Witch World

I THE HOLE OF VOLT

Five men lay on the wave-beaten sand of the tiny cup of bay and one of them was dead, a great gash across his head. It was a hot day and shafts of sun struck full on their half-naked bodies. The smell of the sea and the stink of rotting weeds combined with the heat in a tropic exhalation.

Simon coughed, bracing his battered body up on his elbows. He was one great bruise and he was very nauseated. Slowly he crawled a little apart and was thoroughly sick, though there was little enough to be ejected from his shrunken stomach. The spasm shook him into full consciousness, and, when he could control his heaving, he sat up.

He could remember only parts of the immediate past.

Their flight from Sulcarkeep had begun the nightmare. Magnis Osberic’s destruction of the power projector, that core of energy supplying light and heat to the port, had not only blown up the small city but must have added to the fury of the storm which followed. And in that storm the small party of surviving Guards, trusting to the escape craft, had been scattered without hope of course keeping.

Three of those vessels had set out from the port, but their period of keeping together had lasted hardly beyond their last sight of the exploding city. And what had ensued had been sheer terror, for the craft had been whirled, pitched, and finally shattered on coastwise rock teeth in a period of time which had ceased to be marked in any orderly procession of hours and minutes.

Simon rushed his hands over his face. His lashes were matted with a glue of salt water and caught together, making it hard to open his eyes. Four men here — Then he sighted that half crushed head — three men, maybe, and the dead.

On one side was the sea, quiet enough now, washing the tangles of weed ripped loose and deposited on the shore. Fronting the water was a cliff face, broken, with handholds enough, Simon supposed. But he had not the slightest desire to essay that climb, or to move, for that matter. It was good just to sit and let the warmth of the sun drive out the bitter cold of storm and water.

“Saaa…”

One of the other figures on the strand stirred. A long arm swept the sand, pushing away a mass of weed. The man coughed, retched, and raised his head, to stare blearily about. Then the Captain of Estcarp caught sight of Simon and regarded him blankly, before his mouth moved in an effort at a grin.

Koris hunched up, his over-heavy shoulders and arms taking most of his weight as he crawled on hands and knees to a clear space of water-flattened sand.

“It is said on Gorm,” he spoke rustily, his voice hardly more than a croak, “that a man born to feel the weight of the headsman’s ax on his neck does not drown. And, since it has ofttimes been made clear to me that the ax is my fate — see how the oldsters are proven right once again!”

Painfully he moved on to the nearest of the still prone men, and rolled the limp body over, exposing a face which was grey-white under its weathering. The Guardsman’s chest rose and fell with steady breath and he appeared to have no injuries.

“Jivin,” Koris supplied a name, “an excellent riding master.” He added the last thoughtfully, and Simon found himself laughing weakly, pressing his fists against his flat middle where strained muscles protested such usage.

“Naturally,” he got out between those bursts of half-hysterical mirth, “that is an employment most needed now!”

But Koris had gone on to the next intact body.

“Tunston!”

Dimly Simon was glad of that. He had developed, during his short period of life with the Guard in Estcarp, a very hearty respect for that under officer. Making himself move, he helped Koris draw the two still unconscious men above the noisome welter of tide drift. Then clawed his way to his feet with the aid of the rock wall.

“Water—” That sense of well-being which had held him for a short space after his own awakening was gone. Simon was thirsty, his whole body now one vast longing for water, inside and out, to drink and to lave the smarting salt from his tender skin.

Koris shuffled over to examine the wall. There were only two ways out of the cup which held them. To return to the sea and strive to swim around the encircling arms of rocks, or to climb the cliff. And every nerve within Simon revolted against any swimming, or return to the water from which he had so miraculously emerged.

“This is not too hard a path,” Koris said. He was frowning a little. “Almost could I believe that once there were hand holds here and here.” He stood on tiptoe, flattened against the rock, his long arms stretched full length over his head, his fingers fitting into small openings in the cliff wall. Muscles roped and knotted on his shoulders; he lifted one foot, inserted the toe of a boot into a crevice and began to climb.

Giving a last glance at the beach and the two men now well above the pull of the water, Simon followed. He discovered that the Captain was right. There were convenient hollows for fingers and toes, whether made by nature or man, and they led him up after Koris to a ledge some ten feet above the level of the beach.

There was no mistaking the artificial nature of that ledge, for the marks of the tools which had shaped it were still visible. It slanted as a ramp, though steeply, toward the cliff top. Not an easy path for a man with a whirling head and a pair of weak and shaking legs, but infinitely better than he had dared to hope for.

Koris spoke again. “Can you make it alone? I will see if I can get the others moving.”

Simon nodded, and then wished that he had not tried that particular form of agreement. He hugged the wall and waited for the world to stop an unpleasant sidewise spiral. Setting his teeth, he took the upgrade. Most of the journey he made on his hands and knees, until he came out under a curving hollow of roof. Nursing raw hands he peered into what could only be a cave. There was no other way up from here, and they would have to hope that the cave had another opening above.

“Simon!” The shout from below was demanding, anxious.

He made himself crawl to the outer edge of the ledge and look down.

Koris stood there below, his head thrown far back as he tried to see above. Tunston was on his feet, too, supporting Jivin. At Simon’s feeble wave they went into action, somehow between them getting Jivin up the first climb to the ledge.

Simon remained where he was. He had no desire to enter the cave alone. And anyway his will appeared to be drained out of him, just as his body was drained of strength. But he had to back into it as Koris gained the level and faced about to draw up Jivin.

“There is some trick to this place,” the Captain announced. “I could not see you from below until you waved. Someone has gone to great trouble to hide his doorway.”

“Meaning this is highly important?” Simon waved to the cave mouth. “I do not care if it is a treasure house of kings as long as it gives us a chance of reaching water!”

“Water!” Jivin echoed that feebly. “Water, Captain?” he appealed to Koris trustfully.

“Not yet, comrade. There is still a road to ride.”

They discovered that Simon’s chosen method of hands and knees was necessary to enter the cave door. And Koris barely scraped through, tearing skin on shoulders and arms.

There was a passage beyond, but so little light reached this point that they crept with their hands on the walls, Simon tapping before him.

“Dead end!” His outstretched hands struck against solid rock facing them. But he had given his verdict too soon, for to his right was a faint glimmer of light and he discovered that the way made a right-angled turn.

Here one could see a measure of footing and they quickened pace. But disappointment waited at the end of the passage. For the light did not increase and when they came out into an open space, it was into twilight and not the bright sun of day.

The source of that light riveted Simon’s attention and pulled him out of his preoccupation with his own aches and pains. Marching in a straight line across one wall were a series of perfectly round windows, not unlike ship’s portholes. Why they had not sighted them from the strand, for it was apparent that they must be in the outer surface of the cliff, he could not understand. But the substance which made them filtered the light in cloudy beams.

There was light enough, however, to show them only too clearly the single occupant of that stone chamber. He sat at ease in a chair carved of the same stone as that on which it was based, his arms resting upon its broad side supports, his head fallen forward on his breast as if he slept.

It was only when Jivin drew breath in a sound close to a sob, that Simon guessed they stood in a tomb. And the dusty silence of the chamber closed about them, as if they had been shut into a coffer with no escape.

Because he was awed and ill at ease, Simon moved purposefully forward to the two blocks on which the chair rested staring up in defiance at the one who sat there. There was a thick coating of dust on the chair, sifting over the sitter. Yet Tregarth could see that this man — chieftain, priest, or king, or whatever he had been in his day of life — was not allied by race to Estcarp or to Gorm.

His parchment skin was dark, smooth, as if the. artistry of the embalmer had turned it to sleek wood. The features of the half hidden face were marked by great force and vigor with a sweeping beak of nose dominating all the rest. His chin was small, sharply pointed, and the closed eyes were deep set. It was like seeing a humanoid creature whose far distant ancestors had been not primates but avian.

To add to this illusion his clothing, under its film of dust, was of some material which resembled feathers. A belt bound his slim waist and resting across both arms of his chair was an ax of such length of haft and size that Simon almost doubted the sleeper could ever have lifted it.

His hair had grown to a peak-crest, and binding it into an upright plume, was a gem-set circlet. Rings gleamed on those claw fingers resting on ax head and ax haft. And about chair, occupant, and that war ax there was such a suggestion of alien life as stopped Simon short before the first step of the dais.

“Volt!” Jivin’s cry was close to a scream. Then his words became unintelligible to Simon as he gabbled something in another tongue which might have been a prayer.

“To think that legend is truth!” Koris had come to stand beside Tregarth. His eyes were as brilliant as they had been on the night they had fought their way out of Sulcarkeep.

“Volt? Truth?” echoed Simon and the man from Gorm answered impatiently.

“Volt of the Ax, Volt who throws thunders — Volt who is now a bogey to frighten children out of naughtiness! Estcarp is old, her knowledge comes from the days before man wrote his history, or whispered his legends. But Volt is older than Estcarp! He is of those who came before man, as man is today. And his kind died before man armed himself with stick and stone to strike back at the beasts. Only Volt lived on and knew the first men and they knew him — and his ax! For Volt in his loneliness took pity on man and with his ax hewed for them a path to follow to knowledge and lordship before he, too, went from among them.

“In some places they remembered Volt with thanksgiving, though they fear him for being what they could not understand. And in other places they hate with a great hate, for the wisdom of Volt warred against their deep desires. So do we remember Volt with prayers and with cursings, and he is both god and demon. Yet now we four can perceive that he was a living creature, and so in that akin to ourselves. Though perhaps one with other gifts according to the nature of his race.

“Ha, Volt!” Koris flung his long arm up in a salute. “I, Koris, who am Captain of Estcarp and its Guards, give to you greetings, and the message that the world has not changed greatly since you withdrew from it. Still we war, and peace sits only lightly, save that now our night may have come upon us out of Kolder. And, since I stand weaponless by reason of the sea, I beg of your arms! If by your favor we set our faces once more against Kolder, may it be with your ax swinging in the van!”

He climbed the first step, his hand went out confidently. Simon heard a choked cry from Jivin, a hissed breath from Tunston. But Koris was smiling as his fingers closed about the ax haft, and he drew the weapon carefully toward him. So alive did the seated figure seem that Simon half expected the ring laden claws to tighten, to snatch the giant’s weapon back from the man who begged it from him. But it came easily, quickly into Koris’ grasp, as if he who had held it all these generations had not only released it willingly, but had indeed pushed it to the Captain.

Simon expected the haft to crumble into rottenness when Koris drew it free. But the Captain swung it high, bringing it down in a stroke which halted only an inch or so above the stone of the step. In his hands the weapon was a living thing, supple and beautiful as only a fine arm could be.

“My gratitude for life. Volt!” he cried. “With this I shall carve out victories, for never before has such a weapon come into my hands. I am Koris, once of Gorm, Koris the ugly, the ill-fashioned. Yet, under your good wishing, oh. Volt, shall I be Koris the conqueror, and your name shall once more be great in this land!”

Perhaps it was the very timber of his voice which disturbed age-old currents of air; Simon held to that small measure of rational explanation for what followed. For the seated man, or man-like figure, appeared to nod once, twice, as if agreeing to Koris’ exultant promises. Then that body, which had seemed so solid only seconds before, changed in front of their eyes, falling in upon itself.

Jivin buried his face in his hands and Simon bit back an exclamation. Volt — if Volt it had really been — was gone. There was dust in the chair and nothing else, save the ax in Koris’ grip. Tunston, that unimaginative man spoke first, addressing his officer:

“His tour of duty was finished, Captain. Yours now begins. It was well done, to claim his weapon. And I think it shall bring us good fortune.”

