by Andre Norton
Fogar smiled. Very well—Irasmus had his secrets, a number of which his apprentice had quietly uncovered over the years. The boy knew that, for all his discoveries—and these were not a few—he could never confront the dark mage openly. Still, he took a certain pride each time he managed to acquire another piece of the puzzle. This game of stones certainly had a very important meaning for Irasmus; thus, it must be Fogar’s part to listen, look—and learn.
He stretched out, weary from the steady labor the gobbes had commanded that he alone do—picking of the rock discs out of the earth-winnowing basket and delivering them to the mound of their fellows.
His arms cramping at the memory, Fogar gave a final stretch to ease his still-taut muscles. For a moment, as he raised his hands—why did he still have the feeling of hefting weight even when he no longer sorted the strange stones? But he was too tired to wonder long as sleep came quickly.
It was moon night. Silently as one of the White Lady’s own beams, Falice slipped into the glade and, parting the ferns at its base, faced the Stone. She wonderedif this would be a “seeing night” however, of that the Wind never advised her. Still, she went determinedly to the monolith, laid her hands against its warmth and comfort, and looked once more at the curtained hole. Excitement caught her—yes, the sparks of light were gathering to form the frame. She might see again, only—ah, Wind, let the vision not be some horror such as she had been forced to witness before! The girl knew the evil master of the tower very well—not only by sight but also by spirit—for his thoughts as well as his actions were borne to her in snatches by the Wind.
The young man interested her the most. She knew that she had once been sent to warn him by revealing the nature of the vile and dangerous mixture she had seen the mage concoct; she was aware, too, that the youth had seen her—at least in part—on that occasion. Then, twice more, at the Wind’s bidding, she had pointed her will toward certain books and planted in his mind the need for seeking those volumes out.
Tonight? This was different! Falice tried to pull herself back from the Stone and discovered that it would not let her go. Instantly she knew, as the captive’s tower chamber was revealed to her, that she was not the only visitor this night. A person? Some shadow of the Dark sent to keep watch on him? No, this guest was an extension of power, such as the Forest’s fosterling knew the Wind could produce. Slowly it came, not in full gust as the True Breath, and it seemed to find some obstruction to its entry. But—Falice drew a deep breath of wonder—about that force clung such an aura of lightness, of Light, and of the answering of a need,that feeling it was like meeting the Wind in another guise.
Straightway, without thinking, the girl gathered of the Wind about her what it would allow and mind-hurled herself through the Stone’s window.
Falice experienced a strange shock of contact, as if two things, different in themselves but sprung from the same rooting, had met. Then a glow of light appeared above the sleeping youth. His arms had lain limply across his body, but now as she watched, though she was sure he still slept, they arose.
The hands of the dreamer came together to form a cup and, out of the air from no source the girl could see, there poured, as if it were falling water, a blue-green light. Though this liquid luminescence cascaded into the boy’s palms, his wrists were also braceleted by glowing rings of the same force; then the radiance appeared to sink into his flesh and vanish. At that instant, her slight link with the other power was broken. The Wind whistled about her, and she knew that what had been worked for here had been wrought: into the hands of that one who was like her, yet unlike, had been placed either a gift or a weapon.
Irasmus had been staring at the murky globe before him, but his real attention was elsewhere. From his coming to Styrmir, he had laid down defenses. Some of those tactics he had acquired in the Place of Learning; though these were not to be trusted, since they had been shaped with the mental tools honed in the storehouse of the scholars. However, the talents of the valley folk upon which he had been battening so long nowmade Irasmus feel that his own powers were far greater than those of most of the mages under Yost.
He had also continued his probings to penetrate the forbidden levels in the archives; though these attempts had been baffled, so that all he had managed to garner were bits and pieces of knowledge he had spent long hours attempting to fit together. Despite the vigilance of his former brothers, he had learned; but he had been able to trust none of his discoveries until now.
