The Warding of Witch World

28 The Seeking, the Waste

They had pushed on, well away from the valley of the web riders, and it was dusk before they made camp. Ibycus had ridden at the fore of their company and had not spoken, nor did anyone attempt to contact him, such was the expression on his face, the very stance of his body in the saddle.

Aylinn, as was necessary with the were mounts, kept to one side. That there was a bout with Power brewing, she was aware. Kethan reached her, but even of his report she repeated only the bare facts to the mage as they started this steady ride westward.

She glanced now at Trussant, keeping perfect pace with her mare, and for a moment was startled. Had there been a shadow of a form in the saddle there? What if the Powers they had drawn and released were thinning some curtain of time or space? Then she shook her head at such folly. No shadow, just Uta, holding with a deep-clawed grip to her perch.

The cat’s head was turned toward the girl now, those large eyes surveying her with a kind of measurement, a questioning Aylinn could not understand.

It seemed that the farther they rode, the more sere and ominous the land became. There was still vegetation—grass—a stunted tree or so. While now across the far horizon arose a banding which could only mean heights, and stark ones.

Out of the tall grass trotted a well-known shape and Aylinn sighed with relief. Then Kethan arose man tall and waited for her.

The coming of the were broke through that isolation which had held Ibycus all through the past hours. He wheeled his unwilling mount and rode up to them.

“Report!” His voice held no hint of friendliness. He might have been a war leader irritated by the late arrival of some scout.

Kethan’s face was oddly stretched and now he raised hand to mouth and brought out a piece of dull crystal which, to Aylinn, looked much like the setting of the mage’s ring. It flared like make-light and on the mage’s hand that ring answered with as brief and bright a surge of light.

“You bring us what?” That sharpness was not gone from the mage’s tone.

“Perhaps allies, perhaps only goodwill, perhaps a key to what lies before us,” Kethan answered. “The winged people will welcome us if we follow their road—and they have no goodwill for Jakata.”

Ibycus nodded. “Well enough. Is there proper camp land near, a place which can be warded well?”

“Beyond the second rise is a stream—though it is hardly more than a trickle.”

Aylinn’s head had swung in the direction of her brothers pointing finger. Her moonflower wand was extended to follow the line he indicated.

The sun was nearly down, hidden now behind that line of hills beyond, and only the brilliantly painted sky gave them light.

“It is clear,” the girl said. “No ward, no shadows in wait.”

“Ward?” Firdun had come up to join them. He had changed, Kethan thought, glancing up at him. When they had left the Eyrie, a youth had ridden with them. Now it was as if some of the great burden of what must be Ibycus’s years had shifted to Firdun. Now, like Aylinn, he faced in the same direction.

“Barren land,” he said a moment later.

“Let us to it, then.” The mage, still frowning, waved Kethan into the saddle. Uta quickly shifted to clear space for him and they rode with the rest strung out behind him.

Elysha, as Ibycus, had been silent through that march. Letting her horse’s reins fall, though the mount appeared willing to follow the right trail, she had turned her bracelets around and around her wrists, her eyes half hooded as she went. Firdun had felt an indrawing of Power even as he had sensed when those of the Eyrie were about to meld. He had seen her with Ibycus earlier in the day, and the ill temper of the mage had first shown then. It could well be that this mistress of glamorie was evoking her own talent for some reason.

They crossed one of the rounded hills and there was indeed the scent of water to set their beasts to a faster pace. However, at the mage’s orders, their party broke in two as they dismounted. Guret and his fellow tribesmen offed the camp gear from the horses and then herded all the beasts downstream, leaving a clear space between them. Hardin had hesitated, glancing from the mage to the Kioga, but when Ibycus showed no sign of dismissal, he remained.

A beckoning finger brought Firdun to the mage’s side.

“Warding we need, and you alone can hold it here, for another task will be mine. We know that Jakata already plays with Powers which may have escaped him—even though we have not yet been attacked. Therefore give me such a warding as could stand against the very Wary One of Uin.”

