The Warding of Witch World

32 Korinth, the Northern Sea

The constant sounds of activity had died away with the coming of sundown. But the growing town was still alive when Trusla went to the impromptu market down on the wharf. Another ship had made port at nooning and samples of its cargo were already being placed to catch the eye—and gather a crowd.

This had been a risky project on the part of the captain, for he had not carried building materials or needful supplies, but rather what those in the bare-wall town might consider at this point to be luxuries. There were fabrics which could make curtains and wall hangings, dishes both for display and daily use, even such things as spices and those dried flower petals which would fight the heavy scent of woodsmoke in the rooms.

To Trusla’s surprise there were buyers enough gathering to bargain with those the captain had designated to be merchants for the day. And she saw change hands lengths of ivory tusks, and bundles of furs at a brisk pace, the buyer going away with this ornamentation for houses perhaps still roofless.

It was when she was shouldered aside by one of the brawny women who wore a heavy hammer in her belt that Trusla stopped short, refusing to move again in spite of another shove.

What had drawn her eyes was an earthenware bottle. It was wide-mouthed and its cover had been removed to show its contents. How such an object had turned up in this cargo, and moreover, how the present owner had obtained it, she could not guess. Somehow she could not believe that the seller knew what she was offering, for it was a woman tending this trestle table. The contents of that jar were a door into the past—though to the eye the jar was filled with sand—red-gold sand—seemingly as fine ground as dust. Such sand she knew—such sand had changed her life and opened a door upon the world for her.

“Xactol!” she whispered. Did or did not that sand stir a little? Or was it only her wish that made it seem so? “Sand sister.”

She jerked at a silver bangle on her thin wrist. It was all she could think of now for exchange. The woman looming over her had put down a full gold piece out of Estcarp for a length of dull blue and rust red weaving and a set of carven wooden bowls. Now the stall keeper was looking to her.

“Your jar.” Trusla pointed so there would be no mistake.

The stall keeper picked it up, turning it this way and that. “Out of Estcarp—well fired, can be used at the hearthside if you wish. The sand…” She must have caught Trusla’s glance; the girl feared spillage due to the other’s quick movements. “That is nothing. The dealers there pack them so against breakage. Two silver twists, Lady.”

She was studying Trusla closely now, seeming to have noted for the first time that Trusla was a stranger, not a townswoman.

“I give this.” The fen girl held out her bangle. It was surely worth more than two twists of that silver wire which the traders used for small transactions. Then she thought that the woman was eyeing her almost with suspicion and she added hastily, “Such are made in my village.” She was improvising. “I find it here to be a lucky matter.”

Now the woman grinned. “Ah, don’t we need all the luck we can draw to us, Lady? It is yours.” But she was quick enough to drop the bracelet into her money pouch. “Here”—she reached down into a box beneath the table—“you need the rest of your luck, or what you hope to hold can run out with the first dip.” She slapped down on the table a round of smoothed wood which was plainly meant to cork the jar and Trusla speedily put it into place.

Holding her prize tightly, she made her way through the crowd and back to the warehouse-inn. Simond was off with the captain and their map, but for the moment she was very glad she was alone.

Settling down on one of the two stools their small alcove held, she loosed the hide curtain and let it fall into place to give privacy. The jar she placed with care on the other stool, as she had no table. Her hand went to loosen that cover and then she let it fall instead to the top of the stool. For the moment she did not want to prove herself right or wrong, she just called on memory.

There had been a shelving floor of such sand under the moon and that sand had moved, given birth to one whom Trusla sometimes saw fleetingly in dreams and had always longed to see again. Xactol—sand sister—that one had named herself, and in Trusla she had awakened knowledge that there was indeed a need for one who was unlike her companions. Since then Trusla had made small experiments on her own—very carefully.

When she had returned with Simond, each saving the other from certain death, the witches had wished to test her, for being Tor and apart, they thirsted to know what powers or talents those of her race might have. But the witches were no longer all-powerful and already she had mated with Simond, thus destroying most of her value to them. But inside she was sure that her sand sister had awakened more than Trusla could understand.

She remembered one day when she and Simond had gone fishing (or he had fished and she had explored the small island they had chosen) and she had discovered a stretch of silver-gray sand. It had not held the same feeling for her, yet it drew her to it.

On its surface she had drawn—designs she had not remembered she knew, though she was a weaver. And the designs had sent her into a sort of dream in which she had done something which had great meaning. But when she had roused again at Simond’s call, the sand was bare of any marking and of the dream she remembered only that feeling of accomplishment.

Now—if it were true that she held in this jar sand out of Tor, what might she do?

“Trusla!” Simond’s voice drew her back into the here and now. She saw the curtain sway at his touch, but she knew he would not enter without her bidding. Swiftly she transferred the jar into her own pack. Why she must keep this secret she could not say—only that for now it was hers alone.

