Zarsthor's Bane

12

Out of the mist cloaking what lay above her there reached—A giant paw! The claws were unsheathed, extended in threatening curves just above her as that paw swung down in menace. Brixia clung despairingly to the pillar. But her hold was not tight enough. The claws hooked into her shirt over the shoulders and she was torn loose from her precarious grasp on the shaft, brought up through the mist ceiling. Up—and down—for she was released and fell, scraping her arm against stone, a wild yowl ringing in her ears.

The pillar was still by her. But this was not the pillar she had climbed—this was small—she could span it with her outflung arm. It formed a pedestal on the crown of which crouched Uta—a normal sized Uta—The cat stared down and Brixia realized she was back in her own time and space.

This was the same chamber in the once drowned building of the lake. But there was no mist-vine choking walls and ceiling now. Those walls, blue-green and gloaming, were as bright as if newly scoured. On the floor, just a little beyond where she was crouched, lay Dwed, his head and shoulders supported by Lord Marbon!

There was no slackness in Marbon’s face as he gazed distractedly at her over the boy’s body. Nor was he under the hold of any power now. She sensed he was truly human, with his own mind unlocked to free him from the shadow as well as the obsession which had imprisoned him.

“Dwed—dies—” He gave her no other greeting, nor did he act as if he had been a part of what had happened to her. His eyes were haunted by fear, not for himself she knew, but for the boy.

What he said might be true—but she was not willing to accept such a despairing judgment. Brixia did not get to her feet, rather she crept closer on her hands and knees. That vast fatigue which had settled on her during her climb out of that other place still weighed her body. Reaching the two she fumbled in her shirt and brought out the stone.

“This is a thing of power,” she said slowly. “I do not know how to use it—but when I called with it—Uta answered. I called upon you also—did you then hear?”

He frowned. “I had—it was a dream—I think.”

“No dream.” Her hands shook as she cupped the stone. “Perhaps—perhaps—if Dwed has not gone too far, him also we can call. Look upon this, lord, and call your fosterling!” Her words had the sharpness of an order as she thrust the stone into his full view, holding it directly above Dwed’s body.

As if she had left him no choice Marbon’s intent gaze dropped to the stone. Animation was once more gone from his features, his face appeared drawn and wasted—near as old as had been the countenance of Zarsthor in that other world. He, too, might have fought some age long battle of mind and spirit—his eyes alone seemed alive.

Brixia hesitated. Dwed had no friend or liege tie with her. Would a call shaped by her thought reach him, be strong enough to halt his march into those shadows which enclosed the Last Gate of all? But if Marbon did such calling, could she not in turn fortify him in some way—her will alone perhaps giving him additional strength?

“Call!” she ordered once more. At the same time she summoned all she knew of concentration and aimed her will, not at the motionless, scarcely breathing body, but into the heart of the stone she held now near touching his breast.

“Call Dwed!”

Perhaps Marbon did—silently. Was it the stone which drew Brixia then into a state of being which no voice might reach? She—or a part of her holding her strong will and innermost spirit—was engulfed, swept on—not back into that place of mists from which she had brought the altered Bane. No, this was darker, more threatening, cold, dreary—a place of despair.

“Dwed!” Now she herself shaped that name in her thought, not with her lips. And it seemed to her the soundless thought rang like an imperative shout.

Down—Brixia had a sensation of sinking further and further into this dead world. There was a swirl of dusky green light about her but it did nothing to make her less apprehensive.

“Dwed!” Not her thought-call this time. But when she caught it she hastened to echo it. Before her stretched a line of deeper green, a cord along which the color played now light, now dark, rhythmically. The other end of that cord remained hidden. To see with the mind’s eyes, Brixia had heard of that but had never really believed it could be done.

“Dwed!”

The cord snapped taut. There was a need to save—to draw—But no one could lay hand on this. For where there was no physical body, neither did a hand exist.

Within herself Brixia fumbled, strove to master this new sense this awareness she had not known any could have—which she did not understand.

“Dwed!” Again that call in the other’s voice—or thought.

Though the cord remained taut, there was no more movement in it. There must be a way! In the past Brixia had known times when she had driven her body to a point where flesh, bone, and blood had been exhausted close to death. Now—she must so drive this other part of her. This was like using a new tool or weapon, for which she had no training—only desperation and great need.

“Dwed!” That was her call this time. And it seemed as if the name itself wove about the cord, thickened and strengthened it. Out flowed the wave of another force, not hers. For a moment Brixia flinched from uniting with that. Then, knowing that only together might come victory, she surrendered.

