Sorceress Of The Witch World

I

The freezing breath of the Ice Dragon was strong and harsh over the heights, for it was midwinter, and the dregs of a year which had been far from kind to me and mine. Yes, it was in the time of the Ice Dragon that I took serious thought of the future and knew, past all sighing and regret, what I must do if those I valued above all, even my own life, were to be free from a shadow which might reach them through me. I am—I was—Kaththea of the House of Tregarth, once trained as a Wise Woman, though I never gave their oath, nor wore the jewel which lies so heavy on the breasts of those who take it to them. But such learning as was and is theirs was given me, though not by my choosing.

I am one of three, three who once became one when there was need: Kyllan the warrior, Kemoc the seer-warlock, Kaththea the witch. So my mother had named us at our single birthing; so we were. She was of the Wise Women of Estcarp also, and was disowned for wedding with Simon Tregarth. He was no ordinary man, though, being a stranger who had come through one of the otherworld gates. Not only was he one learned in the stern art of war (which was of vast use to Estcarp, for that torn and age-worn land was then locked in struggle with Karsten and Alizon, her neighbors), but he had that which the Wise Women could not countenance in a man, some of the Power for his own.

Thus, upon her wedding and bedding it proved that Jaelithe, my mother, was not summarily shorn of her witchery as all believed she would be, but rather found a new path to the same general end. This raised the ire of those who had turned their faces from her on her choice. However, though they would not openly acknowledge she had proved tradition naught, they had to lean upon her support when there was great need, as there was.

Together, my father and mother went up against the remnants of the Kolder, those outland devils who had so long menaced Estcarp. They found the source of that spreading evil and closed it. For the Kolder, like my father, were not from our time and space, but had set up a gate of their own through which to spill their poison into Estcarp.

After that great deed the Wise Women dared not openly move against the House of Tregarth, though they neither forgot nor forgave what my mother had done. Not that she wed—for they would have accepted that, feeling only contempt for one who allowed emotion to beckon her from their austere path—but because she remained one with them in spite of her choice.

As I have said we were born at a single birthing, my brothers and I, I being the last to enter the world. And for a long time thereafter my mother ailed. We were put into the care of Anghart, a woman of the Falconers whom fate had used hardly, but who gave us the loving care my mother could not. As for my father, he was so enveloped in my mother’s sufferings that he scarcely knew during those months whether we lived or died. And I think he could never, in his innermost heart, warm to us because of the hurt she took to bring us forth.

When we were children we saw little of our parents, for their combined duties in that ever-present war kept them at the South Keep. My father rode the borders there as Warden, and my mother as his seeress-in-the-field and more. We lived at a quiet manor where the Lady Loyse, who had been a comrade-of-war of my parents, kept a small circle of peace.

Early did the three of us learn that we had in us that which set us apart: we could link minds so that three became as one when there was need. And, while we used this Power then for only small matters, we were unconsciously strengthening it with each use. We also instinctively knew this was a thing to be kept secret.

My mother’s break with the Council had kept me from the tests given all girl children for the selection of novices. And she and my father, whether they guessed our inheritance or not, set about us such guards against absorption into the Estcarp pattern as they could.

Then it was that my father disappeared. In one of the lulls of active raiding he had taken ship with the Sulcar, those close allies of Estcarp and his old battle friends, to explore certain islands rumored to have suspicious activity sighted on them. Neither he nor his ship were thereafter sighted nor heard from.

My mother rode into our sanctuary and for the first time she summoned Kyllan, Kemoc, and me to a real trial of power. With our strength united to hers, she sent forth a searching and saw our father. With so slender a clue, she went forth again to seek him; we remained behind.

When Kyllan and Kemoc joined the Borderers and I was left, the Wise Women moved as they had long prepared. They sent to the hold and had me taken to their Place of Silence. And for some years I was cut off from the world I knew and my brothers. But other worlds was I shown and there is a kind of hunger for such knowledge born in those of my blood which feasts and grows, until at times it fills one to the loss of all else. I fought, how I fought, during those years not to yield to the temptation of full eating, to keep part of myself free. So well did I succeed that at last I was able to reach Kemoc. Thus, before they could force the final vow upon me, he and Kyllan came to bring me out.

We could not have broken the Council’s bond had it not been that all the Power was gathered up for a day and night as one pulls into one hand all the threads of a weaving. They hoarded their strength that they might deal a single blow to Karsten and put an end to their most powerful enemy. They took all their force and aimed it at the mountain lands, churning the heights, twisting the very stuff of the earth by their united will.

So they had none we could not break to spare elsewhere. And we rode eastward into the unknown. Kemoc had discovered a new mystery, that those of the Old Race of Estcarp had been mind-locked in some very ancient time, and therefore the direct east to them did not exist. This had been done when they had come from that direction into Estcarp.

