by Andre Norton
“Why did you not kill?”
I turned my head. Still the Wise Woman tugged at the case that had held the rune rolls. Her whole body was tense with effort as she strove to move the tall set of shelves.
I growled, for I could no longer answer her in words. That part of her spell had failed.
“It is slay or be slain now,” Ursilla continued. “Though Maughus has wrought far worse than he knows this day. And Eldris—Ah, there shall be an answer for my Lady also!”
There followed a grating sound that was louder than the clamor from outside the door, which was muffled by the stout portal now closed. I believed those without brought force to knock the wood down. Maughus's men must have arrived.
However, my attention was for Ursilla and what she had done. At long last some hidden catch had responded to her urging, and the whole of the case swung open to form a second door. Ursilla hurried from it back to the cupboard. There, she gathered up the front of her robe, making a clumsy bag into which she tipped boxes and flasks she chose from her store with flying fingers.
Last of all, she caught up her wand of Power. With it she pointed first to me and then to the hidden door.
“In!” she commanded.
That any Keep as old as Car Do Prawn must have its secrets, I had guessed long ago, though I had not had any proof such existed. Ursilla had made good use of her time during the years she had dwelt here, and I did not doubt that she knew exactly where we were going.
The pounding at the outer door grew heavier. Already the latch had given way. It was only Ursilla's spell that held it fast. How long that could last—who knew?
I slipped through the entrance to the secret way, found beyond stairs that led downward. Cramped and narrow was the passage for it must be contained within the wall itself. My furred shoulders brushed stone on either side. There came dim light from behind and I saw that the tip of Ursilla's wand gave forth a limited glow, providing us with a torch by which to see the way, though there was naught here to sight save rough, dark stone and steps endlessly descending.
How far we went I had no way of measuring. But I was certain that shortly we were below the level of the earth outside the Keep. Still the way led down. Now I heard Ursilla's voice, muffled, echoing a little.
“Brave Maughus! He shall beat his way in and find naught. Then will those with him begin to speak of how a Wise Woman can easily escape such blunderers with the use of her Power. They shall look sidewise at Maughus and straightly at any shadow. For a man may dream up wonders and people his world with them until he can believe they come into view full rounded and alive. No, I do not think Maughus shall rest easy this night to come.”
She laughed, not soundlessly, but with a rusty, creaky chuckle, which to my ears was worse than any cursing.
“Yes, not easy shall Maughus rest, nor any within this Keep. There shall be that loosed which will trouble them in many ways.”
Then the words I could understand ceased, as she began a queer singsong that made my pard's hair rise along the backbone and nearly brought a protesting squall out of me, save that I did not want to draw upon myself at that moment any of her attention. As long as she occupied her talent with some means of making Maughus unhappy, her mind would not turn toward my further subjection.
That she was not pleased when my pard nature had not driven me to attack my kinsman, I knew well. Doubtless, there would be a reckoning over that. From now on she would be suspicious of my every move, uncertain of her control over me, which could lead to such ensorcellment as I would never escape. The journey through the inner core of Car Do Prawn was only a short breathing space between assaults as far as I was concerned.
I began to wonder at the nature of the goal before us. The stairway was so deep now within the earth (we certainly were well below even the level of the storerooms that made up the cellars of the Keep) that I could not imagine where it would end or its purpose. Had this passage been meant for a secret escape in time of trouble, surely it would have had some outlet nearer to the surface of the ground.
Though there appeared air vents within the walls, and though the way felt damp and there was an acrid odor I could not identify, which increased as we went, still there was breathable air. However, the deeper we went, the more I knew that we were coming to one of those places in which Power of a sort had its being.
I could sense neither the evil that marked the core of any Shadow dwelling place nor the peace that radiated from such sites as the Star Tower. This was something else, carrying with it a heaviness of the spirit, as if the weight of untold ages were centering in and burdening one small place.
