dark stream spiraled upward. When the girl raised her eyes to look, she saw that it formed a sooty finger pointing out and out and out—though toward what it might point she could not see.

  “Twilla!” The gray place broke open. There were hands about her, she was being held close to warmth—the human warmth of another's body. Only then did she realize that she had been so chilled in that country of the dead. “Twilla.”

  Opening her eyes she saw it was Ylon who held her, his blind eyes wide open and centering on her face. Those sightless eyes! More than the warmth of his body heated her now rising from a growing core of rage. Lotis—Lotis and evil! There must be some end she herself could bring to this. She was, she discovered holding the mirror very tightly as one held to shelter in a storm.

  “Twilla?” he asked again. “You were crying out—”

  “Dreams!” she returned. She told him of pillar flame and those about—the aiming of that roiling smoke finger.

  “Warning—” he was beginning when Karla hurried through the door.

  “Moon Daughter—we have found what we sought. Now we must prove it to those underground.”