The Warding of Witch World

20 By Moon Power, In the Waste

The smell of the vegetation, the bushes against which he had to push, the mosslike growth underfoot, began to make him feel queasy. Certainly, though he could readily now pick up the scent of water not far ahead, this strange vegetation might not provide suitable forage for their horses, and the scant store of grain they had been able to carry was not more than enough to share out in a handful or two.

Then his pads felt more solid footing and he paused. Feline night sight was better than that of humans—he had no difficulty making out the fact that he had come upon a road, one which had been smoothly paved. Yet under the limited light its surface was dark in color.

At the same time the water scent was overpowered by a whiff of something else. He smelled a fire—and beasts—and men! He sent a sharp warning back to Aylinn but she already had a message for him also.

Firdun says there are wards…

Kethan was swiftly off the road. There was a massed thicket of some kind to his right and he made a quick detour, concealing himself behind it. Once there, he dropped until his belly fur nearly scraped the moss and advanced with the same caution he would have used in stalking a very wary pronghorn watch bull.

His hunters skills brought him to a second thicket. Now the water scent was very sharp, drawing him until animal will and man will nearly locked.

However, there was a further warning ahead: the glow of fire. A moment later he crouched behind a screen of flower-laden plants which edged a pool—and a screen which was no work of nature.

It was stone-walled, with intervals where that wall was cut away as if to give better access to the water. The fire he could sight lay to his right and was undoubtedly the core of a camp.

Beast senses could give him one report, but Kethan was well aware that in some cases human knowledge and reaction was the better. Lying where he was, he made the change.

His vision was lessened and also his ability to scent, but to his sight now those by the fire were sharply individuals and not just members of a species.

Some of the party, early as it was, were already enwrapped in their sleep padding. He could sight none of the ungainly mounts those of Garth Howell favored. They might well be tethered some distance away. At least as he now was, no pard scent would arouse them—if they could be aroused by such.

By the fire itself sat two as tightly encased in armor as if they meant at any moment to attack, and he suspected that these were the knights he had heard reference to. Across from them were three others. Two wore brown traveling robes such as mages favored and the hoods of those were so drawn forward over their heads that he could not see their faces.

The third made no such attempt to disguise his identity. Kethan, remembering well Firdun’s repeated tale of his captivity on the Dragon Crest, was sure that this was the leader of that foul crew. Yet his face was serenely handsome—also the firelight appeared to center upon him now and then as if to make clear that such a one sat there.

He looked young—but with the Old Race (if he were of that blood) there were very few signs of aging. Certainly he had the air of one whose smallest wish had never gone ungranted. Though he was not speaking now, rather sitting looking at the fire—or in some strange way below it—he slipped back and forth between his fingers a wand, shorter than most sages carried, but suggesting it had been fashioned of much richer material.

Suddenly, with the speed of a hawk’s swoop, he struck out with that rod against the fire. The flames seemed to huddle together for an instant and Kethan saw those others gathered there edge hastily back.

Kethan could only guess what the stranger intended, but caution made him reach in search of Aylinn. Ward also!

The flames had begun to circle, spiral, at the same time drawing more tightly into a column. Now Kethan could catch the rhythm of a chant, so low it was not more than a murmur (though it awakened uneasiness) and he could not distinguish any words.

Now the flames stiffened and held; Power must have melded them so. Then that column split open. But to Kethan’s despair he could not see to the other side. He had no idea what the mage now faced. Nor dared he move to better his view for the few very long moments that held so.

But the serene arrogance was gone from the young mage’s face as if it had been wiped with a rough hand. His eyes were redly murderous as the fire became once more only leaping flames.

Now he was on his feet in one light movement and apparently giving orders. Those asleep were roused. They were apparently about to break camp. Had they learned of their followers and were going for an attack?

Kethan fed to Aylinn in as few words as possible what he saw. They were bringing those noisome lizard-horse mounts out of the Dark, seeing to the packs which burdened a couple of them. The young mage busied himself drawing patterns in the air with the point of his wand.

