by Andre Norton
“Master—” she said softly.
His features seemed to change under her very eyes, become firmer, younger. For a breath or two she even hoped that her potions had turned the tide, routed what Morgause had secretly sent to slay him.
“Bright one—” Even his voice was stronger, closer to that half-teasing one he had always used when they were private together. Then his mouth worked as if something sour had been dribbled into it. She felt his body stiffen in her hold and knew that once more the pain of his coming death was sharp. He must tell her—he must!
Did he not realize that his sharing of that last knowledge might perhaps save his life—if she were strong enough to try?
“The Time Spell!” Her words were sharp, a command. “The Time Spell—as you promised, Master.”
He was still staring at her; he had not slipped back into that place of inner hiding. She hunched around a little and caught up from the floor the cup of the last of her brewing, the most potent she had ever mixed.
Nimuë held the cup to his lips and he drank, drank as if it were spring water, such as he had once drunk from her cupped hands beside the lake among the earliest flowers of a year.
Visibly he swallowed.
“Tell me—” She was not ordering now, she was pleading. “The last spell—teach me the bending of time itself, Master.”
There was a shadow smile on his lips. “So is it ever,” his words came more briskly than she had expected. “They frowned when my choice fell upon you, child of light. But when I first looked at your face, I was certain. The last spell—what would you do with it?”
She spoke fiercely now. “I will use it to save you!”
Slowly his head turned on her arm. The smile had vanished. “For me the end comes. Three times I have tried to make safe the future, yet each time there was a flaw. The old order changes. One cannot stand forever against change.”
The weariness in his voice caught at her, her grasp on him tightened. This was not the Merlin she had known—strong to stand in strange battles. Had that she-devil leached the manhood out of him?
“Our reckoning with that woman is yet to come,” she said between gritted teeth. “Death has not gotten you yet. I shall seek the answer to what she willed on you. But I must not let you go before I can do this. Master, give me the last spell. Aid me and yourself!”
Again he held her eye to eye with that strength of will he could use to bring any man or woman to his service.
“You shall indeed serve a purpose, even if it is not the one you seek, my child. But the grand design has failed, and you can only hold off the coming night for a little while.”
“The last spell!” Now she feared—was he choosing not to give it?
Again he stretched that shadow smile. “The last spell. If you use it as you think to do, my heart’s daughter, you will be reviled by men until their curses become tattered legends.”
Nimuë eyed him narrowly. “I ask this not for any foreseeing, Master, but only that my knowledge will be complete even as you promised it must.”
Again his head moved slightly, this time in a nod.
“True. Full knowledge I promised when I chose you—so will it be. In your own time, Nimuë, you may find one fit to pass it to in turn.” He stopped almost in mid-word and then his eyelids closed, making her heart give an extra beat before they reopened.
“No, great in the Old Learning you shall be, heart’s daughter. But the magic drains and will not last forever. Only faint gleams of it will light men’s memories. This, then, is the spell.” There were words. They came slowly, emphatically, and she shaped each herself as it was spoken. He gave a dry cough and his body once more quivered in her hold, yet he continued to look at her.
She had had the old training which took into memory and rooted there forever whatever of import was given her. The words were hers for all time.
“Go to the High King.” He moved, slid away from her support to lie flat once more. “In time there will be services at his need.”
Nimuë arose and stood looking down at him.
“You have taught me great things, Lord Merlin. Now this I swear—perhaps there is more than one kind of knowledge in the world. If so, I shall seek it out and bring you back to life and strength again. As you awakened my mind, so shall I awaken your body—but I shall keep you safe until that hour.”
Her hands moved, her lips shaped, she wrought with all the force which was in her. The last spell of all.
She saw his eyes blaze and knew that he realized what she had said and meant. He raised one shaking hand as if to pull at her robe.