This night, however—the Dark Lord’s hands, resting on either side of the sphere, curled into fists—his fortress had been invaded, by what? He had been aware of slight intrusions in the past, and there had certainly been traces of a determined picking at his locks by the archmage and his fellows. Now, it appeared, a new player had entered the game. Once more the sorcerer scowled at the seeing-stone, which had shown him nothing but confusion—a whirling storm of flakes of Light like the palm-sized blizzard captive in a child’s snow sphere. And that cloud of whiteness—conjured by what talent?—had enclosed Fogar.
As Irasmus thought that name, the face of his apprentice appeared in the globe in full detail. There was no sign that his heavily drugged sleep had been disturbed. The master had not been able to use that rein on his chosen servant too often; for the draught left the boy dull witted in the morning and apt to make errors, some of which might be dangerous, in his studies. Perhaps—but no! Irasmus was very sure that the child he had chosen at its birth—one uniting in himself two lines of ancient talents that only one family still held—could not have been a mistaken selection.
Firthdun . . . The men of that line had been disposedof on that wild MidWinter night by the gobbes. Two of the women now labored in his tower and, though he had tested them over and over, neither appeared to be mentally above the level of idiots. There had been a second pregnant female in the dun; however, she, too, had seemed a lackwit since witnessing how Karsh had amused himself in his own unique way with the male who had sired her get. The Forest had been close by at the time, but Irasmus was certain that the girl had had neither the strength nor the opportunity to slip away there.
The wizard arose and went to the dun rolls, which he had inexplicably kept even after all the holdings had at last been wiped from the land. Unrolling the history of Firthdun, he found the scroll had been nearly destroyed by time and knew mat its writing could not be read much longer.
Except by such steps as he could take.
Placing the globe atop the roll, Irasmus spoke aloud the Order for Reporting. It was not names that appeared one by one in the ball, but rather faces, to be dismissed with the flick of a finger. Dead, dead, dead; in the slave pens; dead, dead . . .
Still he continued to watch. There came Fogar, right enough, but after him more dead. The other once-pregnant female swam into view, her face, wiped clean of wit, turned up as she slept with mouth open. She was old before her time, sapped and sere, and she differed very little from those truly dead save that she yet walked.
Her child? Irasmus concentrated more deeply now. A scrawny girl. Talent? He sent forth a questing thought—and was startled for the first time in years.Had he, indeed, chosen the wrong child? But how? All his careful plans for breeding the tool he wanted had been carried through, even as he had laid them!
Where is this one? His question was quick.
The picture that came in answer showed one of the hovels where the miners sheltered. There!
Well, he had not been able to experiment with Fogar as he might have done, for—at least until his long-term plans were brought to fruition—the boy was needed living, intelligent, and able. But here was a game piece whose existence on his board he had not guessed: another child born at the propitious hour. Not of the proper parents, to be sure, but one who still had a spark within her. He would, of course, take no chances that he would not be in complete control of this one, and as soon as possible.
Once again, the sorcerer asked for the globe to show him the child’s face, and he
studied it, a slight frown between his eyes. The longer he looked, the more some deep-buried memory fought to reach the surface of his mind. All the folk of Firthdun bore a certain resemblance to one another; his records had told him that there had been inbreeding by choice, unless one of their males had been especially set upon bringing fresh blood into the line.
Yes, he had certainly seen that face before, and not when dulled and glazed of eye. Eyes—
Irasmus all but started up from his chair. Four seasons back, the gobbes had been ordered to beat the bounds. He was sure he had all the human slaves under his control, but it was always prudent to check now and then.
Those demons had found two ancient crones hidingnear the road leading to the pass that he himself had closed. A pair of old women—but they had stood off the gobbes, who had actually seemed to fear them. The wizard had been summoned (now he shook his head from side to side—how could he have forgotten this?); yet the women had been rendered helpless with one sweep of his wand. The gobbes, frustrated by their inability to act, had been particularly vicious.
Only when the half-grown girl had come running from between the rocks had he realized there had been three people here. Pointing his wand had reduced the girl to slave material, and she had been dispatched to the nearest camp of such human drudges.