Koris was swinging the ax once more, making the curved blade pass in the air in an expert’s drill. Simon turned away from the empty chair. Since his entrance into this world he had witnessed the magic of the witches and accepted it as part of this new life, now he accepted this in turn. But even the acquiring of the fabulous Ax of Volt would not bring them a drink of water nor the food they must have, and he said as much.

“That is also the truth,” Tunston agreed. “If there is no other way out of here then we must return to the shore and try elsewhere.”

Only there was another way, for the wall behind the great chair showed an archway choked with earth and rubble. And they set to work digging that out with their belt knives and their hands for tools. It was exhausting work, even for men who came to it fresh. And only Simon’s new horror of the sea kept him at it. In the end they cleared a short passage, only to front a door.

Once its substance may have been some strong native wood. But no rot had eaten at it, rather it had been altered by the natural chemistry of the soil into a flint hard surface. Koris waved them back.

“This is my work.”

Once more the Ax of Volt went up. Simon almost cried out, fearing to see the fine blade come to grief against that surface. There was a clang, and again the ax was raised, came down with full force of the Captain’s mighty shoulders.

The door split, one part of it leaning outward. Koris stood aside and the three of them worried at that break.

Now the brightness of full day light struck them, and the freshness of a good breeze beat the mustiness of the chamber away.

They manhandled the remnants of the door to allow passage and broke through a screen of dried creepers and brush out onto a hillside where the new grass of spring showed in vivid patches and some small yellow flowers bloomed like scattered goldpieces. They were on the top of the cliff and the slope of this side went down to a stream. Without a word Simon stumbled down to that which promised to lay the dust in his throat, ease the torture of his salted skin.

He raised dripping head and shoulders from the water some time later to find Koris missing. Though he was sure that the Captain had followed them out of the Hole of Volt.

“Koris?” he asked Tunston. The other was rubbing his face with handfuls of wet grass, sighing in content, while Jivin lay on his back beside the stream, his eyes closed.

“He goes to do what is to be done for his man below,” Tunston answered remotely.”No Guardsman must be left to wind and wave while his officer can serve him otherwise.”

Simon flushed. He had forgotten that battered body on the beach. Though he was of the Guard of Estcarp by his own will, he did not yet feel at one with them. Estcarp was too old, its men — and its witches — alien. Yet what had Petronius promised when he offered the escape? That the man who used it would be transported to a world which his spirit desired. He was a soldier and he had come into a world at war, yet it was not his way of fighting, and he still felt the homeless stranger.

He was remembering the woman with whom he had fled across the moors, unknowing then that she was a witch of Estcarp and all that implied. There had been times during that flight when they had had an unspoken comradeship. But afterwards that, too, was gone.

She had been on one of those other ships when they had broken out of Sulcarkeep. Had hers fared as badly on the merciless sea? He stirred, pricked by something he did not want to acknowledge, clinging fiercely to his role of onlooker. Rolling over on the grass he pillowed his head on his bent arm, relaxing by will as he had learned long ago, to sleep.

Simon awoke as quickly, senses alert. He could not have slept long for the sun was still fairly high. There was the smell of cooking in the air. In the lee of a rock a small fire burned where Tunston tended some small fish spitted on sharp twigs. Koris, his ax his bedfellow, slept, his boyish face showing more drawn and fined down with fatigue then when he was conscious. Jivin sprawled belly down beside the streamlet, fast proving that he was more than a master of horsemanship, as his hand emerged with another fish he had tickled into capture.

Tunston raised an eyebrow as Simon came up. “Take your pick,” he indicated the fish. “’Tis not mess fare, but it will serve for now.”

Simon had reached for the nearest when Tunston’s sudden tension brought his gaze to follow the other’s. Circling over their heads in wide, gliding sweeps was a bird, black feathered for the most part save for a wide V of white on the breast.

“Falcon!” Tunston breathed that word as if it summed up a danger as great as a Kolder ambush.

II FALCON’S EYRIE

The bird, with that art known to the predatory clans, hung over them on outspread wings. Simon saw enough of those bright red thongs or ribbons fluttering from about its feet to guess that it was not a wild creature.

“Captain!” Tunston edged over to shake Koris awake, and the other sat up, rubbing his fists across his eyes in a small boy gesture.

“Captain, the Falconers are out!”

Koris jerked his head sharply up and then got to his feet, shading his eyes against the sun, to watch the slow circles of the bird. He whistled a call which arose in clear notes. Those lazy circles ceased and Simon watched the miracle of speed and precision — the strike. For the bird came in to settle upon the haft of Volt’s ax where the weapon lay half hidden in the grass of this tiny meadow. The curved beak opened and it gave a harsh cry.

The Captain knelt by the bird. Very carefully he picked up one of the trailing cords at its feet and a small metal pendant flashed in the sun. This he studied.

“Nalin. He must be one of the sentries. Go, winged warrior,” Koris addressed the restless bird. “We be of one breed with your master and there is peace between us.”

“A pity. Captain, that your words will not carry to the ears of this Nalin,” commented Tunston. “The Falconers are apt to make sure of the borders first and ask questions later, if any invaders are left alive to ask them of.”

“Just so, vagabond!”

The words came from immediately behind them. Almost as one, they whirled, to see only rocks and grass. Had it been the bird that spoke? Jivin eyed the hawk doubtfully, but Simon refused to accept that piece of magic or illusion. He fingered his only weapon, the knife which had been in his belt when he had made the shore.

Koris and Tunston showed no surprise. It was apparent they had expected some such challenge. The Captain spoke to the air about them, distinctly and slowly, as if his words must carry conviction to the unseen listener.

“I am Koris, Captain of Estcarp, driven upon this shore by storm. And these are of the Guards of Estcarp: Tunston, who is officer of the Great Keep, Jivin, and Simon Tregarth, an outlander who has taken service under the Guardian. By the Oath of Sword and Shield, Blood and Bread, I ask of you now the shelter given when two war not upon each other, but live commonly by the raised blade!”

The faint echo of his words rolled about them and was gone. Then once more the bird gave its screeching cry and arose. Tunston grinned wryly.

“Now I take it, we wait for either a guide or a dart in the back!”

“From an invisible enemy?” asked Simon.

Koris shrugged. “To every commander his own mysteries. And the Falconers have theirs in plenty. If they send the guide, we are indeed fortunate.” He sniffed. “And there is no need to go hungry while we wait.”

Simon gnawed at the fish, but he surveyed the small meadow cut by the stream. His companions appeared to be philosophical about the future, and he had no idea how that trick with the voice had been worked. But he had learned to use Koris as a measuring instrument when in a new situation. If the Guard Captain was willing to wait this out, then they might not have to face a fight after all. But on the other hand he would like to know more about his might-be hosts. “Who are the Falconers?”

“As Volt,” Koris’ hand went to the ax, slipping in caress down its handle, “they are legend and history, but not so ancient.

“In the beginning they were mercenaries, come overseas in Sulcar ships from a land where they lost their holdings because of a barbarian invasion. For a space they served with the traders as caravan guards and marines. Sometimes they still hire out when in their first youth. But the majority did not care for the sea; they had a hunger for mountains eating into them, since they were heights born. So they came to the Guardian at Estcarp city and suggested a pact, offering to protect the southern border of the land in return for the right to settle in the mountains.”

“There was wisdom in that!” Tunston broke in. “It was a pity the Guardian could not agree.”

“Why couldn’t she?” Simon wanted to know.

Koris smiled grimly. “Have you not dwelt long enough yet in Estcarp, Simon, not to know that it is a matriarchate? For the Power which has held it safe lies not first in the swords of its men, but in the hands of its women. And the holders of Power are in truth all women.

“On the other hand the Falconers have strange customs of their own, which are as dear to them as the mores of Estcarp are to the witches. They are a fighting order of males alone. Twice a year picked young men are sent to their separate villages of women, there to sire a new generation, as stallions are put out to pasture with the mares. But of affection, or liking, of equality between male and female, there is none recognized among the Falconers. And they do not admit that a woman exists save for the bearing of sons.

“Thus they were to Estcarp savages whose corrupt way of life revolted the civilized, and the Guardian swore that were they to settle within the country with the consent of the witches the Power would be affronted and depart. So were they told that not by the will of Estcarp could they hold her border. However they were granted leave to pass in peace through the country with what supplies they needed, to seek the mountains on their own. If there they wished to carve out a holding beyond the boundaries of Estcarp the witches would wish them well and not raise swords against them. So it has been for a hundred years or more.”

“And I take it they were able to carve out their holding?”

“So well,” Tunston answered Simon’s question “that three times have they beaten into the earth the hordes of Dukes of Karsten have sent against them. The very land they have chosen fights upon their side.”

“You say that Estcarp did not offer them friendship,” Simon pointed out. “What did it mean then when you spoke of the Oath of Sword and Shield, Blood and Bread? It sounded as if you did have some kind of an understanding.”

Koris became very busy picking a small bone from his fish. Then he smiled and Tunston laughed openly. Only Jivin looked a little conscious, as if they spoke of things it was better not to mention.

“The Falconers are men—”

“And the Guards of Estcarp are also men?” Simon ventured.

Koris’ grin spread, though Jivin was frowning now. “Do not misunderstand us, Simon. We have the greatest reverence for the Women of Power. But it is in the nature of their lives that they are apart from us, and the things which may move us. For, as you know, the Power departs from a witch if she becomes truly a woman. Therefore they are doubly jealous of their strength, having given up a part of their life to hold it. Also they are proud that they are women. To them the customs of the Falconers, which deny that pride as well as the Power, reducing a female to a body without intelligence or personality, are close to demon-inspired.

“We may not agree with the Falconers’ customs, but as fighting men we Guards pay them respect, and when we have met with them in the past there was no feud between us. For the Guards of Estcarp and the Falconers have no quarrel. And,” he tossed aside the spit from which he had worried the last bite of fish, “the day may be coming soon when the fact shall be an aid to us all.”

“That is true!” Tunston spoke eagerly. “Karsten has waned upon them. And whether the Guardian wills it or not, if Karsten marches upon Estcarp the Falconers stand between. But we know that well and this past year the Guardian turned her attention elsewhere when the Big Snow struck and grain and cattle moved southward to Falconer villages.”

“There were women and children hungry in those villages,” Jivin said.

“Yes. But the supplies were ample and more than villagers ate,” countered Tunston.

“The falcon!” Jivin jerked a thumb skywards, and they saw that black and white bird sail through the air over their campsite. It proved this time to be the fore-scout of a small party of men who rode into view and sat watching the Guards.

The horses they bestrode were akin to ponies, rough-coated beasts that Simon judged were nimble footed enough on the narrow trails of the heights. And their saddles were simple pads. But each possessed a forked horn on which perched at ease one of the falcons, that of the leader offering a resting place to the bird that had guided them.

As did the Guards and the man of Sulcarkeep, they wore mail shirts and carried small, diamond-shaped shields on their shoulders. But their helms were shaped like the heads of the birds they trained. And, though he knew that human eyes surveyed him from behind the holes in those head coverings, Simon found the silent regard of that exotic gear more than a little disquieting.

“I am Koris, serving Estcarp.” Koris, the great ax across his forearm, stood up to face the silent four.

The man whose falcon had just returned to its perch held up his empty sword hand palm out in a gesture as universal and as old as time.

“Nalin of the outer heights,” his voice rang hollow in the helm-mask. “Between us there is peace. The Lord of Wings opens the Eyrie to the Captain of Estcarp.”

Simon had doubts about those ponies carrying double. But when he mounted behind one of the Falconers he discovered that the small animal was as sure-footed on the slightest of trails as a burro and the addition of an extra rider appeared to be no inconvenience.

