The Warding of Witch World Read online

  “That much can be done. But—look—it fades!” said the captain. The flicks of stars were gone, and the ship was again a black blot growing ever less.

  Frost had once more put on her jewel. “Power summons Power,” she commented. “When it is needed, we can raise it again.”

  • • •

  “Things washed from the ice barriers—great beasts caught within.” Trusla marveled at Simond’s report of the meeting in the captain’s cabin. “Could such beasts come alive again?” she wondered.

  “This land,” Simond returned with a grin, “has seen even stranger things in its time. Lady Frost has gone to report to Es and to gather any news which may have been passed from Lormt.”

  Trusla knew the deep trances which were part of any such communication. It might be some time before the witch would rejoin them to share what she had learned. The sun was warm here. She had been able to discard her cloak. She knew that this strange country did have its summer, though it was very short. But it was long enough to start runnels of water in streams from under the tall glacier walls.

  People would have spread out from End of the World preparing for the threat of next season’s cold. She had listened to the talk of the seamen enough to know of the fishing which went on long into the night dusk, the cargoes brought back to be spread on racks and dried.

  Then there were the herds of horses—somehow Trusla found it difficult to think of horses not much larger than wolfhounds—shaggy, except where the marks of packs had worn away some of the strands of hair. These were no Torgians, not even equal to the mountain ponies—certainly very far removed from the proud Keplians she had seen in Es, who considered themselves the equal if not superior to her own species.

  There would be pack trains of these miniature beasts gone out of the trading post—each with some prospector or hunter. At the same time there might be another ship in harbor, since this was the open season. . . .

  Another ship! She thought of Audha. The Sulcar girl seemed to be nearly recovered. At least she no longer was plagued by the nightmares which Frost and Inquit apparently had driven out of her memory.

  In fact she seemed uneasy in her idleness and had offered her services to relieve Undia, though the latter appeared not to wish that.

  A small brown furred figure bounded across the deck now, uttering a small squeaky cry Trusla now recognized as her own name as Kankil believed it to be. She held out her arms and the little one threw herself in a tight hug. Kankil was firmly bonded with Inquit, but somehow with all that had been going on, Trusla had never been able to satisfy her curiosity concerning the shaman’s companion. Were those of Kankil’s kind common among the Latts? Where did they come from otherwise? Certainly they were far from being pet animals. Holding this loving warmth close to her, she wished—when all this trial was safely over—she might find a Kankil also to companion her.

  Inquit had followed her small companion and now sat down cross-legged on the deck beside Trusla. She no longer wore her feather cloak and the lacings of her white fur tunic were undone so that the sun reached the thin skin undergarments she wore and part of her own skin.

  She sniffed deeply and then nodded. “Not far now, Trusla. The land breezes already seek us. See . . .” She pointed to a dark line across the sea, which they were veering east again to avoid. “That is the snout of the traders’ land. It shall not be long before we come to anchorage there.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  End of the World, North

  I t was not a good day as they maneuvered into the pocket harbor of the farthest known northern Sulcar port. But in spite of the drizzle of rain soaking her cloak, Trusla had kept to the deck. On either side there were cliffs, tall and black, save for here and there where streamers of some kind of sea growth oozed down the forbidding stone. Before them was the single entrance to the open land beyond.

  But there were no buildings that Trusla could distinguish. There were no age-old towers and walls, nor the bustling newness of Korinth. There was one long wharf, wet with overslapping waves, and beyond that, what seemed to be a wild-handed scattering of rounded humps.

  The trade flag snapped from the Wave Cleaver’s main mast and a similar streamer of faded cloth had half wrapped itself around a pole ashore. Also there were those waiting on the wharf, beginning to shout greetings and questions even before any on the ship were within hearing distance.

