The Warding of Witch World Read online

  But at the same time there was another weapon in the air. Inquit might have been expecting just such an attack. One of her feathers penetrated the outer flame fence of that pool. It struck down and there was a puff of heavy smoke, and the fire died around the woman.

  “Yaaahhh!” Sheer fury was the base of that cry as the other flung her arms high. Fire burst into being in the air itself, to swirl toward them like rain wind-driven.

  “By the Will which is ever—the Power which dies not, the Light which never yields to Dark . . .” Almost as loud as the fire woman’s screams of rage arose that chant, sounding somehow cool, calm, and confident. Frost faced the other squarely, and now she took one deliberate step and then another toward her.

  What Power the witch was able to call upon, Trusla could never afterward guess, but that rain of fire winked out and the flames from which it had bubbled sank back.

  “Hate—why do you carry this burden of hate?” Still as calm and clear as the words of the ritual came Frost’s voice now.

  The woman stood very still amid the lowered flames, her eyes fixed solely on the witch. “To all is allowed blood price—is that not also a belief of this barren land of yours?” she sneered.

  “Greater yet is one who asks no price. Long ago was the act for which you seek vengeance—exile from your world—”

  “My world,” the other cut in. “Not so—maybe now the death mounds for my kind. We hunted only for a refuge. And those”—she flung out a pointing hand toward the Sulcars—“would see us dead—because we differed from them. Our poor beasts they killed as monsters—our talents made us demons. Some of us died in their fires. But we were strong, and when we learned the secrets of their world, we turned the very earth they would hold against them. Yes, we drove them from land to land, island to island, for we had secrets their pitiful excuses for Power holders could not understand.

  “We drove them! I, Urseta Vat Yan, led the fleet which hunted them down. But they had among them someone different, someone who had come through space, or time, or followed some path we did not know. And that one opened the way for them, so they escaped. But for me and mine—the gate locked itself upon us and there was no key for its opening.”

  “Hate can be a powerful lock on any gate,” Frost said, still calm against the heat of the other’s tongue. “Hate, cherished and fed, brings madness. I call upon you now, Urseta Vat Yan—you are a sister in Power. Use that Power as it should be used—unlock the gate within you.”

  The woman’s face was still a scowl of anger. It seemed to those watching that rage itself now fueled the flames among which she stood. Then, without any answer, she vanished and straightaway the fire in the pit failed. So darkness drew in from all sides.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Through the Mists of Time, North

  A gain it was Audha who provided them with a guide. Uttering a desolate cry, she rushed about the edge of the almost extinct fire pit, heading now for the darkness beyond, her arms outstretched, her hands grasping the air as if she would seize upon some greatly desired thing held just beyond her reach.

  “She seeks that of herself the other still holds.” Though she was running, the shaman’s voice was steady. “Thus she will lead us to whatever place that one seeks now for refuge—or else lies in wait.” And her last words were grim.

  The light of the jewel was now so frail, all Trusla could see were the shadows of the two before her half cloaking it. The smell of the sea was stronger now and she wondered if some trick of the path they now followed would dump them down another swift descent into the cruelly cold waters of the north. Yet about them the passage still seemed warm.

  Trusla was panting now—the steady speed of the running Sulcar girl was such that she could not equal it, bundled as she was in sweat-sticky furs and hides which imprisoned her body. Still Audha showed no sign of slacking.

  Somehow they had found their way back—or Audha had led them—out of that mountain-hidden hall into another passage. The sea scent was there also, but it was tempered by other odors.

  Trusla called on failing strength to draw a deep breath. Not spice, no—it had been long seasons since the perfume had wrapped her under the moonlight in Tor Marsh. She kept glancing down at the darkness about her boots, half expecting to see the wide-open blooms of the march-moon, then long, wide petals curling upward about her feet. But this was not Tor, she thought confusedly. There could not be any such sweetness spread for them to tread on.