The trails of the Falconer’s territory were certainly not laid to either entice or comfort the ordinary traveler. Simon kept his eyes open only by force of will as they footed along ledges and swung boots out over drops he had no desire to measure.

Now and again one of the birds soared aloft and ahead, questing out over the knife slash valleys which were a feature of the region, returning in time to its master. Simon longed to ask more concerning the curious arrangement between man and bird, for it seemed that the feathered scouts must have a way of reporting.

The party came down from one slope onto a road which was smooth as a highway. But they crossed that and bored up into the wilderness once more. Simon ventured to speak to the man behind whom he rode.

“I am new to this southern country — is that not a way through the mountains?”

“It is one of the traders’ roads. We keep it open for them and so we both profit. You are this outlander, then, who has taken service with the Guards?”

“I am.”

“The Guards are no blank shields. And their Captain rides to a fight and not from it. But it would seem that the sea has used you ill.”

“No man may command storms,” Simon returned evasively. “We live — for that we offer thanks.”

“To that give thanks in addition that you were not driven farther south. The wreckers of Verlaine haul much from the sea. But they do not care for living men. Someday,” his voice sharpened, “Verlaine may discover that none of her cliffs, nor her toothed reefs shall shelter her. When the Duke sets his seal upon that place then it will no longer be a small fire to plague travelers, but rather a raging furnace!”

“Verlaine is of Karsten?” Simon asked. He was a gatherer of facts where and when he could, adding them piece by piece to his jigsaw of this world.

“Verlaine’s daughter is to be wed to the Duke after the custom of these foreigners. For they believe that holding of land follows a female! Then by such a crooked right the Duke will claim Verlaine for its rich treasure seized out of storm seas, and perhaps enlarge the trap for the taking of all coastwise ships. Of old we have given our swords to the traders, though the sea is not our chosen battlefield, so shall we perhaps be summoned when Verlaine is cleansed.”

“You reckon the men of Sulcarkeep among those you would aid?”

The bird’s head on the shoulders before him nodded vigorously.”It was on Sulcar ships that we came out of blood, death and fire overseas, Guardsman! Sulcar has first claim upon us since that day.”

“It will no more!” Simon did not know why he said that, and he regretted his loose tongue immediately.

“You bear some news, Guardsman? Our hawks quest far, but not as far as the northern capes. What has chanced to Sulcarkeep?”

Simon’s hesitation was prolonged into no reply at all as one of the falcons hung above them, calling loudly.

“Loose me and slide off!” his companion ordered sharply. Simon obeyed, and the four Guardsmen were left on the trail while the ponies forged ahead at a pace reckless for the country. Koris beckoned the others on.

“There is a sortie.” He ran after the fast-disappearing ponies, the ax over his shoulder, his slender legs carrying him at a muscle-straining trot which Simon alone found it easy to equal.

There were shouts beyond and the telltale clash of metal meeting metal.

“Karsten forces?” panted Simon as he drew abreast of the Captain.

“I think not. There are outlaws in these wastes, and Nalin says they grow bolder. To my mind it is but a small part of all the rest. Alizon threatens to the north, the Kolder move in upon the west, the outlaw bands grow restless, and Karsten stirs. Long have the wolves and the night birds longed to pick the bones of Estcarp. Though they would eventually quarrel over those bones among themselves. Some men live in the evening and go down into darkness defending the remnants of that they reverence.”

“And this is the evening for Estcarp?” Simon found breath to ask.

“Who can say? Ah — outlaws they are!”

They looked down now upon a trade road. And here swirled a battle. The bird-helmeted horsemen dismounted as the level ground was too limited to give cavalry any advantage, to strike in as a well-trained fighting unit, cutting down those who had been enticed into the open. But there were snipers in hiding and they took toll by dart of the Falconers.

Koris leaped from ledge to trail, coming down in a pocket where two men crouched. Simon worked his way along a thread of path to a point where, with a well-aimed stone, he brought down one who was just shooting into the melee. It took only a moment to strip that body of gun and ammunition and turn the weapon against the comrades of its former owner.

Hawks flew screaming, stabbing at faces and eyes, raking with savage claws. Simon fired, took aim and fired again, marking his successes with dour satisfaction. A fraction of the bitterness of their defeat at Sulcarkeep oozed from him during those few wild moments while there was still active resistance around and below.

A squeal of horn cut the shrieks of the birds. Across the valley a rag of flag was waved vigorously and those of the outlaws who still kept their feet fell back, though they did not break and run until they reached cover where mounted men could not pursue. The day was slipping fast into evening and a host of shadows swallowed them up.

Hide from the men they might, but concealment from the hawks was another matter. The birds swirled over the rising ground, striking down, sometimes finding a quarry as screams of pain testified. Simon saw Koris on the road, ax still in hand, a dark stain on the blade of that weapon. He was talking eagerly with a Falconer, oblivious of those who walked from one body to the next, sometimes making sure of its status with a quick sword stroke. There was the same grim finality to this engagement as there had been after the ambush of those from Gorm. Simon busied himself with the buckling on of his new arms belt, taking care not to watch that particular activity.

The hawks were drifting back down the arch of the evening sky, coming in answer to the whistles of their masters. Two bodies in bird helms were lashed across the pads of nervous ponies, and other men rode bandaged, supported by their fellows. But the toll among the outlaw force had been far the greater.

Simon rode behind a Falconer again, not the same man. And this one was not inclined to talk as he nursed a slashed arm across his breast and swore softly at every jolt.

Night came quickly in the mountains, the higher peaks shutting out the sun, enclosing growing pools of gloom. The track they took was a broader one and smooth as a highway when compared to their earlier trails. It brought them at last, up a stiff climb, to the home the Falconers had made for themselves in their exile. And it was such a keep as drew a whistle of astonishment out of Simon.

He had been truly impressed by the ancient walls of Estcarp with their air of having been wrought from the bones of the earth in the days of its birth. And Sulcarkeep, though it had been cloaked with the spume of that unnatural fog, had been indeed a mighty work. But this was a part of the cliffs, of the mountain. He could only believe that the makers had chanced upon a peak where there were a series of caves which had been enlarged and worked. For the Eyrie was not a castle, but a mountain itself converted into a fort.

They entered over a drawbridge spanning a chasm luckily hidden in the twilight, a drawbridge giving footing to only one horse at a time. Simon released his indrawn breath only when the pony he bestrode in company passed under the wicked points of a portculis into a gaping cave. He aided the wounded Falconer to the pavement and into the hands of one of his fellows, and then looked about for the Guardsmen, sighting Tunston’s height and bare dark head before he saw the others.

Koris pushed his way to them, Jivin at his heels. For a space they seemed to be forgotten by their hosts.

Horses were led away, and each man took his falcon upon a padded glove before going into another passage. But at last one of the bird heads swiveled in their direction and a Falconer officer approached.

“The Lord of Wings would speak with you, Guardsmen. Blood and Bread, Sword and Shield to your service!”

Koris tossed his ax, caught it, and turned the blade away from the other with ceremony. “Sword and Shield, Blood and Bread, man of the hawks!”

III A WITCH IN KARS

Simon sat up on the narrow bunk, knuckles pressed to his aching head. He had been dreaming, a vivid and terrifying dream of which he could recall only the terror. And then he awakened to find himself in the cell-like quarters of a Falconer with this fierce pain in his head. But more urgent than the pain was a sense of the need to obey some order — or was it to answer a plea?

The ache faded, but the urgency did not and he could not remain in bed. He dressed in the leather garments his hosts had provided and went out, guessing that it was close to morning.

They had been five days at the Eyrie and it was Koris’ intention to ride north soon, heading to Estcarp through leagues of outlaw infested territory. Simon knew that it was in the Captain’s mind to bind the Falconers to the cause of the northern nation. Once back in the northern capital he would bring his influence to work upon the prejudices of the witches, so that the tough fighting men of the bird helms might be enlisted in Estcarp’s struggle.

The fall of Sulcarkeep had aroused the dour men of the mountains, and preparations for war buzzed in their redoubt. In the lower reaches of the strange fortress smiths toiled the night through and armorers wrought cunningly, while a handful of technicians worked those tiny beads strung on the hawk jesses through which a high circling bird reported and recorded for his master. The secret of those was the most guarded of their nation, and Simon had only a hint that it was based on some mechanical contrivance.

Tregarth had been often brought up short in his estimation of these peoples by just some curious quirk such as this. Men who fought with sword and shield should not also produce intricate communication devices. Such odd leaps and gaps in knowledge and, equipment was baffling. He could far more readily accept the “magic” of the witches than the eyes and ears, and when necessary, voices which were falcon borne.

The magic of the witches — Simon climbed stairs cut in one of the mountain burrows, came out upon a lookout post. There was no mist to mask a range of hills visible in the light of early morning. By some feat of engineering he could see straight through a far gap into that open land which he knew to be Karsten.

Karsten! He was so intent upon that keyhole into the duchy that he was not aware of the sentry on post there until the man spoke:

“You have a message. Guardsman?”

A message? Those words triggered something in Simon’s mind. He experienced for an instant the return of pain to press above his eyes, that conviction there was something for him to do. This was foreknowledge of a kind, but not such as he had known on the road to Sulcarkeep. Now he was being summoned, not warned. Koris and the Guardsmen would ride north if they willed, but he must head south. Simon put down his last guard against this insidious thing, allowed himself to be swayed by it.

“Has any news come out of the south?” he demanded of the sentry.

“Ask that of the Lord of Wings, Guardsman.” The man was suspicious after the training of his kind. Simon headed for the stairs.

“Be sure that I shall!”

Before he went to the Commander of the Falconers, he tracked down the Captain, finding Koris busied with preparations for taking the trail. He glanced up from his saddlebags to Simon, and then his hands stopped pulling at buckles and straps.

“What’s to do?”

“Laugh if you will,” Simon replied shortly. “My road lies to the south.”

Koris sat down on the edge of a table and swung one booted foot slowly back and forth. “Why does Karsten draw you?”

“That is just it!” Simon struggled to put into words what compelled him against either inclination or sense. He had never been an articulate man and he was discovering it even harder here to explain himself. “I am drawn—”

The swinging foot was still. In that handsome, bitter face there was no readable expression. “Since when — and how has it come upon you?” That demand was quick and harsh, an officer desiring a report.

Simon spoke the truth. “There was a dream and then I awoke. When I looked just now through the gap into Karsten I knew that my road leads there.”

“And the dream?”

“It was of danger, more I cannot remember.”

Koris drove one fist into the palm of the other. “So be it! I wish you had more power or less. But if you are drawn, we ride south.”

“We?”

“Tunston and Jivin shall carry our news to Estcarp. The Kolder cannot cut through the barrier of the Power yet awhile. And Tunston can rally the Guard as well. Look you, Simon, I am of Gorm and now it is Gorm which fights against the Guard, though it may be Gorm which is dead and demon-inspired. I have serve Estcarp to the best of my ability since the Guardian gave me refuge, and I shall continue to serve her. But it may be that the time has come that I can serve her best outside the ranks of her liege men instead of within them.

“How do I know…” his dark young eyes had shadow smudges under them, tired eyes, worn with a fatigue which was not of body, “how do I know that through me because I am of Gorm danger cannot strike at the very heart of Estcarp? We have seen what the Kolder have done to living men whom I knew well, what else that devil-haunted brood can accomplish what man may tell? They flew through the air to take Sulcarkeep.”

“But that may be no fruit of magic,” Simon cut in. “In my own world air flight is a common mode of travel. I wish I had had sight of how they came — it could tell us much!”