Firdun swallowed before he answered. “Lord, what talent I have is at your command. Whether that is great or less can only be measured in action.”

“And action we shall certainly have!” Ibycus said sourly, swinging away to approach Elysha. She had slipped her bracelets from her wrists, and Kethan was sure that he saw a line of smoky purple haze wreath them as she clicked them together end to end so now she held a circlet.

It was Hardin who seemed to know what was needed without being ordered. He pulled loose an arm’s grasp of the grass about, then another, unrolling the cloak he had been lent and spreading it over the improvised bed.

Without a word, Elysha fastened the circlet of her bracelets over her head so that it banded across her forehead. She then held out her left hand to Aylinn.

“Our Lady’s mount runs the sky this night, sister, in full glory. You are my anchorage. Her chosen.”

Aylinn nodded. As Elysha settled herself on the grassy nest, Aylinn took that outstretched hand and wrapped it under hers about the wand. The mage moved slowly, reluctantly, Kethan thought. However, he at last seated himself at Elysha’s head.

“Ward!” he again commanded. Firdun summoned in a rush his talent. He mind-built a wall of fire and it shone moon-bright about them. Perhaps it was even beyond just his own seeing now, for he heard a gasp which might have come from Hardin.

Kethan had knelt behind his foster sister, his hands cupping her shoulders lightly. Then he was aware of a weight against his own back, heard the soft purr of Uta in his ears. What powers the strange cat might have were apparently to be freely offered.

Ibycus’s hands moved and the guide gem came to life, as did the moonflower of Aylinn’s wand. His lips were shaping words, yet silently so no sound except their own heightened breathing broke the silence of the dusk. Slowly, a sentry on duty, Firdun paced around the wall his eyes saw, if theirs did not. Always, with each step, he strengthened the section he passed with all the vigor he could summon.

It seemed to Kethan that time had stopped, or that they had stepped beyond the pull of its stream. Around Elysha’s head the brilliance of the jewels increased until they spread to mask her features with violet light.

The movement of the mage’s hands was continuous. He was leaning slightly forward as if that fire about Elysha’s head was drawing him.

The woman’s body lay motionless. Kethan could no longer see even the steady rise and fall of her breast, as if breath itself had left her.

He was more and more aware of Uta’s warmth against him, for, from Elysha and the mage, there now spread a chill. Aylinn’s flesh, too, was cold. He willed, with the strength of both man and pard, warmth into her. And always Firdun walked his sentry.

There was a faint cry from Elysha. Quickly Ibycus’s right hand flashed downward to lie heart high on her breast and Kethan felt Aylinn tense, and strove to give her aid.

Firdun’s pace quickened. Now Kethan could see Firdun had caught upon Hardin and drew him up and along with him. The boy might not have any talent, but he was moon-blessed and so had some strength of will and body to add to theirs.

The warmth Uta gave him, Kethan passed on as he could. It seemed almost as if that purr had become a chant, one never meant for human ears to hear.

“I am here.” Not Elysha’s voice, though her lips had opened upon the words. It was a man who spoke.

“What can you tell us of the Gate of Ranchild?” Ibycus asked.

First it would seem that the other had no answer, for there was a long pause. And then:

“Ranchild ruled in Garth Howell in his day. The Gryphon found him a dire danger. He was said to be on his way to escape through the gate when Landsil matched with him and won. If there is memory of the gate, it lies within Garth Howell.”

“What does Garth Howell now?”

“They appear to bide their time. Since Jakata went forth, they have kept strictly within their own wards.”

“And there is nothing more about the gate?” pressed Ibycus.

“Only that it is in the Land of the Dead to the west and none have sought it since Ranchild went. Some say that Landsil hurled him through and sealed it. But seals wear with time. What would you have us do?”

“There may be more to learn at Lormt.”

“We shall ask as best we can. But those of Lormt did not gather much from Arvon—nothing after the Great War. If you need what we have to give if and when you reach the gate—ask. There are Dark forces abroad—they are easily sensed. This Jakata may be far more than he seems.”