Where that sudden warning came from Kethan never knew, unless it was part of his ancient heritage. But as speedily as he could, he shifted. Pard lay where man had crouched.

Those patterns in the air whirled the wilder and started shooting off sparks which flitted out into the gloom of the now-descended night as if they were winged. Three shot over the end of that large pool in his direction. But they did not pause as they passed over him and at last puffed into nothingness some distance behind. If the mage had thought to uncover a spy so, his Power was not aimed at weres.

However, he was the last to get to saddle and he looked back with a careful survey of the pool and its surroundings from the north end where their camp had been.

Kethan continued to lie where he was, but his report went to Aylinn.

They went north. Circle and come in from the south. Let Firdun test—I cannot pick up any wards.

They had left the fire burning, but now it was flickering. Kethan longed to cast in that direction, but against a mage—a mage from Garth Howell—he might not have defenses.

He did edge toward one of those openings left in the rim of the pool to sniff at the flood below. To his pard sense it was no more nor less than water and fairly fresh, not stagnant as one might expect in these circumstances.

But he would await Aylinn’s decision, for no healer could be mistaken about such things. Now he could hear movement from the dark behind. Best make his change before the Kioga horses would scent him. He arose from the matted moss and slipped into the bushes.

The moon was up now and there were silver flashes moving toward him. Aylinn must have tried to cover up her Power ornaments, but the motion of riding let them gleam through now and then. He was quickly at her side.

“Ibycus?”

“He has not roused. I must speedily call up the Power to awaken him.”

“But those from Garth Howell—the mage—Power calls to Power and they will know.”

“Firdun will ward and so will Elysha. She is more perhaps than we think her, Kethan. For a long time she was Ibycus’s apprentice and I think perhaps his near equal.”

The south end of the clearing was a surprise. For here was not only the pool which had been fashioned to service, but columns of slender pillars, each deeply engraven. Aylinn held her moon wand high as the rest of the party joined them, the inert body of the mage still slung between two horses most carefully led by the Kioga.

There was no reaction to Aylinn’s gesture. Kethan himself could sense no power. Whatever this place had been in the past, it was no fane to any strength that was greater than its builders.

They had no intention of building a fire. Ibycus was settled on a deep mat between two of the columns. Aylinn having declared the water fit, the Kioga led the animals one by one down, seeing that they did not overdrink. But the rest of them gathered around Ibycus, save for Firdun and Elysha, who disappeared quickly into the night, intent on their warding.

It was not until they returned that Aylinn dropped her cloak and stood in her kilt of silver moons, strung so that with every movement of her slender body they gave off a faint chiming. The crescent moon in her hair, the full disk which lay between her breasts appeared to draw an aura of cold clean light about her. She beckoned to Elysha.

“Of us all, Lady, you have known him the longest and he may so answer to you sooner.”

With only a nod, Elysha slipped down beside the mage and placed her hands carefully, one on his brow and one on his breast heart high.

Aylinn’s chant was half song. The moon was well across the sky, yet its gleams were still centering on her. From the flowers on her staff came the perfume of their night blooming. Her petition must be very old, delivered in the nearly forgotten word lore she had learned in Linark, for Kethan could not understand; perhaps only Elysha among them did.

The Kioga and Firdun had withdrawn to the edge of that columned run and Kethan followed. This was women’s Power and it was best that they be left to it. Meanwhile, Kethan described those he had seen by the fire and the mage’s weird confrontation with the rise of its flame.

He knew that perhaps it was his duty to once more go hunting the trail to the north of the pool, but he was near to the end of both strengths, pard and human, and it would do him no good to waver when he should be at his most alert.

In the end they decided that Obred and Lero would circle around on foot, not venturing too far away from the pool, to seek any traces of that swift withdrawal.

“I do not believe, somehow,” Firdun said, “that that warning from the fire, if warning it was, concerns us. This mage is certainly of high rank, and with this talk we have heard of gates set free, he must be going to search for such.”

The slow, soft chant ceased, for the moon was now too low to fire Aylinn’s power. But Elysha raised her head and there was a look of triumph in her face.

