by Andre Norton
"Ishbi," the Prince said slowly. "This High Lady you ran errands for—where did she go?"
"Lord Prince, how do I know? Me an' Jonas an' Gorger, we got the other High Lady out as we had been told—an' we held her—along the north trail till the news came as she was to be sent to Ishbi. But me, I did not go with 'em as took her—I came back here, 'cause I don't know the land ways. And I was a-waitin', as I was told, until your squad picked me up."
"I think,” the Prince remarked, "that we have here a very small fish where we had hoped to enmesh an oar-tooth. He may supply you with a little more knowledge, my Lord Chancellor, but nothing more really pertinent to our search. Meanwhile—" He had been playing with a slender pick of a dagger, such as might enter a full mask helm to find a vulnerable eye. Now he slipped the weapon into its own sheath which was a pocket on the belt of his sword. "We ride north. I have already ordered out the scouts and if there is a trail to be found, be sure they will chance on it. Also, your Bat is playing a part in this and"—he smiled—"Lord Chancellor, I have the greatest respect for the talents of that one."
"His Highness has asked for an audience at the Abbey; that is where he has just gone. Having come into his holding sidewise as it were, there may be things he should know of the past, so he goes there to discover them."
Prince Lorien nodded. "Wise enough. Meanwhile, Mattew, remove this offal and release it to my Lord Chancellor's men. They may have some further use for it."
In spite of a rise of wailing two of the squad obeyed the wave of their leader's hand and their captive was dragged away.
Mahart regarded the scanty rags which were all that was left of her night shift. There was the blanket still girded about the silent horse outside this area of safety—but the cloak which was her only possible covering she could not find, and night would soon bring cool breezes to roughen her scratched and begrimed skin.
It would have to be the blanket, she decided, nerving herself into what she was sure was peril in leaving this garden. The gentle peace held her still but also it was as if a part of her mind had awakened from some drugged state and she was able to think as well as feel once more.
She paid a second visit to the basin and once more washed both hands and face from its overflow and then, before she might be cowed into reconsidering, she struck out for that lower place in the wall over which she had fallen.
The sun was gone now and there was a dusky twilight. She had crossed the wall when she heard a splashing from the lake. Those things of the island—and she had not even so much as a belt knife! Yet she needed that blanket before night finally closed in.
Stooping Mahart picked up a short length of stone. It was smooth and rounded, with broken, jagged bits at either end. Plainly it had once been part of a much larger carving. With it in hand she crossed the long tangled moss toward the pier.
Out in the lake it was as if moonshine—though that orb was not overhead—had been caught and held in the broken rubble. Only it was greenish in hue rather than the clear gem beauty she knew. And there was a great deal of movement there now. The creatures were even more difficult to see by that strange radiation, but they were taking to the water which along the shore she could see was splashing, well churned by their entrances.
Setting her jaw and grasping her heavy, improvised club with both hands, she hurried to the horse. For the first time a new emotion awoke in her—pity. It had been as much a captive of those who had sent them here as she, and, though she did not know what killed it, she was angry as well as sad.
She knelt by the inert body and, laying her club within reach, she tugged at the buckles which held the blanket fast. Then—Mahart had no idea why she did this, but she found herself edging forward, taking its head on her knees and pressing her palms against the rough hide just above the half-closed eyes.
There was no healer she had ever heard of who could reverse the hold of death, no herb grown which could draw back a thing already departed.
Still there was something rising in her now, a strength she had never felt before. And she found herself crooning, an old, old swinging of words that came out of her own past when once she had had a nurse from the north country who had treated her as the lonesome child she was and not an untouchable High Lady.
There was a huge sigh, ruffling some of the tatters of her nearly vanished shift. Out of her—even as the water curled from the basin—was running energy and the animal was responding. Perhaps not death had claimed it after all but rather overwhelming fatigue.
As its head rose from her knee there came a shrill ear-paining scream which was echoed and reechoed from the water end of the pier. Things were scrambling out of the water, yet in the air they hesitated, bunching together instead of advancing as she expected them to.
Mahart, club in hand, was on her feet, barely aware that the horse was scrambling and kicking its way upright also. Her attention now was for the things from the lake. Though the greenish glow of the island seemed also to cling about them, here she could see them much better.
They were certainly unlike any animal she had ever heard of or seen fancifully pictured in the old books. Each had four long thin limbs. Those at the upper part of their bodies—for once out of the water they were now actually standing—appeared to have not paws but digits webbed together into hands. Their heads were large and round, balanced in size by the lower portion of their bellies, and their features resembled those of a toad she had once seen bewil-deredly lost in the sorry waste of the castle garden. The eyes were very large, as was the mouth, the nose only a slit in between. They had no covering over slick greasy-looking skin, and she could not guess their sex, though she had an idea that both male and female made up that evergrowing crowd.
Still, to her complete amazement, they made no attempt to approach her closely, though the arrival of more and more from the lake pushed the first comers forward. Yet she was certain that they intended her no good and must be planning an attack.
