by Andre Norton
Then the manikin writhed, twisted. Thora shivered from a thrust of pain in her own body. One of Malkin’s clawed hands swept out, two of the talons came together with a snap just above the head of the manikin who now wavered back and forth as if it were gripped by hands trying to wring out its life. Not from within this circle of safety did that attack come—no, the source lay outside—between what they saw and what had sent it forth.
Malkin’s cutting brought an end. The manikin winked out of existence, while the furred one gave a cry and sank forward, face down on the cloak, one hand falling to rest above the spiral and the other on the Moon Sign of the Lady. Thora thrust her gem again into hiding and went to her.
The furred one’s body was limp, her eyes closed. However even as Thora strove to straighten her in support, those eyes opened with a fierce blaze. Kort was on his feet, growling deep. Above them oak branches stirred, tossing as if assaulted by the beginning of a storm, save there was no wind, only a spattering of acorns loosed to fall. Then the trees stilled. Kort sat, though he continued to hold his head high. Malkin turned a little in Thora’s hold.
“Ssssettt—” Her tongue fought for words —“Nooo commmeee heerree— Ssssaffeee—”
Once more that feeling of safety was close about them—warm, comforting—as if they had been gathered tightly into a loving embrace. Yet Thora knew that the enemy had tried to reach them.
“Weeee goooo—” Malkin continued, “Maaakilll caallls—”
She did not try to shake off Thora’s hold, rather she rested against the girl as if she had taken some wound from her own spelling. Malkin must be suffering now from that draining of inner power which she had expended in the making of the manikin.
Again the clawed hand moved as Malkin’s head rested against Thora—the wide mouth opened and her breath came and went in small panting gasps. The furred one waved weakly to one of the vials she had brought from the storage place. Snatching up the nearest the girl put that into the feeble hand.
Pushing free the cap, the other licked at the powder as Thora continued to support her. As a restorative the dust worked swiftly, the furred one sat erect on her own as she looked to the girl and nodded.
“Maaakilll livesss—” There was triumph in that. “Weèe gooo—”
Thora sat back on her heels. It was true that to her one place in this strange country might well be as good as another. Only in her stirred a small resentment. She was Mother Chosen—near to being a priestess. The man in her vision was greater than any Horned Priest—she sensed that. But his power was a contradiction of terms which she was not able to accept. The Lady wrought through her Daughters—theirs was the power. No priest could hope to call Her save through the Priestess. Yet the will she knew had animated that manikin for a space had in some way influenced her and that it was a man who had done this. There were many peoples in this land of which she knew little—look at Malkin whose like she had not dreamed would exist.
With those of Set it was the priest who was the vessel of power. Still this Makil was not of Set. What WAS he then—this one who wore a man’s body and yet was able to call upon good? She shook her head at her own thoughts. In spite of that spark of resentment, she knew that she would indeed go north—into what danger she might not begin to reckon—whether she willed it or not.
While they spent the night within this forgotten sacred place, Kort went hunting. However, he did not bring a fresh kill for Malkin. Even that four-footed ranger accepted the age-old rule that fresh blood could not flow within a shrine. It was those of the Left Path, the Dark, who broke that Law. Their perverted followers slew even upon a very focus stone. Then even the true Power could not banish such shadows as lingered there to stain and destroy.
Malkin counted the vials left in her store—five. Of those she uncapped another and licked half its contents. Then she pulled the cloak straight, wrapped her supplies within it. Thora ate of her own meager rations.
She half expected that in this place she might meet with another vision. The spell casting should have alerted the force brooding here—old as that might be. For any arousing of a place of the Ancient Learning brought answers. She made a slow round of the circle, nothing but the moss grew within the circle of tree and stones.
The sweet scent of the tree embracing flowers gathered strength at the setting of the sun. Yet this night she dared not dance down power, for the Mother Lamp was not out and this was a time of full darkness. Still she was restless. Though Malkin had curled up, her head pillowed on the folded cloak, Thora had no wish to join her. Now came a sighing of wind through the trees. The girl listened—not knowing what she sought.
At last she came to the North Stone and there settled, her back against its strength, her hands upon the knife which she had driven point deep into the earth so the steel stood firmly balanced. As Malkin had done Thora hummed, but this was no conscious threading of one word to another to summon. Rather, she realized with a start, what she sang without true words was the sowing song—that spell of the Lady which her Chosen, be they already raised up priestesses or children hardly from the back cradle, sang as they walked together over the new-turned field, sowing afar the first Hand-take of seed. Yet there was no field here, her companions of the past were dead—if they were lucky. For the raiders were of the Dark, and any vowed to the Mother were among the first they would rape and slay.
No field for sowing—no. But the Lady’s sowing could be for more than a stretch of plow turned ground. It could lie within a person—bringing a woman into fruitfulness. She sang the sowing and somehow that was right—though the Lady had not yet revealed to her why that should be so.
With the coining of full dark her song ended. Shadows drew in beneath the trees, yet with them they brought no fear. The stones stood as lamps though their radiance did not travel far. Thora watched Kort, back from his scouting, stretch out on the ground, to rest head upon paws. The perfume was ever stronger. One might be burying one’s face in a load of flowers. She slipped farther down her rock support and slept.