Koris laughed wryly. “Doubtless we shall be given numerous other occasions in the future to observe their methods. I say this to you, Simon, if you are drawn south, I believe it to be by intelligent purpose. And two swords, or rather,” he corrected himself with a little smile, “one ax, and one dart gun, are of greater force than one gun alone. The very fact of this summoning is good hearing, for it must mean that she who went with us to Sulcarkeep still lives and now moves to further our cause.”

“But how do you know it is she, or why?” Such a suspicion had been Simon’s also, to have it confirmed by Koris carried conviction.

“How? Why? Those who have the Power can send it forth along certain lanes of mind, as these Falconers dispatch their birds through the reaches of the air. And if they meet any of their kind, then they call or warn. As to why — it is in my mind, Simon, that she who sends must be the lady you saved from the pack ofAlizon, for she would be well able to communicate with one she knows.

“You are not blood of our blood, bone of our bone, Simon Tregarth, and it would seem in your world the Power lies not only in the hands of women. Did you not smell out that ambush on the shore road as well as any witch might do? Yes, I shall ride into Karsten on no more proof than you have given me at this hour, because I know the Power and because, Simon, I have fought beside you. Let me give Tunston his instructions and a message for the Guardian, and we shall go to cast in troubled waters for important fish.”

They rode south well equipped with mail and weapons taken from vanquished enemies, blank shields signifying that they were wandering mercenaries open for hire. The Falconer border guard escorted them to the edge of the mountains and the traders’ road to Kars.

With no more than that tenuous feeling as a guide Simon wondered at the wisdom of their venture. Only the pull was still on him night and day, though he had no more nightmares. And each morning found him impatient to take the highway once more.

Karsten had villages in plenty, growing larger and richer as the travelers penetrated into the black-earthed bottom lands along the wide rivers. And there were petty lordlings set up in fiefs who offered employment to the two from the north. Though Koris laughed to scorn the wages they suggested and thus increased the respect with which he and his ax were regarded, Simon said little, but was alert to everything about him, mapping the land in his head, and noting small customs and laws of behavior, while, between times when they journeyed alone, he pumped the Guard Captain for information.

The Duchy had once been a territory sparsely held by a race akin to the ancient blood of Estcarp. And now and then a proud-held dark head, a pale face with cleanly cut features, reminded Simon of the men of the north.

“The curse of the Power finished them here,” Koris observed when Simon commented on this.

“The curse?”

The Captain shrugged.”It goes back to the nature of the Power. Those who use it do not breed. And so each year the women who will wed and bear grow fewer. A marriageable maid of Estcarp may choose among ten men, soon among twenty. Also there are childless homes in plenty.

“So it was here. Thus when the sturdier barbarians came overseas and settled along the coast they were not actively opposed. More and more land came to their hands. The old stock withdrew to the backlands. Then warlords arose among the newcomers in the course of time. So we have the Dukes, and this Duke last of all — who was a common man of a hired shield company and climbed by his wits and the strength of his sword arm to complete rule.”

“And so will it go with Estcarp also?”

“Perhaps. Only there was a mingling of blood with the Sulcarmen, who, alone, it seems, can mate with Estcarp and have fruit of it. Thus in the north there was a stirring of the old blood and a renewing of vigor. However, Gorm may swallow us up before there has been a proving of anything. How is it, Simon; does this town we approach beckon you? It is Garthholm on the river, and beyond it lies only Kars.”

“Then we go to Kars,” Simon answered wearily after a long moment. “For the burden is still on me.”

Under his plain helm Koris’ brows rose. “Then it is indeed laid upon us to walk softly and watch over our shoulders the while. Though the blood of the Duke is not high and he is eyed sidewise by the nobles, yet his wits are far from blunt. There will be eyes and ears within Kars to mark the lowliest stranger and questions asked of blank shields. Especially if we do not strive to enlist at once under his banner.”

Simon gazed thoughtfully at the river barges swinging at anchor by the town quay. “But he would not be inclined to enlist a maimed man. Also are there not doctors within Kars who would treat one injured in battle? A man, say, who ailed from a blow on the head so that his eyes no longer served him well?”

“Such a one as would be brought by a comrade to see the wise doctors of Kars?” chuckled Koris. “Yes, that is a fine tale, Simon. And who is this injured warrior?”

“I think that role is mine. It would cover any awkward mistakes which a keen witted eye-and-ear of the Duke would note.”

Koris nodded vigorously. “We sell these ponies here. They label us too much as being from the mountains, and in Karsten mountains are suspect. Passage can be bought on one of the river boats. A good enough plan.”

It was the Captain who carried out the bargaining over the ponies, and he was still counting the wedge-shaped bits of metal which served as payment tokens in the duchy as he joined Simon on the barge. Koris grinned as he slapped the handful into his belt purse.

“I have trader blood and today I proved it,” he said. “Half again what I was prepared to take, enough to aid in any palm-greasing when we come to Kars, should that be needed. And provisions to keep us until that hour.” He dumped the bag he carried on board along with the ax from which he had not been parted since he took it from the hands of Volt.

There were two days of lazy current gliding on the river. As it neared sunset on the second, and the walls and towers of Kars stood out boldly not too far ahead, Simon’s hands went to his head. The pain once more shot above his eyes with the intensity of a blow. Then it was gone, leaving behind it a small vivid picture of an ill-paved lane, a wall, and a door deep set therein. That was their goal and it lay in Kars.

“This is it then, Simon?” TheCaptain’s hand fell on his shoulder.

“It is.” Simon closed his eyes to the sunset colors bending the river. Somewhere in that city he must find the lane, the wall, the door, and meet with the one who waited.

“A narrow lane, a wall, a door—”

Koris understood. “Little enough,” he remarked. His gaze was for the city, as if by the force of his will he could hurl them across the space still separating the barge from the waiting wharf.

Soon enough they came up the quay to the arch in the city wall. Simon moved slowly in his chosen role, trying to walk with the timidity of a man who could not trust his sight. Yet his nerves were prickling, he was certain that once within the city he could find the lane. The thread which had drawn him across the duchy was now a tight cord of direction.

Koris talked for them at the gate and his explanation of Simon’s disability, his plausible story — as well as a gift passed under hand to the sergeant of the guard — got them in. The Captain snorted as they passed down the street and turned the corner.

“Were that man in Estcarp I’d have the sign off his shield and his feet pointing on the road away before he had time to name me his name! It has been said that the Duke grows soft since he came into rule, but I would not have believed it so.”

“Every man is said to have his price,” Simon remarked.

“True enough. But a wise officer knows the price of the men under him and uses them accordingly. These are mercenaries and can be bought in little things. But perhaps if the code still prevails, they will stand firm in battle for him who pays them. What is it?”

He asked that sharply for Simon had stopped, half swung around.

“We head wrong. It is to the east.”

Koris studied the street ahead. “There is an alley four doors from here. You are sure?”

“I am sure.”

Lest the sergeant of the gate be more astute than they judged him, they went at a slow pace, Simon being guided. The eastward alley led on into more streets. Simon sheltered in a doorway while Koris sniffed their back trail. In spite of his distinctive appearance the Captain knew how to take cover, and he came flitting back soon.

“If they have set any hound on us he is better than Estcarp’s best, and that I do not believe. So now let us get to earth before we are remarked to be remembered. East still it is?”

The dull pain in Simon’s head ebbed and flowed, he could use it as a “hot” and “cold” guide in a strange fashion. Then a particularly bad blast brought him to the mouth of a curving lane and he stepped within. It was walled with blank backs of buildings and what windows looked out on it were dark and curtained.

They quickened pace and Simon shot a glance at each window as they passed, fearing to see a face there. Then he saw it — the door of his vision. He was breathing a little hard as he paused before it, not from the exertion of pace, but rather from the turmoil inside him. He raised his fist and rapped on the solid portal.

When there was no answer he was absurdly disappointed. Then he pushed, to encounter a barrier which must be backed with bars.

“You are sure this is it?” Koris prodded.

“Yes!” There was no outer latch, nothing he could seize upon to force it open. Yet what he wanted, what had brought him there, was on its other side.

Koris stepped back a pace or two, measuring the height of the wall with his eye.

“Were it closer to dark we could mount this. But such a move now might be noted.”

Simon threw away caution and pounded, his assault on the wood that of a drum. Koris caught at his arm.

“Would you rouse out the Duke’s companies? Let us lay up in a tavern and come back at nightfall.”

“There is no need for that.”

Koris’ ax lifted from his shoulder. Simon’s hand was on his gun. The door showed a wedge of opening and that low, characterless voice had come through it to them.

A young man stood in that crevice between wood and brick. He was much shorter than Simon, less in inches even than Koris, and light of limb. The upper part of his face was overhung with the visor of a battle helm, and he wore mail without the badge of any lord.

From Simon he looked to the Captain, and the sight of Koris appeared oddly to reassure him, for he stepped back and motioned them within. They came into a garden with brittle stalks of winter-killed flowers in precise beds, past a dry fountain rimmed with the mark of ancient scum where a stone bird with only half a beak searched endlessly for a water reflection which no longer existed.

Then another door into a house, and there the stream of light was a banner of welcome. The young man pushed before them, having sped from the barring of the wall door. But another stood to bid them enter.

Simon had seen this woman in rags as she fled from a pack of hunting hounds. And he had seen her in council, wearing the sober robes of her chosen order. He had ridden beside her when she went girt in mail with the Guards. Now she wore scarlet and gold, with gems on her fingers and a jeweled net coifing her short hair.

“Simon!” She did not hold out her hands to him, offered no other greeting save the naming of his name, yet he was warmed and at peace. “And Koris.” She voiced a gentle laughter which invited them both to are some private joke, and swept them the grand surtsy of a court lady. “Have you come, lords, to consult the Wise Woman of Kars?”

Koris grounded the half of his ax on the floor and dropped the saddle bags which had been looped over his wide shoulder. “We have come at your bidding, or rather your bidding to Simon. And what we do here is for your saying. Though it is good to know that you are safe.”

Simon only nodded. Once again he could not find the proper words to express feelings he shrank from defining too closely.

IV LOVE POTION

Koris put down his goblet with a sigh. “First a bed such as no barracks ever boasted and then two meals like this. I have not tasted equal wine since I rode out of Estcarp. Nor have I feasted in such good company.”

The witch clapped her hands lightly. “Koris the courtier! And Koris and Simon the patient. Neither of you have yet asked what we do in Kars, though you have been a night and part of a day under this roof.”

“Under this roof,” Simon repeated thoughtfully. “Is this perchance the Estcarp embassy?”

She smiled. “Now that is clever of you, Simon. But, no, we are not official. There is an Estcarp embassy in Kars, housing a lord with impeccable background and not a single smell of witchcraft about him. He dines with the Duke upon formal occasions and provides a splendid representation of respectability. This house is located in quite a different quarter. What we do here—”

When she paused Koris asked lightly:

“I gather our aid is needed or Simon would not have had that aching head of his. Do we kidnap Yvian for your pleasure, or merely split a few skulls here and there?”

The young man who moved quietly, spoke little, but was always there, whom the witch named Briant and yet had not explained to the Guardsmen, reached for a dish of pastry balls. Stripped of the mail and helm he had worn at their first meeting, he was a slender, almost frail youngster, far too young to be well-schooled in the use of the weapons he bore. Yet there was a firm set to his mouth and chin, a steady purpose in his eyes which argued that the woman from Estcarp had perhaps chosen wisely in her recruiting after all.

“How, Briant,” she said to him now, “shall they bring us Yvian?” There was something approaching mischief in that inquiry.