Thus we went over mountain to find Escore. And there, to save us and to learn what we must know, I worked certain spells, almost to the undoing of the whole land. For this was a place where in the past mighty powers and forces had been unlocked by adepts, very ancient, but of my mother’s people. And they had blasted the land in their strivings for mastery. At last those who had founded Estcarp had fled, rolling the mountains into a supposedly eternal barrier behind them.

But when I wrought my spells (small compared to what had been done in Escore in the past), forces were awakened, a delicate, hard-won balance was destroyed, and struggle between good and ill once more awoke.

We came into the Green Valley, which was held by those older even than the Old Race, though they had a measure of our blood too. But they were not of the Shadow. As we stood comradely to arms, and sent forth a warning sword to summon all of good will for a combat against the Dark, there came one they accepted as of their kind.

He was of the Old Race, a hill lord who had had for a tutor one of the last of the adepts to choose to stay in Escore and not meddle. But Dinzil was ambitious and he was a seeker. Nor was he corrupted by the love of domination when he first began that seeking. He was long known to the Green People and they met him with honor and good will. He was a man with much in him to draw one’s liking—yes, and more than liking, as I can testify.

To me, who had known only my brothers and the guardsmen my father had set about us, he was a new kind of friend. And there was that which stirred in me for the first time when I looked upon his dark face. Also, he set himself to woo me, and that he did very well.

Kyllan had found his Dahaun, she who is the Lady of Green Silences, and Kemoc was as yet unheart-touched. Kyllan did not set hand to sword when I smiled upon Dinzil, and Kemoc’s frowns I took, may I be forgiven, for jealousy because our three might be broken.

When Kemoc vanished, lost to us, I yielded to Dinzil’s promise for aid in finding him, as well as to the wishes of my heart. The end being that I went secretly with him to the Dark Tower.

Now when I try to remember what was done there, I cannot. It is as if someone had taken water and a strong soap to wash away all the days I was Dinzil’s aide in magic. Though I try to force myself to recall it, I have only pain and more pain within me.

But Kemoc, together with the Krogan maid Orsya, came seeking me, as he tells in his part of this chronicle. And he wrought with more than human endurance and strength to bring me forth from what had become an abiding place of the Shadow. By that time I was so tainted with what Dinzil and my own folly had plunged me into, that I stood at the end with Dinzil to do hurt to those I loved best. And Kemoc, daring to see me dead before I fell so low, struck me down with half-learned magic.

From that hour I was as one newborn, for that stroke rift from me my learning. At first I was as a little child, doing as I was bid, without will or desires of my own. For a little I was content to be so.

Until the dreams began. I could not remember them wholly when I awoke; it was well I did not, for they were such as no sane mind could hold. And even the faint memory of some portions left me sick and cold, so that I lay upon my bed in Dahaun’s feather-roofed hall and could not eat, and dared not sleep. All the protection I had learned against such ills in my days among the Wise Women had been stripped from me, so that I was as one body bare to the winter’s blast. Save that what I stood naked before was worse than any sleet-laden wind, for what buffeted me was of the Shadow and very foul.

Dahaun wrought as she could, and she was a healer. But her healing was of the mind and body, and this was a matter of spirit. Kyllan and Kemoc sat by me and strove to keep the Shadow at bay. All the knowledge of those within the Valley was shaped to the end of saving me. But in those moments when I knew what they did, I understood the evil of this. For the Valley needed full protection, not only the protection of visible weapons, but also of the mind and spirit. To fight my battle weakened their defenses.

My child’s clinging to the small safety and comfort they offered I must put away. So did I grow older and no longer only an unthinking child. I also knew that the dreams were only the beginning of what might attack me, and through me others. For when my own knowledge had been taken an emptiness had been left, and into that something alien was striving to pour itself.

So, even though I no longer thought as Dinzil had made me, I was still enemy to those I loved best. And I could prove a gate set in their midst through which ill could reach them, breaching their defenses.

I waited until there was an hour when Kyllan and Kemoc went into council of war. And I sent a message to Dahaun and Orsya. To them I spoke frankly, saying what must be done for the good of all, perhaps even for me also. “There is no rest here for me.” I did not ask that, I stated it as a truth. And in their eyes I read agreement. “This is also true: I am fast becoming a door to that which waits only for an entrance to be shaped for it. I am a worse enemy than any monster prowling beyond your safeguards. Strong are you in ancient magic, Dahaun, for you are the Lady of Green Silences, and all which grows must pay heed to you, all animals and birds. And you, Orsya, also have your own magic, and I can testify that it is not to be lightly thought on. But I swear to you that this struggling to enter through me now is greater than you two joined together.

“I am empty—I can be filled, and with that which we would not like to think on.”

