by Andre Norton
She whom he had addressed leaned her head back against the high back of her chair, her eyes closed. All knew that though the Witches would not restore her jewel to her, the Lady Jaelithe had not lost what she could command before her wedding.
When her eyes opened again she looked beyond the table, and they sought the dark corner where I sat on a stool, watching this council as one might watch a harvest playlet. That I had any right there, at all was a question which might well be asked.
“Destree m'Regnant—” She hailed me by a name, and maybe the old story was the truth—that when one's name was used in a matter of Power, one is captive to another's will. For I found myself walking to the table, all eyes upon me.
Sigmun's were hot, his lips tight, as if he kept words locked within him by great effort. In this company he was the one most likely to be my unfriend. The Sulcar have their own ways of Power but those deal only with the sea and perhaps a little with the weather. Also their few wisewomen are very proud of their calling and do not welcome outsiders any more than do the Witches. Of the Others there I had no way of judging. Save I knew that in their own manner each of them had broken some pattern of their people and so were not mind-bound against the strange and new.
“M'lady.” I gave her the traditional salute which went with her onetime rank, my head bowed above hands held palm to palm breast high.
To my surprise she returned that salute as if I were her equal. I found that a little daunting for I wanted none ever to believe that I was more than I truthfully claimed to be.
Orsya, of the water-dwelling Krogan, pushed her chair back a little, allowing me to approach the table closer. Once more Koris's hands went out smoothing flat the chart which lay there.
“What do you ‘see'?” Lady Jaelithe asked sharply.
My hands were cold as the tremor which ran along my back. What if I failed now? True enough she had tested me alone and then it had been easy, not that I could or would ever claim that I had full command Over this small power of mine. Now I drew a deep breath and leaned forward to place both hands palm down on the unfinished portion of the chart. I strove then, to think of the sea, to paint in my mind the ever tumultuous waters, the birds which dipped and soared above; that other life which came and went below its surface.
Suddenly I could feel the touch of wave spume on my cheek, taste from the air the smart of salt, hear the never ending murmur of the waves. It was as if I trod well above the water, not soaring as a bird but rather as one who could walk some invisible layer of air.
I was searching out what lay to break that surface below. There were islands—as many of them as if some giant had seized up a handful of pebbles of all sizes and flung them out without care as to where they might fall. Some were merely rocks hardly showing above the wash of the water. Others were larger. Yet there was nothing growing on them—nothing but rocks on which lay sea things how dead and stinking, as if these islands had been spewed forth by the sea itself.
Not too far away there was a sullen fire in the sky. I willed myself again and toward that I went. There was molten rock spilling down the sides of a cone, lapping out into the water which boiled with its heat.
Besides all this I “saw'’ something else—an unnatural threat which was being torn and rent by some process of its own formation. That which I touched ever so slightly was formless but it was apart from what I watched. There was the feeling of birth here, of a purpose. And that purpose held no natural cause in what it wrought. It was something so alien to me that I could not even set name to it. Yet I also knew that it was a threat to all which I looked upon—even the restless and heated sea itself.
I was back again in the tower chamber arid I looked only to Lady Jaelithe.
“You saw?”
She inclined her head.
“You felt?”
“I felt,” she answered.
I lifted my hands from the parchment. Suddenly I was weak, tired, I may have even wavered as I stood, for Orsya's hold tightened on my arm as she guided me into Lord Kemoc's empty chair.
It was the Lady jaelithe who had pulled the Var goblet to her and poured into it a measure of wine from the flagon near to hand. She pushed that towards me. I was fearful of lifting that treasure, it might so easily shatter in my unsteady hands. Then someone else took it up and held it to my lips so that I could drink. The wine allayed my sudden thirst, warmed me, for I was chilled as I always was when I used my gift.
“There are newborn islands.” It was Lady Jaelithe Who answered their unvoiced questions. “Also there is a volcano sprung from the sea depths—”
“That we have seen at times,” Sigmun put in as she paused.
“Also—there is something else—there is unknown purpose!”
For a moment there was silence and then it was Sigmun who spoke and I was not too exhausted to see that his hot and angry eyes measured me. I had been brought here despite his protests and to him this use of toy talent must cut like the lash of a length of broken rigging.
“Lady, does one trust a faulty star course?”
“Destree"—she stretched her hand across the table and I reached out mine to hers, to have her warm fingers close and hold firmly—"has seen and I followed that seeing. Do you then agree with those late companions of mine that my gift is now worthless?”
He flushed, but I knew there was no softening towards me, nor would there ever be. I was weary of the dread and suspicion which might always follow me.
Sigmun's lips parted as if he would voice further condemnation but it would seem that he thought better of that. It was Lord Simon who brushed this aside as one who would keep directly to the point of the matter.
“What purpose? Who can control enough Power to bring to life a volcano?”
“Who controls enough for the churning of mountains?” Koris asked grimly. “And that we have seen in our own time and place.”
