by Andre Norton
The huge birds began a circular maneuver while the men shouted and pointed upward. Twilla saw a flight of arrows but none came near the birds, instead those shafts sped toward the nets as a bit of iron might be drawn to a magnet, slapping themselves tightly to the strands.
Down swooped the anisgars, and without any command from Oxyle that Twilla could detect they loosed their burdens, which straightway fell. As the arrows had been drawn to the netting so was the netting in turn drawn to the crawlers and the men clustered around them. Then the nets touched both armored men and machine and held, drawing most of their outer captives against the bulk of the crawlers and seemingly binding them there.
Horses wandered loose but the forces sent against the forest were firmly entrapped. Shouts which began in rage turned to fear as those entrapped struggled unable to free themselves. Twilla heard the exultant voices of the under men, some of them patting each other on the back in the affirmation of a job well done.
Swiftly Twilla explained to Ylon what had happened.
“Who commands the force?” he asked in return.
She pushed forward a little. Then saw that leader plainly in a red surcoat meant to be a battle signal. “Ustar.”
The guards captain was one of those fighting the strongest against his bonds. He cried aloud orders, none of which his followers might obey.
“Steer me,” Ylon demanded. And Twilla caught his arm to aid. Then Oxyle and Chard joined the two and Ylon appeared to sense their coming.
“They may listen the better to me,” he said.
The forest lord nodded. “Have your chance, Ylon. Though you may have less power with them than you think.”
Ylon gave a small, bitter laugh. “I may have none at all, but one can always make trial.” He moved toward the brush fringe and Twilla drew him toward a place which offered passage.
There was a steady clamor from the struggling men. But, though they fought their bonds none won freedom. While the crawlers seemed as tightly pinned as the bunched forces about them.
Ylon strode forward, Twilla fast beside him. She had one hand for his arm and the other raised so she fingered the mirror. Though from all she could see there was no danger of any of those ahead winning out of the net.
As the two from the forest approached the clamor of the men stilled. All of them were watching Ylon and Twilla. She could see Ustar very plainly now, his face was crimson with rage. He tried to lunge forward as if to throw himself at his brother, but such an action was impossible.
Ylon came to a halt at the edge of the seared ground where the balefire had burned.
“Ustar!” He raised his voice so all those beyond could hear.
The captain pursed his mouth and spat. “Demon lover. Traitor!” he answered hoarsely.
Ylon turned a fraction, guided by his brother's voice, to face him squarely.
“Where rides our father?” he asked.
“Father? You are no son to him, un-man. Are you walking wit-deprived again? Be sure you shall meet him at the proper time and it will not be a meeting you will take pleasure in. For this you shall pay dearly—”
“I think not,” Ylon returned. “Again I ask—where is Lord Harmond?”
“Where he belongs and when he conies forth—”
“Ustar,” Ylon's calmness was a rebuke to Ustar's anger-thickened voice, “believe this, you have come up against the first defense. There shall be others waiting. Though you shall not stir from where you are until Lord Harmond comes to treat—”
“To treat?” brayed Ustar. “He will come with fire and ax, mark that, traitor. Do you think he would speak with you, or with such as that demon whore beside you?”
Suddenly Ylon laughed and that sound seemed to react on Ustar as if a lash had been laid to his back. “Ustar, you should not speak such words of this lady. Lord Harmond himself offered her to you in marriage—”
Twilla saw Ustar's eyes go wide as he stared at her from head to foot and back again.
“So she was one with those—”
“Not so, she is what she said she was—a healer. And healing can make many changes. But this matter is not of importance now. If you or one of your men be freed, will you take a message to Lord Harmond?”
For the second time Ustar spat. “Free any of us, unman, and we shall sword gut you, traitor that you are. My father will follow his own will.”
Ylon shrugged. “So be it then. You and those with you shall have time to think. If you find one ready to serve as a messenger let it be known.”
He turned, Twilla with him. Behind them the cries of the netted men had turned to curses, delivered with the same force as they might have aimed sword blows. From sounds, Twilla did not turn her head to watch, they were again fighting the net strands.
Overhead fluttered the lizards and the asprites, the latter seeming to dance on the air. They circled Ylon and Twilla and then headed back toward the netted men. Twilla did not envy any who might catch their attention.
Un-man, Twilla thought. She had heard that word loud among the curses. Lotis—her anger stirred. If the curse of Lotis remained what life would Ylon have? He had served the forest people well, surely Oxyle could do something to break that spell. All their talk of laws and ancient oaths should not stand between Ylon and his eyes. Healer, she was supposed to be a healer and what could she do—except stand by his side, be his eyes when it was needful. Un-man! Surely no one had proved himself more than that than this man who strode beside her with the curses of his own people following him.
They came to the forest fringe and made their way through it. Oxyle and Chard waited.
Again it was as if Ylon could see them for he asked: “You heard?”
“We heard. Those will be left to consider what may be done to them. They may be less contentious later this day.”
“Oxyle,” Twilla repeated his name sharply as he was turning away.
The forest lord looked at her.
“Lotis—” She did not know just how to begin a plea she knew she must make.
