Sorceress Of The Witch World

VIII

The swirling of the snow not only hid what was happening now in the village, but the rising of a savage wind also drowned out the cries. Within minutes I thought I had chosen the worse of two evils in my flight, for I was completely lost. But I kept blundering on, until I staggered into a half-seen brush from which I recoiled. That told me that I was out of the ruins and into the beginning of the growth which masked my distant goal.

This brush was tall and thick enough to shelter me once I had fought a little way into it, and I half fell through a slit in it, which must mark a trail. The way was so narrow that I deemed it a game path. It ran with so many twists and curves that it certainly did not follow any ancient road, since mankind has a way of imposing his will on nature in the building of roads not yielding to her quirks.

Some of the taller spikes of brush, which were close to the stature of trees, held off the fury of the storm, and I was able to stumble along at a goodly pace. I believed that my sense of direction had not altogether deserted me and I was heading for the mysterious pile of timeworn masonry on the point.

Perhaps it would be better to strike directly away from the sea westward—but not in such a storm and with perhaps raiders on my trail. I believed that the building on the cape would be an excellent hiding place.

So far I had kept my mind on my own escape and the immediate future, trying to shut from my thoughts the probable fate of the tribe. It was the custom, as I had learned during my short time among them, for them to live in a continual round of blood feuds and raids. But the sea rovers were the worst of their enemies. The males of a defeated people faced certain death, the women, if they were pleasing enough, would be taken as minor wives; if uncomely they would be slaves. It was a hard life at best, but one they were bred to.

In my short life I had lived constantly with war, being born into the midst of Estcarp’s death struggle with Karsten, my mother and father both serving on the border from which the greatest of threats came. I had seen my brothers ride off to battle before they had more than a faint shadow of beard on their cheeks. And I had been impressed thereafter to fighting of a different sort. Since we had fled into Escore, fleeing the wrath of the Wise Women, struggle had been ever sitting on our left hand, sword striking in our right. We had hung arm shields in childhood and we had never been allowed to put them off.

Therefore such a raid now did not come to me as a blow. Had my power been as great as it once had been, I would have used it to encircle the tribe against this ill before I left. I would have brought Bahayi with me had she allowed it. And I thought of Ausu with some regret. But there were no others among the tribe to whom I owed any allegiance, nor whom I would have drawn steel to defend.

My wandering trail came out suddenly under an arch of leafless growth into a wider path, crossing that at an angle.

I guessed that under the drifted snow was a road leading to the point and I turned into it. They might run me down with hounds, the Vupsalls, always providing they won the battle in the village. But if the hounds did lead them here, would they be bold enough to push in after me? I thought not, at least until they had built up their courage somewhat. And since I had proved a poor seeress, they might follow me in revenge, but not for wish of more of my company.

The storm was growing worse and now such winds buffeted me, such veils of snow closed around me, that I grew alarmed. I would have to find some shelter and soon, or else I might fall and be covered with that white harvest, and so end ignominiously.

Brush grew on either side and among it, scarcely to be seen, were dark outcrops. I staggered to one of the nearest and found it to be a pile of rubble, debris of some structure. There was a hollow in it which my searching hands rather than my snow-blinded eyes discovered, and into that I pushed my way.

What I had found was a cave-like space between the tumble of several walls. It gave me the feeling of safety and, as I faced around to explore, the curtain of snow sealed me in. I knew I had done the best that I could for my protection.

Time and wind had deposited dried leaves here. I made good use of them, hollowing out a nest of sorts, pulling them over me when I settled into it. Then I practiced the small art which was part of my inheritance from Utta. I chewed a palmful of herbs and lulled my mind by will.

It was not a true trance—I would not have dared to enter one under such circumstances—but akin to it. In this state the cold meant little to my body; I would not slip into that icy induced sleep from which there was no waking.

I was aware of where I lay, of the dark and storm, but it was as if all that had no meaning, as if I had withdrawn into a small portion of my body, leaving the rest lulled into tranquil waiting for an end to outer discord.

There were no dreams. I willed myself to no mental activity such as planning ahead or speculating as to what the next hour, the next morning might bring, for that would break the spell I was using as a buffer between me and the ills of exposure. This was endurance only, and one who had lived long in the Place of Silence knew how to hold steady in that state.

Toward morning the wind slackened. Snow had drifted against the door of my pocket, so that I had view of only a small slice outside. It was enough to tell me that the storm was past, or else in lull.

I pulled out of my nest and took out some of the dried meat that was pounded with berries and hardened into cakes. One had to suck this rather than chew it, lest one’s teeth splinter. With some in my mouth I shouldered my pack and started out.

Only the lines of brush protruding above the snow marked the outline of the old road, and this was a series of drifts, with wind scoured places in between. To wallow through the drifts was exhausting and I tried that for only a short time, then sought a way nearer the brush.

