On Wings of Magic

by Andre Norton

  “The mask of illusion?”

  “Creates the image of a horrible monster.” Krakoth thought a minute. “It now projects a human bandit. I will reset it to project my own face, but made frightening and horrible.” She deliberately made a face, in the manner of a child trying to scare another child. Arona realized suddenly she was seeing the toad being as a mild-mannered woman of books and scrolls, much like herself—and she imagined that human beings, Ape Folk, who did not know her, would also see her that way. She laughed suddenly. “Your own face is strange enough to them they will not look twice,” she assured her. “Fear of the alien is still quite common around here.”

  Krakoth laughed, the gurgling croak her throat was designed for, and nodded. She made some adjustments to the device and gave it to Arona. In form, it was a huge pendant or locket-necklace. “Don't use it forever,” she warned. “The power source will run down in a few cycles of the moon. Same with the weapon, but sunlight will recharge it if you give it enough time. All day, perhaps, at most.”

  Dame Toad settled comfortably on a bench designed for her kind. One designed for Arona extended itself from the wall across from Krakoth's. “Let me read these records,” she said, “and that will be payment enough.”

  The hour was late and Arona was hungry. Excusing herself, she went back to the place her mule was tethered, pitying the poor thing being kept that long. Had it fouled the cavern's clean floor as the hoofed kind do? She found it in a blue-lit metallic stable, constructed from the cavern walls exactly as her seat and Krakoth's had been built, munching on a load of dry grass and sipping from a standing pool of water in a niche in the wall. If this were illusion, it was remarkably complete. The floor was clean.

  She found her saddlebags and pulled forth a cloth-wrapped bundle. “Cavern. Can Krakoth eat any of this?” she asked.

  “Try it,” the cavern advised. She took the bundle and the scrolls back to the benches, where Krakoth had been provided with a fishy-smelling stew. They agreed the others’ food would take more getting used to than such a trade was worth, fell to, and a pallet extended itself from the wall for Arona.

  Panic struck. Was this how the others had been entrapped here? Lay down on a pallet, sleep, and wake up when a stranger wakes you, perhaps hundreds of years into the future? “Cavern,” she called. “I do not wish to sleep more than one night! When the sun rises outside, I wish to waken.”

  “Understood,” the cavern answered dryly, a little disappointed, it seemed to her.

  Three, four, five days and nights went by. Krakoth not only read her scrolls, but scanned them with a large jewel held to her right hand by a leather band. Lights within the jewel danced with a life of their own. She in turn read the records of the Toad People, shown in moving pictures and a strange script projected onto the cavern wall. She could not read Toad; the cavern had to interpret.

  It was an odd, alien way of life, and strangely barren, it seemed to her, but in truth they were clever artificers. Grimmerdale was one of the smallest of their villages, but almost entirely centered around the Gormvin, where strange things were done with their own folk, human beings, other life forms, and even the rocks themselves. Yet, Toad Folk lived there, and took their food from huge halls where nothing else was shown, and watched pictures move upon their walls of an evening, or played games of sorts that seemed entirely concerned with mutual rankings and scorekeeping. Some of the toads raced noisy machines at very high speeds over rough country roads, often crashing them into each other or against rocks or trees, or fought each other for pleasure.

  “Grimmerdale, on our side of the barrier, is a very small town,” Krakoth apologized. “There is little for the tadlings to do except such things as you see here. If you work for the Gormvin, you live a comfortable life, with all your needs taken care of; if not, well, it's a small town. Many go elsewhere. But it's the only facility doing research on Ape Folk, uh, human beings, in the area, and I'm a bit of a humanologist myself.” At last she yawned and stretched. “A pity you can't take our records to Lormt, but they have no way to read them.”

  “I will take copies anyway, and maybe one day they will.”

  “To transcribe them would take longer than you have, Arona,” Krakoth said, a little disappointed. “However, I'll give you a film canister against that very day. Guard it well.”

  Arona put forth her hand, then decided Krakoth deserved more. Catching the Toad Woman in a surprise hug, she bade her farewell as a woman of Riveredge would to a close friend.