Ursilla had ceased her singsong chant and moved in silence except for the rustle of her skirts as they brushed the wall. The light from her wand still gave us a faint sight of what lay about us.
Then, when I had begun to believe that the steps would bring us to the fabled Earth Center from which all life was said to stream long ago, they ended in a passageway.
This was a little wider than the stairs, but it also sloped gradually downward. Here the walls were not smooth, but, at intervals, were broken by carven panels. I could see little of the carvings, in the gloom, even given the pard's superior sight. And there was naught in any I did sight that was familiar to me.
Dust had gathered in the pits and grooves of the carvings, just as it lay under our feet. Only there it had been tracked and marked as if we were not the first to come this way since it settled. And ever grew the feeling that this was an alien place, which did not welcome intrusion. It was far older than Car Do Prawn itself, I was now sure, perhaps dating back to the First Age of Arvon before the warring of the Lost Lords. That would put such an age on it as few men could reckon.
“Wait!” Ursilla's voice startled me, I had grown so used to her silence, the silence of this place. “Here I must lead the way.”
I squeezed against the wall, allowing her to pass me. She walked firmly, as if our long descent had in no way tired her, even though she also bore the unwieldy burden in her robe. As she pointed her wand nearly on a level before her, its dim light showed that we had come to a carven archway that might be the end of the passage.
Under it we passed and out into an area I thought must be very large, though a velvet darkness hung about us there, just beyond the arm’s-length reach of the wand, for its light penetrated no farther. My padded paws whispered on a floor, Ursilla's footwear awoke an echo. Here we had no wall to guide us, yet Ursilla struck straight out into the dark as if she knew our path very well, could see our goal before us.
Here an oppressive sense of alienness was a burden to hang in the mind, to slow one's thoughts. I labored under a weight of fatigue that grew with every step I advanced. Still I tried to probe it, though I knew not how to use the talent. There was no emanation of evil, nor of what we had come to think of as good. This was a Power place, yes, but of a kind that I had never approached or heard tell of—totally unlike any known in the upper world.
Again I was startled by the sound of Ursilla's voice. This tune she did not speak to me. She shaped odd, slurred, almost hissing sounds, which bore no relation to any words I knew. Nor were they a chant such as she had uttered on the stairs, but were uttered in a broken pattern, almost as if she spoke with one unseen, waited to be answered, then spoke again. There was no sound out of the dark to match what she said.
Instead, there came a chill wind that wreathed around our bodies, enwrapping us both as a giant, invisible hand might close upon us. The low wail of the wind was the voice of something that had never borne shape as we knew it.
There comes a point when one is dulled to fear. Or perhaps the place, with all its strangeness, laid some spell, so that fear could not break through to lodge in one's mind. I did not fear, nor now was I curious. I accepted all that lay here as a part of its difference, which was not of my world.
Ursilla's wand moved in her hand, back and forth, swinging from left to right. Now a brilliant fire shot from its point and to
uched something ahead that answered with a glow. Then there was an answering glow to the left, one to the right—an island of light lay before us.
So we came into a circle of radiance. For circle it was. Tall monoliths of rock formed the place. Each was carven into the likeness of a seated or enthroned being. Straightly their bodies sat on blocks of stone, facing inward—save that they had no faces!
Where features might have been wrought, there was naught but an oval globe. Globe, I say, because they were not stone; rather some other substance behind which light moved and wove patterns. From the globes the light of the place spread. Awakened by the beams of Ursilla's wand, it lapped from one figure to the next, until all showed blind but brilliant countenances.
Above the globes were ornate headdresses, each varying in detail from the next. Their bodies were human in shape, but muffled in cloaks so that details were hidden. Each had stretched forth a hand (I say hand, yet the appendage was more like unto a claw so slender were the “fingers”). And the hands held objects, again each differing. Here was a ball incised with patterns, there a wand not too unlike those of the Wise Women, again there was a flower, with petals widespread. But the one that Ursilla faced had in its hand a man—small as a child's plaything, drooping limply as if dead, or perhaps not yet called to life. The sight of the carved human struck through my dull acceptance of the place, disturbed whatever spell of lethargy had been laid upon me. For it suggested that men were but the playthings of the forces these faceless ones represented, and that hint of slavery aroused protest in me.