It fell limply back again. His eyes closed. But not in death—no, not in death! Tears gathered in her eyes, trickled unnoticed down her cheeks. He would sleep, and sleep, and sleep—even as she would search. If she was not successful, the Lady would send some greater mage to come to his aid.
Yet he would sleep until at the appointed time, time itself would release the bonds she had set upon it and him. He had given her life in a way when he had plucked her out of the stultifying bonds of the cloister; now she would do what she could in return by giving him another chance against the tyranny of time.
A shimmer appeared over his now-motionless body. That darkened, hardened, until it took on the appearance of a trunk of a mighty tree felled in its prime. Nimuë looked around the cave; there was very little here to be taken with her. She set about gathering what she must.
Already the burden of foresight was closing upon her. At the lake cloister she who had ruled there so long was dead. It was now set upon her, Nimuë, to become in turn the leader there. “Lady of the Lake” men would call her. Then she must go to the High King’s court, to pick up that flawed weaving left by her master and see what might be done with it—what still might be saved. His own words warned of dark rising. But the dark always rose and still the light flooded about it. She must believe it would happen now.
Foresight also told her what would be her name among men—traitor, even as Morgause, one who had betrayed her master—her commonly named “lover”—for gain. But truth often went awry in the world. She straightened her shoulders as one who would take on a burden. Strong he had found her when he tested her, strong she would be to carry also such infamy while still she followed the path on which he had set her feet. She was Nimuë, the chosen, and that she would hold in her heart.
She knelt for the last time beside what looked to be a tree trunk, her hand going out to touch its rough surface as she might touch the cheek of a sleeper. Foresight again—she would not be the one to wake him. No, she would have long since ceased to walk the earth when he roused. What deeds he would do in that far time were not for her viewing.
So she would leave him, the true guardian of a land which would enfold him until that last spell was tattered and gone. Once more she touched the seeming shell of wood and then she turned to leave—Lady of the Lake—one and alone.
Sword of Unbelief
Swords Against Darkness # 2 (1977) Zebra, Wizards’ Worlds (1989) TOR
1: Fury Driven
My eyes ached as I forced them to study the hard ground. From them a dull pain spread into the bony sockets that were their frames. The tough, mountain-bred mount I had saved from our desperate encounter with the wolf-ravagers stumbled. I caught at the saddle horn as vertigo struck with the sharp thrust of an unparried sword.
I could taste death, death and old blood, as I ran my tongue over lips where the salt of my own sweat plastered the dull gray dust of this land to my unwashed skin. Again I wavered. But this time my pony’s stumble was greater. Strong as he was, and war-trained, he had come near to the end of endurance.
Before me the Waste was a long tongue of gray rock, giving rootage only to sparse and twisted brush, so misshapen in its growing that it might well have been attacked by some creeping evil. For there was evil in this country, every sense of mine warned that, as I urged Fallen on at a slow walk.
That wind which whipped at my cloak was bitt
er, carrying the breath of the Ice Dragon, it raised fine grains of gray sand to scour my face beneath the half shading of my helm. I must find some shelter, and soon, or the fury of a Dune-Moving Storm would catch me and provide a grave place which might exist for a day, a week, or centuries—depending upon the caprice of that same wind and sand.
An outcrop of angular rock stood to my left. Towards that I sent Fallen, his head hanging low as he went. In the lee of that tall fang I slipped from the saddle, keeping my feet only by a quick grasp of the rock itself. The ache in my head struck downwards through my shoulders and back.
I loosed my cloak a little and, crouching by the pony, flung it over both his head and mine. Little enough shelter against the drive of the punishing grains, but it was the best I had. Another fear gnawed at me. This flurry would wipe out the trail I had followed these two days past. With that gone, I must depend upon myself, and in myself I had lesser confidence.
Had I been fully trained as those of my Talent and blood had always been—then I could have accomplished what must be done with far less effort. But, though my mother was a Witch of Estcarp, and I was learned in the powers of a Wise Woman (and had indeed done battle using those powers in the past), yet at this moment I knew fear as an ever-present pain within me, stronger than any ache of body or fatigue of mind.