“Witches—farther south?” Captain Sigmun seemed to bite upon that as one would bite upon the tartness of an unripe fruit.
Kemoc had come to stand behind his lady's chair, his hands resting on her shoulders. “We have met in Escore,” he said, “one adept to whom our Witches would be as untaught apprentices. And he was not the only one of his kind in the days when those fought together for dominion. We do not know who or what lies to the south. But I say this, we shall have to discover and that speedily. If men disappear and ships act strangely, there is purpose enough to learn. However, the Lord Koris was right when he said that we have no forces to send unknowing of how they must be used. As it is on the land, so it must be by sea—there must be scouts sent out.”
Captain Sigmun nodded vigorously. “That is so, and with them someone who has the gift. Volcanos and new islands, those we can understand, but if they are born by the will of someone or something—then I say we must have aid of Power to make sure.
I think we all looked to the Lady Jaelithe now, for certainly she was first among us when it came to considering the uses of Power.
“That is a matter to be thought on,” she returned.
“And by the fifth hour—” Lord Koris had begun when Lord Kemoc moved, sweeping his lady up in his arms. She had gone even paler and her breath was light and fluttering. Without a word he hurried towards the entrance to the tower room and we knew that her Krogan heritage demanded the water that was theirs since their race had first come into being at the interference by some adept with nature's laws. Perhaps the very appearance of a Krogan among us was an argument that Power could call fire and molten rock out of the sea.
Captain Sigmun stood and said that he had to meet with three of the Sulcar commanders. It seemed that the company took that as a signal to break up. But Lady Jaelithe remained where she was, though Lord Simon and Koris had gone out, my hand still clasped in hers.
“What story is yours?” she asked in a low voice which was perhaps for my ears alone.
I looked away from her eyes and studied the goblet from Varn for a long moment before I answered.
“You named me fully, my lady. Have you riot also heard where my shame lies? I am only half of the House of Regnant—who my father was not even my mother could say before she died at my birthing. The ship on which her clan sailed was tolled ashore by wreckers—”
I had half forgotten the Lady Loyse, but now she moved and asked sharply:
“Off Verlane?”
“Not so.” I shook my head. “It was across seas. There was a, nest of pirates who boarded or wrecked many vessels. Those of the men who got ashore had the sword put to them, the women—” I was silent for a moment and they understood me well, I could feel it “The Sulcars sent three ships against that hold and they had with them a true seer and a force of Falconers. They found my. mother in a place of—of—the Dark—the real Dark. She had been given to—My lady, she could not even tell what had befallen her in that place except that she had been the plaything of something that wrecker lord would placate and be friends with, so she, and others before her, had been the price.
“She was—mindless. It would have been well for her if they had had pity and cut her down instead of bringing her back. But Wodan s'Fayre was her betrothed and he had led the breaking of that nest. He would bring her back and see if she could be healed.
“There was a healer in Quayth then, one of the Old Blood of Arvon. And my mother was taken-to her. But she would not aid—she said, that my mother had been overshadowed by evil and that she who had been Wodan's betrothed was gone, what was left was only a living husk. But he did not believe and arranged that she be taken to an island that he had knowledge of and there be tended by his sister and her maid-sister. They did so until I was born. Then she, who had at least worn my mother's body like a cloak, died and I lived. Only since then, Lady, there is no trust among the Sulcars for me. My gift came early, when I was just able to talk. I farsaw and I foresaw—until I realized that it was not a gift but a doom—for my foreseeing placed ill on people who asked it of me and never good.
“Last year Sigmun's blood brother became foolish from much drink at a tavern in Es City and he saw that I was also there, for I had come to ask of the Witches whether it be true that I was of some Dark blood. This is truth: if I forsee for myself, and sometimes that seems forced upon me and I cannot deny it, I profit but others pay hard for my gain. This Ewend caught me in my chamber, having seen where I went; and he said that there was one way to lay a Witch and this he would do and I might thank him for it. But when he laid hands on me—I fore-saw and that I cried aloud. And he was afeared for I spoke of a thing he believed very secret. So he loosed me, for I added to that seeing my only weapon, the threat that I would forsee a death of dread for him and that would come to pass.
“After he had let me go, while he was still muzzy-headed from what he had drunk so deeply, he was found by Sigmun, who had been hunting him. And he told Sigmun what death I had threatened. And, Lady, believe me in truth, I had not cursed him, nor built any spell against him, but within a month that very death came to him.
“Sigmun believes that I can kill with my tongue and my thought. Those of his clan fear and hate me. Yet he brought me here for I think he believes that if there is work of the Dark within this trouble then I, who am of the Dark, can perhaps be used as a weapon or an unwilling hostage. His people fear spells, except those of their healing women, and some to do with wind and wave. They believe that a man can be ill wished and that is why I still live, I think, for they believe I could leave some curse behind me which would pay in horror what they had done in blood.”
“And you,” asked the Lady Jaelithe, “what do you believe? That you were fathered by something of the Dark and so a danger to all those of the Light?”
