by Andre Norton
“In.” She opened a hinged lid. Mereth pushed in the crumpled fabric and the Herb Mistress snapped the lid back down instantly and made it secure.
The housekeeper appeared, holding Mereth’s staff, and drew the cramped and wrinkled hand of the older woman into the crook of her sturdy elbow. “Come, M’Lady, ‘tis near sunup. We do not wish any fever, now do we? Bed for you now.”
Nalor had not only relieved her of that burden that had hammered against her strength, but it seemed that she had drawn on Mereth’s energy, draining her as well. She allowed herself to be half guided, half carried to her own chamber and the soft comfort of her waiting bed.
*
It was light again, and the clear gloss of very early sunlight touched the undrawn curtain of the bed as she roused. Mereth sat up among the pillows and drew her hand across her forehead, a gesture which brought no relief to her aching head. She looked around twice to reassure herself that no evil shadow had followed her out of the dreams that had imprisoned and tormented her. Slowly she washed in the tepid water she found in her bowl. Its warmth suggested that someone had looked in at her not long before. Shivering, she drew a heavy gown of quiet violet from her chest and a gray shawl formed into lace by knitting. Mereth continued to battle the pain, which had established itself behind her eyes and, leaning on her staff much more heavily than usual, she sought out company.
This she found in one of the common rooms. The chamber was more crowded than she had ever seen it, and voices rose more loudly than usual. As Mereth entered, partly unnoticed, she was near deafened by fragments of news that were being passed around the room.
Lord Duratan had sent for the nearest Wise Woman. No, he had ridden off to seek her, he was going to appeal to Lord Koris who ruled in Es these days. The villagers had been dabbling in ancient and forbidden things, they had actually brought a girl child as a sacrifice to some devilish thing, and on it went!
Mereth lingered near the door, wanting to escape the din. If she could only cover her ears, but she dared not lose the support of her staff and perhaps end up on the floor for her trouble.
“Lady Mereth!”
Mage Faggold, one of the oldest scholars, suddenly appeared beside her. Though he had counted a vast tally of years, he had not retired as far from the world of the present time, as most of his age group. He was credited with being perhaps the finest historian of those now at Lormt.
He raised his voice more strongly to overcome the din. “This is indeed fortunate, finding you so. We are about to sit in council.” He offered her his arm with the grace of a courtier. Thus those, who might be considered the new defenders of their world, gathered. Lord Duratan was not present. In his place sat Nalor, his lady, and lying before her on the table, around which their chairs had been gathered, was the cloth Mereth knew well. There sat Wessel and another former Borderer, three of the sages, and Faggold.
When Mereth was comfortably seated, her slate to hand, Lady Nalor, using the point of a pen as an indicator, raised the edge of the cloth and flipped it out flat. Next she pointed to indicate brown splotches, sticking to its length, which was now far from white.
“You have seen what lies here as it appears beneath the enlarging glass. You have felt,” she paused, looking from one face to another.
From the moment her eyes had touched that cloth, Mereth’s head moved from side to side. She strove to repel what had followed her out of her feverish dreams. Without her conscious mind’s order, she was writing on her slate.
“It lives, it eats, eats the living.” The horror of that thought shook her write-stick from her hand. Faggold caught it before it fell to the floor. Lady Nalor nodded.
“Yes.” Tapping her pen on the table, as if to center their attention to her, the healer separated one of the dark twigs. “This is not a thing of the sun or of the Light. It lives beneath. Though it seems a plant, yet it is not as we know plants, for its food is flesh and blood.” She gazed from one to another of the council members.
Mereth picked up her writing stick from beside her slate where Faggold had placed it. She had regained her control and shaped her words firmly. “Is this one of the ancient evils awakened again? Or, is there a gate undiscovered, unsealed? Do we dig to tear it up by the roots?” She lingered a moment, supplied a final sentence, her memory awake. Of course there in the past the crew had been fighting a lesser peril on the strange island to the far south, however their improvised weapon had worked very well. “There is fire to cleanse, weed killing potions to poison,” she listed on her slate.
Faggold and Lady Nalor had both been following her writing closely.
“Acid of Safall,” Nalor nodded vigorously.
“Hot coals held tongs of bale iron,” the Mage added his suggestion as quickly. “We must make the villagers aid.”
Mereth leaned back a little. Those in the council were all talking at once again. She felt as if a cloud hung above her head. This was all too simple somehow. She picked up the slate and stick to stow them into the bag fastened to her girdle. Those about her were planning now; sometimes they seemed of two minds as to what method to use, but all were united on the fact that the task must be done with all possible haste, before the monstrous ground-creeping scourge could spread farther.
Mereth chewed her lower lip. There was more, of that she was sure. Was a villager, one with some Dark learning, backing this?
With the aid of her staff she got to her feet. Lady Nalor looked up and Mereth made a small gesture with her right hand. Over the years she had been at Lormt she had developed hand signals, easily understood by her daily companions. Now she also gave a slight nod.