  Krakoth grunted and wiped her face. “Whew! Human customs are strange indeed! No offense, Arona, I can see you meant well, but do not ever do that again.”

  Egil, she thought suddenly. I said those very words to Egil. Under the same circumstances. No wonder he was angered. But it was too late; she had made him an enemy and he had made her one.

  Krakoth looked up suddenly. “You have been calling me by the names used for egg-layers. I am not. Let us be precise. I am one of those sperm-sprayers you have come to hate and fear.” Then it chuckled. “I have adopted the pedantry of the Labs,” it confessed. “Sound body, prosperity, and many clever tadlings to serve you, Arona.”

  “The same to you, Dame—he-Dame—Krakoth,” Arona called back. She retrieved her mule, thumbed off the safety catch on her stunner, and went forth to face the bandits.

  They had not waited for her. The sun was high in the sky as she rode back down the trail to Lormt. She mulled over the lesson of the cavern. It was not at all obvious. It plainly concerned the toad in some way. How?

  Krakoth had been, at the end, a friend, for all its strange customs and beliefs and looks. For all that, she would not let a daughter of hers fall into the hands of the Gormvin. Did she hate the Gormvin? No, they had done nothing to her. Would she if they did? Or were they acting according to their own needs and nature? Could they be taught better? Would they accept such teaching? But she was not likely to meet any more Toad People; the lesson the cavern set for her must be far greater than that.

  Strange beings, strange looks, strange customs. All of these, she had dealt with this spring, and would deal with again. In what way? With hate and fear, as if all men were wolves?

  Great-aunt Eina's words came back to her. Dogs are the daughters of wolves, but we took them in and reared them properly, and now they are part of our families. A wolf stole sheep to feed her young, and not from any evil will. Who could hate the wolf? It was only acting according to its nature. For all that, though, a woman had to guard her sheep and her daughters from the wolfs hunger.

  Arona's mind ranged over the men and women she had met on the outside. The witch had said, “Where you sense wrong-ness, flee.” She had not spoken of vengeance. “Give every dog one bite,” she said of those who did not seem predatory. “Not two.”

  Not all men are wolves, Arona realized, and not all women are people. Was that the lesson of the cavern and the toad? That all beings must be dealt with for what they were, according to their own needs and nature? That this meant guarding against danger, without hate or needless fear? Somehow that seemed such a simple lesson even a small girl could understand it. Such a lesson would stand her in good stead among strangers. She would need that at Lormt.

  Wondering what lay ahead, she rode around a steep switchback. Surely she had not been this high in the mountains before? There, below her, the entire mountain range lay at her feet, shrouded in a blue-grey haze. She lifted her eyes. Ahead of her, the great stone complex that was Lormt sprawled. Heart rising in her throat, she urged her mule onward, and through the gate.

  Interlude

  That is what she brought us.” There was disappointment in Nolar's voice. “Oh, I have copied all the earliest legends. But the daily records of that prison-town, what are they to us, save a curious bit of sidelight in history?”

  She shifted in her chair, and impatiently brushed back a wandering wisp of hair which fluttered against her cheek in the warmth of a new spring breeze. “Though it is true that now I can even
better understand her—” she added. “Once I thought my lot, until I met Ostbor, was a hard one, but I think I was blessed not to have been born in a Falconer village.”

  “Not all villages are alike,” I said. “Surely Mountain Hawk and his men could not have been so feared and hated. I know little of their ways, and that hued by rumor and gossip. But of men know more and he was not so cruel, nor could any under his ordering be.”

  Nolar hesitated and then nodded. “That may indeed be true. There are all manner of men—my father and Ostbor—yes, as winter and spring those two differed But also there may be more of worth in her accounts than I first thought. Those who may have to deal with her kind in the future will have a guide. So—” she looked a little happier, “at least all this may serve some good purpose in days ahead.”