“Ibycus—Neevor.” She called by both the names he had carried through the years. “Awake—the battle is done.”

The light had grayed enough so that Firdun could see the eyes in that pale set face open, gaze straight up at the woman bending over him.

“Elysha?” Ibycus’s voice was frail, as if all the years which must lie behind him had drained the full timber from it.

“The same, Lord Mage. You are safely back with us again, since this moon daughter has sung you home.”

His eyes shifted from her to Aylinn, and now he smiled. “Strong is your Power, Daughter of Reeth Tower. For indeed I was far away before you recalled me.”

It was light enough for them to see that the pavement under them, the columns, were of a rose shade, against which the growth about looked darker still, yet in the same hue.

Elysha helped him sit up and now he pulled away from her, as one determined to care for himself. Gazing around at the pool, the columned stretch beside it, he held out his hand and stared intently at his ring. But the stone was lifeless again.

Yet his head went up and he drew a deep breath as he now faced the northern end of the pool.

“The Shadow servers!”

“Be quiet and rest.” Elysha’s hand closed tightly on Ibycus’s shoulder, striving to push him back upon his mat.

“Do not play the fool, Elysha, when you are not. Evil has drawn a slime trail here—even though it be gone. And of what kind was it?” With every word he spoke, his voice became deeper and more assured, and it was very plain that the Ibycus they knew was truly returned to them. It was Kethan who came forward and gave him the full story, the mage’s set gaze boring into him as if making sure no scrap of memory was overlooked.

“Fire…” he said slowly when Kethan was done. “Fire can cleanse, fire can kill, it can answer both to Light and Dark. Whatever that one summoned, he is more than we thought he might be. Garth Howell has troubled strange waters to bring forth such knowledge, nor will they be the better for it in the end.”

“It might be well not to push so close on the heels of those,” Fir-dun cut in.

Ibycus scratched his short-trimmed beard. “There speaks your father’s son. The Gryphon breed were ever warriors and more conquering than conquered. Yes, we shall give them a day, perhaps two. I think that they are still afar from what they seek. This…” He looked about him.

“Ah, where are you, Gweytha, now, I wonder? Your court stands well against time, even though you no longer reign here. There is no shadow remaining—we may eat and drink of the bounty of one long since withdrawn.”

Kethan slept, though he had not intended any long rest, and he knew that Aylinn was curled in the same surrender among the folds of travel cloak to which Elysha had drawn her after they had eaten.

To their near-tasteless ration cakes they added berries, deep red and luscious, bursting with juice, which both Aylinn and Ibycus had assured them held nothing noxious, while the horses cropped eagerly of the moss sod.

With the coming of the sun there also appeared birds, strange in color, fearless as they hopped about the travelers in their resting places among the columns.

Firdun awoke at a touch on his shoulder and looked up at Guret.

“The scouts have returned, Lord. Those who left did not try to hide their trail but have gone swiftly, as if to reach their goal was more important than to beware of followers.”

“Which may mean they feel they have no reason to fear us.” Firdun yawned away the rest of his desire for sleep. Or else, he thought more glumly, they expected such a welcome where they went as would effectively dispose of any trackers.

He saw Ibycus now, standing by the pool curbing. Gathered around the mage were a flock of mixed birds. There were tall, stilt-legged waders, certainly meant to spend their days walking through pools, contrasting in size with small puffs of feather well able to fit in the palm of his own hand.

For the most part their coloring was in shades of rose, but there were a few pure white. And he saw one a startling and vivid blue green. That one perched boldly on the peak of Ibycus’s cap as if in charge of the company. Oddly enough, under the sun the pavement, the curbing of the pool, and the columns beside where Fir-dun had bedded down seemed to emit a rosy haze, almost if a setting sun had altered the blue of the sky. He wondered at the use of this place even as he donned his mail. Though he was aware of a very faint whisper of Power here, he was sure nothing could summon it again. What had given it energy was long since gone.