  Light again—pale at first. Trusla raised her hand to run across the slick skin of her forehead. She felt a queer reaching—as if something sorted their thoughts and memories for a purpose of its own.

  There was in this black hole a blaze of light to her right. Oddly enough, those running with her did not even turn their heads in that direction. But Trusla had somehow drawn apart from Simond and there was distance between her and the rest now. She turned her head, looked, and stopped.

  Tor Marsh had never been a happy place for her. But now here was a wide door open into all its familiar islands, bogs, and ways. She could hear the drums and her childhood training responded to their beat. There—there just a step or so away was the house which had been her own home. A shadowy figure moved in the doorway—Mafra leaning on her staff, waiting for Trusla to lead her out into a mist-veiled road.

  But the girl was jerked back by a grasp, fingers dug so deeply that she could feel the bruising that they set upon her skin.

  “No—”

  “Come!” The voice was harsh and carried the weight of a command in it. She was dragged along at a queer, almost shuffling pace as if the one who had taken her captive could not walk with a straight stride.

  “Shadow—dream—” the voice continued in her ears.

  But Mafra was coming out of the hall door, her head up, her head turning, as if her blind eyes were following Trusla as she was so dragged away from her. The girl tried to shift against that compelling hold—to beat and kick for her freedom. But the one who held her was not to be so easily escaped, though she heard a gasp or two of pain as if she had managed to do her captor a hurt.

  Her beating hands, when they could find a surface, brushed fur and hide. Certainly it was not chance alone which brought a smear of something else across her fist. She did not know why she raised her knuckles to her lips and licked them, why she had halted in her fight for freedom.

  She licked, and the few small grains of powdery sand were on her tongue. As if a curtain were snatched away, Trusla no longer saw Tor Marsh. Mafra did not wait there for her tending. It was only dark, very dark, for the only light, that shallow beam of Frost’s jewel, was well ahead.

  “Glamorie.” She knew now who had kept her out of that trap, for trap it must have been. Perhaps since Audha had proved not useful for their enemy, she had been second choice. But she remembered now how the Latt hunter had sprawled across that spread of ice where the sand had given her footing. In his floundering he must have struck one of those patches, leaving spread grains clinging to his clothing as her safeguard now.

  He was limping, and though he kept doggedly onward, her vigorous struggle with him might well have opened his hurts.

  “All is well!” she said in a breathless voice. “The glamorie vision is gone.”

  His answer was a grunt, and she heard the thud of his spear butt against the rock as he pulled himself along.

  “Trusla!” One of those shadows ahead turned back and was running in their direction. “Trusla?”

  “We are here. There was a glamorie, but Odanki held me from it!” Should she blurt out her half-suspicion that the enemy now sought another tool and had made a try for her?

  The light ahead had stopped. She could see some kind of a struggle going on and then one of those shadows flopped to the ground, the witch light held above the prone figure.

  Simond, without a word, gave a shoulder as crutch to the Latt hunter. Making the best time they possibly could, they joined the others.

  It was Audha wh
o lay, again tended by Kankil. The shaman, her feather cape spreading wide across the rock, bent over her. Now Frost knelt to once more touch the girl’s forehead.

  “No one can slay shadows!” Odanki’s denial sprang, Simond was sure, from the fact that thus far all the battles had been between the women, and he given no chance to aid in any skirmish.

  Frost looked across Audha’s body to Trusla.

  “You were sought.” That was no question but a statement. Her features, even seen by the slim light of the jewel, held a new austerity.

  “There was a glamorie—a picture of Tor Marsh—like a door—and one to whom I owe a debt waiting there. It was Odanki who knew it for what it was. He held me back.”

  “So, having nearly broken one weapon, she seeks for another,” commented Inquit.

  “The dead do not war!” Stymir snarled.

  “Always steel for the men—but certain things cannot truly die, Captain. Nor can you, I think, use that sword of yours on this menace, even if she were to stand with empty hands before you. When the snowcat is pursued hotly, she heads for her den, as every wall of that she knows well and she will use all she knows. This one’s hate is still hot and perhaps it will never cool.” There was a tinge of feeling in those last words.

