Five Senses Box Set

by Andre Norton

  From the first signs of awakening intelligence in her, Mam Haraska and Widow Larlarn had been her teachers as well as her guardians. Twice they had tried to win deeper into the Forest, but always there had been a barrier set by Irasmus at the Forest’s edge to deny them any safety. All the women had was their inbred talent; and that they exercised, sharpening it and sharing it with the child’s own awakening powers, small as those were.

  Then the two old ones had made their supreme effort—to gain the closed pass and somehow work their way across it—only to be discovered and slain. The young girl had been considered a thing of no account—merely another slave to be added to the workforce. Since that time, it had been her hope to labor within the tower itself and thus learn more—though of what she could not have clearly explained, even to herself.

  There was only one of human sort—or human seeming, at least—who was free to come and go as he wished from the dark wizard’s stronghold; and he was nearly as great an enemy as the master himself. It was well known that, at his birth, the boy had been hailed as a demon’s son and given a Netherworldly naming. It had also been no secret that, through all these years, he had been apprenticed to Irasmus and schooled inshadow magic (though he had never used such magery openly), and that he was doubtless a well-trained assistant for any evil action. Until this day, however, Cerlyn had never seen him close by.

  As the girl was marched along by the gobbes, she wondered about one thing. Even given the scantiness of her training, she was aware that any with the true talent could detect the Dark. To this inner sense, Irasmus appeared a monster. She well knew that, could his true self be seen by the eyes of the body as well as the mind, he would wear an even more twisted form and distorted countenance than his hellish minions.

  The gobbes—the stench of them alone betrayed their origin in the Black Land. Her own people . . . With lowered eyes and studiedly blank face, the girl considered the farm folk among whom she had labored now for many seasons. Where lay the evil in them?

  They were like hollow gourds, she thought, feeling no pity for their miserable condition but only impatience that they had slid into it so easily. None of those two-legged sheep could be hoped for as a helpmate for her! After all, as Mam Haraska had told her many times over in warning, they had given their aid to the destruction of her kin, and their hands had not been clean of blood from that night after. Not wicked, perhaps, but the Valley people had been weak, which was worse; for that quality in the soul let down the drawbridge and admitted the enemy into the castle.

  Why had Irasmus suddenly appeared in Cerlyn’s life? There was only one answer she could give: because, in spite of all his power and learning, the mage wanted something of her.

  But why? All she had was a talent that had neverbeen either truly trained or honed. Her two guardians, certain that in her veins ran the Old Blood, had called the Wind once; they had also dreamed in quest of insight. The girl herself could do neither. However, she was uncomfortably aware that the wizard might think she could and attempt to extract the knowledge by his many creatively cruel methods. Far better if she had died under the gobbes’ talons back at the pass with those who had rescued her. It would have been an agonizing way to depart this life, but it would have been swift. And Irasmus was a very patient man in his pursuit of a thing wanted.

  Cerlyn had known from the start of their mining the hill that those stones—some of them, at least—had significance. Yet she had not dared to test what they might be. The demons were always on watch, and then had come this vile traitor to his kind, this Fogar and the order that he and he alone was to handle the stones.

  No, there was no reason to weary her mind with guessing what might lie before her. To keep up what courage she had might make great demands on her, once she entered the tower and was placed at the dubious mercy of its master. She knew certain mental exercises—words not to be uttered aloud—that she had been taught. These were all the weapons she had to defend herself, and she would have to use them as best she could.

  Cerlyn went docilely into the tower as Irasmus caught up with her and her guards. The gobbes yanked her painfully to a halt with the chains, and their smell was augmented by a gust of evil nearly as palpable as that stench when the Dark Lord came up beside her.

  His hand flicked out, and he caught her chin, tippingback her head so he could scan her face. That study awoke a shame-tainted fear Cerlyn had never felt before, for it was as if not only her face but all her thin, wasted body was bare to his scrutiny.

  Irasmus released his hold on her. “Faugh!” he commented, with a contempt she was sure was meant to flay her as much as if he had laid his riding whip about her shoulders. “Filthy slut. Dirt you were born, and dirt you shall die, though how is a matter on which I must think awhile.” The wizard turned his head and gabbled an order at his creatures. Pulling the girl along to a well-like opening close to the wall of the tower, with little care whether she would stumble and have to be dragged, they made her descend into its gaping mouth.

  Fogar, looking at the pile of waiting stones, flexed his fingers. He longed to draw them across a tuft of grass, even bury them in the dusty soil, in order to rid himself of the sensation that now seemed half ingrained in his skin. There was no chance of doing so, however, with those around him watching.

  He advanced to the pile and reluctantly reached forward to pick up the nearest stone. He did not know what he would find when he touched it; but he felt only rough rock and tossed it aside. However, on the second try, the stone fairly stuck to his skin—he could almost believe it was some creature hardly yet awake but quickly rousing to awareness. Accordingly, he started his second pile.

  He had added four and discarded as many more when a rock apparently no different than any of the others shot into him a sensation as if a small thread of lightning had touched him in warning. To show hisreaction to that was, he believed, dangerous. He compromised by laying it with his other choices, near but not quite touching the pile of stones that felt like frozen ooze.

