Three Against the Witch World

XI

THERE WAS A curving wall to my left, and, a little way from that saucer-like slope, a pool which bubbled lazily, a pool of the same red mud hardened upon my body. I turned my head slowly to the left: again there was the wall and farther beyond another pool, its thick substance churning. It was day—light enough, though there were clouds veiling the sun. I could hear the soft plop-plop as the pool blew bubbles and they broke.

Then came another sound, a plaintive mewling which held in it such a burden of pain that it awoke my own memories, hazy though they now tended to be. On the rim of the saucer something stirred and pulled itself laboriously along. It gathered in a back-arched hump and each movement was so constrained and awkward that I knew the creature was sorely injured.

It slid over the concave slope, uttering a sharp yowl of hurt. A snow cat! The beautiful gray-white of its thick fur was dabbled with blood. There was an oozing rent in its side, so deep I thought I could see the white of bone laid bare. But still the cat crawled, its eyes fixed on the nearest pool, uttering its plaint. With a last effort of what must have been dying energy it rolled into the soft mud, plastering its hurt and most of its body. Then it lay still, now facing me, panting, its tongue lolling from its jaws, and it no longer cried.

I might have believed the cat dead, save that the heavy panting continued. It did not move again, lying half in the pool of mud as if utterly spent.

My range of vision was very limited; whatever braced my head to give it to me was not high. But I could see other pools in this depression. And by some of them were mounds which could mark other sufferers who had dragged their hurts hither.

Then I realized that all my pain was gone. I had no desire to move, to break the dried covering which immobilized me. For I felt languidly at ease, soothed, a kind of well being flowing through my body.

There were a number of tracks in the dried mud about me, even prints left in that mounded over my body. I tried to see them more clearly. Had it been truth and not a dream, that half-memory of lying here torn and broken while two furred and one scaled creature had worked to pack me under the direction of an ever-changing wraith? But all trace of the latter were missing, save for a hand print which was left impressed, sharp and clear, over the region of my heart.

Slender fingers, narrow palm—yes it was human, no animal pad nor reptile foot. And I tried to remember more clearly the wraith who had been one woman and then another in a bewildering medley of shimmering forms.

The snow cat’s eyes were closed, but it still breathed. Along its body the mud was already hardening into a protective crust. How long—for the first time the idea of time itself returned to me. Kaththea—Kemoc! How long had it been since I had ridden away from them on that devil’s lure?

My languid acceptance broke as the need for action worked in me. I strove to move. There was no yielding of the dried mud. I was a helpless prisoner, encased in stone hard material! And that discovery banished all my waking content.

I do not know why I did not call aloud, but it never occurred to me to do so. Instead I used the mind call, not to those I had deserted during my bewitchment, but to the wraith, she who might not have any existence at all save in my pain world.

What would you do with me?

There was a scurry. A thing which glinted with rainbow colors skittered across the basin, reared up on hind legs to survey me with bright beads of eyes. It was not any creature I had known in Estcarp, nor was it from one of the legends. Lizard, yes, but more than a mere green-gold reptile. Beautiful in its way. It had paused at my buried feet; now it gave a little leap to the mound which encased me and ran, on its hind legs, up to my head. There it stopped to examine me searchingly. And I knew there was intelligence of a sort in its narrow, pike crested head.

“Greetings, sword brother.” The words came out of me unthinkingly.

It whistled back, an odd noise to issue from that scaled throat. Then it was gone, a green-gold streak heading up and over the rim of the saucer.

Oddly enough its coming and going allayed my first dismay at finding myself a prisoner. The lizard had certainly not meant me harm and neither, I was certain, had those who had left me here. That was apparent by my own present feeling of well-being, and by the actions of the sorely hurt snow cat. This was a place of healing to which an animal would drag itself if it could. And those virtues had been applied to me . . . by whom? The lizard, the furred ones . . . the wraith . . . yes, surely the wraith!