However, Mereth did not return to her chamber when she left the council, rather she went but a short distance down the hall, into a small side room. A kitchen maid sat nodding in a chair beside an occupied bed. She quickly slipped out of the chair, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Mereth smiled and gestured to the door. The maid disappeared gratefully, leaving the chair for the old woman.
Mereth settled gingerly, her attention all for the occupant of the bed. She was entirely alert now, as more and more her suspicions grew firm. The village girl lay with her well-padded back up-turned, the bandages giving forth an herbal scent. However, her head was turned toward the elderly woman and now her eyes opened abruptly.
Mereth’s head jerked. It was as if she had heard sly laughter.
“What would you have of me, old woman?”
This creature could surely not be one with the Power Women. “Right,” the word struck into Mereth’s aching head like the point of a spear. “Power sweeps in both ways. All things balance. What would you have of me, I ask it again. And I am not patient. Think what you would ask, scraping around on a slate wastes time. If we deal together, something must be done about that.”
Mereth clasped her hands tightly together. She had walked daily with fear in the war days, but this was something else, she might be chained in some cell while a flood of filth rose about her. Only she must force herself to discover what monster had been brought into Lormt.
“Who are you?” She shaped the thought with difficulty, painfully.
“I am Vorsla, Starqua, Deden, Karn.” Smooth flow of thought paused. Mereth’s eyes were on her own tightly clasped hands. She refused to meet those other gray ones.
The voice spoke again in her mind. “Ufora.”
Involuntarily a short guttural sound escaped Mereth’s throat.”Yes, oh, yes! When you were little did your dam never strive to threaten you with that name? Ufora of the darkest woods, she could make you one with a tree chosen by a logger, or with a jumper already entangled with the Skinner, the Eater.”
Mereth forced herself upright in the chair. Could this creature read more thought than that intended for communication? Quickly she readied another question.
“What do I do here?” The woods demon continued, “Well, I emerged from the Long Sleep as you see me, a small one easily abused by others, a throw-away of the war. It has taken me too lo
ng to become truly myself.” The girl touched the crushed linen covering her breast. “Only now after the letting of blood do I fully remember. These dolts of upper dwellers believe they won the ancient war at last by closing the Gates to the worlds of another level. We remain, we who were sleeping away the flooding of endless years. So again we were free to fold time. There have been openings left for those unguessed, in which to build their nests anew. So will Ufora do!”
The slight body on the bed moved, pulled up to its knees and slewed around. It plucked at the thick, odorous bandages until it was free. Smooth skin, shown much more darkly against the bedclothes, covered a body in which bones were no longer visible.
Mereth fought desperately against the pain in her head, throbbing as if words were beating a drum within her skull.
The seeming girl snatched up the uppermost sheet and was winding it about herself. She tied two ends together and knotted them, patting the knot when finished.
“Now,” She had spoken only the one word aloud. Standing with her head tilted a little to one side, as if listening, she remained quiet for a moment. Then her face twisted into a mask of rage. “So,” she spoke at last. “They would.” She started toward the door but her bulky covering slowed her.
Mereth made a determined effort. Her staff, wielded as a spear, thudded home on the other’s ribs. The girl screamed, caught at the bed for support, then collapsed to the floor. At once the door flew open with such force it crashed against the wall. Mistress Bethelie gave one glance at Mereth and then centered her attention on the girl, who was snarling at the old woman and visibly working her fingers in a pattern between them.
Bethelie caught at the heavy bunch of keys swinging from her own girdle, snapped it loose and crashed the jangling ball against the girl’s hands with good aim. Mereth sat back weakly in her chair. She was finding it very difficult to breathe and her head pain seemed to draw a veil, clouding her vision. However, she could still hear Mistress Bethelie’s precise voice:
“Iron, cold iron, to you, evil slut, iron!”
The ringing words followed Mereth into darkness.
Never, since her venture with the Magestone, had Mereth felt herself so removed from real and daily life. There was no sense of transition from the small room, of rising from the chair and making her way through the halls and the great courtyard into the open. A will, which she did not claim as her own, possessed her. Nor did she see anyone on that misty journey. In the huge edifice of Lormt, she might have been totally alone.
Then, with no warning, the walls and restored towers vanished. Mereth was no longer alone, though those about her had a tenuous look. Before her now stretched the sharply sloping, rock-studded land where the skirmish with the villagers had been fought. The sod had been torn away and, not too far away, more of it was yielding to rakes not meant for a farm laborer’s cultivation. They were larger than customary and the prongs wider, scratching up clods of earth with vicious points more like weapons than farming implements.
It was near to this activity that the major part of a large assembly was to be found.
Mereth blinked once and again, trying to rid her eyes of the cloying mist. Lord Duratan stood there with Wessel and two other one-time Borderers whom she knew to be expert archers. A step or so beyond stood Lady Nalor holding a drawn sword whose weight was obviously burdening her.
And, that force, which had brought Mereth here, thrust her forward at a quicker pace. Fear like one of the sudden mountain ice showers, struck her full faced. A bundle, resting on the ground between Nalor and the yet undisturbed turf, stirred. She who claimed to be Ufora got to her feet. Her face was like a mask carved from greenish ice of the higher mountain slopes. She tried hard to raise her arms, but her wrists were drawn tightly together. Though there was no strong light, the day being gray, yet flashes glittered.