As I crouched beside Fallen, this dread arose like a flood of bile into my throat, which I would have vomited forth had I could. Yet, it was too great a part of me to allow itself to be so sundered. Feverishly I drew upon those lesser arts I had learned, striving so to still the fast beating of my heart, the clouding of my thoughts by panic. I must think rather of him whom I sought, and of those who had taken him, for what purpose I could not imagine. For it is the way of them to kill; torment, yes, if they were undisturbed, but kill at the end of their play. Yet they had drawn back into this forbidden and forbidding land taking with them a prisoner, one worth no ransom. And the reason for that taking I could not guess.
I set a bridle of calmness upon my thoughts. Only so might I use that other Talent which was mine from birth. So now I set my mind picture upon him whom I sought— Jervon, fighting man, and more, far more to me.
I could see him, yes, even as I had sighted him last by the fire of our small camp, his hands stretched out to warm themselves at the flames. If only I had not—! No, regret was only weakening. I must not think of what I had not done, but what I must now be prepared to do.
There had been blood on the snow-shifted ground when I had returned, the fire stamped into cold charred brands. Two outlaws’ bodies hideously ripped—but Jervon . . . no. So they had taken him for some purpose I could not understand.
The dead wellheads I left to the woods beasts. Fallen I had discovered, shivering and wet with sweat, within the brush and brought him to me by the summoning power. I had waited no longer, knowing that my desire to look upon the shrine of the Old Ones, which I had turned aside to do, might well mean Jervon’s death, and no pleasant death either.
Now, crouching here, I cupped one hand across my closed eyes. “Jervon!” My mind call went out even as I had brought Fallen to me. But I failed. There arose a cloud between me and the man I would find. Yet I was as certain that behind that shadow he still lived. For when one’s life is entwined with another’s and death comes, the knowledge of that passing through the Last Gate is also clear—to one trained in even the simplest of the Great Mysteries.
This Waste was a grim and much-hated place. Many were the remains of the Old Ones here, and men of true human blood did not enter it willingly. I am not of High Hallack, though I was born in the Dales. My parents came from storied Estcarp overseas, a land where much of the Old Knowledge has been preserved. And my mother was one of those who used that knowledge—even though she had wed, and so, by their laws, put herself apart. What I knew I had of Aufrica out of Wark, a mistress of minor magic and a Wise Woman. Herbs I knew, both harmful and healing, and 1 could call upon certain lesser powers—even upon a great one, as once I had done to save him who was born at the same birth with me. But there were powers beyond powers here that I knew not. Only I must take this way and do what I could for Jervon who was more to me than Elyn, my brother, had ever been, and who had once, without any of the Talent to aid him, come with me into battle with a very ancient and strong evil, which battle we had mercifully won.
“Jervon!” I called his name aloud, but my voice was only a faint whisper. For the wind shrieked like a legion of disembodied demons around me. Fallen near jerked his head from my hold on his bridle, and I speedily set myself to calming him, setting over his beast mind a safeguard against panic.
It seemed to last for hours, that perilous sheltering by the fang rock. Then the wind died and we pulled out of sand drifted near to my knees. I took one of my precious flasks of water and wet the corner of my cloak, using that to wash out Fallen’s nostrils, the sand away from his eyes. He nudged at my shoulder, stretching his head towards the water bottle in a voiceless plea for a drink. But that I did not dare give him until I knew what manner of country we would cross and whether there would be any streams or tarns along the way.
Night was very near. But that strangeness of the Waste banished some of the dark. For here and there were scattered rock spires which gave off a flickering radiance, enough to travel by.
I did not mount as yet, knowing that Fallen must have a rest from carrying a rider. Though I am slender of body, I am no light weight with mail about me, a sword and helm. So I plowed through the sand, leading Fallen. And heard him snort and blow his dislike of what I would have him do—venture farther into this desolation.