Though I could not smell sorcery as Kaththea could, I was sure no evil abode here—that it was an oasis of some Power. And I was alive only because I had been brought into its beneficent influence. Now I knew by a tingling of my skin, a prickling of my scalp, a little like that excitement which eats one before the order to advance comes, that there was something on the way.

Several of the lizards sped down the saucer side, and behind them, at a less frantic pace, came two of the furred beasts, their hides also of a blue-green shade. Their narrow heads and plumed tails were those of a tree-dwelling animal I knew, but they were much larger than their brothers of Estcarp.

Behind this advance guard and out-scouts she came, walking with a lithesome stride. Her dark hair hung loose about her shoulders—but was it dark? Did it glint with a red hue? Or was it light and fair? To me it seemed all that at one and the same time. She wore a tunic of green-blue close-fitting her body, leaving arms and legs bare. And this garment was girdled by a broad belt of green-blue gems set thickly in pale gold, flexible to her movements. About each slender wrist was a wide band of the same gems, and she carried by a shoulder strap a quiver of arrows, all tipped with blue-green feathers, and a bow of the pale gold color.

One could be far more certain of her garments than of her, since, though I struggled to focus on her face and that floating cloud of hair, I could not be sure of what I saw, that some haze of change did not ever hold between us. Even as she knelt beside me that disorientation held.

“Who are you?” I asked that baldly, for my inability to see her clearly irked me.

Amazingly, I heard her laugh. Her hand touched my cheek, moved to my forehead, and under that touch my vision cleared. I saw her face—or one face—sharply and distinctly.

The features of the Old Race are never to be mistaken: the delicate bones, the pointed chin, the small mouth, larger eyes, arched brows. And she possessed these, making such beauty as to awe a man. But there was also about her a modification which hinted at the unhuman as I knew human. That did not matter—not in the least did it matter.

A warrior knows women. I was no Falconer to foreswear such companionship. But it is also true that some appetites run less deeply with the Old Race. Perhaps the very ancientness of their blood and the fact that the witch gift has set a wedge between male and female makes this so. I had never looked upon any woman whom I wanted for more than a passing hour of pleasure such as the Free Companions of the Sulcar give, finding equal enjoyment of such play. But it was no passing desire which awoke in me as I gazed at that face. No, this was something different, a heightening of the excitement which had built in me as I had sensed her coming, a thing I had never known before.

She laughed and then fell sober once again, her eyes holding mine in a look which was not quite the communication I wished.

“Rather—who are you?” Her demand was swift, almost roughly spoken.

“Kyllan of the House of Tregarth, out of Estcarp,” I replied formally, as I might on delivering a challenge. What was it between us? I could not quite understand. “And you?” For the second time I asked, and now my tone pressed for her reply.

“I have many names, Kyllan of the House of Tregarth, out of Estcarp.” She was mocking me, but I did not accept that mockery.

“Tell me one, or two, or all.”

“You are a brave man,” her silken mockery continued. “In my own time and place. I am not one to be lightly named.”

“Nor will I do it lightly.” From whence had come this word play new to me?

She was silent. Her fingers twitched as if she would lift them from my forehead. And that I feared, lest my clear sight of her be so spoiled.

“I am Dahaun, also am I Morquant, and some say Lady of the Green—”

“—Silences,” I finished for her as she paused. Legend—no! She was alive; I felt the pressure and coolness of her flesh against mine.

“So you know me after all, Kyllan of the House of Tregarth.”

“I have heard the old legends—”

“Legends?” Laughter bubbled once again from her. “But a legend is a tale which may or may not hold a core of truth. I dwell in the here and now. Estcarp—and where is Estcarp, bold warrior, that you know of Dahaun as a legend?”

“To the west, over the mountains—”

She snatched her hand away, as if the touch burnt her fingertips. Once more distortion made her waver in my sight.

“Am I suddenly made so into a monster?” I asked of the silence fallen between us.

