The Warding of Witch World Read online

  The cross tilted in the air, spinning around, its speed ever increasing, until those waiting could not distinguish its separate arms. Sidewise so it flew at the columns supporting the pyramid.

  Over their heads the sky darkened, and that wailing moan grew loud enough to force them to hold their hands over their tormented ears. But the wheel of light held steady and it cut as easily as the sharpest-edged knife through a mass of clay.

  The upheld pyramid—Firdun caught at his sword hilt. He heard the snarl of Kethan now at his side. Had there been, in that last instant before the thing crashed back into the mass of metal from which it had arose, a pair of eyes—blistering fiery eyes? Or perhaps that was only some quirk of his own imagining.

  What was happening below was quick to erase that from memory. Ibycus no longer stood firm. His body was sprawled among the sharp-edged pieces of rock, and those were still shifting. Nor did they any longer avoid him. Rather they struck hard enough to make his still form quiver.

  “Up—up—!” both Guret and Firdun cried at the same time. Kethan reached out to grab the taut rope where it lay across the edge and Firdun joined him as the Kioga urged their horses back from the crack.

  “Wait!” Aylinn was beside her foster brother. “You will rip him to shreds against those rocks he cannot avoid.”

  She reached out with her moonstaff and shook it vigorously. There was a white, sparkling dust from the hearts of the flowers, which sank close about Ibycus. The mage might now lie in the cocoon of some great insect. Yet the dust did not yield to any projection as they carefully raised him from the floor of the crack.

  Though the mound had moved, it had not disappeared, only seemed to settle more deeply into the clay. Its colors were fading, dulling. Then they had the mage over and with them again.

  He still lay limp, his eyes closed, and on his outflung hand the ring was dull and dead. But Aylinn brought out her healer’s bag, and Elysha moved to take the injured man’s head on her lap.

  Aylinn, with Kethan’s aid, managed to get a potion from a flask down his throat. “His Power is drained,” said the moonmaid. “He needs to rest until strength comes to him.”

  Firdun looked around at the sere wilderness. “Where can he recover here?” He knew from his own uses of the talent the draining of strength it demanded. And, from all he had seen, Ibycus had just faced something which was so encased in some ancient sorcery as to threaten life itself.

  Aylinn was speaking now to Guret. “Can we sling some way for carrying him between two of the horses? They are well trained and perhaps, coming from a wandering people, you have seen used so before.”

  “Yes, Lady, this can be done,” he confidently assured her.

  “Then where do we go?” one of his companions spoke up.

  What they needed was water, shelter, forage. Kethan could only guess that that trail he had been following might lead to such. It was a small chance, but it was a chance.

  “Good enough,” Elysha answered his thought. “Not all the Waste is bare as you see it here. And those we follow will not go off wandering with no true goal in sight. Lead on, were. Of us all you have the best chance to find what we need.”

  They would have to travel slowly. Luckily it was now nearing night and soon the heat of the sun would cease to beat on them. Once more pard Kethan padded back to where Ibycus had summoned him from the trail. It was fainter now—perhaps the explosion of power back in the crack had some effect on his talented senses. But still he was certain enough that he was right to keep on.

  Dusk was gathering when he noted a change in the land around him. The harsh yellow of the baked clay was taking on a slightly different shade. There was a hint of rose about it now. Not only that, but he saw small, red-leafed plants here and there which grew thicker until his paws found a softer carpet.

  Then, his head up, he sniffed and sniffed again. To his pard knowledge there was no mistake. Somewhere—not too far ahead—lay water! The mind sent that back to Aylinn as he increased his pacing to a trot.

  Among the small mosslike plants now arose bushes. They were hung heavily with rose red flowers, the petals strikingly marked in vivid black. There was a faint scent, not altogether pleasant, and there were swarms of small winged things hovering about each. Luckily those showed no interest in him.

  He came to another descent from the level of the yellow plain and waited there once more to contact Aylinn. She was riding to the fore, leading Trussant with his gear. Somewhat to his surprise Elysha had joined her, though her mount gave signs of being none too comfortable with the company of the were steeds.

  Down—but the slope is easy, Kethan reported.

  We must find a place soon, his foster sister replied. Ibycus has not yet recovered. Tonight I must moon sing.

  He glanced up into the dusty sky. What Aylinn would do would also exhaust her, but if she had decided it must be done, then it would be so.

  Down the slope he went, the moss continuing as a carpet, the flowered bushes rising around him. Ahead, to draw him on, the scent of water. But he must exercise caution. Those whom they followed might also have seen fit to camp hereabouts, and he flashed another warning back to Aylinn.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  By Moon Power, in the Waste

  T he smell of the vegetation, the bushes against which he had to push, the mosslike growth underfoot, began to make him feel queasy. Certainly, though he could readily now pick up the scent of water not far ahead, this strange vegetation might not provide suitable forage for their horses, and the scant store of grain they had been able to carry was not more than enough to share out in a handful or two.

  Then his pads felt more solid footing and he paused. Feline night sight was better than that of humans—he had no difficulty making out the fact that he had come upon a road, one which had been smoothly paved. Yet under the limited light its surface was dark in color.

