by Andre Norton
When I staggered again into the shade of one of those clay-and-stone mounds I had three knives, lacking any touch of corroding rust, a sword with a gem-set hilt, and an armlet with a sheath for a throwing knife, that light and murderous weapon still within its hold.
As I had searched for what I needed I had decided that this was no battlefield. Swords had not been drawn, knives still lingered in rotted belts. Oddly enough the metal was in no way corroded nor rusted, but clothing and belts and boots remained only as fragile remnants.
I had not seen on the skeletons themselves any sign of wounds. Each skull was entire without a break. There were no dart bolts or arrows between ribs thus placed to show that they had been shot into living bodies. Also I believed that those dead here had not been killed all at one time. It was as if various companies had been brought to this slaughter place, sometimes years apart, and finished off, left to lay where they had fallen. Nor had any visitor despoiled the bodies. Not only were unused weapons lying among the bones but I had seen jeweled bracelets, necklaces and the like, still upon the framework of those who had once been their owners.
There was one way I might solve this mystery, perhaps so learning how I myself might avoid a similar fate. Yet I shrank from employing it. I sat there as the sun dropped below the western cliffs and the broad banners it had left flying began to fade, drawn one way and then another. Would such an act as I contemplated draw me deeper into the hold of that compulsion which had brought me here? Was it worth such danger I could only guess at and should be able to understand?”
Gunnora's amulet was warm again in my hand. I put my palm back down on my knee cupping the stone firmly and then I reached for the first of the knives I had gleaned. It had a longer blade than most; the hilt was, I thought, fashioned of some kind of horn, and that had marks deeply incised within its substance.
Picking that up, I laid it across Gunnora's stone, then I shut my eyes and threw open my mind swiftly, that I might not turn from the task.
15
I did not slide into darkness—rather it was as if I were standing on a height looking down into a pool of grey mist. Here and there that was broken by an upstand of rock—so that all this might be again rock islets rising out of a dull, turgid sea.
There was stirring in and through the mist—I felt a blanket of fear, muffled fear, which kept one moving. Some part of it stood between those who so moved and a complete understanding of who they were and how they had come here.
There was a company entrapped, striving weakly to break forth. And I had been a part of them, only, by some freak of my own nature, I had been able to break bonds in this much, that I had climbed but of the cloying and imprisoning mist.
Who was I? Memory was dim, broken, had faded. A ship, the sea, and then a breaking open, a tearing apart of the normal world. Afterward the command laid upon all of us on board—that we steer for—
A harbor!
Yes, but though we made that landfall we were even more deeply caught in the net of some unknown fisher. We had come ashore, marching together, moved by the need for answering that call. Only in me had something twisted and strove for freedom. I had repeated words I had learned—held on to ray sense of oneness—was not yet absorbed into the collected prey of whom I was meant to be a part. I had thrown myself aside just before those who were my fellows set climbing a long flight of stairs and I had fought my way—fought it indeed, for it was as if I moved through some thick morass into which I might be engulfed at any moment. Still I had turned from those steps up which the others climbed, their faces without expression, their eyes set in unblinking stares, all which had made them the comrades I had known either wrung from them or sent into an unwaking inner slumber.
So I fought and forced a way among dried carcasses of ships which had run ashore. Only still that compulsion gnawed at me. I put my hands over my ears, as I might shut out some order, which hearing, I would be forced to obey, as I zigzagged back and forth about the time-eaten relics of seagoing races seeking ever to get beyond the reach of that which commanded this port of the lost.
Then for a space I was free, still I felt a thrust through me which I knew signaled not my vanquishment but that of those I had known. On their march they had lost more and more of themselves, their identity, yet at this end that flared high and in the same moment they were taken—there was nothing of them left, just emptiness.
I fled that emptiness, running in sand which caught at, my feet, until there was a band of pain about my body. Though I did not pause even then but continued to stagger forward away from those steps which reached upwards into nothingness
The place of the ships was passed and now I faced cliffs which were like walls. There I leaned, one hand against the rock for support, gasping for breath, all of me darkened by fear which had grown even greater since I had felt that ending of our company.
Fear made of me a near-unthinking beast as I clawed my way along the cliff. Then I stumbled and fell into a rift in the stone. Not waiting until I could regain my feet, I went on hands and knees into that crack until I came to the end and lifted bleeding hands to search the stone for holds Which would take me out of this. Always I waited also for some blow, some assault which would bring on me the mindless obedience to Walk to my own death.
I went up and up and then sprawled out on a ledge which ran both right and left, the wall above that looking strangely smoothed when I ran my hands above to discover it held not a single fingertip hold. Thus I turned left, trusting that I was still fleeing away from the stair.
At length the cliff began to descend and the ledge sank also. Again I crept when I wanted to run for there was a mist below and I could see nothing but the roiling of those billows.
It Was when I reached the mist and it closed about me that I knew I was no longer alone. Trapped in it was sound—sometimes a wailing or the gasping of breath one hears when a weeper is near exhaustion. Also there were louder voices which called upon names, of their fellows, or perhaps of gods. It was a clamor and yet it was strangely muted.