  The welcomers were an oddly mixed lot. Sulcars towered over others who were not too far from the Latts in size and coloring, though their clothing was less of fur, seeming to be hides far more closely fitted to their bodies. Their hair was long and drawn up in stiff, thick knots held so by carven circlets. As far as Trusla could see, there was no distinction between man and woman in the style of clothing. However, the colors, in contrast to the somberness of the lands about them, were vivid—for those hide shirts and breeches were dyed in brilliant shades and wide whirls of patterns.

  “First ship!” One of the Sulcars had made a funnel of his hands and shouted up to them as they eased into anchorage at the wharf. “First ship luck!”

  Behind him two more Sulcars were carrying out a barrel, balancing it between them and now knocking into one end of it a spigot while two laughing women dropped by it a basket of drinking horns.

  That the first ship of the season was a great occasion the passengers on the Wave Cleaver were quick to understand. A drummer and two flutists appeared farther down the wharf and started to underlay the shouting with music of a sort, and it was like a feast day in the south.

  Some time later, Trusla was coughing from a sip of a cup one of the women had offered her, clinging to Simond lest they be separated and whirled away into an impromptu dance which had begun down wharf. They were joined by Frost and Inquit, Odanki like a bodyguard behind her, Kankil clinging, slightly wild-eyed, to the shaman.

  So Trusla was introduced to a third kind of city and one which was so different that at first she was secretly a little dubious about entering the door a grinning Sulcar had pulled open for her. It was before this mound that the trade flag had been raised and manifestly it must be the main building of End of the World.

  It was necessary to go down a short flight of steps, each consisting of a worn rock set in the earth in order to reach the doorway which their host kept waving them toward. This was more a burrow than a house. Set well down in the earth, more than a Sulcar’s-height deep, the floor was a patchwork of stones fit together with skill. More stones paneled the wall of the first room into which they had come. But covering those for the most part were hides, painted as brightly as the clothing the owners wore.

  Across one end of the room, farthest from the main door, was a raised ledge. This was heaped with cushions which looked as plump as if no weight had ever rested on them.

  Above their heads were great curved pieces of bone, which must have been carefully matched for length, as they met in the center. Between these stretched tightly more hide, probably several thicknesses of it. Trusla, remembering what she had seen outside, believed the builders covered this foundation with layers of earth and sod, perhaps with some packing from the sticky seaweed.

  There were, she was to discover, four rooms in all. The one in which they were now received was in the nature of the official hall. Behind it were two other chambers divided by high curtains, and, beyond them, a cooking place which extended out with a lower roof from the main dwelling.

  The exuberant heartiness of the man who had welcomed them vanished when he waved them to seats among the cushions, which Trusla discovered were remarkably soft. He made them known to two women already waiting there. One was his wife and the other, whose strictest attention had been for Frost and Inquit, was a contrast to the other women they had seen. Her garment reached nearly to her ankles and was patterned only in white. A wide buckle of strips of bone was bound around her waist and she also had a kind of frontlet running from the neckline of her garment down to that girdle. This was patterned with a mixture of bone head
s and stones of green and blue. A band of the same type of work drew her long hair into a fastening behind her neck.

  Different from the aged wisewoman they had seen at Korinth, this woman was young, or at least wore an appearance of youth to match Frost’s. She had no drum, nor any attendant drummer, but she did hold a staff also of bone yellowed by time and carved with both runes and suggestions of weird creatures which might have been seaborn.

  “This be our Watcher—the Lady Svan.” Lady Svan inclined her head but still held her gaze on the other two women of Power in the room, Frost and Inquit. “And my House Lady, Gagna.” Again a bowed head but there was lively curiosity to be read on the features of his wife.

  It was Frost who made first answer. “To this house good fortune such as the Light sends. I am called Frost and am of the Sisterhood of Estcarp of the south.” She looked to Inquit, and the Latt shaman, brave in her feathered robe, holding and stroking Kankil, said in turn:

  “For the blood kin of the Latts I have been Power-chosen to deliver the great Call when that is needed. My public name is Inquit, and this little one be my dream anchor.”