Then he started and a moment later laughed at himself. That he had seen a pard loop away between columns was not strange. Kethan must have also awakened and assumed his were shape. But he was padding steadily away from the company, and not turning north as if about to verify the trail of those others; it was as if he had another goal in view.

Thus Firdun also looked southward. They had faced two of the strange places of the Waste. By report and rumor there were infinitely more. Was Kethan under orders from Ibycus or now drawn to some discovery on his own?

No one mentioned his going as they gathered for their meal and Firdun was oddly disinclined to ask. Aylinn awakened late and did not join them, still gathering her talent strength, though the coming of the night should restore her.

He knew generally of moon power, of course, though none of the four women of the Gryphon followed that path. It was one of the oldest of the talents, but it was growing thin—he had heard that fewer and fewer were born with that trait.

It was true though the Mantle holds were each settled by those of the Old Race and there were healers and wise women, and even female sages and mages to be found, such Powers were not avidly sought and those who held them became in time estranged from their clans and after a fashion kinless, living only for the Power.

Yet in this girl out of Reeth he had sensed none of that withdrawal and certainly her ties, from what he had heard during their journeying, were as tightly kin bound to those of the Green Tower as he was to the Gryphon.

Elysha was more his idea of one of the Greater Talent; still, in some ways she in turn was bonded with Ibycus, whether that mage wished it or not.

On impulse he picked up one of the big leaves they had put to basket use and which still held a good number of berries, carrying it over to Aylinn.

She looked up, seemed a little startled, and then smiled.

“Greetings to you, my lord, and thanks for your thoughtfulness. It is true that one wakes always with hunger when the Power is evoked.”

“My name is Firdun.” Suddenly it was important to him that titles or honors be forgotten. After all, in this company they stood equal, each with his or her own duties.

Now she laughed, a giggle such as Hyana would give before accusing him of being pompous. She had crammed a goodly handful of berries into her mouth as if indeed her hunger had overridden all daintiness of manners. A small trickle of juice showed at the corner of her mouth and she licked that in.

“Firdun it shall be—even as with Aylinn. Are we all not kin in the Light?”

She made a small gesture and he squatted on his heels, Kioga style, to bring them closer together.

“I do not know your way of Power,” he began hesitatingly, not quite sure even yet why he had approached her so.

Again she laughed. “Strange would it be if you did. It is woman Power—like unto the teaching of Gunnora. Is not your sister Hyana one of the healing faith?”

“A healer, yes, but she learned much from the Lady Sylvya and she is—”

“Not of our blood or breed.” Aylinn nodded. “My mother heals and she is of witch blood from overseas. My father is were. Or so we believed for many years until Kethan came to us and we learned that evil had wrought at our united birthing—I being truly daughter to a hold lord and he son of those who had always fostered me. Now we are truly brother and sister. Still the talent arose in me when I was very young and my mother fostered it—sending me to Linard of the healers for learning. But their First Lady found that I was Moon-touched also and thus—” she had dropped the berry-stained leaf Elysha had shared with her and now made a small gesture, “I am what I am—and I am well content.”

Her eyes were full upon him, gray he had thought them in the daylight, yet with some of the moon glimmer in them. And they saw!

He wanted to twist away—not to face that weighing.

“You see yourself flawed.” She spoke plainly. “Flaws can be turned from ill to well if they are examined closely.”

He wanted to break that eye bondage, but he could not—and not because she held him in any encirclement as Elysha had done.

“I ward,” he said slowly, “because I threw away my chance to meld. There are those of the Gryphon and there is… me. Though I was but a child, I let in evil, and from that came great grief and my loss.”

“You are—” she was beginning, when suddenly her eyes went wide and no longer kept him captive. But her hand groped to catch his arm in a bruising hold. “Kethan!”

Though she spoke that name as hardly more than a whisper, it sounded like a shout. Firdun gained his feet, alert as he would have been to a Kioga battle horn, bringing her with him. For a moment or two she clung to him.

“Kethan!” she cried again.

If there had been some mind-send, Firdun had not caught it. But now Aylinn loosed her hold on him and, paying no attention to the gear scattered about, whistled. There came a clatter of hooves between the columns as the were mounts answered.