The struggle left me panting and blowing. And, in spite of my struggle to keep well aware of my direction, it was not long before the labor of merely walking, or rather skidding, slipping and falling, filled most of my world.

So it was that I nearly died. But the ice and snow which was my bane also was my enemy’s. Ayllia, instead of impaling me neatly on her hunting knife as she aimed to do, lost her footing, struck against me, carrying us both down into a smother of drift where I floundered free in time to meet her scrambling rush, prepared to kick the knife from her hand and send her sprawling a second time. The knife was gone, lost in the deep snow now furrowed by our scuffling. But she was at me with nails and fists in a whirlwind of fury, and I had to defend myself as best I could.

A hard cuff to the side of her head sent her down again. And this time I followed, kneeling over her, holding her down while she squirmed and spat and showed her teeth like a frantic animal.

I summoned my scraps of willpower, beamed them at her with all the decision I had in me, and at last she lay quiet under my hold. But in the stare she used to meet my eyes there was hot hate.

“He is dead!” She mouthed that as if it were both an accusation and an oath. “You killed him!”

Ifeng—had he meant that much to her then? I was a little surprised. Perhaps all my life I had depended too much on mind talk. I had not learned to judge people well by other signs as must those who do not have the ability. It had been my thought that Ayllia loved her place as second wife (perhaps almost first wife since Ausu’s condition left her mainly a figurehead in Ifeng’s tent) rather than the chief who had given it to her. But perhaps I had so wronged her and it was a true grief which had driven her to hunt down one who, by her reasoning, had as much blood debt as the raider who had actually loosed the ax to cut her husband down.

With some hatreds there is no reasoning and if Ayllia had gone past the point where I could reach her with logic, then I was given a burden I did not know how to solve. I could not kill nor disable the girl and leave her here; I was certainly not going to return to the tribe; and to go on with an unwilling prisoner was a very unhappy third choice.

“I did not kill Ifeng,” I said with what reasoning force I could summon, seeking to impress also her mind.

“You—” she spat. “Utta was his shield; she foresaw rightly. He believed you do likewise. He depended upon you!”

“I never claimed to have Utta’s powers,” I told her. “Nor did I by choice choose to serve—”

“True!” she interrupted. “You wanted free of us! So you let the raiders come so you could run while they let their swords drink! You are a dark one—”

Her words bit into me as if they were the sharp edge of one of the blades she spoke of. I had wanted above all to escape the tribe; had I unconsciously therefore betrayed them to that purpose? Had I not remembered to consult the answer runes, take other precautions, because I wanted them rendered helpless? Dinzil had served the Shadow, and under his influence I had come very close to such deeds as would have damned me forever. Did the taint of that linger deep in me, rendering me now liable to such cold choices as Ayllia had accused me of?

I had been so keen on regaining my powers—for my own gain—as now I saw. And there is a balance in such things. Used for ill, good becomes ill, and that effect snowballs until even when one desires it greatly one cannot summon good, only something scarred and disfigured by the Shadow. Was I so maimed that from now on when I did aught with what I had in me it would injure others?

Yet one who has the Power is also constrained to make use of it. Such action comes as naturally as breathing. When I had been emptied of it I was a ghost thing, a shell walking through a life I could not feel or touch. To live I must be me, and to be me I must have what was my birthright. Yet if that also made me a monster who carried a fringe of the Shadow ever with me—

“I wanted my freedom, yes,” I said now, and I was as much seeking an answer for myself as for Ayllia. “But I will swear on the Three Names that I meant no ill to you and yours. Utta kept me captive, even after her death, by her arts. Only lately was I able to break the bonds she used. Listen, if you were taken by raiders, kept a bondmaid in their camp, would you not use the means to freedom when it lay ready to your hands? I did not bring the enemy upon you, and I never had the means of clear foresight Utta controlled. She did not teach it to me. Ifeng came to me just before they struck; I used the answer runes and gave him warning—”

“Too late!” she cried.

“Too late,” I agreed. “But I am not of your blood, nor sworn to your service. I had the need for freedom—”

Whether I could have made her understand I do not know, but at that moment there came a brazen sound, carrying. She tensed in my grasp; her head swung to look back down the drifted road where the marks of our scuffle broke the smooth dunes of snow.

“What is it?”

“The sea hounds!” She signaled for silence and we listened.

That keening was answered from our right, to the west. There were already two groups and we might well be caught between them. I got to my feet to look ahead. There was no sun, but, though the day was cloudy, it was clear enough. Ahead was the beginning of the cape ruins and there my mind visualized many hiding places. It would take an army in patient search to find us there. I held out a hand, caught at Ayllia’s wrist and drew her up beside me.

“Come!”