  “How does she?” The captain moved closer to look at Audha.

  “Life force is drowned—perhaps to set the glamorie. But she lives and it is certain that she will obey.”

  Kankil chittered and reached out a hand to touch the shaman’s cloak. Inquit nodded. “You have done your best, sister. Let us now see what else can be done. But we need time.” She raised her head and looked about her. “Stark though this be, we must camp, rest, eat, for we cannot go on if our bodies fail us, no matter how our spirits urge us.”

  It was a strange camp indeed. They had left most of their supplies behind except for all the food they could carry. So there were no sleeping mats, only their cloaks, and the men lay harshly in their prisoning armor.

  Having shared out meager portions, Inquit produced another bag from beneath her cloak and took out a packet. When she loosed the string of that, Frost frowned, but the shaman spoke directly to the witch.

  “Sister, we eat scraps now and we do not know if we can find more food. To deal in this”—she held the bag open—“is, as I well know, a chancy thing and one which must be well considered. But if we are to drop for faintness in these paths, how will that benefit us? I say to you all that what I hold is a precious thing for a Latt hunter, for a traveler caught in a long storm. It grows sparsely and its harvesting is left only to those of the great knowledge.

  “Place a pinch of this upon your tongue and then take what rest you can. I will swear by Arska that whatever virtue has been grown into it will serve you well.”

  The Sulcars seemed a fraction reluctant, but Odanki took his pinch at once and Simond followed, with Trusla eager to join him. She had heard many tales of strange herbs, and legends said that some could keep one awake and hearty for even days with no other nourishment.

  After Frost and Inquit had dipped into the contents of the bag, and they watched the shaman put a pinch of it into Audha’s mouth as Kankil held that open, the Sulcar captain and Joul took their share.

  The four men insisted on dividing up watches while the women stretched out to sleep. Inquit took again one of her long quills and drew a warding circle about their whole group, and they placed Audha between Frost and the shaman, Kankil as usual curled up beside the girl.

  • • •

  Trusla was crouched on the deck of a ship, the wind slapping at the sail over her head. There were screams and cries filling the air and she realized that she was on the very edge of a battle.

  Sulcars, their faces convulsed with rage, were fighting Sulcars. Then there rang a shout—words she did not understand, though which had meaning for the men before her. Their individual engagements broke off and they formed an irregular circle around two of their number.

  She knew those faces. Her memory moved sluggishly at her bidding. The smaller man? His name—Joul. Who was Joul?

  There was shouting again from the watching men. Some apparently were cheering on Joul. The others’ cries held jeering notes, and the tall man they drew in to back—that was . . . Captain Stymir!

  One could feel hate in the air, as heavy and blistering as the wind. The men circled slowly, eyes fast on each other, deadly purpose in every line of their tense bodies.

  “Kill—kill—this is your deadly enemy who has been delivered into your hands. Kill, if you wish to bear the name of ‘man.’”

  Trusla whimpered, her hands to her head. That order had not come out of the air as any honest sound, but seemed to vibrate within her. She knew little of swordplay—only what she had learned watching Simond and his squad at exercises. The Tor men knew no niceties of dueling. And to Trusla these two were most ill-matched, Stymir towering over Joul. Yet, such was the precision with which the smaller man moved, she could not believe that any combat would be one-sided.

  Joul hunkered low and gave a hop forward not unlike that of a fen frog, his double-bladed axe swinging up and back, barely missing Stymir’s legs—While only a scrambling scuttle kept the captain’s sword from striking home.

  The cries from the watching men grew louder. Still louder yet was that screamed order which must strike within their heads also, for Trusla saw both duelists retreat a pace, as if momentarily bereft of self-control.

  “Kill—this be your enemy—kill!”