There came into my mind then another thought perhaps seeded by my fear. My comrades had been taken in a pack, but what if that which had taken them had thought for another day, or hour—or year—and would keep a certain part of its prey in captivity to serve it later? Had I not escaped but only prolonged the evil I had broken from? I raised my own voice in a hail, wishing to see someone of those I could hear, perhaps discover more of what we had blundered into.
I was not answered. Still the other voices cried, and moaned, and called for help. This clamor struck so into me that I wanted out of it and I turned to search again for the beginning of that ledge which had brought me here. Save that the curtain of the mist was so strong that I was utterly bewildered and could not say I had come this way or that.
I came up hard against some barrier and the surface of this was rough enough to afford me hand and footholds so that I could climb. That I did and my head broke out of the mist. Then instantly all the voices I had heard Were stilled and I was alone. The mist lay about me but beyond there were other places which might mark similar hillocks.
For the first time I saw others beside myself who had won free from the net of the mist. On a hillock not too far away there sat a woman and across her knees rested the head and shoulders of a man. There were bloodstained bandages about his head and his shoulder, and she held him tightly, rocking back and forth as might one who nursed a beloved child.
I called to her, for the relief of seeing those two was warm in me and I felt that I was shaking off for the first time something of that compulsion which had moved me. She raised her head to look and I saw features which were unlike those I had knowledge of Only around her large eyes and about her lips was her very dark skin free from a featherlike down. That, too, covered her arms and hands and every portion of her body which was unclothed. While her clothing was very thin, like the finest of veils, and had been rich, although it was now rent and bedraggled, with tears to split it.
She stared at me across the puffing mist which separated our mounds. Then she called in a voice which was a trill with no sound of words in it. Loosing one of her hands from the one she guarded, she raised that to wave to me.
Yes I would go to her gladly, but if I descended now from my perch above the mist I would be lost again and could never be sure that I could find her. She must have sensed this as soon as my own thoughts formed. Carefully she moved the unconscious man she tended from her knees and got to her feet. There was a wrapping of cloth which sparkled here and there about her waist and this she loosened, proving it to be of greater length than I would have thought it measured. She shook this out and then stooped and made one end fast to her ankle. The rest she caught up in her hand and threw down into the mist. When she pointed to me and that and I was sure I had caught her meaning. If I could descend and reach that outcrop I would he guided by her girdle. It might be the most forlorn of chances but I was willing to take it, for to continue where I was until hunger or thirst, or that which commanded here, was moved to collect me, was indeed the most cowardly and useless of choices.
Yet it was not easy to descend until that noise-filled mist closed about me again. I had taken what precautions I could in the way I went so that I might be facing in the right direction when I was again below. I strove to keep going in that line in spite of the bewilderment with which the mist enfolded me. Twice I saw other shapes in the mist, blundering around, but I knew better than to allow myself to seek out a meeting with either. There was a shadow ahead and I kept on until I did indeed bump against the bulk of one of the hillocks. Eagerly I reached above my head seeking the touch of that rope of cloth. I indeed thanked the Wind Riser when I found it. After that it was a small matter to climb and rise up beside the woman and he whom she nursed. Her eyes, which to me were overlarge for her face, were on mine as I emerged and then she leaned across to jerk up the loop of cloth which had been my guide.
She motioned to the wounded man and gave more of her trills. I believed that she asked of me to see to him, but there was little I could do. Blood was drying on the bandages she had devised. He was clearly of her people as the same down on his skin was matted with blood along one arm where the shoulder wound must have dripped.
Now she made another gesture in the direction of the cliff which had brought me here and which arose as a dark blotch well away from where we were now. To think that we could get back there perhaps carrying the unconscious man with us was folly and she must have already seen that for the gesture which she had made toward that focal point was one of repudiation.
There was hardly room for three of us where we crouched, I looked in the other direction and saw that there were indeed other such perches as this but they Could be as far away as the familiar sea on which I had voyaged for most of my life. She and I together might be able—with a great deal of luck—to reach one or two more of those perches. However, with the wounded and helpless main we dare not try any such moves. I think she had already guessed that for her head was bowed, the longer down which served her as hair flattened to her skull as she rocked once more the man she tended and crooned a series of notes such as might serve as a lullaby for a sick child.
Nor could I now go and leave her. She was not kin, nor had any claim on me. Still I could not leave her here in a place where death was certain to come. There must be some way out. I was a stubborn one; perhaps it was that very stubbornness which had given me the strength to resist the order which had set my comrades to climbing. I had won that much, perhaps there was a way I could win more. So I continued to eye the way ahead.
There was movement on another of the hillocks, one a good distance from us so that in this uncertain light I could not even be sure I had seen it. Then a figure did stand there and I realized that another of the mist entrapped had won temporary freedom. An arm was raised and that distant one waved certainly to us. He or she had a better, position, for not far away was another, taller height rising and that appeared to mark the end of the mist-ridden lower land. If might well be that that stranger could win altogether to freedom. However, we could expect no aid—he or she was too far away.
