Three Against the Witch World ww-3

by Andre Norton

  I could not share her confidence completely, but also I had learned as a Borderer that worry over what might be never added a single second to a man’s life, nor changed his future for well or ill. I had not encountered Kaththea’s mist, nor had Kemoc. And her explanation for that was reasonable. But could we continue to be so free? Trailing over mountain tracks with impaired vision was a desperate thing.

  Kemoc asked a question forming in my own mind. “This mist—of what manner is it? And you say . . . not complete?”

  Kaththea shook her head. “No, and sometimes I think it is a matter of will. If I fasten on something which is only a shadow and sharpen my will, I see it the clearer. But that requires a concentration which might work against us.”

  “How so?” I demanded.

  “Because I must listen—”

  “Listen?” My head came up and now I strained to hear too.

  “Not with ears,” she replied quickly, “but with the inner hearing. They are not moving against us now; they are content to wait. But will they remain so the farther we go eastward, when they at last know that we are not contained by their long set boundaries? Do not think they will ever give up.”

  “Has there ever before been one who refused witchhood, I wonder?” Kemoc asked musingly. “The Council must be as startled by your flight as if one of the stones of Es City spoke out against them. But why should they wish to keep you against your will?”

  “It is simple enough—I am not of their same pattern. At first they did not push too hard to have me because of that very thing. There were those in the Council who believed I would be a disrupting influence should they strive to make me one with them. Then, as the menace of Karsten grew worse, they were ready to grasp at any promise, no matter how small, of adding in some way to the sum total of the Power. Thus, they would have me to study, to see if through me any new gates might be opened, that the basic amount of their long treasured force be increased. But as long as I would not take the oath, become one with them in a surrendering of self, they could not use me as they wished. Yet I could not delay such a step too long. There was this—” She paused, her eyes dropped to the hands which had rested lazily in her lap. Now those long fingers curled, came together as if protecting something in their cupped palms. “I wanted—some of what they had to offer, that I wanted! Every part of me thirsted for their knowledge, for I knew that I could work wonders also. Then would come to me the thought that if I chose their path, so must I cut away part of my life. Do you think that one who has been three can happily be alone? Thus I turned and dodged, would not answer when they asked of me this thing. And at last came the time when they would risk all against Karsten.

  “They spoke plainly to me—to use the Power in a unification of all their selves meant an ending for some. Many would die, did die, burnt out by making of themselves vessels to hold the energy until it could be aimed and loosed. They had to have replacements and no longer would the choice be left to me. And now, with their ranks so depleted, neither will they allow me to go, if they can prevent it. Also—” Now she raised her eyes to look at us directly. “They will deal with you, the both of you, ruthlessly. They always secretly mistrusted and feared our father; I learned that when I was first among them. It is not natural, according to their belief, that a man should hold even a small portion of the Power. And they more than mistrusted our mother for the talent that she built with our father’s aid when by all rights she should have lost her witchship in lying with a man. This they considered an abomination, a thing against all nature. They know you have some gift. After this past night and day, they will be even more certain of that—with good cause to dislike what they have learned. No normal man could have entered the Place, and he certainly could not have won free of it again. Of course, their safeguards there were depleted, yet they were such as would have been death to any male fully of the Old Race. Thus—you are not to be trusted, you are a menace, to be removed!”

  “Kaththea, who was the girl, the one in the garden?” Kemoc asked suddenly.

  “Girl?”

  “You and yet not you,” he answered. “I believed in her—would have taken her and gone. Kyllan would not let me. Why?” He turned now to me. “What was it that made you suspect her?”

  “No more than a feeling at first. Then—she was like one made for a purpose. She fastened upon you, as if she wished to hold you—”

  “She looked like me?” Kaththea asked.

  “Very much, save she was too serene. She smiled always. She lacked”—and I knew I had hit upon the truth—“she lacked humanity.”

  “A simulacrum! Then they did expect you, or some attempt to reach me! But it takes long and long to make one of those. I wonder which one of the novices it really was?”

  “Shape changing?” Kemoc said.

  “Yes. But more intricate, since she was designed to deceive such as you, who had mind contact—or did they know that much of us? Yes, they must have! Oh, that proves it—they must be very sure now that you are the enemy. And I wonder how much longer we have before they realize we are not in any trap, and so move after us?”

  To that question we had no answer. But it left us with little peace of mind. The stream tinkled and burbled through the dark, and we could hear the sound of the hobbled Torgians at graze. And we set up watches turn and turn about.