Slowly Dahaun nodded. There was a sharp stab of pain within me then. For, though I knew I spoke the truth, yet some small, weak part of me had held a dying hope that I could be wrong and that she, who in her way was so much the superior of anyone I had once been, would tell me so. But rather she agreed with the verdict I had to face.

“What would you do?” Orsya asked. She had come from the stream to my side and her hair was drying, forming a luminous silvery cloud in the air, but there were still droplets of water on her pearly skin, and those she did not wipe nor shake away, for to the Krogan water was life itself.

“I must go forth from here—”

But to that Dahaun shook her head. “Beyond our safeguards what you fear will surely come, and soon. And Kyllan and Kemoc would not allow it.”

“Yes, and yes,” I answered. “But there is something else. I can return whence I came and find aid. You have heard that the churning of the mountains broke the power of the Council. Many of them died then because they could not contain so long the force they had to store until they aimed it. The Wise Women’s rule is done in Estcarp. Our good friend Koris of Gorm is now the one who says this is done or that. But if even two or three of the great Wise Ones still live they can raise this from me and Koris will order them to do that speedily. Let me return to Estcarp and I shall be healed and you will be free to carry on battle here as you must.”

Dahaun did not answer at once. It is part of her magic that she is never the same in one’s eyes, but always changing, so that sometimes she seems of the Old Race, dark of hair, white of skin, while at other times her hair is ruddy, her cheeks golden. Whether this is done by her will or not, I do not know. Now it seemed she was of my own race as she absently smoothed a strand of black hair, her teeth showing a fraction upon her lower lip.

At last she nodded. “I can set a spell, a spell which may carry you safely as far as the mountains, if your travel is swift, so you need not fear invasion. But you must aid it with all your strength of will.”

“As you know I shall,” I told her. “But now you must give me aid in another way, the two of you, standing with me when I tell this to Kyllan and Kemoc. They know that I will not be in danger once I reach Koris. . . . We have learned from those coming to join us that he is seeking us. But they may try to hold me here even so. Our tie is as old as our years. So we must be three set firm for this, saying even that I shall return once I am given a new inner shield.”

“And this will be the truth?” asked Orsya. I did not know if she thought of me with any charity. When I was Dinzil’s I had been an enemy to her, even seeking her life by my brother’s hands, so she had no reason to wish me well. But if she were as one with Kemoc as I suspected, then perhaps she might, for his sake, do me this service.

“I do not think so. I might be cleansed. But to return here would be a chance I would not dare.” I told her frankly.

“And you believe you can make this journey?”

“I must.”

“It is well,” she said. “I shall stand beside you.”

“And I,” promised Dahaun. “But they will want to ride with you—”

“Set your own spells, the two of you. Let them seek the border with me; I do not think we can keep them from that. But thereafter make them return. There is nothing in Estcarp for them, and they have now given their hearts to this land.”

“That also can we do, I think.” Dahaun replied. “When will you ride?”

“As soon as can be. If I grow too worn with this battle, I shall lose before you are rid of me.”

“It is the month of the Ice Dragon; the mountains will be ill going.” But again Dahaun spoke as if she were not forbidding the effort, but rather searching in her mind for ways to overcome difficulties. “There is Valmund, who has ridden those trails many miles, and we can call upon the keen eyes of Vorlong and his Vrangs to scout before you, that no great ill may lie in wait. But it will be a cruel, cold trail you take, my sister. Be not overconfident.”

“I am not,” I assured her. “Only the sooner I am out of Escore, the sooner will what we hold dear be the safer!”

So it was settled among us, and having set our minds firmly upon the matter how could those others stand against us? Hard and fierce arguments they raised, but we showed them the logic of what we would do, even until they were in agreement against their wills. I swore and swore again that once healed I would return, with one of the parties from over-mountain. Now and again there came those to join us, their coming always made known in good time by sentinels the Green People maintained where there were passes. The sentinels were of many kinds, some scouts from the Valley, a few former Borderers who had come to serve under my brothers, others the winged Flannan, or Dahaun’s green birds, whose messages only she could understand, or once in a while a fighting Vrang, wide-winged hunter from the high clouds.

It was one of those who broke our first plan into bits when he reported that the direct route to the pass over which we had first come into Escore was now closed. Some messenger or liege thing to the Shadow had wrought a sealing there which would be better avoided than assaulted—with me as one of the party facing it. I think Kyllan and Kemoc rejoiced to hear that, deeming that we would now abandon the project altogether.

Only I sweated and shrieked under the dreams more and more, and perhaps they knew that I could not long continue to stand against that which sought to occupy me. Death would have to be my portion then, and I had sworn them to that by an oath they could not break.

Summoned, Vorlong himself came to the Valley. He perched on a rock already well worn by the scraping of his talons and those of his tribe before him, his red lizard head in bright contrast to his blue-gray feathers, his long neck twisting as he turned his eyes from one of us to another while Dahaun made mind talk with him.