Ursilla knelt upon the floor. Not to do homage to the figure before her, rather to set out the bundles, flasks and boxes she had brought from her store. She seemed oblivious to the glowing nonfaces, though I was not. I liked them less and less.
In the very center of the circle was a brazier wrought also of the stone. Ashes, heaped within it, suggested that this was probably not the first time Ursilla might have used it for purposes of her own. That she played with something which was far better not to disturb was a belief now strengthening within me.
Not of the Shadow, not of the Power—what then composed the force lingering here? Something so old and elemental that it was beyond the boundaries of good or evil, existing first in a time when neither of them had been born to eternally war in the lands and hearts of men. To tap such a force—rash, indeed, would that be. Her own ambition had brought Ursilla to such a deed, which made my awe and dislike of her deepen to fear and hatred.
I wanted to be out and away. Still I was chained here as much as I was chained within the pard's body. To one glowing globe, then to the next I raised my eyes, only to look quickly away again. The light patterns, forming and dissolving, the colors changing from one hue to the next with hypnotic speed—one might be caught and held by such.
As I nervously paced around the circle, avoiding Ursilla, busy as a housewife in setting out her plunder from the cupboard, I thought I could hear (not with my ears, but my mind as the Were had spoken to me) a distant whispering as yet not loud enough to be understood.
Ursilla made certain selections from her store, went to the brazier into which she dribbled handfuls of dried and crushed herbs with care, almost as if each broken leaf must be counted. When the last had fallen, the Wise Woman brushed her palms across her robe, then for the first time raised her head to regard me.
“What will be done shall be well done.” She Spoke cryptically. “My Power guided me here many seasons ago. Then I searched out the most ancient of our rune rolls to read the riddle of this place. Before we were here—and we are old beyond the numbering of our years—others dwelt in Arvon. They served their own forces, wrought with Power such as we cannot imagine. Their time passed, but they left behind them wells of their force, strained and weakened, perhaps, but still greater than aught even the Voices or the Shadow can summon in the here and now.
“I have waited, I have learned—” Her voice swelled in a chant that was close to a cry of triumph. “I know what can be done here—if one uses the talent. Uses it as I shall use it!”
I think she recited her own thoughts aloud, rather than spoke to impress me. Her face appeared lighted by an inner fire so that her skin held some of the glow of those featureless faces that ringed us in.
“We must wait now,” Ursilla continued. “This is not a thing easily done. The right hour must be set, those needful summoned to take part.”
She went from the brazier back to her supplies. Searching among them she found a bag and loosed its drawstring, to draw out a brown cake that she broke in two. As she munched on half of it, she threw the other section to me.
“Eat!” she commanded.
I wanted little to do with her, but that I must keep my strength of body brought me to obey. I crushed the cake in one bite and gulped it down. Though the stuff was tasteless to my pard's reckoning, I knew the substance for journeycake, meant to sustain life for long periods of time when one did not have access to ordinary food.
“She will come soon.” Ursilla rubbed her hands together. “The sending laid upon her shall draw her. Then we shall make a beginning—and what an ending shall come of it!”
She laid her forehead on her knees as she sat at the foot of the one that held the man plaything. Perhaps she slept, perhaps she was entranced. I lay down as far from her as I could get. To venture into the dark was useless, I knew that as well as if she had told me so. This place would hold me until her spells permitted my going. Nor did I, at that moment, dare to try to separate man from beast. There was here too much the taint of the Older Things that I mistrusted as I had nothing before in my life.