She was quick enough to agree and we pushed on for a step or two until she realized that our way led to that pile of buildings Utta had warned against. Seeing that, she would have fled, I think, had not the horn sounded closer from the west. The east was now walled against us by so thick a hedge of thorny growth as would need a fire to eat a path for us.

“You—you would kill—” She tried to break my grip. But barbarian though she was, tough and bred to struggle and warfare, she could not free my hold. And, as I propelled her along, the horns sounded again, much nearer.

There is bred into all of us a fear of such flights, so that once we began that retreat fear grew, swallowing up lesser terrors. Thus now it was with Ayllia, for she struggled no more, but rather hastened for the dark pile promising us refuge.

As we went I told her what I believed possible, that such ruins could not be easily combed and we would have a hundred hiding places to choose from until our pursuers would give up and leave us alone. In addition I assured her that, though my powers were crippled when compared to Utta’s, they were still strong enough to give us fair warning of all Shadow evil.

I half feared, though this I did not tell her, that this might be wholly a place of the Shadow and so barred to us. Yet Utta had gone here and had returned. And a Wise Woman would not have risked all she was by venturing into a cesspool of ancient evil.

The road we followed led us between two towering gates. Their posts were surmounted by figures of fearsome nightmare creatures. As we set foot between those pillars on which they crouched there was a loud roaring. Ayllia cried out and would have fled, but I stood firm against her, shaking her sharply until a portion of her fear subsided and she listened to me—for such devices I knew of old. One of Es City’s gates was so embellished. It was the ingenuity of their makers, since it was caused by the wind blowing through certain cunningly set holes.

I do not know whether she believed me. But the fact that I stood unshaken and that the creatures, in spite of the roaring, gave no sign of clambering down to attack us, seemed to reassure her so I could pull her on again.

Once within the gates some of the need for haste left me and I went more slowly, though I did not pause, and my grasp on Ayllia did not slacken. Unlike the village, these were not ruins, though, as in Es City, one had the feeling of long aging, as if many centuries weighed upon the massive stones, driving them yet farther into the earth. They did not crumble, only took on a patina of eternal, unchanging existence.

The outer walls were very thick, and seemed to have rooms or spaces within, for the passage through showed grilled openings on either side. Perhaps at some time guardians not human had lived there, for each had the appearance of a cage.

Then we were in a paved way which sloped up to the mighty pile of high towers and many rings of walls which was the heart of the whole city or fortress. Perhaps it had been a city, for between the outer gates and the inner core of castle many buildings were crowded. Now they turned dead window eyes, gaping mouths of doors, to us. Here and there, standing among the paving blocks, was a wizened, withered stalk of weed. Pockets of snow added to the dreariness of long desertion.

The stones were all uniformly gray, lighter than those of Es City. But above each door was a spot of mute color my eyes delighted in—the blue sheen of those stones which, throughout Escore, stood for protection against all which abode in the darkness we feared most. Whatever this stronghold had been, it had sheltered once those with whom I could have walked in safety.

Now I was conscious of something else: this street, sloping gently upward to a second pair of gates marking the keep, was somehow familiar to me, as if I now walked a way I had known of old and half forgotten. But it was not until we reached the second gate and I saw what was carved in the blue stone above it that I knew. There was the wand and the sword laid together. And this was the way I had walked in my dream when I had watched the opening of the gate.

Nor could I turn aside now and not complete my journey, for we were both drawn forward, following the same tracing of ways I remembered from the dream. I heard Ayllia give a small frightened cry, but when I looked at her her eyes were set and she moved as one under compulsion. That pull was on me, too, but not to the same extent, perhaps. I recognized it for the attraction of Power to Power. Whatever that adept had wrought here in the long ago had left a core of energy which would not be gainsaid.

As we went our pace grew faster, until we were half running. We entered doors, threaded corridors, crossed lesser rooms and halls, in greater and greater haste. Nor had Ayllia made another sound since her first cry.

We came at last into a high walled chamber, which must have been taller than a single story of that massive inner bailey. And, as we entered, it was into life, not dreary death. The weight of countless years felt elsewhere was lighter. There was a sense of awareness and energy, so strong it would seem the very air about us crackled with it.

Along the walls near us there were still some furnishings. Tapestries hung, their pictured surfaces now dim, but woven with such skill that here and there a face of man or monster peered forth with the brightness of a mirrored reflection, as if they were really mirrors and creatures invisible to us, marching up and down eternally viewing themselves on the surface of the cloth.

There were carved chests with symbols set in their lids. And those I knew for the keep-safes of record rolls. Perhaps it was from one like these that Utta had plundered her two. To go to the nearest, lift the lid and look upon such treasures was a vast temptation. But instead I linked hands with Ayllia and drew her with me in a slow circuit around the wall of that vast room, not venturing out upon the middle portion which was so clear and empty. But there was light enough to show the designs set in colored stones and metal strips which covered most of its surface.