  At the same time the water scent was overpowered by a whiff of something else. He smelled a fire—and beasts—and men! He sent a sharp warning back to Aylinn but she already had a message for him also.

  Firdun says there are wards. . . .

  Kethan was swiftly off the road. There was a massed thicket of some kind to his right and he made a quick detour, concealing himself behind it. Once there, he dropped until his belly fur nearly scraped the moss and advanced with the same caution he would have used in stalking a very wary pronghorn watch bull.

  His hunter’s skills brought him to a second thicket. Now the water scent was very sharp, drawing him until animal will and man will nearly locked.

  However, there was a further warning ahead: the glow of fire. A moment later he crouched behind a screen of flower-laden plants which edged a pool—and a screen which was no work of nature.

  It was stone-walled, with intervals where that wall was cut away as if to give better access to the water. The fire he could sight lay to his right and was undoubtedly the core of a camp.

  Beast senses could give him one report, but Kethan was well aware that in some cases human knowledge and reaction was the better. Lying where he was, he made the change.

  His vision was lessened and also his ability to scent, but to his sight now those by the fire were sharply individuals and not just members of a species.

  Some of the party, early as it was, were already enwrapped in their sleep padding. He could sight none of the ungainly mounts those of Garth Howell favored. They might well be tethered some distance away. At least as he now was, no pard scent would arouse them—if they could be aroused by such.

  By the fire itself sat two as tightly encased in armor as if they meant at any moment to attack, and he suspected that these were the knights he had heard reference to. Across from them were three others. Two wore brown traveling robes such as mages favored and the hoods of those were so drawn forward over their heads that he could not see their faces.

  The third made no such attempt to disguise his identity. Kethan, remembering well Firdun’s repeated tale of his ca
ptivity on the Dragon Crest, was sure that this was the leader of that foul crew. Yet his face was serenely handsome—also the firelight appeared to center upon him now and then as if to make clear that such a one sat there.

  He looked young—but with the Old Race (if he were of that blood) there were very few signs of aging. Certainly he had the air of one whose smallest wish had never gone ungranted. Though he was not speaking now, rather sitting looking at the fire—or in some strange way below it—he slipped back and forth between his fingers a wand, shorter than most sages carried, but suggesting it had been fashioned of much richer material.

  Suddenly, with the speed of a hawk’s swoop, he struck out with that rod against the fire. The flames seemed to huddle together for an instant and Kethan saw those others gathered there edge hastily back.

  Kethan could only guess what the stranger intended, but caution made him reach in search of Aylinn. Ward also!

  The flames had begun to circle, spiral, at the same time drawing more tightly into a column. Now Kethan could catch the rhythm of a chant, so low it was not more than a murmur (though it awakened uneasiness) and he could not distinguish any words.

  Now the flames stiffened and held; Power must have melded them so. Then that column split open. But to Kethan’s despair he could not see to the other side. He had no idea what the mage now faced. Nor dared he move to better his view for the few very long moments that held so.

  But the serene arrogance was gone from the young mage’s face as if it had been wiped with a rough hand. His eyes were redly murderous as the fire became once more only leaping flames.

  Now he was on his feet in one light movement and apparently giving orders. Those asleep were roused. They were apparently about to break camp. Had they learned of their followers and were going for an attack?

  Kethan fed to Aylinn in as few words as possible what he saw. They were bringing those noisome lizard-horse mounts out of the Dark, seeing to the packs which burdened a couple of them. The young mage busied himself drawing patterns in the air with the point of his wand.

  Where that sudden warning came from Kethan never knew, unless it was part of his ancient heritage. But as speedily as he could, he shifted. Pard lay where man had crouched.

  Those patterns in the air whirled the wilder and started shooting off sparks which flitted out into the gloom of the now-descended night as if they were winged. Three shot over the end of that large pool in his direction. But they did not pause as they passed over him and at last puffed into nothingness some distance behind. If the mage had thought to uncover a spy so, his Power was not aimed at weres.

  However, he was the last to get to saddle and he looked back with a careful survey of the pool and its surroundings from the north end where their camp had been.

  Kethan continued to lie where he was, but his report went to Aylinn.

  They went north. Circle and come in from the south. Let Firdun test—I cannot pick up any wards.

  They had left the fire burning, but now it was flickering. Kethan longed to cast in that direction, but against a mage—a mage from Garth Howell—he might not have defenses.

  He did edge toward one of those openings left in the rim of the pool to sniff at the flood below. To his pard sense it was no more nor less than water and fairly fresh, not stagnant as one might expect in these circumstances.

  But he would await Aylinn’s decision, for no healer could be mistaken about such things. Now he could hear movement from the dark behind. Best make his change before the Kioga horses would scent him. He arose from the matted moss and slipped into the bushes.

  The moon was up now and there were silver flashes moving toward him. Aylinn must have tried to cover up her Power ornaments, but the motion of riding let them gleam through now and then. He was quickly at her side.

  “Ibycus?”

  “He has not roused. I must speedily call up the Power to awaken him.”

  “But those from Garth Howell—the mage—Power calls to Power and they will know.”

