by Andre Norton
She shook her head. “That I cannot tell you, knowledgeable one, for it is not of the path which I walk, coming instead from a different and darker way.”
He nodded. “So does it seem, sister. This is not of man's magic, nor yet that of womankind's—though we have seen the face of her who calls up storms as a woman summons her sheep. She eats does this one and then grows strong enough to toss the land about and bring fires up out of the sea. Sometimes her catch is good and there are ships to come at her summons, and those aboard she takes for her own that she may fill herself once again—”
“She is Laqit.” For that had come into my thoughts and I knew it for a true one. This was indeed the last of the guardians which Sulcar legend named, this strange horror at the end of the world.
They looked at me but it was the Lady Jaelithe who made first answer:
“So this be Laqit. Yet there was a greater who set her here.” Now she looked back to the now bare wall. The sun was down, leaving only colored banners across the sky. Already shadows lengthened and it was Lord Simon who said my own thought aloud.
“Does darkness also feed this—this one?”
The axe man was ready with an answer: “Not so, except that it can watch and wait and plan. But it has not fed as it hoped and that will lead to the need of our being ever alert and on watch.”
“It is not alive—you speak as if it is—” I said.
“Not with life as we know it!” the Lady Jaelithe said quickly. “What do you do?” She ended with a swift demand as Kemoc moved forward, past us all. He had sheathed his sword, and his hands were raised shoulder high, palm out. Before any of us could move he had set those flat upon the surface of the cube, below: where that head had appeared. His head fell forward a little, and I, who had moved to stop him, saw his eyes were closed and there was the strain of intense concentration mirrored on his face.
Not knowing what he would do I hesitated to draw him away. The others shared my uncertainty. We came close enough that we might catch him by the shoulders and draw him to freedom but we still hesitated.
I saw frowns, and the shadow of fear, determination such as a hunter might show though he kept to the chase in the face of great odds. Then Kemoc gasped and his hands dropped to his sides. He swayed and perhaps might have fallen had not Lord Simon and the axe man together steadied him and guided him back away from the cube.
He was drawing fast breaths, almost as if he gasped for air. Then his eyes opened.
“They are still there—those who have been recently taken. I have tried to call but they are so shaken with terror that they cannot hear. If we could break that, and get to them, that which uses them might well suffer. It is weaker—the feeding has been scant for a long time.”
Perhaps it was that new strength within me which roused to that challenge. Knowledge I had always gained in snippets, under no tutelage, for there were none who would take me for teaching. Yet now I had such a store as I could not calculate. I had not been given time to count it all over, to sort this from that. Such an inner study might well take years when we had only a short and fleeting time here.
“Where is the ship—the derelict?”
They looked at me startled. It was Lord Simon who answered.
“We left it just without the south end sweep of the bay.”
A long way, I thought, and then I though of birds’ wings against the sky and the fact that the things which hindered a fast journey on land might not mean so much delay to one winged and aloft.
“There is that of the people gone which is still on board,” I said. “Also, is it not true that that which has been worn much, treasured, kept by one person, is tuned to his or her spirit? Let us get what I left from the ship and see whether it can call to someone who is captive there.” I nodded toward the cube.
“A falcon!” Orsya had caught my thought first. “Let the Falconers send one of their birds with a message to one of their own. That will not take the full night's time to reach there and back!”
Lady Jaelithe nodded vigorously. “Yes, that perhaps is the answer! It is one you and I have seen in part used.” She spoke now to Lord Simon. “Remember when we called Power down upon the Kolders through that which was their symbol—how their allies, fell away? Let us send for this!” She had taken two steps toward the stairway when she paused and spoke over her shoulder to the axe man:
“Does your talent do so, also, brother?”
He had put the axe down between his feet and was busy now at his belt where there were a number of small bags, all fastened by drawstrings pulled through loops there.
“This calling I have heard of but I have not seen. The gift the Above Ones have given me is different. Leave to me the guardianship of this place—it will not hold for long but there will be ones who shall stand sentinel for us.”
Thus we left the stranger and went down the stairway. I thought as I went that many must have gone aloft by that way but perhaps we were the only ones ever to descend again. It was dark now. Gunnora's stone shone as well as any lamp but the spread of its diffuse light did not reach far. However, from some of the oldest ships, those which had been ground into the sand by the later comers, there was a glimmer. Almost it was the old tale of how the dread deathlights spring from the unknown graves where those dead by murder lay, to shine until they were granted justice.
By the light of that I saw the: Falconers and Captain Sigmun. Each was seated and around him where he sat, well apart so that no line intersected another, there was a circle drawn in the sand. I would have thought that too soft to hold its shape for long, but these were still sharp and clear. The three men looked to Lord Simon and I thought that the stares of the Falconers were not far from cold fury. Their birds were on their wrists, heads under wings and they slept.
Captain Sigmun was the only one to speak. “How have you wrought above, warlocks? Your spells worked well here.”
“Be thankful, Captain, that that was so,” Kemoc snapped. “For there is that above which hungers and you would have been its meat!”