A place of refuge? The garden? The horse blew and now gave a high whinny. It, too, was facing the water things, the whites of its eyes showing, and it stamped on the mossy stone.
Mahart reached out with one hand and caught at the dangling reins. The mount did not try to elude her, instead shouldered against her as if she supplied some idea of safety.
Slowly Mahart made the trip back to the garden wall. But was the expanse within large enough to hold them both without the horse destroying the wealth of food? It seemed to know what she would do. Pulling the reins from her loosened grasp, it withdrew a little and then leaped the low wall with ease.
Behind them from the lake arose a wailing which appeared to contain the beat of words. Mahart caught at the wall. She was being pulled upon, urged back to where they waited, and it was all she could do to resist. Her grasp on the wall top was anchorage, and she dragged herself toward that one step and then another until she could throw herself over, to lie once again facedown in the thick growth of ground fruit. Instantly that compulsion ceased.
The wailing continued for the space of several breaths and then died away, and she could hear once more a splashing of lake water. The creatures, she hoped, were withdrawing.
Turning she saw that the horse was moving around the inner edge of the wall, seeming to purposefully avoid the plants. Finally it came to a patch where it lowered its head and began to graze with greedy haste lest this somehow be withdrawn beyond reach. She was able to get the bridle off awkwardly, snatching also the blanket having loosed the last of its buckles.
The coarse cloth smelled of horse and dust but it was warm. Drawing it about her she went back to the fountain. She spoke aloud now as if the sound of her voice would bring the answer she needed.
"What am I?" she asked and somehow aimed that question at the crystal from which the water so steadily dripped. "There is that to be done—that I can understand here." She touched her breast and then her forehead between her eyes. "But what am I—surely not what I always believed myself to be."
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br /> There was no answer out of the niche— No, she must learn the answers in another place—inside herself. That strong sense of waiting which had haunted her so long in dreams of the flowered meadows was upon her. But the time was not yet. She found a place farther along the wall where the damp, diffused flow of the basin did not reach and she pulled the blanket closely about her. The sleep her body demanded came quickly and easily.
There was a face—or rather a pair of compelling eyes fastened on Willadene. Inner power lurked in those eyes even as she had always felt it lay with Halwice. Only, this threatened—it was not just holding her in judgment. Old, old eyes like pits of whirling, ever-burning fires into which one might fall and be consumed—
She fought not with fists but with her will, her thoughts—
Then she was sitting up in the dark and into her ear sounded the soft hissing of Ssssaaa. Warmth, more warmth than such a small body could really hold, seemed to spread from where the creature had fitted itself to the girl's curve of shoulder. There were no eyes—only the dark, and by her someone stirred so that her hand went to her knife hilt.
There was a hand heavy on her shoulder now and a whisper even lower than Ssssaaa's hiss to be heard.
"Be quiet!”
But the girl did not need that warning. She had caught those other sounds through the night—from beyond the brushy cave they had fashioned for themselves. Horses—the grasp on her was released and he was gone. Her sight had adjusted a little to the darkness and she reached up a hand too late to stop Ssssaaa, who was also leaving her.
Whoever rode the night took no precautions to muffle their passage and they were farther away than she had first believed. She heard the splashing of water as if their mounts had taken to the stream, but there was no way of telling how many of them there might be.
It was there, also, the stench of evil. She fumbled for her amulet bag and held it to her nose. Fastened to it now was the small packet of the two leaves she had found in the herbal, and twisted around it all the scrap of Mahart's night rail. She had a strong feeling that each of these drew strength from the other and that they must be kept as one.
The sounds made by the horses faded. They had not approached this brush heap which had been their shelter. But—within her Willadene knew and her grip tightened on the amulet—one at least among that company had sensed the fugitives. Why they had not been rooted out she could not tell—
Nicolas crawled back in beside her. She could see the light blur of his face, but the rest of him melted into the night.
"We have fellow travelers—"
Over the branch arched Ssssaaa and she was once more with her.
"Some one of them knew of us," she told him and was sure of what she said.
"They are either pressed for time or"—and now that chill which she had so often seen in his eyes seemed transferred to his whisper—"think us so easy prey that we may be gathered up in leisure. Ssssaaa managed to keep our horses quiet—surely Vazul has an excellent ally there. But it was plain that they ride a known path—five men and two women—"
Without understanding why that particular name came into her mind Willadene said, "One the High Lady Saylana."
Again she felt the pressure of his fingers closing about her upper arm.
"How did you know that?"
She had buried her nose in that untidy bundle which her amulet had become.
"There was the scent of aspicen fern—that and black evil!"
"They did not try to cover their trail." His grasp on her eased somewhat. "West—west and north. The Prince broke the Wolf but he did not gather up all his followers. They would scatter until summoned again. West and north— toward Ishbi,"
"What is Ishbi?" she demanded at last. The word appeared to hold some dire power for anyone she had heard say it.
There was a long moment of silence as if Nicolas was considering what he would say, and when he did reply it seemed to her that he was evasive.