She swept aside the curtain and Simond stood smiling widely. He kissed her cheek and then threw himself on the bunk, his legs stretched out, one arm reaching for Trusla to draw her to his side.

“No more hammers, no more mud, no more sawing.” He made a kind of chant out of it. “The Wave Cleaver is loaded and shipshape, as the captain says. With the dawn we can be off again away from this mud pie and off to do what we are meant to do.”

Trusla could understand his excitement and she was careful to try to equal it. But she feared she would never make a good sea rover. The cramped cabin was so small that this alcove seemed a lord’s hall when she stole a look around. Luckily only yesterday she had washed and freshened with dried herbs almost all of the clothing except what they now wore. And Simond had spent hours burnishing their mail coats and making sure their weapons were keen of edge.

His smile had faded a little and there was an anxious note in his voice as he continued, “There is this, heart holder. Because of the addition of the Latts to our party, our quarters will be changed. I shall have a hammock with this Odanki in the mate’s quarters and the shaman will come with you.”

She should have expected something like this. Frost, by reason of her rank, had a hastily constructed cubby off the captain’s main cabin and the rest of them would have to make what room they could.

“The Latt woman seems one of goodwill.” Simond had sat up again now and was watching her. “Were it instead that wisewoman whom Mangus gives ear to now.”

Trusla laughed. “Were it so, I think I should choose to walk—there is the shore and later maybe ice thick enough to bear one up. Yes, I think that the Latt will be a good cabin mate. Only…” Now she threw her arms around him tightly. “It will not be Simond to keep me warm at night!”

“My loss also, dear one. Now—let us see to the packing.” But his return embrace and the hoarseness of his voice was a small comfort she could cherish.

Their sailing out of Korinth was certainly not a quiet and unnoted one. The green-robed drummer led a procession of women who whistled and moaned, and made sounds so close to enraged waves that Trusla could close her eyes and believe the sea already washed about them.

Not to be outdone by the invoking of Sulcar powers and good fortune, the Latt party was nearly as great. But here it was the men who chanted, waving spears and axes as if challenging to battle. Their chosen champion had added a sword to one of the packs he shouldered. From the second one fluttered feathers and Trusla guessed that that held the possessions of the shaman. Cuddled in the left arm of the woman was a small furry shape which moved, turning a round head constantly as if it would see everything as quickly as possible.

The Latts knelt and raised a keening cry—one which could touch even those not of their race. Then they deliberately arose and turned their backs, though still they stood in ordered ranks, as if they must not look upon the withdrawal of the shaman and her champion.

Nor did she turn her head to look at them, but marched steadily up the gangplank, Odanki a step or so behind, the creature still held in her arm. Trusla eyed that warily. Sharing a cabin with another woman was one thing, but that the shaman had brought a pet with her…

However, they stood a little away from her as the ship cast off moorings and they began their journey to the open sea—luck cheers from those thronging the walk rising even above the cries of their wisewoman and her followers.

Trusla hesitated for a moment and then made her way to the shaman. “Wise One, our cabin lies this way.”

Those dark, oblique eyes fastened on her and the woman nodded. Now that she was close enough, the girl could better see the creature in the wisewoman’s arms. At first she thought it a child bundled so heavily in furs that only a section of its reddish face and two large eyes were visible.

Then the shaman set it carefully down. Though it stood on its hind feet, this was no child. It was entirely covered, except for the palms of its quite humanlike hands and face, with thick dark hair over which lay an outer sheen of silver as if every tip bore frost. With one of those hands it held tightly to the shaman’s bead-twisted legging-boots; the other was at its mouth as it stared over its fists at Trusla.

“The little one?” she ventured. ,No child, nor pet—she had heard at Lormt and Estcarp of some workers of Power who augmented their strength by energies drawn from nonhuman beings. Was this one such?

The Latt woman was smiling, her hand dropping to the round furred head which she smoothed soothingly.

“This be Kankil, who has chosen my tent as her home. Such seldom trust our kind, but when they do, then those so chosen are greatly blessed. Yes, she serves in the Power.”

Trusla had not been aware of any mind-reading touch, but perhaps this reading of her question had been only a guess on the other’s part.

“Now.” The Latt came forward a step or so and held out her other hand, Kankil coming with her. “The naming of names is given only among friends—do you also have that custom?”

“Some of us.” Trusla nodded, her attention divided between the shaman and her small companion. “I am Trusla, as the Lord Mangus named me—my true name. So also is it with Simond, who is my dear lord.”

“And in our tents I am Inquit. For between us there lies no shadow of the Dark. But you are not of these sea people, these Sulcars, blessed as they are for the helping hands they reached to us.”