“What—” but he had no time to frame a question. Those about them were astir, but none close enough to catch her before she mounted the bare back of the mare and the beast whirled, the stallion keeping equal pace out and away to the south.

Ibycus pounded his staff on the pavement. “The young fool,” he snapped. “No, we cannot put that name to him, for what he follows is born of nature even if it be used by another.”

“Do we ride?” Guret could have been speaking either to Firdun or the mage. Behind him the camp was completely astir, packing with speed.

“There is no choice, even though it draws us farther from our trail,” was the mage’s answer.

But Firdun had already run to saddle his own mount. He took the time to arm himself, resenting each lost moment. Also he beckoned to Obred and ordered that the Kioga move out.

He had scouted enough with the tribesmen to be able to follow the trail which Aylinn had certainly made no attempt to conceal. Now already the columns were behind and he was watching those prints ground into the moss which were his guide.

That some danger had struck at the were, he had no doubt. He had no idea what talent the other could call upon in defense past his shapechanging. As a pard he could be prey for any hunter—even though this land seemed bare of any but the smallest game.

There was a copse of trees and then beyond, the open. Once more the odd reddish tint of the ground was changing until it ended abruptly in a band of the same baked clay over which they had earlier traveled. Save this was not open ground but a maze of rocky outcrops, slimed by the droppings of a huge flock of black birds, their naked raw red heads outstretched to the full as they cried out in a rising din.

Riding back and forth before this broken barrier was Aylinn, Kethan’s stallion faithfully at Morna’s heels. It was as if the girl were trying to force her way past a wall…

A warding!

Firdun’s mind-probe met a will-barrier so tight that the recoil actually caused him a small measure of pain. He had never struck against such before—though he had never really tried to pierce clear to the heart of Garth Howell’s defenses.

Now he rode to catch up with the girl, turning his mount so that she was forced to pull in her mare.

“There is a warding—

“As if that is not plain!” She almost snarled at him as if some of the were blood was also hers. “Yet look—

She pointed down to the yellow soil and Firdun caught plain sight of the tracks. Cat—pard—Kethan must have come this way.

The birds which had continued to circle and scream above the rocks now began to venture out toward them and the party which had ridden on their trail.

“Rus!” Elysha spat out. “This is their nesting place. But why?” She was leaning forward in the saddle and had caught sight of the pard tracks. Then under her guidance her horse sidled back a fraction, the rest of them withdrawing to give her room.

She dropped her reins and her mount stood statue-still. Raising both hands, with the gemmed wrists purple fire in the sun, she began to move them back and forth, gesturing as one might to draw a curtain.

There was a haze over those rock pinnacles now. The birds withdrew in frenzied flight, probably alighting somewhere beyond, since they were no longer on the wing.

Elysha’s groping gestures grew wider until with them her arms moved apart to their farthest extent. If she strove to sweep away that growing haze, her efforts worked in exactly the opposite fashion—it was thickening.

Before their eyes now there were no feces-stained rock spires, not even the yellow ground underneath. Elysha spoke a single word Firdun had never heard. They were looking at an entirely different stretch of country as if the sere desert land had never existed.

Here was the welcome green of newly growing grass, gem-studded with flowers of yellow and red wide open under the sun. And there was also a path of gravel as silver white as a moonbeam.

The path wove back and forth and around but eventually it reached not the forbidding walls of a keep, but rather the timber and plaster side of what might have been a Dales inn of the best sort. Around and over the door of the inn was an arch, vine-covered and boasting blood-red flowers.

All the while there seemed to flow toward them from that green and gracious land a welcome which grew stronger with every breath they drew until Firdun came alive to the danger.

“Glamorie!” Not a word—but a trap, even as Elysha’s castle had drawn him. Firdun wheeled his mount between that lure and his companions, even crowding against Aylinn’s mare to force the animal back.

Elysha let her arms fall. The fair country they looked upon was once more the filthy roosting place of the rus and those birds were rising again to circle and scream.