“I do not know—are you?” Then her hand was back, and once more she was clear to see. “No, you are not—though what you are I do not know either. That Which Dwells Apart strove to take you with the Keplian, but you were not swallowed up. You fought in a way new to me, stranger. And then I read you for a force of good, not ill. Yet the mountains and what lie behind them are a barrier through which only ill may seep—or so say our legends. Why did you come, Kyllan of the House of Tregarth, out of Estcarp?”

I had no wish to dissemble with her: between us must be only the truth as well as I could give it.

“For refuge.”

“And what do you flee, stranger? What ill have you wrought behind you that you must run from wrath?”

“The ill of not being as our fellows—”

“Yes, you are not one but three—and yet, also one. . . .”

Her words aroused memory. “Kaththea! Kemoc? What—?”

“What has happened to them since you would go ariding the Keplian, thus foolishly surrendering yourself to the very power you would fight? They have taken their own road, Kyllan. This sister of yours has done that which has troubled the land. We do not easily take Witches to our bosoms here, warrior. In the past that served us ill. Were she older in magic, then she would not have been so eager to trouble dark pools which should be left undisturbed in the shadows. So far she has not met that which she cannot face with her own shield and armor. But that state of affairs will not last long—not here in Escore.”

“But you are a Wise One.” I was as certain of that as if I saw the Witch Jewel on her breast, yet I also knew that she was not of the same breed as the rulers of Estcarp.

“There are many kinds of wisdom, as you well know already. Long ago, roads branched here in Escore, and we Green People chose to walk in different ways. Some led us very far apart from one another. But also through the years we learned to balance good against ill, so that there was no inequality to draw new witchcraft in. To do so, even on the side of good, will evoke change, and change may awaken things which have long slumbered, to the ill of all. This has your sister done—as an unthinking child might smite the surface of a pool with a stick, sending ripples running, annoying some monster at ease in the depths. Yet. . .” She pursed her lips as if about to give judgment, and in that small movement lost more of the strangeness which separated us, so that I saw her as a girl, like Kaththea. “Yet, we can not deny to her the right of what she has done; we only wish she had done it elsewhere!” Again Dahaun smiled. “Now, Kyllan of Tregarth, we have immediate things to see to.”

Her hand went from my head to the baked clay over my chest. Down the center of that she scratched a line with the nail of her forefinger, again marking such along my arms and legs.

The creatures that had accompanied her thereupon set to work, clawing away along those lines, working with a speed and diligence which suggested this was a task they had performed many times before. Dahaun got to her feet and crossed to the snow cat, stooping to examine the drying mud, stroking the head of the creature between the eyes and up behind the ears.

Speedy as her servants were, it took them some time to chip me out of my covering. But finally I was able to rise out of the depression which was the shape of my body. My limbs were whole, although scarred with marks of almost-healed hurts I would have thought no man could survive.

“Death is powerless here, if you can reach this place,” said Dahaun.

“And how did I reach this place, lady?”

“By the aid of many strengths, to which you are now beholden, warrior.”

“I acknowledge all debts,” I said, giving the formal reply. But I spoke a little absently, since I looked down upon my nakedness and wondered if I was to go so bare.

“Another debt also I lay upon you.” Amusement became a small trill of laughter. “What you seek now, stranger, you shall find up there.”

She had not moved to leave the wounded cat, merely waved me to the saucer’s rim. The ground was soft underfoot as I hurried up the slope, a couple of the lizards flashing along.

There was grass here, tall as my knees, soft and green, and by two rock pillars a bundle of nearly the same color. I pulled at a belt which held it together and inspected my new wardrobe. The outer wrapping was a green cloak, within garments which seemed at first well tanned and very supple leather, and which I then decided were some unknown material. There were breeches, with attached leggings and booted feet sections, the soles soft and earth-feeling. Above the waist I donned a sleeveless jerkin which latched halfway down my chest by a metal clasp set with one of the blue-green gems Dahaun favored. The belt supported not a sword, but a metal rod about as long as my forearm and a finger-span thick. If it was a weapon, it was like none I had seen before.