Again, I sent forth a searching thought. I could not reach Jervon. No—that muddling cloud still hung between us. But I could tell in what direction they had gone. Though the constant concentration to hold that thread made my head throb with renewed pain.
Also there were strange shadows in this place. It would seem that nothing threw across the land a clear dark definition of itself, as was normal. Rather those shadows took on shapes which made the imagination quicken with vague hints of things invisible which still could be seen in this way, monstrous forms and unnatural blendings. And, if one allowed fear the upper hand, those appeared ripely ready to detach themselves and move unfettered by any trick of light or dark.
I wondered at those I followed. War had been the harsh life of this land now for so many years it was hard to remember what peace had been like. High Hallack had been overrun by invaders whose superior arms and organization had devastated more than half the Dales before men were able to erect their defense. There had been no central overlord among us; it was not the custom of the men of High Hallack to give deference beyond the lord in whose holding they had been born and bred. So, until the Four of the North had sunk their differences and made a pact, there had been no rallying point. Men had fought separately for their own lands, and died, to lie in the earth there.
Then came the final effort. Not only did the Dale lords unite for the first time in history to make a common cause, but they had also treated with others—out of this same Waste—the Wereriders of legend. And together what was left of High Hallack arose with all the might it could summon to smash the Hounds of Alizon, driving them back to the sea, mainly to their own deaths therein. But a land so rent produces in turn those with a natural bent towards evil, scavengers and outlaws, ready to plunder both sides if the chance offered. Now such were the bane of our exhausted and warworn country.
These were such that I followed. And it could well be that, since they were hardy enough to lair within the Waste, they might not be wholly human either. Rather be possessed by some emanation of the Dark which had long lurked here.
For the Old Ones, when they withdrew from the Daleland, had left behind them pools of energy. Some of these granted peace and well being, so that one could enter therein timorously, to come forth again renewed in spirit and body. But others were wholly of the Dark. And if he was destroyed at once the intruder
was lucky. It was worse, far worse, to live as a creature of a shadow’s bidding.
The ghostly light streamed on before me. I lifted my head, turned this way and that, as might a hound seeking scent. All traces of trail had been wiped away by the wind. However, I was sure that I followed the right path. So we came to two stelae which fronted each other as if they might once have formed part of an ancient gate. Yet there was no wall, just these pillars, from the tip of which streamed cloudwards thin ribbons of a greenish light. And they had been formed by men, or some agency with intelligence, for they had the likenesses of heavy bladed sabers. Yet on their sides I could see, half eroded by time, pits and hollows which, when the eye fastened straightly upon them, took on the semblance of faces—strange faces—long and narrow, with large noses overhanging pointed chins. Also it seemed that the eyes (which were pits) turned upon me, not in interest or in warning, but as if in deep, age-old despair.
Though I felt no emanation of evil, neither did I like to pass between those sword pillars. Still it was that way my road ran. Quickly I sketched with my hand certain symbols before I stepped forward, drawing Fallon on rein-hold behind me.
These pillars stood at the entrance of a narrow gash of valley which led downwards, the steep sides rising ever higher. Here the dark had full sway, for there were no more of the luminous stones. So that I went with that slow caution I had learned in the years I had ridden to war. I listened. Outside this valley I had heard the murmur of the wind, but here was a deep quiet. Until my straining ears caught a sound which could only be that of running water.
And there was a dampness now in the air, for which I was momentarily grateful. Fallon pushed against me, eager to slake his thirst. But where there was water in this desert land there could also well be a camp of those I pursued. So I did not hasten, and I held back the pony. He snorted and the sound echoed hollowly. I froze, listening for any answer which might mean my coming was marked. But if the wolves I followed were human, certainly their sight here would be no better than mine, even more limited for they did not have—or so I hoped—the Talent to aid it.