Then—The air shimmered and Twilla was. aware once again of that near stifling fragrance. Ylon swung around to face that disturbance and Oxyle stood, his feet slightly apart, as one braces himself against an attack.
Lotis was there. Her beauty was in no way diminished and yet, when one looked into her green eyes, Twilla thought, one could see the deadly light kindled by the shadow powers she had been dealing with.
She smiled.
“Ylon—come—” She crooked her ringer at him.
He did not move. Lotis lost her sly smile, her lips thinned.
“Come!” She gave that second order loudly.
“I am no longer your bond man,” he replied in a level voice.
“I have set my mark on you. You are mine!” She hissed like a cat warning off a rival.
“You set your mark on me and still I bear it,” he returned evenly. “But you can no longer hold me.”
“You—” she turned a face now rage flushed to Oxyle. “The law is broke—”
“The law has indeed been broken,” the forest lord replied. “But by your own acts, Lotis, we shall—”
“You shall do nothing!” Her voice skittered up the scale into a screech. “I have powers you have not dreamed of. See what happens to this bond man who says he is no longer answerable to me!”
She lifted her hand but Twilla moved as quickly. Even as Lotis pointed a finger at Ylon and that finger began to blaze with a light beyond any true flesh, the girl swung up the mirror between Lotis and her prey.
31
A THRUST OF light like a spear sped from Lotis's finger. It struck full upon the mirror rather than Ylon's breast. Struck—and was reflected back in nearly the same instant toward the woman. She opened her mouth perhaps to utter some counter spell—or a scream.
For the light hit full upon her, struck and spread, enveloping her body as flames might have done. There came a sound—a wail which carried both rage and fear. For a long moment Lotis was s
o enveloped and then—
There was no woman. What reared at the foot of the tree behind where she had stood was a pillar of gray rock. Twilla backed away, the mirror in her hand falling to her side. She came up with a jolt as her shoulders struck against the trunk of another tree. There she stood, staring wide-eyed at that pillar which might have so reared here for an age.
Oxyle broke the silence first: “So be it. She has taken the brunt of her own spell. Nor will she be free of it—for only the spell layer can break such ensorcellment and a rock cannot find voice—”
Twilla was trembling, her free hand pressed against her lips. What had she done? When Lotis had been free there had always been a chance she might be forced to return Ylon's sight—now, she herself had destroyed that one small hope.
“She is—not," Ylon said slowly. “Always I could feel her thoughts seeking me. They are gone now.” There was the lightness of relief in his voice. Perhaps, Twilla thought, he did not realize what this meant to him.
Twilla turned upon Oxyle. “She—she is impotent? There is no way to break her free?” she appealed.
The forest lord shook his head. “She is caught in her own bespelling, that we cannot break. But at least she is no longer a threat to what we would do.”
“So—” Twilla's anger was as much for herself as for Oxyle, “she cannot return Ylon's sight now.”
“That is so,” he agreed.
“Lotis is—gone,” it was Ylon who spoke. “There is nothingness. I have—” his voice dropped near to a mere murmur, “I have feared that she could once more bind me. What—what was done?”
“She sent a spell toward you, the Moon Daughter's mirror was a shield before you which reflected it back to her—trapping her in the fate she planned for you. Lotis is a—rock!”
Ylon gave a small, uncertain laugh. “A monument to her own evil thereby.”
Their conversation was only meaningless words to Twilla, she was caught hard in her own dark spell. She had destroyed Ylon's last hope. He would remain an object of scorn for those of his blood. Perhaps—even to stand a rock might be better than a lifetime in the everlasting dark! She was a healer—and this was no healing—
“Twilla?” Ylon was holding out a hand, groping in the air as she was too far behind him for any touch. “Twilla, is all right with you?”
Her face twisted. She swallowed bitterness and guilt. She had doomed him and he worried concerning her.
“I was not harmed,” she croaked, fighting furiously to keep tears well-bottled within.
“May the Three in One be praised!” He had located her by her voice and now he swung around and, with a stride, was before her—both his hands out now, running up and down her body as if he sought some wound she had kept secret.
His fingers came to rest on her shoulders and he drew her to him, enfolding her as she came.
“You have freed me, Healer. What is the matter?” he demanded a second later.
“I—your eyes—” she got out between small gasps. “Lotis cannot reverse the spell.”
“Healer—Twilla—you saved a life. Keep that in mind.”
“I—I will be your eyes—always!” she burst out.
He was smiling. “Make no promises, Healer. You have given me much already.”
Ylon continued to hold her and she felt safe against his strength. Within her she vowed—not promised—that what she said was true. He would have her eyes as long as life allowed it so.
They stood up so still together as Oxyle summoned a carrier mist and brought them back to the castle hall. There were a number of the forest people gathered there. Many Twilla had never seen before. But they stood in two bodies separated by a space across which those in one stared straightly at the smaller group who seemed ill at ease. There were not many of those, three of the women, six of the men. And when Oxyle appeared they straightened tensely as if awaiting some judgment to be passed on them. Those who had followed Lotis Twilla surmised.