Draw—draw back the cord, guide so Dwed’s return! Be not only an anchorage holding him still to life, but prepare for him a road of escape.

The cord—in her vivid mental picture that was beginning to change. Small leaves of green-gold as brilliant as precious metal broke forth along it. Now it was a vine—Grow, pull—this way was life!

Thought closed about the vine in a grip as tight as willing hands might have. Draw—

“Dwed!”

Leaf by leaf the vine was moving, coming back and back. Pull!

“Dwed!”

The vine was gone—the cold, the dark broke like a bubble shattered from within. She was in the light once more, back in time and place. Dwed lay still in Marbon’s arms. The boy’s face was very pale, the green light of the stone gave it an overcast like that of the touch of death.

“Dwed!” Marbon’s hand cupped the boy’s chin, raising his head.

There was a flutter of eyelashes. Dwed’s lips parted in a slow sigh. Slowly the eyelids lifted. But the eyes were blank, unfocused.

“Cold—” he whispered faintly. A shudder shook his limp body. “So very cold—”

Brixia’s hands shook as she still cupped the stone. On impulse, and because she felt she had hardly any strength left in her now to continue to hold it, she placed the Bane on Dwed’s breast, brought up his flaccid hands to rub between her own. His flesh was clammy and chill.

“Dwed—” Marbon called his name loudly as the boy’s eyes once more closed. “Do not leave us, Dwed!”

Again the boy sighed. His head turned a little on his lord’s arm so that his face was half hidden.

“Dwed!” the name was now a cry of fear.

“He sleeps—he has not gone.” Brixia fell back rather than moved away. “Truly he is with you again.”

With you, she thought. Not with us. What part had she now in their lives?

“Only by your grace and favor, Wise Woman.” Marbon settled the boy gently on the floor.

She had seen this man’s face vacant, enraged, absorbed by the obsession of his quest. But now he looked very different somehow. She could not read the meaning behind his eyes. She was too tired, too drained in mind and body.

“I—am—no—Wise-woman—” She spoke slowly cut of the overwhelming ache of that tiredness. Uta pressed against her, purring, rubbing her head along Brixia’s arm in one of her most meaningful caresses.

The girl half put out her hand for the Bane, but she never completed that action. Instead a wave of darkness arose and swept her away.

Flowers around her, she lay in a scented nest of blossoms. Others hung from the branches which curtained her around. She could see only the pearl white of their petals, the carved perfection of them. Among them wound vines brightly green. Brixia thought drowsily that the rustling she heard was the whisper of flower and vine together.

Louder grew that whispering—and with it a murmur like the sweet plucking of lute strings. The flowers, the vines, sang:

Only jingling rhymes—no polished songsmith’s lay.

The flowers swung to it, the vine leaves whispered and waved. Languidly Brixia closed her eyes, content to rest in this fragrant bed which was so far from labor, fear and pain. But through the song, the lute’s murmur, a voice called imperiously:

“Brixia!”

“Brixia!”

Once more she opened her eyes. This was not her place of peace and flowers. She lay under the open sky. Under her, as her hands moved aimlessly, at her sides, was the softness of grass cut and heaped to make a bed. She was not alone. To her right Lord Marbon sat cross-legged, to her left was Dwed still white faced. Uta arose from by her feet, stretched and yawned.

Brixia frowned. Certainly she had not been here—no, rather in that domed place of the lake city—when last she remembered.

“You—did you sing that song?” she asked slowly, looking once more to Marbon.

“No.” He shook his head. With his lips shaping such a smile she thought she could understand, seeing also that which dwelt in his eyes, softened his features, that tie which had led Dwed to follow and serve his stricken lord—even to the edge of death. If this man offered friendship it was a gift worth the taking.

“It was you who sang—in your sleep.” He told her. “Or did you really wander in another place, lady, where dreams are more real and this life but a dream? Though I find the promise in your song good. ‘Who holds the land under the day!’—who holds the land.” he repeated softly as if he found in that a promise.

“What land, lord?” Dwed cut in.

“That which the Bane once destroyed, which is now free again. Look, lady, and see how your song comes true!”

Before Brixia could move Marbon was at her side, his arm slipped beneath her shoulders. He lifted her with a gentle concern which she had forgotten one of her kind might ever show to another. She needed his strength for her support for she felt very weak, as one who arouses after a serious illness.