So—at least he had learned; but he was angry. It was not fitting that an adept at his level of mastery would fail to recall a matter of such importance. Irasmus turned to the globe and began a series of passes and ritual phrases. The revelation of the child’s existence and ability had not been a deliberate breach in his defenses, but it was a warning, and one he would not let lapse from memory again.
19
FOGAR AWOKE BUT DID NOT IMMEDIATELY OPEN HIS eyes. He could hear the gabble of the gobbes rising to his second-story room from the courtyard below. Such a gathering usually preceded a hunt, but where was there prey for the ever-hungry horrors now? All spirit had been crushed from the humans; certainly none of them could even have thought of attempting escape.
Now the boy did open his eyes and sit up, determined to find out what had roused the demons to such a pitch of excitement so early in the morning—the light seeping through a narrow, once-blocked wall slit high above his head was the faint gray of just-disappearing dawn.
His eyes were drawn to his hands. He had washed them the night before, laving away all the dust and earth of his day’s labor with the stones. Not many of the rock discs were being found anymore, and consequentlythe gobbes were urging their excavators to great efforts.
Now Fogar spread his fingers wide and turned the palms first up, then down. Among the stones he had stacked in the days since Irasmus had set him to the labor, there had been a very few, widely scattered, that had felt warm to the touch. That rocks so well hidden from the weak sun should hold any heat surprised him, but he had certainly not reported his discovery to the sorcerer. Master and apprentice had begun their hidden combat slowly, but Fogar was by this time accustomed to playing a role and keeping any secrets he might chance upon locked as tightly and deeply in his mind as he could.
His hands—there was something—
Forehead wrinkled, the youth crooked each finger in turn, bringing them closer to his eyes, yet he could see nothing except several bruises and a half-healed scratch or two. Then why did this sensation persist that, drawn over the flesh were flesh-tight coverings? He scraped with a nail at the invisible coating, with no change in the feeling. Had the Dark Lord managed after all to enthrall him so completely as to have made a change in his physical body? And for what purpose?
The clamor of the gobbes, scaling higher in pitch, set him to dressing and washing briefly. As usual, the dishes and that telltale goblet had been removed sometime during the night, and in their place had been set a twist of dry, gritty bread. Still, no kind of food was ever to be refused in Styrmir these lean days.
This meager meal in hand, Fogar headed down the flight of stairs and came out into the courtyard. Thewizard’s creatures were gathered there. Their making of faces even more monstrous than they usually wore, as well as the shaking of a weapon by one or two, suggested they were, in truth, preparing for a hunt.
Sometimes one could pick up bits of knowledge from the gobbes. He stood to one side, watching their self-exciting capers, and chewed doggedly on his crust of bread.
As Fogar had expected, Irasmus came down to join them, appearing just as one of the former dunsfolk led forth a head-drooping horse—the only mount left in the Valley. The mage was smiling—a faint, menacing curve of lips—that meant he was, for the moment, in good humor; and he had already beckoned to his apprentice before he was in the saddle.
Master and servants took the familiar road to the hill that had been worn almost level by constant digging. The onetime farmers were lined up, prepared once more to winnow gravel instead of grain, their crude wooden tools and baskets in a row at their feet. None of those human wraiths, Fogar thought, showed any interest in the newcomers.
Then, by chance alone, Fogar caught a sidewise look from one of the work-hunched slaves. Though quickly hidden once more beneath drooping lids, those eyes were not dull and flat, at least not for the instant when he had accidentally met the girl’s gaze.
Oddly enough, his hands stirred, though he had made no conscious effort to reach out to her. Why should he? The land grubbers, as he knew only too well from past encounters, hated him nearly as much as they abominated the gobbes. To the folk of Styrmir,the boy was what Irasmus had declared him to be—Demon’s Get.