  “These be the Lady Trusla and Lord Simond out of Es,” Captain Stymir said with proper courtesy.

  “Out of Es,” repeated the Lady Svan. “Far have you come, yet not for trading. Captain”—she spoke sharply now, as if she found this company not greatly to her liking—“twice have the runes been read and the answer always lies on the Dark side. What danger follows on your heels? If you run hither for shelter, then know that that we cannot grant.”

  “Cannot”—Frost’s voice was very soft and yet it held a core of ice—“or will not, Watcher? We do not flee, we seek, and that seeking may mean life or death for all which lies upon this earth.”

  “As already evil has struck,” the captain interjected when Svan did not reply at once. “The Flying Crossbeak has fallen to the Dark.” Swiftly he told the main points of Audha’s story.

  “Bergs that herd ships!” the trade master burst out. “That is against all nature.”

  “Nature can be commanded by Power,” returned Frost.

  “Truth,” agreed Svan. It was plain that her distrust of them was growing. “Did not your sisters cause the mountains to dance at your bidding not so long ago? What danger do you hunt here? This is a near barren land; we cling to the edge of it because we have learned how to make our compromises with nature. Let that balance be overset and indeed our lives shall cease to be.”

  “How do you know that already the Dark does not lumber toward you like a wounded great boar who will have its vengeance?” Inquit was eyeing the Watcher almost as coldly as the other was viewing the whole of their party. “You have cast runes, you say, and what led you to that, Watcher?” She leaned forward a little. “Did you also dream?”

  Svan flushed. “You speak boldly of hidden things,” she snapped.

  “I speak so because it is a time for boldness, Woman of Power. We do not deal now with the fate of a single town, or even that of a single kin tribe. It is forbidden by Arska for His Voice to leave His people, yet I stand here under His orders. And this witch out of Es travels not for any pleasure. Listen to what may come upon us. Something perhaps worse than icebergs which herd ships into the waiting caldrons of maneaters.”

  Oddly enough, it was not to Captain Stymir she gestured, but to Simond.

  And he told of their quest starkly with no such embellishments as a bard would use. First of the loss of the Magestone and the wide rip of wild Power which answered that, and then of their concern about other gates which might be so unlocked—ready to open to the demand perhaps of new horrors from without.

  He spoke of those who searched in Estcarp and Escore, and the party which was heading even farther south to lands unknown. Of the message alert sent to Arvon and what those who received it also decided upon. He told of the falling of Lormt’s fourth tower, of the strange storerooms that collapse had uncovered and of how all the sages of learning struggled there to find answers to what those of action might meet.

  A serving lad came with ship’s lanterns to set around as the light began to fail, and twice the Trade Master pushed a drink horn into Simond’s hand as his voice grew hoarse.

  Trusla could see that he had truly won to their side the Lady Gagna and the Trade Master. She tried to read behind the impassive mask that the Watcher continued to wear. At least the woman had at last turned her gaze from Frost and Inquit and was, she was sure, listening intently.

  When at last Simond was done, his voice was harsh from use, for Trusla knew that he had put into his account all the force he could summon. Simond was not a man of many words, preferring mainly to listen and not to address any company in form. Now the Trade Master turned to the Watcher.

  “Lady, by the right of office given me in this town, I ask you now, once more the runes!”

  She did not move or answer him at once, her attention still on Simond. Trusla longed to voice aloud her own irritation that this Sulcar witch could not see at once it was the truth he was speaking.

  Then at last Svan raised her chin almost defiantly as she replied, “There is no moon this night, Trade Master.”

  Frost moved so the cushions about her rustled. She held her gem a little away from her breast so that it dangled from its chain. “There is Power and Power,” she said crisply. “We must come to a decision, for I am under pledge to report to my sisterhood and learn from them in return.” In the heart of the jewel there was a spark of white fire.

  “Well enough,” the Trade Master’s heavier voice responded. “But first we eat and restore ourselves.”