“No, I come from a southern land—Tor Marsh. And my lord also bears a portion of such blood, for he is son to Koris of Gorm, also of Tor Marsh breed and now Lord Marshal of Estcarp.”

Kankil suddenly loosed her hold of Inquit’s legging and skipped to Trusla. No one could see in this mite any danger. The girl dared greatly and smoothed the small head turned up toward her, feeling fur softer than spider silk beneath her fingers.

“It is well. Now we share tent.” Inquit laughed. “Though I do not think it will be as large as those within my tribe’s holding.”

Trusla felt soft furred fingers steal into her hand and she grasped them gently, turning to lead the way to their cabin. She felt a queer touch of shame as if she regretted she had no better to offer. Some of Simond’s gear was still piled in a corner, for they had no other place to put it and the interior was in Trusla’s eye woefully crowded. Inquit’s tribesman had dropped her pack by the door and she pulled it in while Kankil leaped out of the way onto the bunk.

“One always learns from journeying,” Inquit observed. “The Sulcars live mainly on their ships—it is good that they are so large, for then their quarters can better serve such as we are.”

Trusla had pulled open one of the cupboards below the bunk, and then indicated the pegs on the wall, on one of which already swung her fishskin storm coat. She must get another for Inquit also.

The Latt shaman was already busy with her pack and Trusla edged past her beyond the door to give her full room to arrange her belongings as best she could.

Already she herself felt a little unsteady at the rise and fall of the ship; they must be nearing where the canal gave upon the sea. She hoped she would not disgrace herself as she had the first three days of this voyage when her stomach had rebelled against her.

The boat rocked perilously and chunks of ice sometimes nudged against the sides. A skin boat, not even honest wood, and how long would it be before the sea had her?

Audha huddled in upon herself. Rogar had stopped moaning long ago in this piece of the Netherworld which had caught them fast. She hoped dully his torment was over now, as the end had come to Lothar Longsword and Tortain Staymir earlier. If she were a true battleman of Skitter’s line, as she had always believed she was—false, false pride—she would rock this miserable excuse for a boat and bring an end to torment.

Sooner or later the sea would have them all, dead and alive, but some small core within her kept her from bringing it all to a quick finish. A Sulcar endured to the end, unless, like the great Osberic, he could die taking with him the enemy in force.

What she had seen in the past few days made her believe that the Light had indeed forsaken this world. Could icebergs sail with a direct purpose, herd a ship? She would have said that that was a story to frighten a boastful child. Yet—by the Ruler of Storms, this she had seen, had suffered with all others of the Flying Crossbeak.

They had been bound farther north than usual, Captain Harsson having had good trade the previous season with End of the World, that post which clung to the very edge of the unknown. She was a wavereader and this had been only her second voyage as such without a mistress waver to oversee her reports.

Audha bit down savagely on the ice-rusted edge of her frozen sea cloak. She would take blood oath before the very inner altar that she had not erred. Their voyage had been easy—in the beginning.

It seemed then the bergs had been spewed forth out of the night itself like harpoons of the flipper hunters. By morning’s light there had been a shifting wall of giant drifting ice before them. One no prudent captain would dare to think of threading.

And it centered on them! By the Ruler of Storms—the stuff had centered. Though they changed course, so did the bergs. Men who had spent nearly all their lives in the northern trade had watched unbelievingly. And the waves—she had watched until her eyes had nearly frozen solid, but the patterns made no sense.

Instead, out of nowhere, had come a current, seeming to spread from the bergs to catch upon them. They fought to come about, to retreat before what they could not understand—using every trick of seamanship countless generations had passed along.

But always the ship had been driven westward, though they fought fiercely to gain the open sea they could sight in the east. There had been no wind; the frosted sails gave them no aid. At length the captain had ordered the longboat to be put over with rowers to see whether, as a last resort, they could break free of the path of the bergs.

Audha shuddered—her mind kept going back always over the past. If they had done this, or tried that… But there had been no real choice. For then, out of nowhere, had come the fog, and the boat was swallowed up by it. It almost seemed that they had a chance in spite of veering blindly.

Until… until—oh, Blessed Mother in the Deeps—they had heard those shrieks and cries, and moments later, before they could stand to arms, the demons had been upon them, clambering over the sides of the Flying Crossbeak in a filthy wave.

The fog had served those well, covering their attack from their small skin boats which crowded around the ship like maggots on a poor dying thing.

A shadow had loomed out of the fog to where she sat in the bow seat of the wavereader and a blow had sent her into darkness before she really knew what had come upon them.

She did not remember their coming to Dargh the accursed; they must have dragged her still-unconscious body. The screaming had aroused her to life—pleas and cries which sent her near to madness. Among them she was sure she detected Vargas voice—and young Kertha… There were other screams and an insane howling and she had somehow managed to shut herself back into the darkness.