“We stand asunder,” Oxyle greeted them all, “when it is the time for us to face another foe. Carwar.” One of the men in that first row of the smaller group, looked to meet Oxyle's eyes.
“Lotis is ensnared for all time in a dead-spell she desired to set upon another,” the forest lord continued. “She plundered the sealed knowledge yet there was a greater power to answer her. You gave aid to her, as did you, Ethera.” One of the women started, her mouth opening as if to utter a protest and then closing. “Makcon, Alsida.” One by one Oxyle named them.
“What promises did she make? Power for all of you greater than what the rest of us could summon? Yet that power failed. We have said that the outlanders act out of greed in their drive to despoil us. It seems that greed also lies here within our own fastness. Once before there was such greed—Khargel—”
Someone, perhaps in that shunned company drew a breath so sharp it was audible.
“Khargel,” Oxyle repeated as if to impress that name upon their ears—their minds. “His greed near lost all to us—severed us from our small kin—turned us one against the other. Lotis strove to do the same. Look into your hearts. Were you serving the great trees or your own greed?”
Those he addressed stood silent. They no longer watched him, rather they were staring at the floor. Then the man Oxyle had first addressed spoke:
“There was other power—Lotis gained it from beyond the forest. She scried and found a source. It may still live.”
“I think not. He who must have sent it is dead. Kin—” He took a step toward the group. “We fight now a battle for us all—against the outlanders. Do we stand divided so that they may gain from our weakness?”
“No!” One of the women he had addressed answered. “Lotis led us promising great things, that we might use that from the storehouse of Khargel to turn back the invaders. She said that you were afraid to call upon what she could. But—and this true, Lord, we were uncertain and when she lighted the Dank Fire—” The woman shivered. “Then we knew what fools we were and we scattered. Set us under binding, if you wish, we deserve no better.”
There was an assenting murmur from those standing around her.
“No binding,” Oxyle replied. “We need all power for what we would do. By the learning of the under men the enemy have temporarily bond themselves and we are leaving them to think about their helplessness. Of this something may come in our favor.”
Neither Oxyle nor any of his people gave any other reproach to those who stood apart, and slowly they joined with their fellows. It was Oxyle now who gestured Twilla and Ylon forward and she guided the outlander to stand beside the forest lord.
“With whom do we bargain, outlander?” asked Oxyle.
“Unless matters have greatly changed there is but one over lord—Lord Harmond. He was not with those you entrapped. It was his son who captained the force with the crawlers.”
“You are also his son,” Oxyle replied.
Ylon slowly shook her head. “When Lotis took my eyes she took from me all that makes a man—in my father's opinion.”
Twilla shivered, with every word the burden she bore grew the heavier.
“Does kin blood mean so little among your kind?” It was Karla who pushed forward a little to demand that.
“Lord Harmond,” Ylon did not speak of him any longer as father, Twilla noted, “is first a warrior and a maimed man is of little worth among the ranks of any army. But I tell you this—only Lord Harmond can give the orders which will bring peace.”
“And if he is not among those we hold captive—can we believe that he will ride out to be also caught—even though our nets are all in use and that he does not know?” That was Chard tapping the butt of his staff against the floor.
“Do you suggest then that some of us go to him? We would be as helpless as children. Our strength comes from the great trees—if we withdraw from them our power wanes,” Vestel said sharply.
“We dare not even move to disarm those we have taken,” Oxyle agreed. “They hold and wear iron.
Only the under people can handle such without hurt and I do not send those in my place.”
Chard rapped heavily with his boar's staff summoning the full attention of all who heard him. “We can call upon the tuskers—they will form a guard.”
“One not immune to spears and swords,” Oxyle straightway pointed out. “A messenger we need but—”
There was a sudden eruption of mist halfway down the hall and out of it stumbled, as he had been caught up while running and so delivered in mid-stride, Fanna.
“Lord,” he gasped, pushing his way past Ylon and Twilla, “there comes another army—”
Twilla's grasp on Ylon's sleeve tightened. Another army and Chard had just said that there were no more nets!
“But—” Fanna was continuing, “these are not soldiers such as we have seen—they are women marching so, although they carry weapons—”
Women! Twilla looked to Karla and then to Catha.
It was Karla whose voice arose above the murmur of those listeners about them and she spoke directly to Twilla.
“Moon Daughter, perhaps our endeavors have brought forth fruit. Shall we see?”
Ylon and Twilla crowded up beside them. Mist gathered and the hall was hidden from sight. Then they stood before that fringe of brush looking out toward the tangle of men and crawlers. The captives were calling out to the women for aid as they tramped with purpose in lines which indeed had some resemblance to a half-trained force of recruits.
They stopped beside the netted crawlers and men but they did not approach closer those now shouting in growing rage for help.
Instead two of the women came on and Twilla knew them. There was Leela armed with a short-shafted spear and Rutha who held a bared sword. They passed the burned ground and came before the line of brush. It was Leela who called out in a voice loud enough to be heard above the clamor of the men:
“Healer—we would parley.”
Twilla loosed her hold on Ylon. She glanced to Oxyle. “I will go,” she said and was on her way before he could refuse even if he wished to.