  Sassie had gone with Peeper this morning. It was seldom that Hansa’s first son visited his mother’s chosen refuge, but, each time he did, his small sister became—as far as Falice was concerned—nearly unmanageable. However, Peeper had assured the girl that he would carefully watch over the cubling. He had little choice, really, for Sassie had clung tightly to his leg until he had assured her that she could come with him.

  Yet Falice felt an inexplicable need to keep an eye on her charge, and Peeper made no protest as she followed the two of them, Sassie riding his broad shoulder, onto a trail which seemed familiar to the Sasqua but which Falice had never had reason to tread before.

  She noted that the trees here appeared to be shorter; that they stood farther apart, so that more sun reached in; and that there was a suggestion of freedom, with vines and brush in place of centuries-grown boles to wall them about. Suddenly the girl realized just where they were bound. From the first, Hansa had impressed upon her that she must never venture in this direction; Hansa’s son, however, apparently had no such qualms. Now she was determined to catch up with him and take back her sister in fur.

  Oddly enough, the Wind, of which Falice was always aware, seemed to die away, leaving a curious silence. No bird sang; not even an insect cluttered. Peeper had stopped and put Sassie down. Now he beckoned impatiently to Falice.

  “Come—see what those of the Dark do.” The male Sasqua’s Wind speech urged her on, and she went forward, to have him pull her hastily down behind a thick bush. There he bent a branch a little back so the girl could look.

  20

  IT WAS COLD, BUT CERLYN HAD MOSTLY BEEN COLD ever since she could remember. The cell stank, not only of ancient waste but also of very present evil, for she now lay in the heart of Irasmus’s domain.

  The girl sat with her back to the wall, knees drawn up and arms wrapped about them so she could conserve what little body heat she had.

  There was, of course, no light, and she had not even bothere
d to try to explore this hole after the gobbes had clipped one end of her chain to a wall ring and had gone out, making gestures toward her she tried to ignore. The creatures had taken the only lantern with them, and now the dark was so thick she felt she could gather it up in her hands and shape it.

  She was also hungry, her scant morning ration eaten hours ago; but hunger was nothing new, either. Now, trying to forget the pinching in her stomach, Cerlynthought paradoxically of past sowings and harvests, and she suddenly recalled the far planting.

  At first, all the dunsfolk had thought it some trick of the gobbes, for the demons had always been allowed a certain amount of freedom to make the Valley slaves miserable. But the handful of children who had been chosen arbitrarily from the slave sheds had returned that night wearied to utter exhaustion, telling a common tale: they had been out all day “planting.”

  Planting—what? None of the youngsters had recognized any relationship between the large, hard, oval seeds they had had counted out to them, with threats of what would happen if each were not put in the proper place, to the seeds they had, for seasons now, tried to coax into lackluster life.

  And the place for that seeding had also been strangely chosen—in a strip of tillage hard by the Forest, though well away from any shadow the trees might cast. The children described how they had each grubbed out a hole with their hands, placed a seed carefully within, and gone on to dig another hole. They did not cover any seeds until one of the gobbes came with a water skin and dribbled into the hole a trickle of a strange liquid that had a reddish gleam. Then, said the youngsters, they had gone back to cover the holes and start another section of the line that paralleled the Forest reaches.

  Questioning the small sowers produced no other information, and at last the proceeding had been stolidly accepted as some new trick without a purpose they could understand of the master’s. Yet, as Cerlyn knew, Irasmus wasted no time on any action that did not in some way serve a purpose he thought important.

  Actions such as bringing her here.

  Shivering, the girl thought with resentment of the hope-sugared promise of Mam Haraska and Widow Larlarn—that against the Dark moved always the forces of Light. But it certainly seemed that the three women had been abandoned by all they had been taught to believe in: the touch of the Wind—even the woman power of She Who Walks the Clouds.

  They had sworn that a day would come when she could claim the aid of both powers—and be answered. And what had come of all such assurances? For her elders, a frightful death; for herself, slavery.

  Not even the Great Lamp of the High Lady could send its rays through these walls, and the Wind had long been stilled in the Valley. Why dwell on the impossible? Because one could now look for nothing else . . .

  Cerlyn leaned her head forward to rest on her folded arms, tightening herself even more. Why should she fight the drowsiness that weighed her down now? It was enough that the wizard and his minions had left her here alone for a while—short though that might be.

  She did not sleep at once, but her eyes closed. Then, as she had done for almost every night since she had learned to talk and walk and understand, she sought for the patterns she could see, as though imprinted there, on the inside of her lids. At the same time, her lips silently shaped Names, though the notion that anything might come of such a calling was a delusion no one with firm hold on her five wits could believe.

  Three women stood around a waist-high brazier. Now that their heavy cloaks of office had been discardedover a nearby chair, the trio were revealed as nearly alike in height, though differing in age. It was commonly known to all of their world that the learning of the Wise preserved life until the owner of a tired body, having trained another in his or her skills, chose to abandon that earthly vessel. As it happened, however, for many seasons past no girl had come seeking the old knowledge. The number of the mages was dwindling—another indication, perhaps, of the present restlessness and outreaching threat of the Dark.