"You have looked upon the Star—in the Abbey?"
She remembered well her one trip there with Halwice when she had been left in the place of worship while her mistress had withdrawn to confer with the Abbess. But then she had been filled with such wonder of the place that she could not call to mind any detail of it. Except—except that fragrance—that richness of scent to calm heart and mind and which had rolled upon her, encased her, so that Halwice had actually had to shake her when she'd returned to bring her once more to the here and now. However, it was that wonderful scent which held fast her memory—and she had only a dim mind picture of something shining at the far end of the long room.
"Our world/' Nicolas was continuing slowly, as if he still searched for the proper words, "lies open, even as do we from our birth time. There are ever choices for us and also for the world. Sometimes those choices seem to be governed by a will beyond ours. What would your life have been had the plague not struck?"
Willadene felt the soft fur of Ssssaaa. "I—my mother was a midwife, known to Halwice, my father a border guard. In those days of the old Duke people were pushing north. There was good grazing land for sheep and even talk of building a town to center the guard and their families and provide a trading post for the new settlers. My father had signed for duty, my mother thought it a chance for new service." Strange, she had not thought about that for years— the slavery in Jacoba's inn had beaten such hopeful memories out of her.
"So your life would have followed another path and thus formed by the path you would have been another person."
His hold on her was no longer tight and compelling, it had instead some of the warmth Ssssaaa always provided. Now she dared to ask the balancing question.
"Who would you have been?"
"My House was old, once reckoned among the noble names of the duchy. But—we served at the fall of Ishbi. It was said a curse lay upon us thereafter, even though we fought under the Star. Thus we dwindled in numbers. Also the raids from the far west cut into our holdings and we had no funds to hire fighting men as our own band dwindled over the years. Sons and daughters died young and without offspring save for a few—until it came to my own time. My father had been crippled in a fight with an orsbear that had been raiding our last horse herd and he could no longer lead or attract men to his following.
'The outlaws were growing stronger, and just before the coming of the plague they struck. Our hold fell and in the flames of the great hall my father and mother died together. But the plague had already been rumored and they had fostered me with a ranger up in the hills, for my father could see no future lordship for me. For his common sense I shall be always thankful. However, we had a distant blood tie with Vazul and when the plague was over and I was left, I dared to put that to the test. Vazul is a man of many talents, far more than even his worst critics can suspect, and I have no regrets for becoming his ears and eyes in strange places. That is my story, mistress. If the outlaws had not taken Farholm, or if I had not been sent to the rangers for training, or if I had not hunted out the Lord Chancellor— then I would not be what I am today."
"Ishbi," she said slowly. "What is this? They do not speak of it in Kronengred, or if they do I have never heard of it."
"We are back once more," he answered, "to the balance of Dark and Light. Generations ago there arose a power in the west which dealt with forces ordinary men could not understand. There was a woman—Nona—of the Royal House of Harkmar, who they tell—though that is perhaps only story—was not of completely human breeding—though how such a monstrous thing might happen who can tell. This force from the west was drawn to her and she to it, and she took with her those of a like nature and they founded a strange hold—Ishbi—
"For a measure of time they were nearly forgot—and then they tried their powers. But those of the duchy and the kingdom under the Star put as they thought an end to such dealings with the Dark. And there was a final battle when that which was in body was slain. But whether it was all defeated no man knew. And now one hears rumors that t
he plague was of such devising that we might be weakened for a second such trial of arms."
''What do they want with the High Lady Mahart? A hostage?"
The dawn was coming now and she could see him far more clearly.
"Perhaps. But it is plain that by those who have passed us this night—the High Lady Saylana is minded to ride for Ishbi and there lies the rotten core of all our troubles."
Once more she pressed her amulet to her nose. For a moment it was as if she stood with the High Lady Mahart, so strong was that whiff of scent.
"Then so do we go also," she said and knew that she could do no less.
They ate of the traveler's provisions he had brought. She went by herself to the streamside and pulled off the divided skirt and the loose drawers under it and worked as well as she could, using as little of the cream as possible, to soothe her chafed skin.
It was a bright morning and the sun dappled the water of the stream through the tree branches. Willadene was aware of life all around her—the sounds of birds, the rustling of what could only be small animals in the grasses. Ssssaaa crouched by the stream and drank and then made a lightning fast slap with a forepaw and brought out a flapping fish which vanished quickly save for a bone or two.
"They have left us a full trail," Nicolas told Willadene when she returned to the campsite, "and they ride northwest making no attempt to cover their passage. Therefore we go on alert. For since they have no fear we may well find peril of one kind or another. The outlaws are scattered but they are outworld men and they know this country well."
She hated to be in the saddle again but there was no other way, and she was as sure as Nicolas that there was a good reason to hurry. Ishbi waited—or something waited there.
Chapter 21
The slim scout, his dappled clothing difficult to see even when he moved into a path of full sunlight, looked up at his commander, ready with his report.
"It is true, Highness, but there are three trails which muddle one another. The last is ranger set."