He shrugged as he bit into the pastry. “If you wish to see him. I do not.” And that faint emphasis on the “I” was lost on neither of the men.

“No, it is not the Duke we plan to entertain. It is another member of his household, the Lady Aldis.”

Koris whistled. “Aldis! I would not think—”

“That we have any business with the Duke’s leman? Ah, you make the mistake of your sex there, Koris. There is a reason I wish to know more of Aldis, and an excellent one to urge her to come.”

“Those being?” prompted Simon.

“Her power within the duchy is founded upon Yvian’s favor alone. While she holds him to her bed she has what she wants most, not gauds and robes, but influence. Men who wish to further some scheme must seek out Aldis as a passage to the Duke’s ear, even if they are of the old nobility. As for women of rank — Aldis has repaid heavily many old slights.

“When she first climbed to Yvian’s notice the gauds and glitter sufficed, but through the years her power has come to mean more. Without that she is no better than a wench in a dockside tavern, as well she knows.”

“Does Yvian grow restive now?” Koris wanted to know.

“Yvian has wed.”

Simon watched the hand at the pastry dish. This time it did not complete its mission, but went instead to the goblet before Briant’s plate.

“We heard talk in the mountains of the wedding of Verlaine’s heiress.”

“Ax marriage,” the witch explained. “He has not seen his new bride yet.”

“And the present lady fears a competition. Is the lady of Verlaine then counted so beautiful?” Simon asked idly but he caught a sudden swift glance from Briant.

And it was the boy who answered. “She is not!” There was a note in that hot denial which baffled Simon with its bitter hurt. Who Briant was or where the witch had found him, they had no idea, but perhaps the boy had nursed a liking for the heiress and was disappointed by his loss.

The witch laughed. “That, too, may be a matter of opinion. But, yet, Simon, I think that Aldis does not lie easy of nights since she heard the decree read forth in Kars’ marketplace — wondering how long Yvian will continue to reach for her. In this state of mind she is ripe for our purpose.”

“I can see why the lady might seek aid,” Simon conceded, “but why yours?”

She was reproachful. “Though I do not go under my colors as a Woman of Power out of Estcarp, I have a small reputation in this city. It is not my first visit here. Men and women, especially women, are ever intrigued to hear of their futures. Two of Aldis’ waiting maids have come here in these past three days, armed with false names and falser stories. When I named them for what they are and told them a few facts, they went scuttling back wry-faced to their mistress. She will come soon enough, never fear.”

“But why do you want her? If her influence with Yvian is on the wane—” Koris shook his head. “I have never pretended to an understanding of women, but truly am I now in a maze. Gorm is our enemy — not Karsten, at least, not actively.”

“Gorm!” There was some emotion stirring behind the smooth facade of her face. “Here also Gorm finds roots.”

“What!” Koris’ hands slapped down hard on the table between them. “How comes Gorm to the duchy?”

“It is the other way around. Karsten goes to Gorm, or a part of her manpower does.” The witch, resting her chin upon her clasped hands, her elbows on the board, spoke earnestly.

“We saw at Sulcarkeep what the Kolder forces did to the men of Gorm, using them for war weapons. But Gorm is only a small island and when she was overrun many of her men must have died in battle before they could be… converted.”

“That is true!” Koris’ voice was savage. “They could not have netted too many captives.”

“Just so. And when Sulcarkeep fell Magnis Osberic must have taken with him the major parts of the invading force with the destruction of the hold. In that he served his people. Most of the trading fleet were at sea, and it is the custom of the Sulcarmen to carry their families with them on long voyages. Their haven on this continent is gone, but their nation lives and they can build again. Only, can the Kolder so easily replace the men they lost?”

“It must be that they lack manpower,” Simon half questioned, his mind busy with the possibilities that suggested.

“Which may be true. Or for some other reason they cannot or will not face us openly themselves. We know so little concerning the Kolder, even when they squat before our door. Now they are buying men.”

“But slaves are chancy as fighting men,” Simon pointed out. “Put weapons in their hands and you ask for revolt.”

“Simon, Simon, have you forgotten what manner of men we flushed from ambush on the sea road? Ask yourself if they were ready for revolt. No, those who march to Kolder war drums have no will left in them. But this much is also true: for the past six months galleys have come to an island lying off the sea-mouth of Kars’ river and prisoners from Karsten are transferred to those ships. Some are from the prisons of the Duke, other men are swept up on the streets and docks, friendless men, or ones not to be missed.

“Such dealings cannot be kept secret forever. A whisper here, a sentence there — piece by piece we have gathered it. Men sold to the Kolder for Kolder purposes. And if thus it happens in Karsten, why not in Alizon? Now I can better understand why my mission there failed and how I was so speedily uncovered. If the Kolder have certain powers — as we believe that they do — they could stalk me or any such as me, as the hounds hunted us by scent on the moors.

“It is our belief now that the Kolder on Gorm are gathering a force to the purpose of invading the mainland. Perhaps on that day Karsten and Alizon shall both discover that they provided the weapons for their own defeat. That is why I deal with Aldis, we must know more of this filthy traffic with Gorm and it could not exist without the Duke’s knowledge and consent.”

Koris stirred restlessly. “Soldiers gossip also, lady. A round of wine shops made by a blank shield with tokens in his purse might bring us tidings in plenty.”

She looked dubious. “Yvian is far from stupid. He has his eyes and ears everywhere. Let one such as you appear in the wine shops you mention,Captain, and he shall hear of it.”

Koris did not appear worried. “Did not Koris of Gorm, a mercenary, lose his men and his reputation at Sulcarkeep? Doubt not that I shall have a good story to blat out if any should ask it of me. You,” he nodded to Simon, “had best lie close lest the tale we told to get through the gates trips us up. But how about the youngling here?” He grinned at Briant.

Somewhat to Simon’s surprise the generally sober-faced youth smiled back timidly. Then he looked to the witch as if for permission. And, equally to Simon’s astonishment, she gave it, with some of the same mischief she had shown earlier.

“Briant is no ruffler of the barracks, Koris. But he has been prisoned here long enough. And don’t under-rate his sword arm; I’ll warrant he can and will amaze you — in several ways!”

Koris laughed. “That I do not doubt at all, lady, seeing that it is you who says it.” He reached for the ax by his chair.

“You’d best leave that pretty toy here,” she warned. “It, at least, will be remarked.” She laid her hand on the shaft.

It was as if her fingers were frozen there. And for the first time since their arrival Simon saw her shaken out of her calm.

“What do you carry, Koris?” her voice was a little shrill.

“Do you not know, lady? It came to me with the good will of one who made it sing. And I guard it with my life.”

She snatched back her hand as if that touch had seared flesh and bone.

“Willingly it came?”

Koris fired to that doubt. “About such a matter I would speak only the truth. To me it came and only me will it serve.”

“Then more than ever do I say take it not into the streets of Kars.” That was half order, haif plea.

“Show me then a safe place in which to set it,” he countered, with openly displayed unwillingness.

She thought a moment, her finger rubbing at her lower lip.”So be it. But later you must give me the full tale, Captain. Bring it hither and I shall show you the safest place in this house.”

Simon and Briant trailed after them into another room where the walls were hung with strips of a tapestry so ancient that only the vaguest hints of the original designs could be surmised. One of these she bypassed to come to a length of carved wall panel on which fabulous beasts leered and snarled in high relief. She pulled at this, to display a cupboard and Koris set the ax far to its back.

Just as Simon had been aware of the past centuries within Estcarp city, solid waves of time beating against a man with all the pressure of ages, as he had also known awe for the non-human in the Hole where Volt had held silent court for dust and shadows, so here there was also a kind of radiation from the walls, a tangible something in the air which made his skin creep.

Yet Koris was brisk about the business of storing his treasure and the witch shut the cupboard as might a housewife upon a broom. Briant had lingered in the doorway, his usual impassive self. Why did Simon feel this way? And he was so plagued by that that he stayed when the others left, making himself walk slowly to the center of the chamber.

There were only two pieces of furniture. One a highbacked chair of black wood which might have come from an audience hall. Facing it was a stool of the same somber coloring. And on the floor between the two an odd collection of articles Simon studied as if trying to find in them the solution to his riddle.

First there was a small clay brazier in which might burn a palm load of coals, no more. It stood on a length of board, polished smooth. And with it was an earthen bowl containing some gray-white meal, that was flanked by a squat bottle. Two seats and that strange collection of objects — yet there was something else here also.

He did not hear the witch’s return and was startled out of his thoughts when she spoke.

“What are you, Simon?”

His eyes met hers.”You know. I told you the truth at Estcarp. And you must have your own ways of testing for falsehood.”

“We have, and you spoke the truth. Yet I must ask you again, Simon — what are you? On the sea road you felt out that ambush before the Power warned me. Yet you are a man!” For the first time her self-possession was shaken. “You know what is done here — you feel it!”

“No. I only know that there is something here that I can not see — yet it exists.” He gave her the truth once again.

“That is it!” She beat her fists together. “You should not feel such things, and yet you do! I play a part here. I do not always use the Power, that is, greater power than my own experience in reading men and women, in guessing shrewdly what lies within their hearts or are their desires. Three quarters of my gift is illusion; you have seen that at work. I summon no demons, toll nothing here from another world by my spells, which are said mainly to work upon the minds of those who watch for wonders. Yet there is the Power and sometimes it comes to my call. Then I can work what are indeed wonders. I can smell out disaster, though I may not always know what form it will take. So much can I do — and that much is real! I swear to it by my life!”

“That I believe,” Simon returned. “For in my world, too, there were things which could not be explained with any sober logic.”

“And you had your women to do such things?”

“No, it came to either sex there. I have had men under my command who had foreknowledge of disaster, of death, their own or others’. Also I have known houses, old places, in which something lurked which was not good to think about, something which could not be seen or felt any more than we can now see or feel what is with us here.”

She watched him now with undisguised wonder. Then her hand moved in the air, sketching between them some sign. And that blazed for an instant in fire hanging in space.

“You saw that?” Was that an accusation or triumphant recognition? He did not have time to discover which, for, sounding through the house was the note of a gong.

“Aldis! And she will have guards with her!” The witch crossed the room to rip open that panel where Koris had stored the ax. “In with you,” she ordered. “They will search the house as they always do, and it would be better if they do not know of your presence.”

She allowed him no time for protest, and Simon found himself cramped into space much too small. Then the panel was slammed shut. Only it was more spyhole than cupboard, he discovered. There were openings among the carvings, which gave him air to breath and sight of the room.

It had all been done so swiftly that he had been swept along. Now he revolted and his hands went to that panel, determined to be out. Only to discover, too late, that there was no latch on his side and that he had been neatly put into safe keeping, along with Volt’s ax, until the witch chose to have him out again.

His irritation rising, Simon pressed his forehead against the carven screen to gain as full sight as he could of the room. And he kept very still as the woman from Estcarp reentered, to be pushed aside by two soldiers who strode briskly about, flipping aside strips of tapestry.

The witch was laughing as she watched them. Then she spoke over her shoulder to one still lingering on the other side of the threshold:

“It seems that one’s word is not accepted in Kars. Yet when has this house and those under its roof even been associated with ill dealings? Your hounds may find some dust, a spider web, or two — I confess that I am not a notable housewife, but naught else, lady. And they waste our time with their searching.”

There was a faint jeer in that, enough to flick one on the raw. Simon appreciated her skill with words. She spoke as an adult humoring children, a little impatient to be about more important business. And subtly she invited that unseen other to join her in adulthood.

“Halsfric! Donnar!”

The men snapped to attention.