  “Change works. Two days ago when I rode with Derren, to see the newly planted forestland he is so justly proud of, I met a Falconer—”

  “A messenger from the Lady Una, from Mountain Hawk?”

  “On the contrary, a young man who has chosen his own change and made it well, though it was not easy. He has a wedded wife and a daughter, and finds life, if strange, very pleasant. They have settled in a village not too far away and he is a hunter for the people there. I would call him a happy man and we should arrange a meeting between Eirran, his very capable—and beloved—wife and Arona so she can see that change need not come harshly. His name is Yareth, and he spoke of visiting us with his family later in the season. His wife is a student of herb lore and would like advice for that.”

  Only that visit was not to be, because the Dark reached out to blot out the brightness for that eager young hunter, and from his own despair, rage, fear and triumph came … but that was the end of his story before it struck at us

  FALCON MAGIC

  by

  Sasha Miller

  One

  I

  Eirran tied a clean cloth around the compress on Belda's forehead. Unconsciously, she tightened her lips into a straight, disapproving line. Rofan had really gone beyond any limit of decency this time. One of Belda's eyes was swollen shut—the result of a blow from Rofan's fist—and Eirran shuddered to think what had caused the lump on Belda's forehead. This was the third time in the two weeks Yareth had been gone that she had been called to Belda's cottage to repair the damages after Rofan had beaten her. Now, at the end of winter, when food was running low and tempers running high, everyone was a little on edge from hunger. Everyone, that is, who hadn't had the foresight to put away stores of grain, dried or salted meat, and dried fruits and vegetables. Or who, like Rofan, ate like the glutton he was when it was available and had to go without when it was not. And who then angrily turned to beating his wife when she could no longer set food in front of him.

  Didn't the fool realize that Belda and the children were even hungrier than he was, that they stinted themselves trying to keep the man fed and satisfied, so his temper would not overflow and drown them in the flood? Eirran shook her head and clicked her tongue against her teeth. No, obviously he did not. This time Rofan had been very late coming home from the distillery he and his cronies kept outside the village. As far as Eirran could determine, he'd beaten Belda not only for offering him thin soup to eat, but also for failing to have it hot and waiting for him. It was a good thing he had left the cottage then, presumably to return to his still and drink himself unconscious, or she would have been sorely tempted to tell him what she thought of him and risk a beating herself.

  Far better I should have called three or four of the village men instead, she thought. But it wouldn't do any good now. It never does when he's so drunk he can't even remember.

  “He doesn't mean it,” Belda said defensively. “He is always sorry after.”

  “That doesn't change anything.” Right, she thought. When he sobers up, he'll be sorry. And then there's no use in beating a sorry dog. He gets out of it at every turn, except when Yareth is in the village. Eirran selected some dried herbs from the sacks in her carry-bag and began measuring out individual doses and wrapping them in bits of cloth. “You still wind up with injuries. It's a wonder he didn't kill you this time. One of your teeth is loose. Here, make tea of this leaf each morning for five days, and drink it as warm as you can stand it.” She took a small bowl and pestle out of her carry-bag, and a jar of solidified sheep's grease carefully refined and strained until it was nearly white in color. Eirran used it in all sorts of preparations for the skin. Her concoctions for relieving chilblains were so popular she was running low on the oily base. But clearly, Belda needed the salve far more than another woman needed a cream to improve her complexion. She measured out other herbs and began pulverizing the leaves and dried flowers. The scent rose, pleasant and comforting. “Do you have anything to put this in, after I've mixed it?”

  “Yes.” Belda motioned to Erman, her oldest. The boy came forward awkwardly, half afraid, half curious. “Go get that jar from the time before, when the Wise Woman was here. You know where it is.”

  The boy bobbed his head and vanished through the tattered curtain that served both as door and wall, separating his parents’ sleeping area from the rest of the tiny, rundown cottage.

  “I'm no Wise Woman,” Eirran said, sighing. She began blending the dust-fine herb fragments into the sheep fat. “Back in Karsten, old Juvva didn't teach me half what I need to know, just, in order to look after the few people here in Blagden.”