There was nothing unusual about this valley maid, save that she was younger than most of the work detail assembled here this morning; she was just as thin and as dirt begrimed and snarl haired as all her kind. Still—But Fogar had no time to continue his study of the girl, for Irasmus raised his wand and pointed it straight at her.
Her body shook visibly, as if its owner’s will tried to fight against some compelling force. At last, with obvious reluctance, the girl shambled forward. Two of the gobbes moved in from left and right and draped chains about her, pinning her arms to her sides with the rusty metal but leaving her hands free. Only when they had immobilized her did the wizard ride up, to gaze steadily down at her.
Though captive now, the dun daughter no longer stood with lowered head; and again the boy caught a hot gleam in her eyes. He was only too aware of how the clan members could hate, but he had certainly never seen such ill will so blatantly displayed to the Dark Lord.
Irasmus spoke first, his voice almost caressing, as if he wished, for some sinister reason of his own, to reassure her.
“You are Cerlyn of the dun of Firth.”
Fogar started slightly, but not enough to draw any attention. He, also, as had been whispered spitefully to him, could have claimed Firth as his clan, had not the mage stated him to be of demonic descent. The youth had long thought that all his true kin, save for a handfulof slave women, were dead; assuredly the men had been wiped out on the night of his birth, or shortly thereafter.
“I am Cerlyn.” The girl spoke clearly, with none of the muffled speech usual with the numb-souled slaves. She stood steady, staring up at Irasmus.
The sorcerer’s earlier good humor seemed to have evaporated; now the faintest trace of a frown shadowed his face. This brazen chit, he felt, presented a puzzle—one which, when solved, would prove to be a problem that had crossed his path before.
He spoke an order to the gobbes, who moved away, keeping at a prudent distance from the horseman and jerking the girl with them. Irasmus’s smile returned as he watched them go; then he turned to Fogar.
“Hither.” He snapped his fingers at the youth, who moved to his side. “Catch this, and do not let it fall or you will greatly rue it!”
From the breast of his doublet, the wizard brought forth what his apprentice had never before seen anyone but its owner lay hand upon—that murk-hearted ball. The thing had always seemed his most prized possession, yet now he tossed it to Fogar.
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Evidently, the sphere itself had enough power to make the boy respond as desired, for such a state of surprise was he in that he had only half raised one hand, yet the globe settled into it.
The Dark Lord was watching him closely, but Fogar had been warned enough by the unexpected action on the part of his master to be able to control his own startled reaction. This was no small task, however, for what he held might have been a glob of frozen slime,whose foul feel seemed to creep outward from his palm to encase his hand.
Irasmus nodded. “Neatly done. Now—” He held out his right hand, his reins gathered into the left, and, without any movement on the part of the boy, the globe arose into the air and swept back to its owner.
“You have never been overbright or clever at your studies”—the sorcerer’s smile was still in evidence—“so I have granted you a gift that will help you now. Go and sort out yonder pile of stones, using the hand in which you held my seeing-glass, and place those that answer to your touch in a separate pile. At least you can do this much—and see that you do it at a good pace, for time is now of importance.”
With that command, he turned and rode away. Two of the gobbes edged nearer and snarled at Fogar, but he, accustomed from of old to their game of “making like master,” refused to pay any notice to their threats and set to work.
Cerlyn trudged forward as if she were being taken to any ordinary task it might suit the demons and their overlord to assign her. The role of lack wit and broke soul that she had been taught to assume—her teachers having impressed upon her from the first the need for keeping any act of hers from arousing interest in those around her—was as convincing as she could make it.
Death, and torment worse than a clean departure from life, had surrounded the girl ever since she could remember. The most appalling event had been the frightful attack on Mam Haraska and Widow Larlarn. In some manner—she had never learned the details ofthat act of superb bravery—she had been saved from the fate of most of her kin. That the hag who was her mother still lived Cerlyn knew, but it was Firthdun’s Oldmother and Loremistress who had taken her almost from her birth hour into the brush about the Forest. There the three had lived, more wretchedly than any animals as to food and shelter, but lived they had.