“Prowl through the rest of this burrow if you will, but leave us in private!”

They stood aside nimbly at the door as another woman came in. The witch closed the portal behind them before she turned to the newcomer, who dropped her hooded cloak to let it lie in a saffron pool on the floor.

“Welcome, Lady Aldis.”

“Time is wasting, woman, as you pointed out.” The words were harsh, but the voice in which they were spoken surrounded that bruskness with layers of velvet. Such a voice could well twist a man to her will through hearing it alone.

And the Duke’s mistress had the form, not of the tavern wench to which the witch had compared her, over-ripe and full-curved, but of a young girl not fully awakened to her own potentialities, with small high breasts modestly covered, yet perfectly revealed by the fabric of her robe. A woman of contradictions — wanton and cool at one and the same time. Simon, studying her, could well understand how she had managed to hold sway over a proved lecher as long and successfully as she had.

“You told Firtha—” again that sharp note swathed in velvet.

“I told your Firtha just what I could do and what was necessary for the doing,” the witch was as brisk as her client. “Does the bargain suit you?”

“It will suit me when it is proved successful and not before. Give me that which makes me secure in Kars and then claim your pay.”

“You have a strange way of bargaining, lady. The advantages are all yours.”

Aldis smiled. “Ah, but if you have the power you claim. Wise Woman, then you can blast as well as aid and I shall be easy meat for you. Tell me what I must do and be quick; I can trust those two outside only because I hold both their lives with my tongue. But there are other eyes and tongues in this city!”

“Give me your hand.” The woman from Estcarp picked up the tiny bowl of meal. As Aldis extended her beringed hand, the other stabbed it with a needle drawn from her clothing, letting a drop or two of blood fall into the bowl. She added more moisture from the bottle, mixing it into a batter. And coaxed the charcoal in the tiny stove to a blaze.

“Sit down.” She pointed to the stool. When the other was seated, she slapped the board across her knees, putting the stove upon it.

“Think on the one you want, keep him only in your mind, lady.”

The batter of that cake was spread out above that handful of fire and the woman from Estcarp began to sing. Strangely enough that something which had so alerted Simon moments earlier, which had thickened and curdled about them in that second when she had traced the fiery sign in the air, was now ebbing from the room.

But in its way her singing wove a spell of its own, changing thought images, evoking another kind of response. Simon, realizing it for what it was, for what it could do, after an incredulous second or two, bit hard upon his lower lip. This — coming from the woman he thought he was beginning to know. Fit magic for Aldis and her like; for the cool cleanliness of Estcarp, no! And it was beginning to work upon him also. Simon screwed his fingers into his ears to close out that sultry heat which seeped from words in the air to the racing blood in his own body.

He took away that defense only when he saw the witch’s lips ceased to move. Aldis’ face was a delicate pink, her parted lips moist, her eyes fixed before her unseeingly, until the witch lifted from her knees the board and brazier. The woman from Estcarp took up the cake, crumbled it into a square of white cloth and held it out to her client.

“A pinch of this added to his food or drink.” The life had gone from the witch’s voice; she spoke as one drugged with fatigue.

Aldis whipped the package from her, thrust it into the breast of her gown. “Be sure I shall use it rightly!” She caught up her cloak, already on her way to the door. “I shall let you know how I fare.”

“I shall know, lady, I shall know.”

Aldis was gone and the witch stood, one hand on the back of the chair as if she needed its support. Her expression was one of weary distaste with a faint trace of shame, as if she had used ill means to gain a good end.

V THREE TIMES HORNED

Koris’ hands moved in steady rhythm, polishing the ax blade with slow strokes of a silken cloth. He had reclaimed his treasure the minute he returned, and now, perched on a window ledge, with it resting upon his knees, he talked.

“… he burst in as if the Kolder were breathing upon his back and blurted it out to the sergeant who spewed up half the wine I had paid for and was like to choke loose his guts, while this fellow pawed at him and yammered about it. I’d stake a week’s looting of Kars that there is a kernel of truth in it somewhere, though the story’s a muddle.”

Simon was watching the other two in that room. He did not expect the witch to reveal either surprise or the fact that she might already have heard such a tale. However, the youngster she had produced out of nowhere might be less well schooled, and his attitude proved Simon right. Briant was too well controlled. One better trained in the game of concealment would have displayed surprise.

“I take it,” Simon cut through the Captain’s report, “that such a story is not a muddle to you, lady.” The wariness which had become a part of his relationship with her since that scene with Aldis hours earlier was the shield he raised against her. She might sense its presence, but she made no effort to break through it.

“Hunold is truly dead,” her words were flat. “And he died in Verlaine. Also is the Lady Loyse gone from the earth. That much did your man have true, Captain,” she spoke to Koris rather than to Simon. “That both these happenings were the result of an Estcarp raid is, of course, nonsense.”

“That I knew, lady. It is not our manner of fighting. But is this story a cover for something else? We have asked no questions of you, but did the remainder of the Guards come ashore on the Verlaine reefs?”

She shook her head. “To the extent of my knowledge, Captain, you and those who were saved with you are the only survivors out of Sulcarkeep.”

“Yet a report such as this will spread and be an excuse for an attack on Estcarp.” Koris was frowning now. “Hunold stood high in Yvian’s favor. I do not think the Duke will take his death calmly, especially if some mystery surrounds it.”

“Fulk!” The name exploded out of Briant as if it were a dart shot from his side arm. “This is Fulk’s way out!” His pale face had expression enough now. “But he would have to deal with Siric and Lord Duarte, too! I think that Fulk has been very busy. That shieldman had so many details of a raid that he must have been acquainted with a direct report.”

“A messenger from the sea just landed. I heard him babble that much,” Koris supplied.

“From the sea!” The witch was on her feet, her scarlet and gold draperies stirring about her. “Fulk of Verlaine cannot be termed in any way a simpleton, but there is a swiftness of move here, a taking advantage of every chance happening which smacks of something more than just Fulk’s desire to protect himself against Yvian’s vengeance!”

There was a stormy darkness in her eyes as she regarded all three of them coldly. She might almost have been numbering them among hostile elements.

“This I do not like. Oh, some tale from Verlaine might have been expected; Fulk needed a story to throw into Yvian’s teeth lest the stones of his towers be rained down about his own ears. And he is perfectly capable of spitting both Siric and Durate to give added credence and cover his tracks. But the moves come too swiftly, too well fitting into a pattern! I would have sworn—”

She strode up and down the chamber, her scarlet skirts swirling about her. “We are mistresses of illusion, but I will take oath before the Power of Estcarp that that storm was no illusion! Unless the Kolder have mastered the forces of nature—” Now she stood very still, and her hands flew to her mouth as if to trap words already spoken. “If the Kolder have mastered—” her voice came as a whisper. “I cannot believe that we have been moved hither and yon at their bidding! That I dare not believe! Yet—” She whirled about and came directly to Simon.

“Briant I know, and what he does and why, all that I know. And Koris I know, and what drives him and why. But you — man out of the mists of Tor, I do not know. If you are more than you seem, then perhaps we have brought our own doom upon us.”

Koris stopped polishing the ax blade. The cloth fell to the floor as his hands closed about the haft.”He was accepted by the Guardian,” he said neutrally, but his attention centered upon Simon with the impersonal appraisal of a duelist moving forward to meet a challenge.

“Yes!” The woman from Estcarp agreed to that. “And it is impossible that what Kolder holds to its core cannot be uncovered by our methods. They could cloak it, but the very blankness of that cloak would make it suspect! There is one test yet.” She plucked at the throat fastening of her robe and drew forth the dull jewel she had worn out of Estcarp. For a long moment she held it in her hands, gazing down into its heart, and then she slipped the chain from about her neck and held it out to Simon. “Take it!” she ordered.

Koris cried out and scrambled off the ledge. But Simon took it into his hand. At first touch the thing was as smooth and cold as any polished gem, then it began to warm, adding to that heat with every second. Yet the heat did not burn, it had no effect upon his flesh. Only the stone itself came to life; trails of opalescent fire crawled across its surface.

“I knew!” Her husky half-whisper filled the room. “No, not Kolder! Not Kolder; Kolder could not hold without harm, fire the Power and take no hurt! Welcome, brother in power!” Again she sketched a symbol in the air which glowed as brightly as the gem before it faded. Then she took the stone from his hold and restored it to its hiding place beneath her robe.

“He is a man. Shape changing could not work so, nor is it possible to befool us in the barracks where he has lived,” Koris spoke first. “And how does a man hold the Power?”

“He is a man out of our time and space. What chances in other worlds we cannot say. Now I will swear that he is not Kolder. So perhaps he is that which Kolder must face in the final battle. But now we must…”

Their preoccupation was sharply broken by the burr of a signal in the wall. Alert, Simon and Koris looked to the witch. Briant drew his gun. “The wall gate,” he said.

“Yet it is the right signal, though the wrong time. Answer it, but be prepared.”

He was already half out of the room. Koris and Simon sped after him to the garden door. As they reached outside, free from the deadening thickness of the walls of that unusual house, they heard a clamor from the town. Simon was plagued by a wisp of memory. There was a note in that far-off shouting which he had surely heard before. Koris looked startled.

“That is a mob! The snarl of a hunting mob.”

And Simon, remembering a red horror out of his own past, nodded briskly. He poised the dart gun to welcome whoever stood without the wall gate.

There was no mistaking the race of the man who stumbled in to them. A bloody gash could not disguise Estcarp features. He fell forward and Koris caught him about the body. Then they were all nearly rocked from their feet as a blast of sound and displaced air beat in on them and the very ground moved under them.

The man in Koris’ hold moved, smiled, tried to speak. Deafened momentarily they could not hear. Briant slammed shut the gate and set its locking bars. Together Simon and the Captain half carried, half supported the fugitive into the house.

He recovered enough to sketch a salute to the witch as they brought him to her. She measured some bluish liquid into a cup and held it to his lips as he drank.

“Lord Vortimer?”

He leaned back in the chair into which they had lowered him. “You just heard his passing, lady — in that thunder clap! With him went all of our blood fortunate to reach the embassy in time. For the rest — they are being hunted in the streets. Yvian has ordered the three times horning for all of Estcarp or of the old blood! He is like a man gone mad!”

“This too?” She pressed her hands tight against her temples as if she might so ease some almost intolerable pain. “We have no time, no time at all?”

“Vortimer sent me to warn you. Do you choose to follow him along the same path, lady?”

“Not yet.”

“Those who have been horned can be cut down without question wherever they are found. And in Kars today the cutting down does not come swiftly as a clean death,” he warned dispassionately. “I do not know what hopes you may have of the Lady Aldis—”

The witch laughed.”Aldis is no hope at all, Vortgin. Five of us…” She turned the cup around and around in her fingers and then looked directly to Simon. “More depends upon this than just our lives alone. There are those in the outer parts of Karsten of the old blood, who, warned, might safely get through the mountains to Estcarp, and so swell our ranks. Also what we have learned here, patchy though it is, must be taken back. I could not hope to summon power enough — you will have to aid me, brother!”

“But I don’t know how — I have no use of power,” he protested.

“You can back me. It is our only hope.” Koris came away from the window where he had been peering into the garden.

“Shape changing?”

“It is the only way.”

“And how long will it hold?”

She shrugged.

Vortgin ran his tongue across his lips. “Set me outside this cursed city and I’ll rouse your countryside for you. I have kin in the backlands who’ll move on my word!”

“Come!” She led the way to that tapestried room of magic. But just inside the door Koris halted.

“What I have been given I bear with me. Put on me no shape in which I cannot handle the gift of Volt.”

