The Warding of Witch World

Prologue II Arvon Kar Garudiyn (Castle of the Gryphon)

The day was fair, that Eydryth could not deny. She stroked her harp. Certainly a day to bring music into the world. Yet something kept her from plucking at the silver-blue strings of the instrument. She felt restless and at the same time was disinclined to move out of this warm band of sunlight in the courtyard.

This was not the silent keep her parents had ridden into years ago, felted deeply by dust over the passing years. Instead, for more than her lifetime it had been a dwelling alive with those whose love and camaraderie she cherished the most. Now she was late home from perilous wandering, and she should sink happily into its welcoming peace. But this morning—

Though she had not realized it, Alon had been a second half of her for longer than their actual marriage. Yet in the past few days it was as if a drift of time and space had come between them.

It was surely because of Hilarion—that adept survival of the Old Time who had taken Alon into training, knowing him for what he was, born with the greater talents. She had never seen Hilarion, who lived with the famed sorceress Kaththea Tregarth, half the world away. To her he was but a name, for Alon seldom mentioned those days before their own meeting.

She had seen him weave magic far beyond the control of any that she knew—but that was only in times of great danger, and all that was now safely behind them.

Alon had not gone with the rest—Kerovan, Joison, and their son and daughter; Jervon and Elys her own parents—down to the Herd Marking of the Kioga when the proper colts were chosen for training and the Kioga camp was a swirl of noise and confusion.

No, for the past days Alon had quietly disappeared into the high tower of this ancient pile, and what he sought, or what he wrought, there she had no idea. None save that this was a thing which Alon must choose to tell when and if he would. Still her mind kept pricking her with the thought of Hilarion.

“Eydryth, where is Firdun? He promised—” Her young brother padded barefooted across the pavement of the court with a peevish echo in his question.

They had all gotten over the shock Trevor had provided last year, or at least were no longer overridden by it. On the point of giving birth, his mother Elys had been viciously ensorcelled, hidden away in a state of half-life.

It had been Eydryth herself who had started the breaking of that spell, years long as it had lasted. Her mother had been mercifully freed and within moments had given birth. But it was no baby toddling toward her now. For, having been broken, that power, which had tightly held mother and unborn child released time as well as captives, and in the weeks following his birth Trevor had caught up bodily and mentally with the years he had been denied.

“Firdun?” He stood straight before her now, his thumbs looped into his belt, his lower lip outthrust, taking on the guise of Guret, the Torgian horsemaster, to a comic degree.

Inwardly Eydryth was close to sighing. Firdun, the son of Joison and Kerovan, and recognized by them all as having talent perhaps even past their own way of measuring—was as unlike his sister Hyana as day from night. So far the discipline of his parents had held, but he had refused within the past month to work longer with Alon (of whom Eydryth thought he was jealous).

Perhaps the greatest difficulty of all was the fact he had not been named to the Champions of the Gryphon. Eydryth’s own father Jervon had not been among them, but he was a fighting man without talent and readily accepted that his worth lay in another direction. But Trevor—yes, the newborn—had been named to their chosen circle, though he was but a child. Firdun had not, in spite of his obvious power.

Trevor, however, had fastened upon the older youth as a life model. He dogged Firdun whenever he could and, while Firdun was never harsh with him, he now avoided the child as much as he was able.

“Firdun said,” Trevor was continuing, “that we would go to see the horses. The choosing.” His large eyes were shining. “Could be one might even choose me and then Father would not say I was too little to ride except with him.”

Suddenly Eydryth shivered. She had no farseeing talent, but it was as if a dark troubling had touched her for an instant.

To her surprise, Trevor swung away from her. At the same time she heard the pounding of hastening boots on stairs. A moment later Alon burst into the courtyard and skidded to a sudden stop just before he crashed into the two of them, as if he could not control the force of the necessity which had brought him. One of his hands fell on Trevor’s small shoulder and he pulled the small body closer. At the same time he reached also to Eydryth as if he must embrace them both, as he was looking in the same direction as Trevor.