Perhaps, I too, slept—or fell under some spell that held me in a state near to sleep. I roused quickly from what seemed a period of unconsciousness, the length of which I did not know. Ursilla had arisen and was standing close to where I lay, facing outward.
Her attitude was one of waiting and I listened intently. There was a faint sound of footfalls, another soft swish, which might mark the passage of a woman's skirt across the ground. Both grew ever louder.
At last, into the circle of light, moved she who came, the Lady Heroise. Her face was drawn and haggard. Now she looked years older, older even than her mother. But it was what she bore in her hands, held out well before her as if she hated the touch of it and wanted to keep it from her body, that caught and held my full gaze.
The belt! The belt that had drawn me back to Car Do Prawn.
I uttered a growl I could not suppress at its sight. On my feet, I was ready—
Ursilla flung out one hand in my direction. It was a hurling gesture, yet she tossed nothing I could see. However, whatever she threw upon me in that moment now held me helpless where I stood.
My mother's gaze was fixed. She walked as one who is ensorcelled, drawn to some meeting during her sleep. When Ursilla reached to take the belt from her, she gave a start and looked about her wildly.
Her face was a mirror of fear. “Ursilla!” Her words slurred together in a swift babble. “Maughus—Eldris—they have gone mad! They broke into your chamber. Maughus ordered that all within it be destroyed. When the men would not obey him, he hurled it all from the windows of the Tower into the courtyard, then piled it together with his own hands and set torch to it.
“He had sword to slay Kethan on sight, as one dealing with the Shadow, and has sent a messenger to Car Do Yelt where there is said to be one favored by the Voices, urging him to come and cleanse the Keep. He—he is like one mad! Even kin-killing is not beyond him now.”
Ursilla showed no agitation. “He has gained some night companions, Heroise. Not lightly does one threaten a Wise Woman.”
The Lady Heroise shuddered. “You have driven him beyond the borders of fear. He fears no more, he only hates—and wants to kill.”
“Let him rage, his time for such will be short,” Ursilla said calmly. “Even if he finds the door leading hither, he will not be able to enter until I permit. There are guardians set to prevent suc
h intrusion. Shiver not, woman —this is the hour toward which we have ever looked. You have thought to rule Car Do Prawn, I say that you shall rule a larger part of the land.”
My mother wrung her hands, then wiped them up and down on the skirt of her robe, as if she wished to wipe so from them some taint that the belt had left on her flesh. She stared about her wildly as if she did not know where she was.
“Ursilla—the Magician! I have head the cards and the Magician lies in Kethan's Sixth House. It is a sign—a sign—”
Ursilla shrugged. “A sign of greatness to come. You have told me this before and I explained to you what such a reading may mean. It is foolish for you to claim more foretelling than you have. We have no need for such signs and portents, not here where another Power sleeps until we awaken it.”
“I do not want—” my mother began. Tears gathered in her eyes, ran down her cheeks, dripped into her mouth as she spoke. “Please, Ursilla—this place—it frightens me!”
Ursilla shrugged. “You have left such qualms until too late, Lady. Now there is no retreating—”
My mother smeared her hands across her face, wiping away the tears as might a small child. Perhaps pity should have awakened in me at that sight, yet it did not. Close kin might we be, still at that moment, I felt nothing for her, when all she was and desired had brought us both to this.
Of How Ursilla Read the Smoke Runes and Sent Me to Do Her Bidding
Ursilla moved with the surety of one who knows well what must be done. She made a slow circuit of the seated ones, pausing for a moment before each to gaze fixedly into the flowing, ever-changing globe that served it for a face. So intent was her study that she might have been reading in the ceaseless flow of muted colors there a message each had for her. In the end, she once more faced the one that dangled the man-toy from its claw fingers.
Now she raised her voice, but not in any chant. She brought out, from the front lacing of her robe, a small bone whistle that hung from a silver chain. This she put to her lips, drawing from it a thin, eerie piping that hurt my pard's ears until I could have roared my protest aloud, yet that I could not do.