Elysha suddenly moaned. Her head swung from side to side. Kethan felt the strong pull through Aylinn. Yes, the Dark was moving and not only in Arvon, but also here!

Did or did not a shape pace now outside Firdun’s ward? Was it only visible to sense and not to sight? The old adage that Power drew Power might well be proven here this night. Kethan dared to loose a fraction of beast’s gifts of sight, sound, smell—

Smell! The scent was very faint, but it held all the vileness he had found at the place of the well. Neither sight nor sound served him and still he could see that Firdun and the boy from Silvermantle, hand-linked now, moved more slowly, Firdun half facing outward as if he matched pace with something which was slyly testing the strength of their defenses.

Ibycus arched over Elysha’s head, still behazed by the color from her circlet. She quieted. Then suddenly she sat bolt upright, brushing against the mage. Her eyes were like brilliant holes to be seen through the haze.

Aylinn swung the moon wand between those eyes and the outer darkness as Elysha’s head turned in that direction. And the pull of her need drained from Kethan almost more than he could give.

The haze about her head was fading and they could see the twist of her features. Fear, yes, but, more than that, loathing, as if she looked upon something grossly unnatural.

Ibycus had slewed around in the same direction and now his hands were grasping his own staff. From his forefinger shot the beam of the ring, brilliantly white.

“Not—so!” Those words came from Elysha. The full-throated masculine voice began to fade as if the speaker drew farther from them. Elysha tried to twist free the hand Aylinn had anchored to the wand—the other went to pluck at the circlet.

Both bracelets were now loose in her left hand, but she remained linked to Aylinn. She swung the length of glowing gems in the air and it was like lightning striking over Firdun’s head—out into what now seemed the depth of dark beyond.

Ibycus’s staff moved, raised, pointing in the same direction as those lightning flashes. They snapped against the length of age-hardened wood, seeming to use it as a guide outward.

Firdun leaped to one side, dragging Hardin with him. That spear point of flame, fashioned by its contact with the mage’s staff, struck outward.

Rage—pain—denial—rage—

Like gusts of wind those emotions burst forth—but all beyond the barrier Firdun had set. Now the mage was shoulder to shoulder with him, still aiming the living fire outward. The backwash of raw hatred was like the blast of a tempest. They shivered under it, but none of them dropped hand, lost control.

“By the Stars of the Great Ones, by the will of That Beyond, by the oathed Power of the Light.” It was Firdun who cast that incantation. “By Landsil, by Theorn, by Gailarian, and Thrius, by the Claws of the Gryphon, the fangs of the weres, the will of the Lady—we are no meat for your eating.”

Was he actually growing taller with every word, Ibycus seeming in his shadow? Now he reached out and caught at the mage’s staff. Nor did Ibycus attempt to deny him that touch.

“Get you into the Dark from which you crawled.” There was the same force in Firdun’s command as there might have been in the mage’s earlier. “By _ it is willed!”

The name he called upon then was like a blast of storm upon them all and Kethan knew that he had heard one of the Great Names which only the Power-possessed might use.

The fire wreathing the mage’s staff drew from straight, spear-thin lines into a ball. It leaped forward. Kethan sensed what the wand controlled even as its Power burst all bonds. He had sight more of mind than body, when that fire broke upon a dark mass which swayed, and thrust forth limbs which were almost tentacles. He swayed and held his own position only by a great effort against waves of torment and rage which strove to tear them down even as the thing withdrew.

Ibycus had loosed his hold on the staff and Firdun was plainly leaning upon it to keep himself erect. Aylinn released Elysha’s hold on the moon wand. It fell to her knees as if she could not hold it, light as it was. Kethan felt Uta’s warmth vanish. The cat must have loosed her hold on him.

Though the strength was wrung out of them all, they knew also that they were free. But Firdun swung around to face Ibycus squarely.

“What have you done to me?” His voice scaled up as if he were back in boyhood again.

“Nothing.” The mage seemed in no hurry to take back his staff, which Firdun was thrusting in his direction. “We must all make our choices for ourselves, Gryphon-born.”