There was nothing to be seen—not for her. But she swept fingers across the harp strings and their answer was much louder than she had sought for—almost nearing the blast of a battle horn.

Alon shook his head at her as he pushed her brother into her arms, taking a position before the two of them. Trevor was wriggling and Eydryth had a hard time holding him under control.

The troubling! It was not just a touch now. From the camp in the valley below, as far as that was from them, they heard a dulled shouting, the screams of fear-maddened horses.

“Garth Howell rides!” Alon spat.

Eydryth shivered. Those of Garth Howell had good reason to hate her. Fueled by rage, she had curse-sung one of their great warriors. Yet never before had those shadow ones ventured out of what they considered their own territory. They nested upon their stores of unknown knowledge with far fiercer protection than the scholars of Lormt guarded their finds.

Alon was moving toward the vast gate of the castle. Eydryth, one arm about Trevor, her other hand grasping her harp, was quick to follow. But already the others were coming up the castle rise, their horses hard pressed. Kerovan played rearguard and Jervon had drawn sword readily, save that against their foes steel was of little value.

Nevertheless they dismounted, sending the horses into the courtyard with sharp slaps on the rumps. Then, as archers at the forefront of a coming battle, they formed a line.

Kerovan and Alon were shoulder to shoulder, flanked by their wives, then Hyana and Trevor. Eydryth began to hum.

They ride to the Dragon Crest!

Eydryth was not surprised by that sudden flashing into her mind. The Lady Sylvya, who was more than half of the Ancient Ones, might share their home, but also she still roamed the hills which had been her joy in youth.

The fairness of the day had dimmed; clouds gathered. From the Kioga camp the din still sounded. Alon gave the command:

“Wall!”

Eydryth’s voice swelled. Her fingers were swift on the harp strings. To her voice fit the chant that Alon now uttered, one which was picked up by the others. Only Trevor remained silent, but he moved to stand before the adept, head up and childhood’s seeming vanished from his small face. Both hands rose over his head, his fingers clutched as if he grabbed for something hanging here. Then he hurled the invisible.

They have with them a captive. Sylvya’s mind-words thinned as if between them had arisen a barrier. Firdun! He is mind-bound!

Eydryth’s voice faltered, Trevor’s hands shook, their chanting died away. Alon’s features were as set as if graven on the image of one of the High Ancients. He made a slight gesture and they moved a little away from him.

Power—Eydryth could feel it gathering—

Then—

She was hurtled to the pavement, her harp under her bruising her arm, Trevor screaming and clawing at her. The raw chaos which struck at that moment was like no torment she had ever tried to face before. She saw Joison wilt and go down, dragging Kerovan with her.

Alon staggered back, both hands to his head, his features twisted as if he stood in full torture.

Would this continue forever? If so, Eydryth did not believe that any who cowered there could live through it.

However, as suddenly as it had struck, it was gone. They lay still for a long moment, as weak as plague victims who had crawled from their beds.

Sylvya’s message shook them back to life.

There has been such magic wrought as this world has not seen since the final battle of the Great War—a rending and tearing past measuring. Those of Garth Howell lie now as dead and their captive rides to freedom.

Alon’s face was wet with sweat as he rubbed his hands across his cheeks. “That was not aimed at us here, or we who had our minds open would be dead. Hilarion—I must know—

He swung around as if he would go back at once to the tower where he had been so pent, but Eydryth caught his arm.

“What has Hilarion to do with this? He is an adept of Old, one of the race which brought doom upon us all in that day. Is this some new magic of his devising?”

Alon drew her close. “Not so. I was pupil to him and he is a master of the Light. We strive now to devise a form of communication which can cover great distances. It is my belief that perhaps such raw power unleashed may answer our last problem. But I must know—

“We all must know.” That was Kerovan. “For I think that a very wide door to the ways of the Dark may have been opened, and that all of good need to stand together to preserve the Light.”