“I would call you lack-witted,” she flared back, “if I did not know the worth of that biter of yours. But it is not of human make and so may change shape also in illusion. We can only try. Now let us make ready, quickly!”

She pulled a strip of carpet from the floor as Simon and Koris shoved the chair and stool, bore the other things to the other end of the room. Stooping she traced lines with the jewel of power and those lines glowed faintly in the form of a five pointed star. A little defiantly Koris dropped his ax in the center of that.

The witch spoke to Simon. “Shapes are not changed in truth, but an illusion is created to bemuse those who would track us down. Let me draw upon your power to swell my own. Now,” she glanced around and brought the small clay brazier to sit by the ax, puffing its coals into life, “we can do what is to be done. Make yourselves ready.”

Koris caught Simon by the arm. “Strip — to the skin — the power does not work otherwise!” He was shedding his own jerkin. And Simon obeyed orders, both of them aiding Vortgin.

Smoke curled up from the brazier, filling the room with a reddish mist in which Koris’ squat form, the fugitive’s muscular body were half hidden. “Take your stand upon the star points — one to each point,” came the witch’s order out of the murk. “But you, Simon — next to me.”

He followed that voice, losing Koris and the other man in the fog. A white arm came out to him, a hand reached for and enfolded his. He could see under his feet the lines of a star point.

Someone was singing — at a far distance. Simon was lost in a cloud where he floated without being. Yet at the same time he was warm — not outwardly, but inwardly. And that warmth floated from his body, down his right arm. Simon thought that if he could watch it he would be able to see that flow — blood-red, warm — being drained in a steady stream. Yet he saw nothing but the greyish mist, he only knew that his body still existed.

The singing grew louder. Once before he had heard such singing — then it had aroused his lusts, and urged him to satisfy appetites he had beaten under by force of will. Now it worked upon him in another way, and he no longer loathed it fiercely.

He had closed his eyes against the endless swirling of the mist, stood attuned to the singing so that each note throbbed within his body to be a part of him, made into flesh and bone from this time forth — yet also did that warm flood trickle out of him.

Then his hand fell limply back against his thigh. The drain had ceased and the singing was fading. Simon opened his eyes. Where the murk had been a solid wall it was now showing holes. And in one of them he caught sight of a brutish face, a beastly caricature of human. But in it sat Koris’ sardonic eyes. And a little beyond was another with disease-eaten skin and a flat lid where an eye had once been.

He wearing the Captain’s eyes glanced from Simon to his neighbor and grinned widely, displaying decayed and yellowed fangs. “A fair company we shall be!”

“Dress you!” snapped the witch from the disappearing murk. “This day you have come out of the stews of Kars to loot and kill. It is your kind who thrive upon hornings!”

They put on the gear they had brought into Kars, but not enough to go too well clad for the dregs of the city that they seemed. And Koris took up from the floor — not the Ax of Volt — but a rust incrusted pole set with hooks, the purpose of which Simon would rather not imagine.

There was no mirror to survey his new self, but he gathered that he was as disreputable as his companions.

He had been expecting changes in the witch and Briant also — but not what he saw. The woman of Estcarp was a crone with filthy ropes of grayish hair about her hunched shoulders, her features underlined with ancient evil. And the youngster was her opposite. Simon stared in pure amazement, for he fronted a girl being laced into the scarlet and gold gown discarded by the witch.

Just as Briant had been pallid and colorless, here was rich beauty, more than properly displayed since her tiring maid did not bother to pull tight breast laces. Instead the crone quirked a finger at Simon.

“This is your loot, bold fellow. Hoist the pretty on your shoulder, and if you grow tired of your burden — well, these other rogues will lend a hand. Play your part well.” She gave the seeming girl a shove between her shoulder blades which sent her stumbling into Simon’s arms. He caught her up neatly, swinging her across his shoulder, while the witch surveyed them with the eye of a stage manager and then gave a tug to strip the bodice yet farther from those smooth young shoulders.

Inwardly Simon was astonished at the completeness of the illusion. He had thought it would be for the eyes only, but he was very conscious that he held what was also feminine to the touch. And he had to keep reminding himself that it was indeed Briant he so bore out of the house.

They found Kars harbored many such bands as theirs that day. And the sights they had to witness, the aid they could not give, ate into them during that journey to the wharves. There was a watch at the gates right enough, but as Simon approached, with his now moaning victim slung over his shoulder, his raffish fellows slinking behind him, as if to welcome the leavings of his feast, the witch scuttled ahead with a bag. She tripped and fell so that the brilliant contents of her looter’s catchall rolled and spilled across the roadway.

Those on guard sprang into action, the officer kicking the crone out of his way. But one man had a slightly higher sense of duty, or perhaps he was more moved by Simon’s supposed choice of pillage. For he swung a pike down in front ofTregarth and grinned at him over that barrier.

“You’ve got you a soft armload there, fishguts. Too good for you. Let a better man sample her first!”

Koris’ pole with its rusty hooks snaked out, hooking his feet from under him. As he sprawled they darted through the gate and along the wharf, other guards in pursuit.

“In!” Briant was pulled out of Simon’s grasp, thrown out into the flood of the river, the Captain following in a cleancut dive to come up beside the draggling red and gold clad body. Vortgin took off at a stumbling run. But Simon, seeing that Koris had Briant’s hand, looked back for the witch.

There was a flurry down the wharf and a tangle of figures. Gun in hand he ran back, pausing for three snap shots, each taking out a man, dead or wounded. His rush brought him there in time to see that twisted gray-haired body lying still while a sword swung downward aimed at the scrawny throat.

Simon shot twice more. Then his fist struck flesh, crushed it against bone. Someone shrieked and fled as he scooped up the witch, finding her weight more than Briant’s. Bearing her over his shoulder he staggered to the nearest barge, his lungs laboring as he dodged among the piled cargo on its deck, heading for the far rail and open water.

The woman in his arms came to life suddenly, pushing against him as if he were indeed a captor she might fight. And that overbalanced Simon so that they went over together, tumbling to strike the river with a force he had not expected. Simon swallowed water, choked, and struck out instinctively, if clumsily.

His head broke the surface and he stared about him for the witch, to see a wrinkled arm, hampered by water soaked rags cutting in a swimmer’s stroke.

“Ho!”

The call came from a barge floating downstream and a rope flicked over its side. Simon and the witch gained the deck, only to have Koris wave them impatiently to the opposite rail into the river again, the craft serving as a screen between them and the city shore.

But here was a small boat with Vortgin sitting therein, Briant leaning over the side being actively sick into the water, while he clutched his red robe about him as if indeed he had been the victim of rapine. As they scrambled down to this refuge, Koris pushed them away from the barge, using the point of his hook spear.

“I thought you lost that at the gate!”

Koris’ ruffian face mirrored his astonishment at Simon’s comment. “This I would never lose! Well, we have us a breathing space. They will believe us hiding on the barge. At least so we can hope. But it would be wise to head to the other shore as soon as this has drifted far enough from the wharves.”

They agreed with the Captain’s suggestion, but the minutes during which they remained wedded to the barge were very long ones. Briant straightened at last, but he kept his face turned from them as if heartily ashamed of the guise he wore. And the witch sat in the bow surveying the far shore with searching intensity.

They were lucky in that night was closing in. And Vortgin knew the surrounding country well. He would be able to guide them inland across the fields, avoiding houses and farms, until they had put enough distance between them and Kars to feel reasonably safe.

“Thrice horned — yes, that sentence he can enforce in Kars. For the city is his. But the old lords have ties with us, and where they lack such ties or sympathy, they may be moved by jealousy ofYvian.They may not actively aid us, but neither will they help the Duke’s men cut us down. It will be largely a matter of their closing their eyes and ears, hearing and seeing naught.”

“Yes, Karsten is now closed to us,” the witch agreed with Vortgin. “And I would say to all of the old race that they should flee borderward, not leaving escape until too late. Perhaps the Falconers will aid in this matter. Aie… aie… our night comes!”

But Simon knew that she did not mean the physical night closing about their own small party.

VI FALSE HAWK

They lay behind the winter pressed stack in the field, Simon, Koris, and Vortgin, wisps of the dank straw pulled over their bodies, watching what went on at the crossroads hamlet beyond. There were the brilliant blue-green surcoats of the Duke’s men, four of them, well mounted for hard and far riding, and a fringe of the dull-robed villagers. With some ceremony the leader of the small force out of Kars brought his horse beneath the Pole of Proclamation and put a horn to his lips, its silver plating catching fire from the morning sun.

“One… two… three…” Koris counted those blasts aloud. They heard them clearly, all the countryside must have heard them, although of what the Duke’s men said to the assembly afterwards they caught only as a mumble.

Koris looked to Vortgin. “They spread it fast enough. You’d best be on your way, if any of your kin is to be warned at all.”

Vortgin thrust his belt dagger deep into the earth of the field as if he were planting it in one of the blue coated riders. “I’ll need more than my two legs.”

“Just so. And there is what we all seek.” Koris jerked a thumb at the ducal party.

“Beyond the bridge the road takes a cut through small woods,” Simon thought aloud.

Koris’ pseudo-face expressed malicious appreciation of that hint. “They’ll soon be through with the chatter. We’d best move.”

They crawled away from their vantage point, crossed the river ford, and found the woods track. The roads leading north were not well kept. Yvian’s rule in this district had been covertly opposed by noble and commoner alike. Away from the main highways all passages tended to be only rough tracks.

On either side banks rose, brush and grass covered. It was not a safe place for any wayfarer, doubly suspect for anyone in the Duke’s livery.

Simon settled into concealment on one side of that cut, Koris chose a stand closer to the river, prepared to head off any retreat. And Vortgin was across from Simon. They had only to wait.

The leader of the messengers was no fool. One of his men rode ahead, studying every bush the wind stirred, every clump of suspiciously tall grass. He passed between the hidden men and trotted on. After him came the one who bore the horn, and a companion, while the fourth man brought up the rear.

Simon shot as the rearguard drew level with his position. But the man who fell from the expertly aimed dart was the lead scout.

The leader swung his mount around with the skill of an expert horseman, only to see the rearguard collapse from his saddle coughing blood.

“Sul…Sul…Sul!” The battle cry Simon had last heard in the doomed seaport rose shrilly. A dart creased Simon’s shoulder, ripping leather and burning skin — the leader must have cat’s eyes.

The remaining shieldman tried to back his leader in that attack, until Vortgin arose out of hiding and threw the dagger he had played with. The weapon whirled end over end until its heady knob struck the back of the other’s head at the base of his skull and he went down without a protesting sound.

Hooves pawed the air over Simon’s head. Then the horse overbalanced and crashed back, pinning his rider under him. Koris sprang out of hiding and the hooked pole battered down upon the feebly struggling man.

They set to work to strip the riders, secure their mounts. Luckily the horse which had fallen struggled to its feet, frightened and blowing but without any great injury. The bodies were dragged out of sight into the brush and the mail shirts, the helmets and the extra weapons were bound on the saddles before the horses were led to the deserted sheep fold where the fugitives had sheltered.

There the men walked into a hot quarrel. The withered crone, the dark beauty in rent gold and scarlet fronted each other hot-eyed. But their raised voices fell silent as Simon came through a gap in the rotting fence. Neither spoke until they brought up the horses and their burdens. Then the girl in red gave a little cry and pounced upon one of those bundles of leather and mail.

“I want my own shape — and now!” She spat at the witch.

Simon could understand that. At Briant’s age a role as he had been forced to assume would be more galling than slavery. And none of them could wish to keep on wearing the decidedly unattractive envelopes the woman from Estcarp had spun for them, even though they had been so delivered out of Kars.