But her body would not let her spirit escape and she awoke again. As she tried to move, she found she was trussed like a swimmer intended for the market. It was very dim, but she could see enough to understand that she lay in a stinking hole and that she was not alone in her captivity. Someone was moaning in a monotonous cry, and she nearly gagged on the stench of blood, human waste, and general filth around her.

“Audha?”

Her own name had roused her further. She was at least able to turn her head and see a second prisoner almost within touching distance.

“Rogar?” she ventured. Rogar Farkerson was kin, her mother’s cousin, and he had been one of her teachers in Sulcar lore over the years. She had been proud that he had spoken up for her when the captain was choosing a wavereader.

“You are wounded?” he asked quickly.

His question made her aware of her aching head. But she could not detect any other hurts.

“No.” She refused the aching. “We—we are on Dargh?”

For a moment he did not answer and then when he spoke his voice was harsh.

“We are. That slime out of the fog took us! But—we have a chance, maybe—those left of us. Lothar is speared, but they do not know our stock, these demons. They believed him sore hurt and did not take care in his binding, being very eager for their—their feasting.”

Audha swallowed convulsively. She forced from her mind the memory of those cries.

“Now they lie like drunk. Dargh needs fear no attack—the ice has closed in. We—we they are keeping for further sport and eating. Better we died cleanly in the sea. Lothar now works to free Tortain. For Hugin we can do nothing, he is near sped—may the Great Gate open for him soon. Now—can you move closer to me, girl? They use hide for their ties and hide can be chewed—and I, thank the Wind Ruler, still have a full set of teeth well used to tough chewing.”

So they had won free, the four of them. Once he could crawl again, Rogar had made to the other side of that place and bent over a shape lying there. A moment or two later the moaning stopped.

“I think his kin will claim no blood debt,” came Lothar’s voice out of the shadows. “You have served a comrade well and we shall send a lantern a-voyage for him and the others.”

Audha had been listening to any sound from outside. The walling about her seemed to be made of skins laced together, though under them, mostly hidden by refuse, was a pavement of stones. Also this cage appeared to be half sunken below the surface of the ground.

Roger and Tortain went to work on the hides on their upper walls. One could not possibly use teeth there, Audha thought, and nearly laughed hysterically, but it seemed they had found tools of a sort—cracked and sharp-edged bones. She moved up beside Lothar. Though she was no wisewoman healer, she knew something of wound tending, as did all the seafarers, among whom many skills had to be used.

She had not even light enough to see how badly he was hurt. At her questioning he admitted that a spear had cut him in the shoulder. She had no supplies, but she helped improvise a sling to give him what ease she could and he assured her that the wound had stopped bleeding and perhaps was hardly more than a graze.

The hide split at last. There was more light beyond, but they were facing away from it. Probably fires of some size still burned before the straggle of huts. Audha gagged again at the newest of foul odors—burned flesh.

Indeed their gruesome feast must have reacted on the demons like drink, for the prisoners could see nor hear no stirring at all. It might be that the raiders had so seldom such a large supply of food at hand that they had eaten themselves into a stupor.

The four worked their way out of that noisome prison and kept the firelight at their backs. Audha touched Lothar and whispered: “Wave wash.”

With her ears as their guide now, they made a wide detour around the rest of the huts they could sight and came to a beach. Not only a beach, but a good choice of the skin boats drawn up out of the water’s touch.

Even together they might not have been able to launch a ship’s boat, but the skin one slid along and they gingerly took their places in it. Rogar stumbled on two paddles laid in safekeeping at the bottom and, armed with one of these, Tortain with the other, they had forced a passageway.

Once out from land, they could see better the fires on the shore—and worse. There was the Flying Crossbeak, crushed between a rocky cliff and a giant berg, smashed past all hope. Ice floated here also, but it was in smaller pieces and, though Audha feared for a space that it might follow the strange and uncanny action of the bergs and herd them back toward the hellish island, these seemed to follow no pattern.

So they had won free from Dargh, but to what purpose? Lothar’s hurt showed in the morning to be much worse, and later he raved in delirium. Audha had held his head on her knee, but she had no water to give him when he called for it.

They had to stop paddling after a while, for their hands were blue with cold. So now they floated under the morning sun—but not back to Dargh.

There were no supplies on board. Oddly enough, Tortain, a bear of a man, was the first to fail. His heart, Audha thought, gnawed out of him. And then Lothar. Now it was another day, another night, another day since they had won free. Why did she live? She was sure Rogar was close to death. The sun that first morning had showed a fearsome bruise down his jaw and neck, though he had made no complaint.

Sulcar courage, Sulcar skill—all for nothing. She could watch the wave patterns now and they were drifting southward away from that monstrous trap of the bergs. But why, her mind worried dimly with the idea, had those bergs seemed to act with purpose against their ship? She knew of no power strong enough to command the flow of ice.