Firdun lifted the staff as if he would hurl it from him. Then, his eyes seeing afire, he threw it so the mage caught it easily before it touched the ground.

“I will choose as I wish,” the young man said. “I am what I am—and none shall make me other.”

Ibycus smiled wearily. “So say we all upon occasion. Yes, your choice is your own. But at this moment we are bound together and only failure of our mission will tear us apart.”

Firdun’s head went down. His empty hands clasped, opened, and clasped again. Then he finally raised one and muttered some words, and Kethan knew their ward was down.

Aylinn leaned back against her foster brother’s shoulder. “It is not well,” she said, so softly that he hardly heard her.

“In what way?”

“Kethan, you know that I have sometimes—when the Lady empowers me—foresight. For Elysha—for him.” She nodded toward Ibycus. “It is perhaps only my inner fear, but out of this we shall all come changed. We have taken up the weapons of the Great Old Ones and some of those are not for us.”

As always they all felt the overpowering fatigue which followed the Power drain. And they were eager to join the Kioga, eat of roasting grass hens on improvised spits at the fire, drink, and find their bedrolls. Firdun had not spoken with any since they had left the place he had warded. He ate little and put his bedroll a little apart. There was a strange, set cast to his features, as if he were no longer the comrade they had known. Now and again he looked toward Ibycus, scowling, as if the mage had set him to some task he hated.

Even as Firdun watched the mage covertly, so Kethan saw Aylinn watch Firdun. Her face was nearly as sober as his. With the moon directly above them, she, too, drew apart, and Kethan knew that she communed in her own way with the Lady, this time with a troubled heart.

He made very sure the stone he had brought from the winged ones was safe. He put it, wrapped in a bit of cloth, under where his head would rest—having a ghost of an idea that perhaps it would foster dreams. And this night he wanted to escape—escape into that dream of the valley guarded by stone cats and the black-furred, beautiful one who had enticed him there.

Only this time he did not go four-footed. He recognized the pillars with their seated cats, but he was all man this night in spite of his strong-willed desire to change.

Then she stepped into the open from behind one of the pillars—not a cat now. Her head with its short-cut, thick black hair came to a little above his shoulder; her slender body revealed by the straight one-piece garment she wore was human, graceful, even as she had possessed feline grace before.

“Lady…” He hesitated, not knowing how to address her.

She smiled but did not answer. Instead she came to him, soft-footed, and raised both hands to draw down his head. He felt her soft lips nuzzle against his cheek.

“Great Warrior,” she breathed rather than spoke. “It has been so long for this one.”

Without being fully conscious of his action, Kethan’s arms went about her, drawing her even closer.

“Beautiful one—who are you who comes to me so?”

He heard a soft chuckle. “Learn the answer to that, Great Warrior, and when I come I shall stay—as you wish. It has been so long.” Now she sighed.

Even as she sighed, she faded to nothingness in his arms and was gone. And he cried out hopelessly even as he saw the cat pillars also spin into nothingness.

If he dreamed more that night he did not remember it. With the morning his frustration sent him out on scout even before the camp was dismantled.

He took the same trail he had followed before, save that he no longer tried to trace out the scent of Jakata’s people. The winged ones had promised an easier way to what they called the Land of the Dead, and Ibycus believed that that was the direction in which Jakata was headed—if he had survived the evil he had called up.

“Though doubtless he did,” the mage had commented as they decided on Kethan’s direction, “or we would not have been tracked last night. Unless he loosed what cannot be controlled. But if that were so, this”—he held out his finger ring, the same dull stone now power empty—“would have given us warning.”

The trail led them more to the north, and as the day advanced, the distant mountains raised a jagged barrier across the horizon. Once they skirted ruins of some size—a keep which might have been even greater than their Gryphon’s Eyrie, Firdun thought. But they did not approach closely, and there was a feeling of desolation and despair which appeared to reach out to them from those tumbled walls.