  It was no one of the watchers who was shouting that. The girl arose from her crouch. She might still be somewhat in a mind-maze from what she saw, but the truth was beginning to break within her now. What she witnessed was not the full truth.

  At that moment of recognition suggesting they were again within the Power hold of another, she saw a shadowy figure rise behind Joul, stepping through the line of watching, shouting sailors as if they were but sea mist. Arms wrapped around the small man’s shoulders and he was jerked backward, falling with his captor to the decking.

  However, there had been one also who had moved upon Stymir at the same time, as tall, as broad-shouldered and threatening as the captain was at that moment. There was a flash of hand and Stymir’s sword clattered down. He cried out and caught his wrist. Now there were arms around about him also and he was captive, fighting fiercely for freedom. That struggle grew less—even as had the movements where Joul had gone down.

  Yet none of the watching sailors seemed to see what was going on. They still watched the center of their irregular circle and their voices rang as if they cheered on a deadly engagement.

  Just as the doorway into Tor Marsh had vanished, so did the ship, the sailors. There was only left in the very dim light Simond kneeling on Joul, the older man’s arms outspread and pinned now to the rock of the passageway—while Odanki, in spite of favoring his leg, held the captain in a hug like that of a wasbear which had closed for the final crushing of some prey.

  For a moment all Trusla could hear was the heavy breathing of the men, though their struggles had come to an end. Now there was more light as Frost came to stand between them. The Estcarpian girl saw the wicked masks of rage fade from the faces of the two Sulcars. In their place appeared bewilderment with an overshadowing of shame.

  “What—what did we do?” There was such uncertainty in the captain’s voice. It sounded close to the high note uttered by a boy on the edge of some great fear. “Joul—kin-friend—blood brother. I—I was fighting again Rajar, the ship slayer.”

  “And I”—Joul had been released by Simond and was sitting up—“was on the Pearl Queen off Kaynur when we were raided by the demon craft—their captain being my meat.”

  “You are Sulcar, and in your past,” Frost said quietly, “there lies much violence and death. The one who matches talents with us sent you back in time—”

  “Thinking we would kill each other,” broke in the Captain, “and so save her the trouble.”

  “Undoubt
edly one of her thoughts,” agreed Frost. “She does not understand that in this we all stand together. Simond, Odanki, she could not bring into your past.” She looked now to the two who had loosed their captives and were stepping back. “No. But each of you are also men of war. Simond has ridden with the forces of Estcarp and Escore against worse dangers than shadows, and you, Odanki, have known the terrors of the wilderness. Each man holds in his past some time when death brushed him by as one of the shaman’s feathers can brush. We were warded well, but not against our own memories and emotions.”

  “Therefore,” Simond said stolidly as one accepting a task he could not relish or dare refuse, “we must be watched also until we can win to the end and see her face-to-face.”

  He looked now straight at Trusla. “My lady, it is against all which lies within my heart, but this I desire you now to promise. That if I come close to you, you will be on your guard, that you will stay with Inquit or Lady Frost—no matter how much I may urge you not to do so.”

  “No!” She would have gone to him then, but he stepped back, raising his hand to ward her off.

  “Yes!” There was the same ring of iron in his voice which she had heard Koris and Simon Tregarth use upon occasion, and inwardly, much as she wished to refuse, she knew he was right.

  “He speaks straight-tongued.” Odanki centered his attention on the shaman. “Greatly was I honored that you chose me above all others to be your champion, Dreamer and Voice of Arska. Yet if this evil one could bring you down by my hand, then only the Outer Dark will be mine.”

  Frost turned her jewel around in her hands. “There is this—all of us have fought the Dark in one manner or another. Yet this one is truly not of the Dark as we envision it in our world. Think on what she said: that a gate was opened for the Sulcar escape—not by one of their blood with great talent, but by a stranger. Can we not then believe that one of the adepts who played their gate games in the past was responsible for both the flight of the Sulcar ships and accidentally for the capture of her own vessel?