  “You're the only one we have, and you're learning more every day. I don't know what we—what I would have done without you.”

  Eirran could feel herself blushing under Belda's praise. And yet, she knew better than anyone that the woman was right. If she hadn't always been available, Belda might well have been dead by now, from one of Rofan's beatings.

  It was a too-familiar story. Blagden was a small village, its inhabitants mostly decent people able to survive from one winter to the next if they were careful and frugal with their resources. Their sorest lack was missing the luxury of having their own fully qualified healer, and having to rely on someone only half-trained like Eirran. And there were always men like Rofan, to make good times bad, to make bad times worse. Eirran wondered how they had managed before she and Yareth had come.

  “Here's the jar, lady,” Erman said. Shyly, like a wild thing, he slipped it onto the table beside her. He had a sharp, wild smell, like a ferret, and he skittered away again as if wary of coming too close.

  Perhaps he had learned better, through contact with his miserable excuse for a father. Eirran sighed. There were other children in the room, all sizes, from Erman on the verge of manhood to a baby crawling about and playing in the mess on the floor, all as dirty and most as smelly as Erman. They lined the room, staring at her out of wide and wary eyes. They reminded her of half-tamed little animals, their hair long and tangled, their faces grimed, their expressions suspicious. A girl, not quite a year younger than Erman, watched her from behind a pile of unwashed and malodorous clothing. Eirran thought of her own immaculate home. At the best of times, Belda was scarcely a tidy housekeeper, what with all the children she had to look after. When she was ill or recovering from injuries, things grew much worse. The older children could lend a hand, if they just would. But then, Eirran thought, I shouldn't be so quick to judge. Perhaps Rofan had beaten all the spirit out of everyone in the cottage.

  “Come here,” she said to the girl. The child just stared, as if she were lacking in wit, or perhaps Rofan had hit her too hard once too often and scrambled her brains. Eirran wondered if she should command, or coax. “Come here,” she said again, making her voice soft. Very cautiously, the child moved a step closer. Eirran held out her hand and the child flinched. But gradually, she moved nearer until she stood next to Eirran's chair. Eirran put the jar of herb cream in her hand and the girl had to grasp it lest it fall.

  “What is your name?” Eirran said.

  “Rawfa,” the child whispered.

  “Well, Rawfa, do you think you can hel
p your mother with her bandages when it's time to change them and put on more medicine?”

  The girl brightened. She clutched the jar of salve. “Oh, yes, lady, I can do that. I've watched you each time you come to tend to Mama, and I think I know just how it's done.”

  “Very good. There's something else you can do to help her, you know.”

  “What?” The girl looked up at her, a spark of interest in her dull eyes.

  Eirran gestured around the dirty room. The air was stale, heavy with the presence of too many unwashed and malodorous people crowded into too small a space. “You could pick up things and put them away. You and the little ones could even help with the washing. You could give the young ones a bath, and have one yourself. You could sweep the floor.”

  The spark went out and Rawfa's shoulders slumped. “No use. Pa just comes home and messes it up again. And sometimes he's sick. It's the drink, Mama says.”

  Eirran had smelled it when she first entered, overriding all the other foul odors—the splatters of vomit on the floor, scarcely wiped away.

  “You have to try,” she said firmly. “What other people do is their business. But what you do is altogether different. You cannot allow yourself to let go, to Slide down into dirt and despair. Your father is not himself sometimes. Then he is ill and his sickness makes him do things he wouldn't do if he were well.” Eirran pushed down the feeling she was telling the child a lie. Even if Rofan had never touched a drop of the harsh liquid he and a couple of men very like him made from grain that would be better used to feed their families, he might have behaved much the same. Eirran was no stranger to spirits; she had grown up serving tables in her uncle's public house in Karsten on the main road between Kars and Verlaine. She knew good brew from bad, and knew what sort of men used it to excess, what sort used it merely to ease the harsh outlines of their daily lives. Rofan was a brutal man, and the drink only gave him the excuse he sought in order to exercise all the cruelty in his nature.