“So? Well, there comes a time for fighting and a time for standing aside. Have you gutted this eater so that we may now have our freedom?”
“Not yet. For that we must have your help—”
“Is it not true that we cannot stand against it?” One of the Falconers fairly spat that in Kemoc's direction. “Are we not bait?” He was sour of face even for one of his clan and I knew how jealous the Falconers were of what they deemed their honor. To be held a prisoner by his own side when a foray was made aloft must have diminished him and his fellow in their, own sight.
“It is only your skill which can save perhaps all of us,” Lord Simon cut in. I knew that he had ridden with the Falconers in the day of the Kolders and that since then he acted as a voice for them in the affairs of Estcarp, where they would not speak, since women judged there. To a Falconer a woman is a for lesser being than either bird or mount, to be kept from the consorting with man on an equal, basis in all things. Perhaps it was because Lord Simon had long ago won their respect, in spite of the fact he was wedded and to a Witch, which worked on the pair of them now.
They had arisen and their falcons had awakened, one mantling as if ready for instant flight.
“What is your will, lord?” The younger of the two pointedly did not look in our direction, only to Simon. He beckoned to me. And as I skirted a broken timber half buried in the sand to come to him, the Falconers became stone faced again.
“There is this.” I refused to be daunted by their, attitude. “On the strange ship on which we have sailed into their waters there were many things which belonged to those vanished ones of her first crew. Most of those things we gave back to the sea lest they prove a draw of the Dark. Now.we need what is left. With it we may be able to break the ensorcellment which holds this place and has squatted here to be the death of many.
“If you fly one of your falcons to the ship carrying a message, and that bird will return with what we need—it is small and easy to carry
—then we shall be armed with an extra weapon which will serve us well.”
Neither looked at me, but that they understood I knew. They were only following the long-held pattern of their kind. Then the elder nodded.
“Bold Wing is swift and the night is still young. He can be back by dawn if it is indeed true that what he carries is light enough.”
“Good,” Lord Simon said heartily. He took from a belt pouch one of those tablets made of a certain sleek stone, wafer-thin, on which orders can be written, erased, and _written again. This he handed to me with one of the very narrow paint sticks.
I thought, trying to set my desire in as few words as possible. Then I wrote in the short word style of the Sulcar. It should be easy to find the boxes, take forth the jewels I had not beien able to throw away. Perhaps that had been a foreseeing of a kind, and something within me had known that there would be a future use for such. I was very sure of one thing—that she who had worn those gems had treasured them, and they might well be the key to the lock of the cube.
Lord Simon handed the write-stone to the Falconer, who took great care to knot it into a cord he slipped over his bird's head. Kemoc went forward and with his sword, a very slender one which seemed to draw light into its blade, he broke through the circles set about the men so that the Falconer could step forward and loose his bird, which spiralled up into the dark and was gone.
18
It was a long night and twice during it I climbed those stairs to look upon the cube. The second time all fatigue had left me and I felt as strong in my own way as the rocks about. Though I kept a careful eye upon the place where that face had hung.
What the axe man had done amazed me the most. He was still busied about it when I had gone aloft. From those many small bags he had hanging at his belt he brought forth, a different color from each, what seemed to be colored sand near as powdery as dust. About the cube the rock of the cliff top was more level than it was elsewhere. Onto that space he dribbled sand from his clenched fist, first this color and then that. The colors I could be sure of, since the sand, even as the ship timbers below, gave forth a faint gleam. So he painted, one at each of the four sides of the cube, a weird figure which I guess was representative of some power he had learned to control. Then at the four corners, separating the territory of one of his designs from the next, he made other signs, not so detailed. Until, around the fortress of our enemy, he had set up this silent band of watchers born of colored dust.
I sat cross-legged and watched him. That this was no power of our world, I knew. Also I was as, certain as if he had told me so this had in it something which was akin to Gunnora's kingdom—that it was born firstly of the earth and a deep respect for all which grew there-upon.
When he had finished the last of his sand-born symbols he came to where I sat and for the first time eyed me closely as if there was a need that he understand something which was unknown hitherto. Then he pointed to Gunnora's jewel with what he had held as an instrument for sweeping up any sand which dribbled awry because of some unevenness of the pavement.
“Corn Woman.”
Whether he meant that name for me or for She for whom I now spoke I did not know. I answered with the name she was known to us:
“Gunnora.”
He appeared to chew upon that as a man chews upon some viand he has never tasted before, trying so to judge whether it was to his liking or no. Then he nodded and seated himself some little distance away. Throwing back his head he began to chant again, but not raising his voice far above a whisper.
In me that thing I had felt since my stone had become a goddess's jewel stirred. I need not mind-probe to know that what he called upon was partly of Gunnora's own rule, the earth under us which could be fruitful or sere as Power employed it.