After that first hail the other did not wave again. I could not see from our perch what he or she would do. Then the other held upward in both hands something which resembled an axe. With a show of strength the stranger brought that down to where wisps of fog licked up from the mist. And, as if those were tangible, they split apart, the head of the axe beginning to glow.
What I was watching might well be some form of hallucination but still my eyes assured me that this was happening and that the mist was swirling back from where the axe wielder stood. More and more of the hillock was revealed as the fog receded.
The other twirled the axe twice about his or her head. I heard sound, faint but unlike the voices entrapped in the mist. Nor was this the trilling notes uttered by my present companion but it carried rhythm in it—not unlike one of the chanties we of the sea sing to make some hard task a united one.
Out from the stranger's hold flew the axe, skimming above the mist so that the down-pointed blade of it cut a path across the billows. Back pressed that concealing fog on either side clearing a path which reached over hard-beaten clay covering the ground. Then the weapon thudded against the height on which we were perched and I snatched at it, my fingers closing about warmth, then folding into a hold which made it seem that I was well familiar with this weapon, that all its secrets had been always known to me. That it was more than any axe, of that I was sure. In this place it was easier to suspend disbelief, to accept that which hours earlier might well have seemed a story for the beguilement of children.
With the axe now firmly in my hand, I leaned down, kneeling on the top of the hillock to give me a firm base, and swung the weapon back and forth, watching the mist retreat as might a living thing sore threatened. The whole of the mound on which we had taken refuge was now free to its very roots.
So, we had a way of winning through the maze set by the mist, but even so could we try carrying the injured and unconscious man? How often need the axe be used? What if it failed once we were away from the doubtful safety of the hillock?
I was distracted from these dire thoughts by a sound beside me, and I turned my head to see the woman pressing her long, thin fingers to the injured man's temples, one hand on either side. There was a sense of fierce concentration about her. The man groaned a second time and one of his limp arms stiffened; he raised a hand uncertainly and his eyes opened. In the moment perhaps all he saw was her face and the complete resolution in it. He muttered a deep sound almost equalling a distant roll of thunder. Then, with her hands behind his shoulder, taking some of his weight, she got him to sit up. For the first time he sighted me and I met a measuring stare, that of a fighting man facing that of which he was not sure, but she trilled and his wariness slowly faded.
In the end, laboring together, we got him down from the hill, he aiding us when and where that he could. Then, with his arms about our shoulders, we went slowly, the three of us together, along the path the axe had cut. That I continued to swing in my right hand not knowing when I might have to use it.
Though the voices in the mist reached us, very faint and far-off, none who were imprisoned there blundered into sight in that corridor. We wavered on, though the wounded man was no light weight. I felt empty. It was a long time since food had passed my lips, perhaps it was even longer for my new companions. Still we crept ahead.
Then the power of the axe's first cutting began to fail and I saw the mist closing in ahead. I remembered how the owner of the weapon had used it. Dare I take a chance and throw it ahead to clear our way as had been done before? I could not leave the two of them; the man was now nearly a dead weight which I was sure she could not support. Otherwise I might have played advance guard and marched on to strike, axe in hand.
We had paused and I limbered my arm by swinging it back and forth. An axe was indeed a shipboard weapon but it
had never been my choice and I was certainly not adept in its use. I swung at last and let the haft slip through my fingers. It did not fall to the ground as I more than half expected it might, instead it advanced through the air and once more cleared the mist it met with its cutting edge, we following at the best pace we could make.
The axe vanished entirely, which raised a sudden fear in me. If the blinding cover ctysed upon us again we would this time have no defense against it, we could Only hope to reach that point ahead where it had gone to ground.
But the pace at which we stumbled along was so slow! It seemed to me that we must yet be far from the hillock where the axe wielder had stood. Were we never going to make that? If the stranger who had been so distant had been able to produce this marvel what else might he be able to do to free us all from this trap?
There was the rise of another hillock in sight now but the pathway to it appeared much narrower. The woman trilled and pointed to that, I guessed her concern equalled mine. In the end she and I were forced to advance partly in the mist and partly in the clear, only our charge hanging between us wholly free of its touch. It seemed to me that the stuff pulled at me, strove to break my linkage and draw me entirely into it, so that part of my now small share of energy must be wasted fighting that.
We came to the hillock's foot and a figure moved away from that towards us. Even as the woman and her charge were alien to any race I knew, so was this man, for I knew him at last for what he was.
He was naked to the waist save for some strings of colored beads inter mixed with curved things which might be claws, and the longer lengths of what must be fangs. His skin was a very dark brown but painted with brilliant color in elaborate patterns. The coarse black hair which covered his head had been coiled and knotted at the nape of his neck, kept in place there with a band of red cloth. Below a waist belt formed of discs of metal inset with blue gems he had on breeches which were also leggings, these fringed along the outer seams, plainly made of animal hide scraped bare of fur. While his feet were covered with boots very tightly fitting and also ornamented with beads and a few of the same talons appearing in his necklaces. He might well have been a barbarian such as traders tell about, but his dark eyes were shrewd and he was watching us with something of a propitiatory air. Swinging in his hand was an axe, surely the one I had tossed ahead not long before.