  The morning came and this one was clear and bright for Kemoc and me—though Kaththea admitted that the fog was heavy for her, and that she had a disturbing disorientation when we began our ride into the foothills. At last she begged us to tie her to her saddle and lead her mount as the overwhelming desire to turn back was growing so strong she feared she could not control it.

  We, too, had a measure of unease. There was a distortion of sight at times which was like that we had experienced looking down into the valley of the Place. And the sensation of moving into some dark and unpleasant surprise was haunting, but not to the point that it had any effect upon our determination.

  But we did as Kaththea asked and at intervals she struggled against the ties we put on her, once crying out that directly before us was sudden death in the form of a deep chasm—though that was not true. Finally she shut her eyes and had us lay a bandage over them, saying that once shut into her own mind in that fashion, she was better able to combat the waves of panic.

  The faint trace of road had long since vanished. We went by the easiest riding we could pick through true wilderness. I had lived much among mountains, but the weirdly broken ways we now followed were strange to nature, and I thought I knew the reason. Just as the mountains of the south had been toppled and turned, so, too, had these heights.

  It was evening of the second day since we had left the streamside when we reached the end of open ways. Before us now lay heights a determined man might climb on foot, but not on horseback. We faced that fact bleakly.

  “Why do you stop?” Kaththea wanted to know.

  “The way runs out; there is only climbing ahead.”

  “Wait!” She leaned down from her saddle. “Loose my hands!”

  There was such urgency in that that Kemoc hastened to obey. As if she could see in spite of the blindfold, her fingers moved surely out, touched his brows, slid down to the eyes he blinked shut. For a long moment she held them so before she spoke:

  “Turn, face where we must go.”

  With her touch still on his closed eyes, my brother moved his head slowly to the left, facing the cliff face.

  “Yes, oh, yes! Thus I can see it!” There was excitement and relief in Kaththea’s voice. “This is the way we must go, then?”

  But how could we? Kemoc and I could have done it, though I wondered about his maimed hand. But to take Kaththea bound and blindfolded—that was impossible.

  “I do not think you need to take me so,” she answered my silent doubts. “Leave me thus for tonight, let me gather all my powers, and then, with the dawn—let us try. There will be an end to the block, of that I am sure.”

  But her
certainty was not mine. Perhaps with the dawn, instead of climbing, we would have to backtrack, to seek out another way up through the tortured debris of this ancient battlefield.

  VI

  I COULD NOT sleep, though there was need for it in my body—to which my mind would not yield. Finally I slipped from my blanket and went to where Kemoc sat sentry.

  “Nothing,” he answered my question before it was voiced. “Perhaps we are so far into the debatable land we need not fear pursuit.”

  “I wish I knew at whose boundary we are,” I said. And my eyes were for the heights that we must dare tomorrow.

  “Friend or enemy?” In the moonlight his hand moved so there was a glint of light from the grip of the dart gun lying unholstered on his knee.

  “And that—” I gestured to the weapon. “We have but two extra belts of darts. Steel may have to serve us in the end.”

  Kemoc flexed his hand and those stiff fingers did not curl with their fellows. “If you are thinking of this, brother, do not underrate me. I have learned other things besides the lore of Lormt. If a man determines enough he can change one hand for the other. Tomorrow I will belt on a blade for the left hand.”

  “I have the feeling that what we win beyond will be sword-taken.”

  “In that you may be very right. But better land sword-taken than what lies behind us now.”

  I gazed about. The moon was bright, so bright it seemed uncannily so. We were in a valley between two ridges. And Kemoc had his post on a ledge a little more than a man’s height above the valley floor. Yet here our sight was restricted as to what lay above us, or farther down the cut of our back trail. And this blindness worried me.

  “I want to see from up there,” I told him.

  In the brightness of the moon I did not fear trouble, the slope being rough enough to afford good hand and toe holds. Once on the crest I looked to the west. We had been climbing all day as we worked our way through the foothills. The tree growth was sparse now and I had a clear sight. With the long seeing lenses from my service belt I searched our back trail.

  They were distant, those pricks of light in the night. No effort had been taken to conceal them; rather they had been lit to let us know we were awaited. I counted some twenty fires and smiled wryly. So much did those who sent those waiting sentries respect the three of us. Judging by Borderer practices there must be well over a hundred men so encamped, waiting. How many of them were those with whom Kemoc and I had ridden?

  Were any drawn from my own small command? Freed from the necessity of southward patrols they could be used thus.