This was a place where I felt that no barrier might be eased. I had no time to go seeking inside myself for what I had been freshly gifted. I needed time, and solitude, and a way to work out my own road. None of those could I claim now. Still it seemed as I listened to a humming which was not of my own world, more barriers within me crumbled. I was not she who had started on this quest still fearful that the Dark might claim me—no, what I was—
I had listened to ah old Sulcar sailor once who spoke of a queer land to the north, bordering on Alizon, of how there was a tribe of people whose leader could never be spoken to directly after he had taken on the circlet of rule, but had always with him a maiden to whom all words, must be addressed, even though the ruler stood there beside her, and then he spoke to her and she to the petitioner. It had seemed to me a way of folly, but long-held custom often seems folly to those who look or hear of it unknowing of what actions it was born.
Would it—could it be that Power, also, had maidens or spokesmen who stood between the petitioner and what was wished? The Witches used Power as they would a tool—it was not personified for them. It had long been thought that.it only was Dark power which drew servators to it—remaining the shadow behind the High Chair in dealings.
What was I now? Surely a speaker for a Power whose strength I had no measure. I cupped my jewel and it was warm. Into me swept again that feeling of energy and purpose with which I had climbed the stair. The axe man chanted no longer, rather sat silent, his weapon resting against one knee. There was about him the air of a besieged who had made ready all possible defenses and now determinedly waited on attack.
“You are alone here, Brother-in-Power?” I asked. For it tugged at my mind that I wanted to know the fate of him whose knife had opened the seeing door.
His hands had been busy once again with another pouch at his belt. Now he brought forth a very small bowl to which was attached on one side a hollow, reed-like projection. He took from another pouch two pinches of what I thought might be dried herbs and those he packed tightly into the bowl. Then he had a very small splinter of wood which he rubbed across the rock so that there sprang from it a small flame and this he speedily applied to the contents of the bowl, sucking at the reed and then expelling from his mouth a puff of smoke. Even over the charnel smell of this place I caught that scent of that.
“There are others—” I do nò know why he awaited so long to answer my question. Was he still somewhat suspicious of us?
“Not all,” he continued, “can be taken by that.” He looked at the cube. “There must be something in them which it cannot touch. Inland"—he gestured eastward—"the living is hard but men can exist, and do.”
I would have asked more, wanting to know of the three he had helped escape from the mist, but at the moment the Lady Jaelithe came up the stairs and walked slowly towards us, looking at the sand-and-dust drawings with wonder. With her forefinger she outlined in the air what was not unlike part of one of the figures and it flashed blue. I knew that she would not have duplicated the whole drawing for she might so drain away its power. The axe man was on his feet, the bowl of his smoking object in his hand, watching keenly. But after her action he made one of his own, raising his hand shoulder high, palm out, thumb moving back and forth across the fingers set together. I knew that for a salute between equals.
“You do not sleep?” she asked.
“Before Woman, that does not sleep.” He nodded to the cube. “It is otherwise—planning darkness for us all—and perhaps more than us. It seeks food, for it wishes its freedom and that will come only when it is strong enough to break the bonds laid upon it.”
“It is part of a gate,” she said slowly. “But of a gate which was turned wholly to evil by the one who opened, it.”
“Laqit?” I asked.
She shook her head, “There were guardians set by some gates when the adepts who opened them went through. Then were orders given that such gates were to be held ready for retreat. Laqit was a guardian of this one, yes. But also time has passed, too many years. The adept is gone, that which was to follow a pattern which he set for his return is now acting erratically—perhaps because of the guardian who reaches for power and freedom of her own. She—it�
�can only be defeated when the pattern is completely broken.”
“She reaches too far—and for too much.” I stood up, It was far too early to hope, that the falcon had returned. I was restless as one is before any great trial of strength.
“There are sentries,” the axe man said, and inhaled again from that which filled his pipe, puffing forth aromatic smoke.
“And potent ones, Brother-in-Power,” agreed the Lady Jaelithe. “Yet this is a long night and we shall all be glad, to see the end of it.”
She stood for a moment at the head of the stairway as if she expected me to join her. But I shook my head. The axe man would commune with his messengers and guardians I knew. For me—I must somehow make peace within myself, for a strangeness was astir until I thought sometimes that I must shout aloud or smite the bare rock with my hands in order to contain energy building within. I might not be a speaker for Gunnora, never had I heard of any who were deemed such, but that I was now wholly hers, blood and bone, mind and heart, that I would swear to by any oath my people knew.
So I seated myself before that cube once more and I deliberately thought of Laqit of who or what she must once have been—for that she was not of this world any longer. I was sure. As I thought I nursed my jewel between my hands and the colors within it swirled and spiralled. Though I had thought to put my full mind on Laqit what I saw as a mind picture was something else. I was aloft as one of the falcon above this rock-walled place and the bay of dead ships, but there was one change—that cube was but a square of broken walls and those were crumbling into, rubble, and the rubble to dust as if time was here a weapon.
There were bodies which lay about those walls and I knew if I wished I could see the face of each and every one of them. I did not wish for I knew that I was foreseeing and always foreseeing meant ill to those about me. However, I did not linger at the place where were the controls of that fateful gate, rather I was swept, as if by a needful fresh breeze, inland. I passed over that barren ground where only the twisted deadly growth had been. There was springing from the earth healthy grass and shoots which would be trees. The dead was coming alive.