The clothing fitted as if it had been cut and sewn for me alone, and gave a marvelous freedom to my body, such as was lacking in the mail and leather of Estcarp. Yet I found my hands were going ever to feel for the arms I did not wear: the sword and dart gun which had been my tools for so long.

With the cloak over my arm I strode back to the edge of the saucer. Now that I could look down upon it I saw that the area was larger than I had thought. A dozen or more of the mud pools were scattered haphazardly about it, and more than one had a patient immobilized—though all of these were animals or birds.

Dahaun still knelt, stroking the snow cat’s head. But now she looked up and waved with her other hand and a moment later arose and came to join me, surveying me with a frankly appraising stare.

“You are a proper Green Man, Kyllan of the House of Tregarth.”

“A Green Man?”

It did not seem so difficult now for me to read her features, though I still could not have given a positive name to the color of her hair or eyes.

“The Green People.” She pointed to the cloak I held. “Though this is only their outer skin that you wear, and not our true semblance. However, it will serve you for what needs be done.” She put her half closed fist to her mouth as had my sister when engaged in sorcery, but the sound she uttered was a clear call, not unlike the high note of a verge horn.

A drumming of hooves brought me around, my hand seeking a weapon I no longer had. Sense told me this was not the stallion that had been my undoing, yet that sound now made my flesh creep.

They came out of the green shadow of a copse, shoulder to shoulder, cantering easily and matching their paces. They were bare of saddle or bridle, but only in that were they like the stallion. For they had not the appearance of true horses at all. More closely allied to the prong-horns, yet not them either, they were as large as a normal mount, but their tails were brushes of fluff they kept clipped tight against their haunches as they moved. There was no mane, but a topknot of fluffy longer hair on the crest of each skull, right above a horn which curved gracefully in a gleaming red arc. In color they were a sleek, roan red, with a creamy under-body. And for all their strangeness I found them most beautiful.

Coming to a stop before Dahaun, they swung their heads about to regard me with large yellow eyes. As with the lizard, they shared a spark of what I realized was intelligence.

“Shabra, Shabrina,” Dahaun said gravely in introduction, and those proud horned heads inclined to me in dignified recognition of their naming.

Out of the grass burst one of the lizards, running to Dahaun, who stopped to catch it up. It sped up her arm to her shoulder, settling there in her hair.

“Shabra will bear you.” One of the horned ones moved to me. “You need have no fears of this mount.”

“He will take me to the river?”

“To those who seek you,” she replied obliquely. “Fortune attend you—good, not ill.”

I do not know why I had expected her to come with me, but I was startled at the suggestion she would not. So abrupt a parting was like the slicing of a rope upon which one’s safety depended.

“You—you do not ride with me?”

She was already astride her mount. Now she favored me with one of those long, measuring stares.

“Why?”

To that I had no answer but the simple truth.

“Because I cannot leave you so—”

“You feel you debt weighing heavily?”

“If owing one’s life is a debt, yes—but there is more. Also, even if there was no debt, still I would seek your road.”

“To do this you are not free.”

I nodded. “In this I am not free—you need not remind me of that, lady. You owe me no debt—the choice is yours.”

She played with one of the long tresses of hair hanging so long as to brush the gems on her belt.

“Well said.” Plainly something amused her and I was not altogether sure I cared for her laughter now. “Also, I begin to think that having seen one out of Estcarp, I would see more—this sister of yours who may have stirred up too much for all of us. So I choose your road . . . for this time. HO!” She gave a cry and her mount leaped with a great bound.

I scrambled up on Shabra and fought to keep my seat as he lunged to catch up with his mate. Sun broke through clouds to light us, and as it touched Dahaun she was no longer dusky. The hair streaming behind her in the wind was the same pale gold of her belt and wristlets, and she blazed with a great surge of light and life.