  There was no answer from the Watcher. Trusla noted that Inquit’s gaze followed the Sulcar wisewoman steadily and she had a suspicion that the Latt shaman was not pleased by the Lady Svan’s attitude.

  It seemed that by unspoken consent among the whole party no more reference was made to the quest. But as several others, both men and women who apparently had some say in the affairs of the town, came in and small blocks of tables were strung together to support dishes of steaming stew and hard ships’ crackers in place of bread, there was excited talk of the fate of the Flying Crossbeak. Audha’s story had apparently sped through this company.

  “Such should be wiped from the earth!” declared one young man, not wholly Sulcar by birth, for his hair was dark and he had slightly obliquely set eyes.

  The Sulcar seated beside him brought his fist down on his portion of the shared table with almost enough strength to send the dishes spinning, filled though they were.

  “Dargh was talked of at the last All Gather,” he burst out. “And what was said then? That we could not spare fighters or ships enough to take the island. It is pitted with caves to which those demons flee whenever they are threatened. We can destroy their foul dens and kill maybe a hand’s worth”—he held up his hand now and wriggled the fingers—“that are too old or stupid to take to hiding in time. If we stay for a period, they creep out at night and pick off any sentry and are gone where even our best trackers cannot follow. They are of the Dark and the Dark favors them. But this matter of icebergs which drive a ship to them—Dunamon himself, who knows the northern seas as a wasbear knows the hunting flows, swears that this maid is sure of what she saw.

  “I tell you, shipmates and kin blood, if some Power has turned the very force of nature against us—then what comes of our outpost here? The demons of Dargh twice raided our holdings here when we were building. We drove them off at cost and then have sat well pleased with our battle honors because they came not again. But what if they have now a force which turns aside axe and sword?”

  “There is this, Trade Master”—Inquit had popped a round of vegetables from her stew into Kankil’s mouth—“when there is a gather of Dark forces, drawing in to its core all such as can be influenced by it, then when it falls, so do its followers. For Power unleashed does not halt until all which threatens it is gone—and the Light is very sure.”

  The Sulcar man
grimaced. “Wisewoman, we who have no talents and are drawn into the affairs of Great Ones also may be wiped away. Tell us the truth—what do you seek here? Save for Dargh, we suffer no threat.”

  “You have a path,” Captain Stymir put in. He pushed aside his dish and from a belt pouch produced the plaque he had shown those on board the Wave Cleaver. “What story have you about the coming of the Sulcars?” He asked that with force enough to rivet their full attention.

  The man who had been speaking was quick enough to answer. “That our far kin came on ships through an ice gate into this land.”

  “And why did they come?” For the first time Simond spoke again after his long spell of reporting news.

  “The saying is that they fled some danger,” the Sulcar growled. “Many people on this world have such tales of their own. But the seasons between that time and this have been past the counting even for the Rememberers.”

  “How far north has any ship gone in—say in the past fifty seasons, Trade Master?” Simond persisted.

  The Trade Master answered with authority. “Evan Longnose took the Raven past the ice wall that season when there was more heat.”

  “Only his longboat returned, crewed by four dead men,” answered the other Sulcar flatly. “We do not go beyond the high wall unless some hunter is a witless fool.”

  “But,” Captain Stymir now cut in, “this is the season for the running of the under-ice streams. More than half your people here are already on the trek to mine them as well as set their traps. This, as the Trade Master knows, was found two seasons ago by Jan Hessar in one such stream.”

  He laid the plaque on the board before him and those who had not already viewed it on shipboard crowded closer to see it.

  “This is a thing of Power—the Lady Frost has tested it.” He bowed his head a fraction in the witch’s direction. “But Dark Power. Like the gold and gems you pick from the gravel of the ice streams, this was borne slowly into light—probably by the ice itself and then freed through the seasonal melting. Therefore it has a source beyond our explorations.”