  “Firdun will ward and so will Elysha. She is more perhaps than we think her, Kethan. For a long time she was Ibycus’s apprentice and I think perhaps his near equal.”

  The south end of the clearing was a surprise. For here was not only the pool which had been fashioned to service, but columns of slender pillars, each deeply engraven. Aylinn held her moon wand high as the rest of the party joined them, the inert body of the mage still slung between two horses most carefully led by the Kioga.

  There was no reaction to Aylinn’s gesture. Kethan himself could sense no power. Whatever this place had been in the past, it was no fane to any strength that was greater than its builders.

  They had no intention of building a fire. Ibycus was settled on a deep mat between two of the columns. Aylinn having declared the water fit, the Kioga led the animals one by one down, seeing that they did not overdrink. But the rest of them gathered around Ibycus, save for Firdun and Elysha, who disappeared quickly into the night, intent on their warding.

  It was not until they returned that Aylinn dropped her cloak and stood in her kilt of silver moons, strung so that with every movement of her slender body they gave off a faint chiming. The crescent moon in her hair, the full disk which lay between her breasts appeared to draw an aura of cold clean light about her. She beckoned to Elysha.

  “Of us all, Lady, you have known him the longest and he may so answer to you sooner.”

  With only a nod, Elysha slipped down beside the mage and placed her hands carefully, one on his brow and one on his breast heart high.

  Aylinn’s chant was half song. The moon was well across the sky, yet its gleams were still centering on her. From the flowers on her staff came the perfume of their night blooming. Her petition must be very old, delivered in the nearly forgotten word lore she had learned in Linark, for Kethan could not understand; perhaps only Elysha among them did.

  The Kioga and Firdun had withdrawn to the edge of that columned run and Kethan followed. This was women’s Power and it was best that they be left to it. Meanwhile, Kethan described those he had seen by the fire and the mage’s weird confrontation with the rise of its flame.

  He knew that perhaps it was his duty to once more go hunting the trail to the north of the pool, but he was near to the end of both strengths, pard and human, and it would do him no good to waver when he should be at his most alert.

  In the end they decided that Obred and Lero would circle around on foot, not venturing too far away from the pool, to seek any traces of that swift withdrawal.

  “I do not believe, somehow,” Firdun said, “that that warning from the fire, if warning it was, concerns us. This mage is certainly of high rank, and with this talk we have heard of gates set free, he must be going to search for such.”

  The slow, soft chant ceased, for the moon was now too low to fire Aylinn’s power. But Elysha raised her head and there was a look of triumph in her face.

  “Ibycus—Neevor.” She called by both the names he had carried through the years. “Awake—the battle is done.”

  The light had grayed enough so that Firdun could see the eyes in that pale set face open, gaze straight up at the woman bending over him.

  “Elysha?” Ibycus’s voice was frail, as if all the years which must lie behind him had drained the full timber from it.

  “The same, Lord Mage. You are safely back with us again, since this moon daughter has sung you home.”

  His eyes shifted from her to Aylinn, and now he smiled. “Strong is your Power, Daughter of Reeth Tower. For indeed I was far away before you recalled me.”

  It was light enough for them to see that the pavement under them, the columns, were of a rose shade, against which the growth about looked darker still, yet in the same hue.

  Elysha helped him sit up and now he pulled away from her, as one determined to care for himself. Gazing around at the pool, the columned stretch beside it, he held out his hand and stared intently at his ring. But the stone was lifeless again.


  Yet his head went up and he drew a deep breath as he now faced the northern end of the pool.

  “The Shadow servers!”

  “Be quiet and rest.” Elysha’s hand closed tightly on Ibycus’s shoulder, striving to push him back upon his mat.

  “Do not play the fool, Elysha, when you are not. Evil has drawn a slime trail here—even though it be gone. And of what kind was it?” With every word he spoke, his voice became deeper and more assured, and it was very plain that the Ibycus they knew was truly returned to them. It was Kethan who came forward and gave him the full story, the mage’s set gaze boring into him as if making sure no scrap of memory was overlooked.

  “Fire . . .” he said slowly when Kethan was done. “Fire can cleanse, fire can kill, it can answer both to Light and Dark. Whatever that one summoned, he is more than we thought he might be. Garth Howell has troubled strange waters to bring forth such knowledge, nor will they be the better for it in the end.”

  “It might be well not to push so close on the heels of those,” Firdun cut in.

  Ibycus scratched his short-trimmed beard. “There speaks your father’s son. The Gryphon breed were ever warriors and more conquering than conquered. Yes, we shall give them a day, perhaps two. I think that they are still afar from what they seek. This . . .” He looked about him.

  “Ah, where are you, Gweytha, now, I wonder? Your court stands well against time, even though you no longer reign here. There is no shadow remaining—we may eat and drink of the bounty of one long since withdrawn.”

  Kethan slept, though he had not intended any long rest, and he knew that Aylinn was curled in the same surrender among the folds of travel cloak to which Elysha had drawn her after they had eaten.

  To their near-tasteless ration cakes they added berries, deep red and luscious, bursting with juice, which both Aylinn and Ibycus had assured them held nothing noxious, while the horses cropped eagerly of the moss sod.