  Two of the Wisewomen, though they stood straight and watched the fire bowl with clear eyes, showed signs of age whose onslaught was controlled by will alone. The third was younger but still past the middle of human life.

  It was the eldest of that company who dropped into the low flame, twig by twig from a bundle in her hand, short pieces of dried wood long parted from their parent tree or bush. Sparks caught and held that kindling; then a thin spinning of smoke arose, and all three lowered their heads a fraction to breathe deeply the heavy scent.

  All her branchlets gone, the senior mage held out her hands to both of her companions, and they in turn grasped hands so that all were linked. Their eyes were closed now, and each swayed slightly. Then the feeder of the flame spoke aloud.

  “If this be of women’s power—then let us go!”

  No moon shone into the forest this night, and the standing Stone did not show any of its dancing jewels except as the faintest dots of light. But the Wind was rising—first rearing up as might a stallion determinedto protect his herd of mares, then suddenly stayed in that defensive posture.

  Shadows moved through shadows, though neither human nor Sasqua could have perceived them. The Wind stirred restlessly but kept its distance from those seekers, who stood now before the monolith, studying it as if it held a great puzzle that must be solved. Nebulous forms shifted, as if hands were raised in respectful greeting and petition, as well.

  Though those light flecks on the Stone glowed no brighter, they did move until they faintly outlined a woman’s body, whose head remained a clouded mask.

  “You call upon that which no longer exists.” To the distant listening minds, that statement sounded like cold denial.

  “There were those who served You to their deaths.” The answerer did not seem overawed but—quite the contrary—braced to pursue an argument. “This one who concerns us is of their blood and bone.”

  “The one of My blood and bone is housed in this, My place, in all safety.” That chill iced the first voice yet more thickly. “The mortal maid for whom you speak was not even first blooded in My service.”

  “And was that her fault, Great One? All things—past, present, and future—are known to You. Do You say You know nothing of what has happened? This one is the last of the Valley dwellers (save him upon whom Irasmus plays his endless tricks) to come of the kin dun who kept the Inner Shrine when careless—or overconfident—folk forgot. The seed of the talent lies in her, but only the first green shoot of knowing has thrust forth from the dark ground of ignorance. Would Youhave the Son of Darkness snuff out this girl, the single small spark of Light that remains?”

  Silence, except for the fretting of the Wind still held in check.

  “This much for you, then.” The invisible onlookers saw that veil-obscured face turn, in a near-grudging gesture, to the human maid’s bold defender. “It has been said that the people of Styrmir must win their freedom on their own. The girl is bound as much by that geas as all her fellows. If she can face the Night and force a path for the Day, then I shall claim her. But to promise more than that—” Then the shape outlined on the Stone was gone, and, a moment later, Her companion shadows had also vanished.

  Leagues away, in the chamber of Mage Westra, three women opened their eyes.

  The youngest spoke first. “Dreams—this daughter of the valley must be strengthened and guided by dreams, and not those chosen by any man, Light-filled though he may be; this is women’s work. To enable any vision to win into that tower needs a battle of wills, as we fully know; thus she may only receive, as does Fogar, jangled fragments. But we have the tutoring of Haraska and Larlarn to build upon—let us see how we acquit ourselves as masons!”

  Strangely, on this night the patterns that painted themselves behind Cerlyn’s eyelids seemed more sharply focused, firmer; twice the girl caught the meaning of a bit of spell she had never understood before. However, this increased knowledge would place her in even greater peril, were Irasmus to guessit. The dark mage would wring her first dr
y, then dead, for any particle of power he could use. A fearful prospect—but then, Cerlyn had lived with fear so long that it had become almost a companion.

  Companion . . .

  Abruptly Cerlyn stiffened. She had been told so often of the Wind and all it bore—was it only a wish that, for an instant just now, she had felt its caress on her skin, smelled the stench of this hole yielding to something else, clean and bracing, to succor body and mind?

  “Wind?” Greatly daring, she whispered that Name, but she was not answered. Of course, arousing false hope might be only a further torment devised by the master here.

  Talent—even that born of and sworn to the Light—could feed upon hatred. Certainly, Cerlyn’s heart was a hot coal of the stuff which, if loosed, could burn this sorcerer’s foul den to ashes, as the farmers used to clear a field of choking weeds! But those same husbandmen also had a saying the girl thought well to remember now: “You cannot enter the cow yard without soiling your clogs.” To fight Irasmus with his own weapons would be to enter into, and thereby aid, his evil. She must be very cautious, taking more care than she had ever done in her life, as she joined battle with him and his darkness, lest it overshadow what she possessed of the Light—little though that might be.

  The girl’s resolve made her lift her head and open her eyes on the night that filled her cell. Un-Light might indeed lie about her, but she would not invite it within. She had only herself and her broken bits of talent to call upon, but if that was the way it was, so let it be—on herterms, not his. The ruins of Firthdun might lie beneath the soil its folk once tilled, but she was of that blood still, Cerlyn, and so would she be until the end.