Here, too, were the remains of walled fields where once crops had been sown. Even here and there a degenerate lone stalk of grain waved a tassel in the breeze. But the travelers did avail themselves of what was furnished by an ancient orchard. Most of the older trees had moldered away, but there had been fresh saplings arising from long-rotted fruit. And several of these bore a heavily ripe crop, so the travelers made that their nooning and relished the sweetness of fresh fruit again.

By afternoon they had reached the beginning of the heights. There was the remains of an old road, but they did not follow that. Rather, Kethan scouted a more difficult way up and down the reaches of some valleys, being careful to note if there were any signs of past habitation there. A large cellar hole suggested that there might once have been a hunting lodge. About it was a strong smell of bear and he mind-sent back a warning to avoid the possible den.

For two days they traveled so. At first their pace was slow, for they had all suffered from the draining of Power, but strength returned. Firdun had kept to himself. Nor did he sleep well at night, for the import of what had happened weighed upon him. He was no adept like Alon, no master of both the lesser and the great Powers. Yet he could not deny that in those moments when he had grasped Ibycus’s staff it had seemed that a key turned deep within him.

He bit down upon sour fear. Many times he had wondered how Kethan could reconcile his two selves, pard and man. Now he wondered if he himself had, in some way, been splintered and now carried a second being within. Though he had always felt the loss of not being one of the melding Eyrie, yet that act of his had seemed to come as if he had planned it and knew that it would succeed.

“Firdun?” Startled, he looked up. They had dismounted to lead their horses up a rough grade. He realized that his horse had been snorting and sidling, and he saw that Aylinn with Morna had caught up with him.

“Moonlady?” he returned, soothing his horse. She wreathed her reins about Morna’s saddle horn and the were horse dropped back, still following steadily.

“But I am Aylinn,” she said now. “Trail companions follow no formal speech. Firdun, is all well with you?”

He wanted to turn her off with a quick denial. Somehow he could not.

“I wonder,” he said slowly, finding it difficult to put his unease into words, “if I am still Firdun.”

“The Power uses us hard sometimes. But one carries what one was born to hold. If you are more than warder, more than what your kin line has believed, is it not better to face that and accept? I… sometimes I can foresee… a little.”

She was looking beyond him upslope now to where Elysha was walking beside her mare. Ibycus was in the lead well ahead; Aylinn had not seen them together since the night of bespelling.

“And you have foreseen?” Firdun demanded. Perhaps she could supply some answer to his disordered musings.

“Loss,” she said quietly. “Just an emptiness where life should be.”

“For all of us?” he asked again, entirely alert now.

“No. Nor can I tell you which in surety. But there will be gain also, Firdun. Do not shrink from what will come for you alone. It is as the Great Power designs. We are children and have our tasks to learn.”

“Nor is that easy!” His voice was harsh. “Aylinn, you are a healer—how can one heal a fear of the unknown?”

“One accepts,” she answered softly. “Firdun, you doubt yourself. Look upon what stands behind you. You are of the Gryphon line—Kerovan fathered you, Joison is your mother. They were far apart in talents and gifts yet they came together to form a stronger whole. I heard you call on Landsil in the night. Would one of little talent dare such an awakening of old forces?”

“Ibycus stands alone.” He stared ahead to where the mage was just disappearing over the crest of the height up which they were making their way. “I—I do not want such a life.”

“Nor need you choose so. Think of Alon, or Hilarion. Do they hold themselves apart from others, adepts though they be? Ibycus is the ancient warden of this land, but he is also a man and makes men’s choices, and others can do also. Ah, look!”

She suddenly pointed to the sky. There was a dark speck there, growing ever larger as they watched. Somehow it did not have the right shape to be a bird.

“One of the flying people!” the girl cried as it sank behind the heights. “What freedom—to use the very sky as a path.”

They quickened pace and then she dropped back to Morna and Trussant, where Uta rode with the air of one for whom that very mount had been trained. The last scramble up the slope was a slippery one and they had to take it with caution, though they longed to run.

Then at last they looked out on a plateau of red, black-veined rock and saw Kethan, in pard form, accompanied by a small figure who had discarded the wings and came forward to greet the newcomers.