In the morning the grove had lost some of its mystery. The Power had ebbed, or else withdrawn to be stored against some future need. There were only stones and trees with no protection to be felt.
The three went on, heading north. Though Malkin started off at a pace faster than any she had kept before, Thora knew the danger of becoming too fatigued and cut back their speed to that of the trail stride she had followed through months of roving. By mid-morning she brought down two of the large birds of the grassland, and, finding an overhang of river bank (for the country was growing more hilly with a smudge on the horizon to denote real heights beyond), she built a small fire to broil some of the meat. Malkin ate raw bits from the second carcass which she shared with Kort. They filled their water bottle and drank deep.
The river was shrinking. Perhaps those storms which had fed it at their coming had now subsided. Kort quested back and forth ahead. The sun was hot, the day warmer than usual. Malkin lagged and Thora called more rest halts now and then.
Kort came to a sudden pause. He did not bark, but rather turned his head and looked back at Thora, the whole stance of his body telling her this was something of importance. Nor did he return, but waited for them to join him.
There was a patch of clay here, softened by yesterday’s rain. In it a sharp print. That was no animal spoor but rather the clear impression of a traveler’s boot. Kort sniffed at it. However it was not the hound but Malkin who surprised Thora. The furred one knelt, her red eyes wide open. She, too, went down on all fours and her tongue flickered out, back and forth, not quite touching the print itself.
The furred one then took up the spear she still carried as a staff and, using its point, pricked the skin on her wrist. A drop of purplish blood gathered. Malkin dropped the spear, to squeeze before she held the wrist over the track so that blood fell in a thick blob into the center of the print.
For a moment or two it lay inert, as if the clay were too thick to absorb it.
Then it spread outward, forming a circle. Malkin watched it so intently that she might be summoning up a second manikin. The circle put forth two horns, so well marked they could have been so shaped with a brush.
Malkin’s breath came with a sharp hiss. She raised her wrist to her mouth and licked the cut, but her eyes never left the print and the blood.
“What do you do?” The girl could no longer contain her curiosity. There was hunting power, yes—she had seen such in action—had used a little of it when she must. Only this was plainly a ritual foreign to her own teaching.
Malkin raised her head, her eyes at full glow. “Isss oneee—whoooo issss—offf—”
Thora guessed by the horns— “Set?”
Malkin’s head shake was violent. “Goooddd — offf — Maakill — Brotthher oneee—”
“One of his clan?”
Malkin nodded now. Thora looked at the splotch of blood. It had not yet sunk into the ground, but remained clear. However, the furred one raised her spear, and, with a quick, sure stroke, brought the butt down upon the blood spot, driving it so into the ground as to destroy it.
“Ggooo—” Malkin stood. She pointed to Kort and then to the defaced print, suggesting, Thora was sure, that the hound take up the trail.
One of Makil’s kind then. Thora was not sure she was ready to meet him even if they did catch up. But it would seem she had no choice, for Kort, nose to the ground, loped steadily on. While Malkin limped in his wake at the best pace she could keep, and Thora was left for rearguard.
The sun was westering now. In this strange territory they should be seeking out some defensible shelter for the night. Still neither of her companions showed any sign that they intended to turn from the trail.
They were shut off on the east by steadily rising ground. The stream here ran in a more narrow and deeper channel between what were approaching cliffs. It would seem they had come near to the end of the open land. Scattered about grew a tangle of brush and small stands of trees. Thora could see ahead the line of what was a sizeable wood. Kort reached the edge of that and stood waiting for them.
The girl marked the mouth of a trail, wider, she decided, than a game one. She eyed that unhappily. If this was a path in use by men—she thought of the traders—however Kort had not warned them away, and she must be reassured by that.
Malkin appeared to have no uneasiness, and kept marching straight ahead. Now Kort trotted with her. The girl shifted her backpack. With spear in one hand and her other one hovering near the hilt of her knife she went forward into the cool of the wood, straining to hear. There were no oaks here, nor any wealth of flowers. She did see the hooks of uncoiling ferns and heard the sounds of birds, and once or twice a small rustling close to ground.
Then–
It was as if she had walked into a wall!
Thora staggered back, the force of meeting that invisible barrier near over balancing her. Malkin, Kort—they had met no such challenge. The girl put out both hands, half certain there was a hidden wall there.
Her fingers encountered no surface, it was just that they could not pierce beyond. She spread her hands wide, tried to push. There was nothing to feel. Simply that she could not pass—what—air itself? Malkin and the hound, were nearly out of sight.
She uttered a cry and Malkin wheeled to look back. Then, at a limping run, the furred one returned to where Thora stood, still striving to press her hands into the air. Malkin also put out a hand as if she sought what Thora fought against. Whether she guessed the nature of the barrier the girl could not tell, but she was back beside Thora, her eyes aflame.
“I cannot go on,” the girl said. “There is a power set against me.”
“Sssssoooo—” Malkin turned up the wrist from which she had earlier dropped the blood on the footprint. She looked from it to Thora.