At first he would not give us any hope, until, at last, with continued pressure, she brought out of him an admittance that by swinging farther east and north, it might be possible to avoid the pass we knew for a higher, more difficult passage. And he would send us a flying scout. From the Green People volunteered their best mountaineer, Valmund.

In the Green Valley the Ice Dragon was kept at bay. The season there was no cooler ever than late fall in Estcarp. As we rode past those symbols of power which kept that small pocket inviolate, the full blast of winter met us.

There were five of us who rode the sure-footed Renthan—those four-footed beings who were not animals, but comrades of battle as they had proved many times, and who were the equal of all in wit, perhaps superior in courage and resource. Kyllan took the fore, Kemoc rode to my right, Valmund for a space at the left, and behind was Raknar out of Estcarp, who had chosen to go over-mountain with me to my final goal, since he sought to find certain liegemen of his and bring them back to swell the host in Escore. He was a man of more years than the rest of us and one my brothers trusted highly.

Beyond the boundaries of the Valley, as the Renthan beat down snowdrifts with their hooves, a shape dove from the sky to become clear in our sight as a Vrang, Vorlung’s promised guide.

We traveled by day, since those of the Shadow are more used to the ways of night. Perhaps the severity of the weather had immured them in their lairs, for, though we once heard afar the hunting cries of a pack of wolf-men, the Gray Ones, we did not sight them or any other of the Dark ones. We wove a way with many curves and small detours to avoid places which Valmund and the Vrang found dangerous. Some were only groves, or places of standing stones. But once we looked upon a somber building which seemed not in the least gnawed by time. In those walls were no windows, so it was like a giant block pitched from some huge hand to lie heavily on the earth.

Around it the snow was not banked, though elsewhere it lay in white drifts from which a weak winter sun awoke sparkles of diamond. It was as if the ground was too warm there, so that a square of steaming earth enclosed that ominous masonry.

At night we sheltered in a place of blue stones, such ones as were to be found here and there as islands of security in the general evil of the land. When it grew quite dark pale light shone from these; that light beamed outward rather than toward us, as if to dazzle anything prowling beyond, to blind them from seeing our small party.

I tried not to sleep, lest those crowding dreams bring disaster, but I could not fight the fatigue of body, and, against my will, I did. Perhaps those blue stones had some remedy even greater than the power Dahaun had brought to my succor. For my sleep was dreamless and I awoke from it refreshed as I had not been for a long time. I ate with an appetite, and I took heart that my choice was right and perhaps our trip might be without ill incidents.

The second night we were not so lucky in finding a protected camp site. Had I still the learning I had once made my own, I might have woven a spell to cover us. But now I was the most helpless. Vrang and Valmund between them had brought us into the foothills of the mountains we must cross, but we were still heading north, rather farther to the east then would serve us.

We had rested in a place where stunted trees made a thick canopy, in spite of the fact they had lost their last year’s leaves. And in that half shelter the Renthan knelt, giving us their bodies to lean against wearily as we chewed journey cake and drank sparingly from our saddle bottle. It was Green Valley wine, mixed with water from the springs there, a well-known restorative.

The Vrang winged off to a crag of his own choosing and the men settled the watch hours among them. Again I fought sleep, sure that with no safeguard I would be vulnerable to whatever the Shadow sent after us.

I did not think beyond our piercing of the mountains and the coming to Estcarp. Only too well did my imagination create for me what might happen between this hour and that when I was again in the land of my birth . . . though I knew that in the marshaling of such ills I was harming myself.

Valmund sat to my left, his green cloak about him. Even in the gloom, for we dared not light a fire, I could see his head was turned to look toward the mountains, though before him now was such a screen of brush and tree limb that he might not see through. There was something in his stance which made me ask in a half-whisper: “There is trouble ahead?”

He looked now to me. “There is always trouble in the mountains at this time.”

“Hunters?” What kind? I wondered. There had been fearsome surprises enough in the lowlands. What foul monsters might seek us out in the heights?

“No, the land itself.” He did not try to hide his fears from me and for that I was glad. For what he spoke of seemed less to me than things my dreams brought. “There are many snowslides now and they are very dangerous.”

Avalanches—I had not thought of those. “This is a dangerous way? More so than the other?” I asked.

“I do not know. This is new country for me. But we must go with double care.”

I dozed that night and again my apprehensions were not realized. I might not have slept in a protected place, but I did not dream.

In the morning, when the light was strong enough for us to move on, the Vrang came to us. He had been scouting across the heights above since first light and what he had to report was none too good. There was a pass leading west, but we must reach it on foot, and would need a mountaineer’s skill to do so.

With a great curved talon the Vrang drew a line map in the snow, went over each point of probable danger for us. Then he rose again, once more to seek the heights and so scout even farther ahead than the distance we could cover in the hours of this day. Thus did we begin our mountain journey.