“Fair enough,” he endorsed that. “Can we change by our — or rather your will, lady? Or is there a time period on this shape business?”

Through her tangle of rough locks the witch frowned. “Why waste the time? And we are not yet out of the reach of Yvian’s messengers — though apparently you have dealt with some of them.” She picked up one of the surcoats as if to measure it against her own bent person.

Briant glowered, gathering an armload of male clothing to him. The pouting lips of his girl’s face set stubbornly. “I go away from here as myself, or I don’t go at all!” he announced and Simon believed him.

The woman from Estcarp gave in. From beneath her ragged bodice she pulled a bag and shook it at Briant. “Off with you to the stream then. Wash with a handful of this for your soaping. But be careful of it, for this supply must serve us all.”

Briant snatched the bag, and, with the clothing, he gathered up his full skirts to scuttle away as if he feared his new possessions might be torn from him.

“What about the rest of us?” Simon demanded indignantly, ready to take off after the runaway.

Koris secured the horses to the moldering fence. His villainous face could not look anything but hideous, but somehow he managed to suggest honest amusement in his laughter. “Let the cub get rid of his trappings in peace, Simon. After all, he hasn’t protested before. And those skirts must have irked him.”

“Skirts?” echoed Vortgin in some surprise. “But…”

“Simon is not of the old race.” The witch combed her hair with her long nails.”He is new to our ways and shape changing. You are right, Koris,” she glanced oddly at the Captain, “Briant can be left to make his transformation in peace.”

The garments looted from the Duke’s unfortunate messengers hung loosely on the young warrior who returned at a far bolder gait from the stream. He tossed a ball of red stuff to the back of the shelter and stamped earth over it with an energy which approached attack as Simon and the rest went to the water.

Koris rubbed and laved his rusty hooked pole before he dipped his body, and continued to hold the Ax of Volt as he scrubbed himself. They made a choice from the tumbled clothing, Koris again assuming the mail shirt he had worn out of Kars since no other would fit him. But he shrugged one of the surcoats over it, a precaution followed by both his companions.

Simon handed the bag to the witch when they returned and she nursed it for a moment in one hand, then restored it to its former hiding place. “You are a brave company of warriors. Me, I am your prisoner. With your hoods and your helms Estcarp does not show so strong in you. Vortgin, you alone have the print of the old race. But were I to be seen in my true face I would damn you utterly. I shall wait before I break this shape.”

So it was that they rode out of that hiding place, four men in the Duke’s colors and the crone perched behinds Briant. The horses were fresh, but they held the pace to a comfortable trot as they worked a path across the country, avoiding the open roads until they reached a point where Vortgin must turn east.

“North along the trade roads,” the witch leaned from her seat behind Briant to urge.”If we can alert the Falconers they should see fugitives safely through the mountains. Tell your people to leave their gear and bring with them only their weapons and food, what may be carried on pack animals. And may the Power ride with you, Vortgin, for those you can urge into Estcarp will be blood for our veins!”

Koris pulled the horn strap from his shoulder and passed it over.”This may be your passport if you flush any of Yvian’s forces before you get into the back country. Luck be yours, brother, and seek out the Guards in the North. There is a shield in their armory to fit your shoulder!”

Vortgin saluted and kicked his horse into a flurry of speed eastward.

“And now?” the witch asked Koris.

“The Falconers.”

She cackled. “You forget. Captain, old and shriveled as I seem, with all the juices age-sucked from me, still am I female and the hold of the hawk men is barred to me. Set Briant and me across the border and then seek out your women-hating bird men. Rouse them up as best you may. For a border abristle with sword points will give Yvian something else to think about. And if they can afford our cousins safe passage, they will put us deep in their debt. Only,” she plucked at the surcoat on Briant’s shoulders, “I would say to you throw these name signs of a lord you do not serve away, or you may find yourself pinned to some mountain tree before you have time to make your true nature known.”

Simon was not surprised this time to find they were being observed by a hawk, nor did he think it odd to hear Koris address the bird clearly, giving their true identies and explaining their business in the foothills. He covered the back trail while the Captain took the lead, the witch and Briant riding between them. They had parted with Vortgin in midafternoon and it was now close to sunset, their only food during the day the rations found in the saddlebags of the captured horses.

Now Koris pulled up until the others joined him. While the Captain spoke he still faced into the rising mountains and it seemed to Simon as if he had lost a little of his robust confidence.

“This I do not like. That message must have been relayed by the bird’s communicator, and the frontier guards could not have been too far away. They should have met us before now. When we were in the Eyrie they were eager enough to promote a common cause with Estcarp.”

Simon eyed the slopes ahead uneasily. “I do not take a trail such as this in the dark without a guide. If you say, Captain, that they are not following custom, then that is all the more reason for staying clear of their territory. I would say camp at the first likely spot.”

It was Briant who broke in then, his head up, his attention for the bird wheeling overhead.

“That one does not fly right!” The youngster, dropping the reins of his horse, held his hands together to mimic the wings of a bird. “A true bird goes so — and a falcon so — many times have I watched them. But this one, see — flap, flap, flap — it is not right!”

They were all watching the circling bird now. To Simon’s eyes it was the same sort of black and white feathered sentry as had found them outside the Hole of Volt, as he had seen on the saddle perches of the Falconers. However he would be the first to admit that he knew nothing of birds.

“Can you whistle it down?” he asked Koris.

The Captain’s lips pursed and clear notes rang on the air.

At that same moment Simon’s dart gun went up. Koris turned with a cry and struck at Simon’s arm, but the shot had already been fired. They saw the dart strike, piercing just the point of the white vee upon the bird’s breast. But there was no faltering in its flight, no sign that it had taken any hurt from the bolt.

“I told you it is no bird!” cried Briant. “Magic!”

They all looked to the witch for an explanation, but her attention was riveted on that bird, the dart still protruding from its body, as it made low lazy circles overhead.

“No magic of the Powers.” That answer seemed forced out of her against her will. “What this is, I cannot tell you. But it does not live as we know life.”

“Kolder!” Koris spat.

She shook her head slowly. “If it is Kolder, it is not nature-tampering as it was with the men of Gorm. What it is I cannot tell.”

“We’ll have to get it down. It is lower since that dart struck it; perhaps the weight pulls it.” Simon said, “Let me have your cloak,” he added to the witch, dismounting.

She handed him that ragged garment and looping it over his arm Simon began to climb the wall beside the narrow track they had followed to this place. He hoped that the bird would remain where it was, content to fly above them. And he was sure it drew nearer earth with every circle.

Simon waited, flipping the cloak out a little. He flung it, and the bird flew unwarily into the improvised net. When Simon tried to draw it back the captive fell free, to fly blindly on and smash head first against the rock wall.

Tregarth leaped down to scoop up what lay on the ground. Real feathers right enough — but under them! He gave a whistle almost as clear and carrying as Koris’ bird summons, for entangled in the folds of torn skin and broken feathers was a mass of delicate metal filings, tiny wheels and wires, and what could only be a motor of strange design. Holding it in his two hands he went back to the horses.

“Are you sure the Falconers use only real hawks?” he asked of the Captain.

“Those hawks are sacred to them.” Koris poked a finger into the mess Simon held, his face blank with amazement. “I do not think that this thing is any of their fashioning, for to them the birds are their power and they would not counterfeit that lest it either turn upon them or depart utterly.”

“Yet someone or something has tossed into the air of these mountains hawks which are made, not hatched,” Simon pointed out.

The witch leaned closer, reaching out a finger to touch as Koris had done. Then her eyes raised to Simon’s and there was a question in them, a shadow of concern.

“Outworld—” she spoke hardly above a whisper. “This is not bred of our magic, or of the magic of our time and space. Alien, Simon, alien…”

Briant interrupted her with a cry and pointing a finger. A second black and white shape was over their heads, swooping lower. Simon’s free hand went to the gun, but the boy reached down from his saddle to strike at Tregarth’s wrist and spoil his aim. “That is a real bird!”

Koris whistled and the hawk obeyed that summons in the clean strike of its breed, settling on a rock crown, the tip of the same pinnacle against which the counterfeit had dashed itself to wreckage.

“Koris of Estcarp,” the Captain spoke to it, “but let him who flies you come swiftly, winged brother, for there is ill here and perhaps worse to come!” He waved his hand and the falcon took once more to the air, to head straight for the peaks.

Simon put the other thing into one of his saddle bags. In the Eyrie he had been intrigued by the communication devices which the true falcons bore. A machine so delicate and so advanced in technical ability was out of place in the feudal fortress of its users. And what of the artificial lighting and heating systems of Estcarp, or the buildings of the Sulcarkeep, of that energy source Osberic had blown up to finish the port? Were all these vestiges of an earlier civilization which had vanished leaving only traces of its inventions behind? Or — were they grafts upon this world from some other source? Simon’s eyes may have been on the trail they rode but his wits were tumbling the problem elsewhere.

Koris had spoken of Volt’s non-human race preceding mankind here. Were these remnants of theirs? Or had the Falconers, the mariners of Sulcarkeep, learned what they wished, what served their purposes best from someone, or something else, perhaps overseas? He wanted a chance to examine the wreckage of the false hawk, to try and assess from it if he could the type of mind, or training, which could create such an object.

The Falconers emerged from the mountain slopes as if they had stepped from the folds of the ground. And they waited for the party from Kars to approach, neither denying them passage, nor welcoming them.

“Faltjar of the southern gate,” Koris identified their leader. He swept his own helm from his head to display his face plainly in the fading light. “I am Koris of Estcarp, and I ride with Simon of the Guards.”

“Also with a female!” The return was cold and the falcon on Faltjar’s saddle perch shook its wings and screamed.

“A lady of Estcarp whom I must put safely beyond the mountains,” corrected the Captain in a tone as cold and with the sharpness of a rebuke. “We make no claim upon you for shelter, but there is news which your Lord of Wings should hear.”

“A way through the mountains you may have, Guard of Estcarp. And the news you may give to me; it shall be retold to the Lord of Wings before moonrise. But in your hail you spoke of ill here and worse to follow. That I must know, for it is my duty to man the southern slopes. Does Karsten send forth her men?”

“Karsten has thrice horned all of the old race and they flee for their lives. But also there is something else. Simon, show him the false hawk.”

Simon was reluctant. He did not want to yield up that machine until he had more time to examine it. The mountaineer looked upon the broken bird he took from the saddlebag, smoothing a wing with one finger, touching an open eye of crystal, pulling aside a shred of feathered skin to see the metal beneath.

“This flew?” he demanded at last, as if he could not believe in what he saw and felt.

“It flew as one of your birds, and kept watch upon us after the fashion of your scouts and messengers.”

Faltjar drew his forefinger caressingly down the head of his own bird as if to assure himself that it was a living creature and not such a copy.

“Truly this is a great ill. You must speak yourself with the Lord of Wings!” Clearly he was torn between the age-old customs of his people and the necessity for immediate action. “If you did not have the female — the lady,” he corrected with an effort, “but she may not enter the Eyrie.”

The witch spoke. “Let me camp with Briant, and you ride to the Eyrie, Captain. Though I say to you, bird man, the day comes soon when we must throw aside many old customs, both we of Estcarp and you of the mountains, for it is better to be alive and able to fight, than to be bound by the chains of prejudice and dead! There is a riving of the border before us such as this land has never seen. And all men of good will must stand together.”

He did not look at her, nor answer, though he half sketched a salute, giving the impression that that was a vast concession. And then his hawk took to the air with a cry, and Faltjar spoke directly to Koris.

“The camp shall be made in a safe place. Then, let us ride!”