“Bllooddd—” She drew the single word into a long hissing sound.
Once more she pricked at the cut, watched a bead of blood gather there. Then she held up her arm.
“Drrinnkk—”
Thora jerked back. Blood was life. Two men, two women could share blood, so giving and taking, and then be bound more tightly than any kin. If one shed blood for food, or in anger, one must follow ritual—or one lay under the Shadow. She looked at the welling bubble of dark blood and felt a little sick. Malkin’s eyes blazed. She dropped the spear and clutched at the girl, striving to drag her down closer.
“Drrinnkkk—” That was a command.
Reluctantly, Thora inclined her head as Malkin thrust the bleeding wrist higher. She had to fight revulsion as she allowed her lips to open, to touch the other’s fur-covered flesh. She sucked and the moisture she so drew in burnt her lips and her mouth like fire, but she swallowed, because at this moment Malkin’s will subdued her own. Then she stepped forward. There was no wall holding her back now.
The path of the wood led steadily upward into broken country. For three days they followed it into sharp ridges and higher hills until it ended at last at the base of a rise Thora could see no way of climbing. Kort trotted eastward along the base of that cliff, nosing among the debris of earth and rocks, half embedding here and there the trunk of some long-dead tree, evidences of a mighty landslip. But Malkin stayed, looking up, her bushy head far back on her shoulders—not measuring the cliff Thora thought, rather searching the sky beyond.
Since the furred one had brought her past that invisible barrier, the girl had been uneasy. All the tests she herself knew confirmed that Malkin was not a follower of Set. Still, her powers were of a type unheard of among Thora’s own people. And the unknown was always suspect—caution was the first weapon for those in unknown lands.
Now Malkin was singing again, but the sound was so low it was like a whisper. Though the singer still held her head at what must be a most uncomfortable angle, searching the sky. It was mid-morning and that spread of blue was cloudless, the heat of the sun reflected from the stones about them.
Out into that blue arch of sky came what was at first only a black mote, which could have been covered with a fingertip. The flyer grew larger, moving from side to side in long gliding sweeps, descending lower with each.
A bird? Thora was sure that outline against the sky was that of far outstretched wings. Only, even among the winged ones who rode the air currents thus, there must come a beat of wings now and then, and never did these change position. There was something wrong about the outline of the body those still wings supported—it looked far too slender—too small in proportion to the wings.
The creature of the air dipped closer and closer. Thora moved up beside Malkin, her arm touched the furred one, and she felt the rhythm pulsing through that smaller body, though her song was so muted.
Then the winged creature gave a sudden dip, sailing across where they stood, to vanish beyond the lip of the cliff before them. But it did not pass so soon from sight that Thora had not seen plainly what she would never have accepted for the truth had another reported it. The body stretched horizontally beneath those beat less wings was that of a man! By some art or power he was as free of the air above as if he had been born feathered!
Malkin now watched the top of the cliff over which the flyer had vanished. Kort sat on his haunches, his nose pointing in the same direction.
“Who—?” Thora found her voice and pointed, determined to catch Malkin's attention, learn what manner of man dared so use the sky.
The furred one without looking away from the cliff twisted her tongue to answer:
“Winnnd Ridder—Waiittt noooww—”
Before Thora could ask for further enlightenment, something fell from the cliff top. She saw that straighten out into a dangle of thick ropes which swung back and forth.
There was a loop knotted at the end which had fallen almost directly before Malkin. Without showing any surprise, the furred one picked that up, set the loop about her waist and pulled it snug. She made sure of the fastening of the rolled cloak, thrust her spear through the thongs securing that
, and then gave a vigorous tug to the rope.
It was being pulled up, Malkin kicked out now and then against the wall, as if she had done this many times over. Thora watched her reach the top and vanish as the flyer had done. Once more the rope toppled over, to fall in coil. To follow Malkin so—but there was really very little choice. Kort had come forward stiff legged, as he always did when approaching that concerning which he was uneasy. He lowered his head, pushed his nose under the loop, then stepped forward so it was about his body, looking to Thora with an unmistakable command to make him fast.
With a kick or two—whoever was on the other end of that line must have sensed the dog was secure—Kort faced the wall of stone. He used his four feet to fend himself away, and up he went—to vanish with a flurry of paws.
6
Thora checked the security of her pack, thrust her spear into its sling, making sure it was well knotted. Once more the rope was tossed down. She heard Kort bark encouragingly. Trusting in him as she had so many times before, the girl steadied the loop about her, waiting for an upward pull which followed at once, though it seemed a long time until the edge of the rise was within reach. She pulled herself over, her scramble landing her near face down.
As she rose to her knees she viewed a very wide ledge of stone—stretching well out before her. However her attention was drawn to the man beside Malkin, the rope coils he was looping in. He was so tall Malkin seemed doubly dwarfed beside him, he must top Thora herself by a head, and she was well grown by the standards of her people.
His body was covered by a form-fitting suit of dull, dark green that revealed him as lean, long of limb, narrow of hip. Only his shoulders were wide and highly developed in proportion to the rest of him. His head was bare, and his hair so closely cut that it was like a tight black cap.