So resting against him she looked beyond. Uta pranced in a circle about the growing spear of a plant. Grass lay in a waving, lush crown of green about that spear, taller, richer in color than that growing elsewhere. And, half way up that spear of shining red-brown there was a bulge in the bark.

Brixia had never seen growth in action before. Even as she watched that swelling on the trunk cracked, opened to release a pod also red-brown, perhaps the size of her little finger. While before her eyes that shoot which had given birth to the pod grew visibly taller, thicker, put out two branches, and still grew.

The fresh grass spread out in ripples of vivid green on and on from the roots of the plant, shooting up to replace the duller blades which had been there. There were now smaller pods on the two branches. This—this was a tree—a tree growing the sum of years’ thickening, spreading, reaching, in only moments of their time!

“What—where—?” Brixia clutched at Marbon’s nearer hand.

“It grows from the seed you brought out of An-Yak, lady. There we planted Zarsthor’s Bane. But what springs from it is no longer evil. Green magic, Wise Woman.”

She moved to shake her head, brushing so against his shoulder.

“I have told you—I am no Wise Woman.” She was a little afraid now—afraid of anything she could not truly understand.

“One does not always choose power,” he answered quietly. “That sometimes chooses you. Do you think that you could have plucked the flower of the White Heart had you not had within you that which green magic inclined to! I—I sought the Bane for its power, and that dark shadow over-reached me—for I am of Zarsthor’s doomed House and what was evil for him could also root in me, even as this tree has rooted here, its past blackness and evil destroyed.”

“You sought no power, so it was freely given to you in your need. Did not even the Bane lose its threat in your hands? What you wrought then—that was greater magic than any I could aspire to do.”

Brixia shook her head again. “Not my doing—it was from the flower—also, it was in the end the choice of Eldor and Zarsthor—for when they came together in that place they had even forgotten what had tied them in hatred among the shadows.”

She remembered the two worn men as she had seen them last, how they had answered the questions that someone, or something, perhaps even the Bane itself, had put in her mind to ask.

“Zarsthor?” He made a question of the name.

Brixia told him of the two who had demanded the Bane of her, and of how they had at last gone away together, free of the bonds their own acts had laid upon them.

“And you say you have no power?” Marbon marveled. “How it comes to one does not matter—how one uses it does.”

The girl sat up, drawing away from his light hold. “I do not want it!” she cried aloud to all about her—more to the unseen than to him, Dwed, or Uta.

Now the swift growing tree was more than a sapling, ever thickening branches hung lower, burdened as they were with more and more swelling buds. Even as Brixia voiced her denial the first and largest of the buds split its casing. A flower opened—white and perfect. Though it was day and the sun was out over their heads—still the flower was in bloom.

Brixia blinked and blinked again. There was no denying what she could so plainly see. Fruit of the Bane Marbon had said. Brixia bit her lip. The flower she had carried—which had withered away in that fog-land—had it given its life to this? She must accept that such things could be when the evidence stood before her eyes. New thoughts, awakening emotions stirred in her—they were both fascinating and frightening. Perhaps she had been marked for this task in some way on that first night when Kuniggod had brought her into the refuge of that place of the Old Ones—the place of quiet peace.

“What must I do then!” she asked in a small voice, wishing no answer, but knowing she must listen to one.

“Accept,” Marbon stood up, his arms flung wide, his face raised to the sky. “This was the Bane killed land of Zarsthor. Perhaps it has lain too long under the shadow to truly awake again.” He turned his head to look at the walls in the sunken lake basin. “An-Yak is gone. But one can build anew—”

For the second time Dwed spoke. “What of Eggarsdale then, my lord?”

Marbon shook his head slowly. “We cannot go back, foster son. Eggarsdale lies behind—both in distance and time. This now is ours—”

Brixia looked from him to the tree. That stood taller than Marbon now. Unlike the one under which she had sheltered her first night in the Waste, the branches of this were not twisted nor interwoven among themselves, but lifted their tips upward, spread well apart from one another, as if to both welcome the clear sky and roof that portion of the earth covered with the thick fresh grass.

Theirs? Unconscious of what she did, she held out her right hand towards the tree. That first bloom to open broke from its stem. Though she felt no wind against her cheek, or ruffling her touseled hair, the flower drifted straightway to her, settled upon her hand. Did it come in answered to her unvoiced desire—even as Uta (when she chose, of course) would come to her call?

Theirs! Brixia cupped the flower and drew deep breaths of its fragrance. Like an outworn garment the past dropped from her. It was gone—the world was changed, even as Zarsthor’s Bane had become this wondrous thing.