I rubbed my hand across my forehead as if I would erase so the pain which gnawed at me, always did so after I had used my talent.
“Lady Jaelithe, I know, not what to believe. This much I know—in the Dales of High Hallack there be many places of the Old Ones—some for good and some for evil. It is said that the evil cannot be welcomed by the good. When I was a maid just taking on womanhood I went to one of the places of Gunnora, she who all say is a friend to womanhood and truly for all good. I entered in, nor did any force of assault on my body or my mind drive me forth. I asked there that I be let to know what I am—that if I be evil let me be brave enough to turn steel against myself—that if I be good I be sent some sign that that was true.
“This came to me, falling from above, whence I could not see, coming straightly into the hands I held out.” I groped beneath the shirt latching at my throat and brought out that which never since had left me, a stone smooth and cool to the touch, with worn lines upon it which I had never been able to see clearly. For, when I stared at them or strove to copy them onto parchment, they seemed to slide and move. The pebble was the color of ripened grain and bore a drilled hole near the top so that it was easy to string it upon a wearing cord.
The Lady Jaelithe looked upon it and then, as if she was drawn into that gesture from a force she could not resist, she held out a finger, not quite touching its surface.
There was a sharp exclamation from the Lady Loyse, for there was a spark of light which shot between flesh and stone. The Lady Jaelithe was still, very still for a long time—of what seemed so to me. Then she said.
“Be at rest in your heart, for none who are tainted within can wear that. And I think that this is a promise that there will come a time, Destree, when you shall surely know … much.”
2
What more assurance she might have given me I was not to know for there was a shout below and a messenger came running up to our council room so fast that he near stumbled flatfaced before us. What he had to give was a summons and we three followed him down into the courtyard. There stood a horse lathered from hard riding. He who had pushed the beast so was speaking to Lord Simon while Captain Sigmun came at a swift stride back to join us.
“… strange ship—unlike any we have ever, seen! Harwic of the Wave Skimmer has brought it in. There were none aboard… .”
“By the barge we go quicker—there are enough to man the oars!” Sigmun caught at the messenger's shoulder. “When did they come to port?”
“At dawn, Captain,” the messenger, who was plainly Sulcar, answered promptly. “I have changed mounts ‘ twice—”
“To the barge is right.” Lord Koris gave the order. “The crew is already gathered there. I planned to have gone upstream to the second watchtower.”
Thus we speedily found ourselves afloat, for no one gainsaid any who had been in that upper chamber against going. Even Lord Simon, Kemoc and the captain took oars as we pulled out from the wharf. Lord Koris was at the tiller and set our course. For the moment it was a tricky one, for Es River is a highway in itself and many use it, both for traveling, and for the carriage of goods. Between the city and the coast it is always crowded and we swept past many a deep-loaded barge, they pulling aside in haste to give us clear voyaging as the messenger sounded a warn horn from the bow. Our own small vessel was crowded, since we had shipped & double quota of oarsmen, they trading places at intervals.
Even so it was past twilight, well into the deeper shadow of night, when the coast wind came to promise that we were near our journey's end. There was the gleam of torchlight gilding the water ahead as we closed in upon the landing for the official barge.
During that time there had been little said among us. We might all have possessed the farsee talent and been hard at labor marking out what lay ahead. Yet if that were so, none spoke of what they viewed.
From the water's edge we went straight to the small keep which was the plate of the port governor. Him we found in the lower hall seated before a table which was piled high with rolls of parchment, cups used, some still half full, and plates which bore crumbs and smears of hasty meals. When he saw Lord Simon and Koris, who were to the fore of our party, he hastily got to his feet, his sword clanging against a metal flagon which he inadvertently swept from the board.
His hand lifted in a quick salute and he called over his shoulder for servants to clear the table, though he kept his hand in guardianship over the rolls. They brought up chairs from the darker corners of the room for the Tregarths and Koris. But the rest of us, save Sigmun, who remained standing, were satisfied with two benches. One I shared with the Lady Loyse and the other seated Kemoc and his lady, who, though he still kept a supporting arm about her, looked well and alert again.
“The ship?” demanded Lord Simon without delay.
“It is anchored off Gorm, my lord.”
“Soooo.” It was a long-drawn word, almost a hiss.
Gorm was a place of the dead, the small party of guard who drew that duty (it was always left to chance drawing by the leaders of squads) never stayed there more than a tenth day. And they kept away from the heart of the doomed and long-dead Sippar (a city which once had outrivaled Es City itself in wealth and inhabitants), taking position only in-the tower by the seawall.
A place accursed wais Gorm, where the dead-yet-walking hordes of the Kolder were finally released from the hideous spell laid upon them and the power of their captors broken in the east. No ship willing went to anchor in what had been the prime harbor in the old days. That Harwic had so left his find there suggested that there was good reason not to bring it closer to a cleaner portion of the land.
“A large ship, my lords. But it has no sails, nor any sign of there ever having been a mast raised above deck—”