The captive was in irons, iron, cold iron, Nalor was chanting. Now and again Duratan tossed at Ufora a fistful of crushed herbs.
Once, twice Ufora tried again to raise her hands. The lips of her masklike face twisted. She might have been seeking to utter words of some dark ritual of her own.
Then, the seeming girl lifted her head a fraction and the dark eyes in her oddly green face fastened on Mereth, meeting those of the elder woman. Ufora was instantly before her, fettered arms inching out to her. She could see them, impossibly reflected in the creature’s eyes. If one pressed there, and there, the bonds would loosen. Mereth knew what the other strained to force her to do.
Three times her own hands came up and out toward the iron-encircled wrists. Three times her own will prevailed and they fell again, but she grew weaker, her head filled with such pain as she was sure would overcome her.
There was no hesitation in Nalor’s chant. Her words held no meaning for Mereth. Only there were others!
“Anchor’s up, ye sons of Gry, To the sails, let us fly!”
A man’s voice, deep from the throat, armed with courage, about to sail on a final voyage.
Deep in her resonated the words she could not voice,
“Wind and sail
Cannot fail
Men with the Light.
Not even,”
The song she could not voice aloud was fading within her. Rolf, she shut away that memory fiercely. But, but, he had freed her! The staff, her ever-ready companion, lifted. She could no longer sense those dark eyes holding her in thrall. They were light, oddly flat.
Nalor’s words were lifting upward in a single, final trumpet-voiced phrase.
The strange girl retreated, still facing Mereth and Nalor. Her foot caught as a noose of roots suddenly snaked out. She screamed, stooping to batter thin green stems ending in yellow flowers with petals that had the shape of sword blades.
Before the watchers could move, the land did so. A great crevice gaped and from it arose a thin netting of fine roots to close ominously about the girl. Again the ground shook, preparing to close its doom-crack. Nalor moved; into that heaving growth she tossed a ball, only to snatch a second one, then a third, which Duratan held out to her.
Close, the earth did at last! Mereth shuddered as shrill screams slowly faded away, death cries of that which should never have lived.
Thus passed the Latter Battle of Lormt, fought and won, and though the sages housed there sought often to find record of its like in the chronicles they prized, they did so in vain. However, Mereth related the tale to Maid Mouse of the Learned Ones and what she heard in reply, she never told, save that talk by thought became a gift to which she fiercely clung, so dearly was it won.
That Which Overfloweth
Grails: Quests, Visitations and Other Occurrences (1992) Unnameable Press, Grails: Quests of the Dawn (2004) Penguin/Roc
There are many tales, legends, and stories misshapen by years of mistelling, generations of adding to—or subtracting from. Once there was a man who fled with a handful of followers overseas to the farthermost known portion of the great empire. He took with him, it is said, two things of Power, a staff and another possession, which he guarded so jealously that even those who shared his exile seldom saw it.
In the far country he set the staff into the ground in a place which was already known to Power, where older Presences than those the voyager worshiped, had long held steady. And that staff, cut and dried for years, rooted and brought forth blossom so that the man believed he had found that place where the seeds he and his carried could flourish. But his other treasure was hidden away—though in plain sight—and so remained through the rise and fall of kings and empires and the passing of uncounted centuries, even into the final years when the world itself grew sick, promising death’s coming.
They came just after dawn, the dire wolves. Since Jan had broken his leg there was no trained sentry on the High Hill. Guran was very young, but he had the horn and he sounded it, before he was picked off by a sky bolt. Thus he bought those at the shrine village a small measure of time.
Not enough.
She Who Spoke had alr
eady reached the inner shrine when the alarm sounded. For a single breath she stood tense and still, and then she beckoned to those two who had lingered by the entrance in awe of this sacred place.
“There.” She pointed to the dressed stone on which stood the unlit candles of sheep fat, alongside the faded flowers of yesterday’s offering. Then, in demonstration of what must be done, she set her hands to the edge of the stone, feeling frantically for what was a key.
There were screams from beyond now, the cries of a village put to pillage. Death cries. Cassia, as she stooped to obey the Voice, shuddered. She heaved with all her strength as Lana was doing to match her at the other end of the stone. Reluctantly it began to move.
“In with you,” the Voice’s fingers bit painfully at Cassia’s shoulder as she pushed the girl-child toward the black hole they had half uncovered. There was no way to protest that order. Terrified, not only of the dark gap before her but at the sounds which reached them, she pushed into that opening, and, a moment later, felt Lana’s weight shoving her yet farther in and down. Then, before she could protest, the stone was swinging back, to leave their thin childish bodies pressed tightly together.
“Lana.” There was no answer from the other—she was only a heavy weight against Cassia’s shoulder and arm. “Lana? Voice?” she whimpered once again and then was silent.
Her sight adjusted a little. There was a measure of light here, cramped as their quarters were. Now the sounds from outside. . . . Cassia cowered and tried to put her hands over her ears to blot out those cries and yet could not because of Lana’s weight.