Deeply inlaid, not just drawn for a single ceremony, were the pentagrams, the magic circles, all the greater and lesser seals, the highest of the pentacles. These lay a little out from our path around the walls. But beyond these symbols which were keys to so much knowledge were vaguer lines, not so well defined—as if when one advanced toward the center of the hall one advanced in knowledge, and concrete symbols were no longer needed as guides. Of those I did not know so many, and those I recognized had small differences from the ones I had seen before.

This might almost have been a school for the working of Power, such as the Place of Silence. But so much greater was this, and such suggestions did I read in those vague lines near the center, that I thought those who labored here might well look upon the Wise Women of Es as children taking their first uncertain steps.

No wonder a sensation of life lingered here. The stones of the walls behind these mirrored tapestries, those under our feet, must have been soaked in centuries upon centuries of radiation from Power; so that, inanimate though they were they now reflected what had beat on them so long.

We were a good distance from the door we had entered when I noted the chairs set out on the patterned floor. They were more thrones than chairs, for each rose above the surface of the pavement on three steps, and each was fashioned of the blue stone, having deep-set runes which glowed faintly, as if in their depths fire smoldered, unwilling to die.

They had wide arms and high, towering backs in which were set the glowing symbols. Laid across the seat of the middle one was an adept’s wand, as if left there only for a few moments while its owner went on an errand elsewhere.

The symbol in the back of that chair was one I had seen on the seals, the broken bridge, the door of this citadel—the wand and the sword. And I was sure it stood for the man—or more than man—under whom this pile had held domination over the countryside. I did not doubt that this had been the principal seat of some ruler.

As I glanced at the chair I again remembered the details of my dream. This was where he had sat to watch the glowing presence of the gate he had opened. What had happened then? Had he, as legend told us was true of so many of the adepts, gone through his gate to seek what lay on the other side?

Now I looked past the chair, seeking for some trace of the gate itself, so vividly had the dream returned to my mind. Where that arch had presented itself there was bare pavement; no symbols, not even the vaguest, were discernible on the floor. Had the master of this hall indeed reached a point where he needed none at all for the molding of energy? I had thought the Wise Women, then Dinzil, represented heights of such manipulation. But I guessed that had I met the sometime master of that third and middle chair I would have been as Ayllia, as Bahayi, one simple and lost. And in me that was a new feeling, for though I had been emptied of much which had once been mine, I could remember how it had been at my command. However, here I was conscious of something else, the belief that all I had ever learned would be only the first page of the simplest of runes for the master of gates.

Realizing that, I suddenly felt very small and tired, and awed, though the hall was empty and what I reverenced was long gone. I glanced to Ayllia, who at least was human and so of my kind. She stood where I had left her when my hand dropped from her arm. Her face had a strange emptiness, and I knew a flash of concern. Had bringing her here, into a place where such a vast residue of Power was still to be sensed, blasted her as I with my safeguards need not fear? Had I again, in my stubborn self-centeredness worked evil?

I put my hands gently to her shoulders, turned her a little to look into her eyes, used my seeking to touch her mind. What I sensed was not the blasting I had feared, but a kind of sleep. And I thought this was her defense, perhaps it would continue to work as long as we lingered here.

However it was well to go now lest that seeping of old Power was cumulative and would enslave us.

But to go was like wading through a current striving to sweep us in the opposite direction. To my alarm I discovered that there was an unseen current rising and that it swept around that third chair as if its goal lay somewhere near where I had seen the gate.

Ayllia yielded to it readily before I was fully aware that we might be in real peril. I had to grasp her tightly, pull her back, though her body strained away from me, her eyes stared unseeingly at that central emptiness. The arm I did not grasp swung out, the fingers of her hand groping blindly as if to seek some hold which would aid her to pull out of my determined grip.

I set up my mental safeguards. I was not strong enough to put a wall about both our minds, but if I could hold, surely I could keep Ayllia with me, work us both out of the hall. Beyond the door I thought we would be safe.

Only now it was all I could do to hold against that drag. And Ayllia pulled harder and harder until we were both behind the middle seat and I could have put my hand to its high back. There was the wand on the seat—could I snatch it up as we reached that point? And if so, what could I gain? Such rods of Power were weapons, keys governing shafts to be used in spells. But they also were the property of one seeker alone. What could I gain by trying to use it? Still, it remained so sharply in the fore of my mind that I knew it had some great importance, was not to be lightly overlooked in my present need.

We were level with the seat now. I must make my move to seize the wand or be pulled out of reach, for Ayllia was beginning to struggle against my hold and soon I must keep both hands on her.

I hesitated for a second and then took the chance. With a sharp jerk I dragged Ayllia closer to the chair, took the first step in a single stride, and groped for the end of the rod with my left hand.