  But we were not yet in a trap. I pivoted to study the cliff wall which now fronted us. As far as the glass advanced my own sight north and south there appeared no easier way up. And would those others, back there, remain at the line they had drawn, or come after us?

  I dropped to Kemoc’s perch.

  “So they are there. . . .”

  Mind contact passed news swiftly.

  “I make it at least a full field company, if we go by fire count. Maybe more.”

  “It would seem there is a vow we shall be taken. But I doubt if they will sniff this far in after us.”

  “I could sight no better climbing place.”

  There was no need to put the rest of my worry into words: he shared it fully already. But now he gave me a short reply.

  “Do not believe that she will not climb, Kyllan.”

  “But if she does so blind?”

  “Two of us, the saddle ropes, and mind contact which will give her sight? We may be slow, but we shall go. And you shall fuzz the back trail, Kyllan, even as it has just crossed your mind to do.”

  I laughed. “Why do we bother with speech? You know my thoughts as I think them—”

  He interrupted, his words sober: “Do I? Do you know mine?”

  I considered. He was right, at least as far as I was concerned. I had contact, could communicate with him and with Kaththea, but it was a come and go matter and, as I knew, mostly when we were intent upon a mutual problem. Unless he willed it, Kemoc’s personal thoughts were not mine.

  “Nor yours mine,” he replied promptly. “We may be one in will when necessary, but still we are three individuals with separate thoughts, separate needs, and perhaps separate fates also.”

  “That is good!” I said without thinking.

  “It could not be otherwise, or we would be as the non-men the Kolder used to do their labor and their fighting—those bodies who obeyed, though mind and spirit were dead. It is enough to open one surface of our thoughts to one another when we must, but for the rest—it is our own.”

  “Tomorrow, if I blaze our trail up there and keep my mind open, can Kaththea see thus, even if she goes blinded?”

  “So is my hope. But this is also the truth, brother, that such an open mind must be held so by will, and this will add to the strain of the climb. I do not think you can do this for long; we shall have to divide it between us. And”—again he flexed his scarred hand in the moonlight—”do not believe that in this either shall I be found wanting. Crooked and stiff as these fingers are, yet my bone and flesh have learned to obey me!”

  That I did not doubt either. Kemoc got to his feet, holstering his gun, and I took his place so that he might rest. We had already agreed that Kaththea would not be one of this night’s sentries, since it was her task to wrestle with the block her witch training had set upon her.

  As I watched, the very brilliance of the vale began to have its effect. There was a kind of dazzlement about the pallid light, akin to the subtle distortion we had noticed earlier, and I was so inwardly warned against any long study. There was that here which could evoke glamourie—the visionary state into which the half-learned in any magic could easily slip, to be lost in their own visions. And I wanted no such ensorcelment.

  At length I dropped from Kemoc’s ledge and took to active sentry patrol, keeping on my feet, taking care not to look too long at any rock, bush or stretch of ground. Thus I came to where the Torgians browsed. They moved slowly, and a quick reading of their minds showed me a dulling of their kind of thought. Yet undue fatigue would not normally have brought them to such a state. Perhaps the same block which acted upon the Old Race held in small part for their animals also.

  We could not take them with us. And still there was a way they could continue to serve us. It did not take me long to strip off their hobbles. Then I saddled them and set on bridle and bit, looping the reins about the saddle horns. As I worked they became more alert.

  As I was about to set on them my last commands, there was a stir behind me. I turned, hand going to my gun. Kaththea was in the open, her hands tugging at the band she herself had fastened to blind her eyes after we had eaten our meal. At a last tug that gave way and she stared in my direction as a short-sighted person might peer.

  “What—?” I began, then her hand came up in an impatient gesture.

  “There is more which can be done to carry through your scheme, brother,” she said softly. “Horses should have riders.”

  “Dummies? Yes, I had thought of that, but the materials for the making of such are lacking.”

  “For materials there is not much needed to induce illusion.”

  “But you have no Jewel of Power,” I protested. “How can you build one of the strong illusions?”

  She was frowning a little. “It may well be that I cannot, but I shall not be sure until I try. Our mother surrendered her Jewel upon her marriage day, yet thereafter she accomplished much without it. Mayhap the Jewel is not quite as much the focus of the Power as the Wise Women will have us believe. Oh, I am very young in their learning as they count such things, but also am I certain that there has been no proper measurement of what can be wrought by wish, will and the Power. If one is content to use a tool then one shall never know what one can do without it. Now, here—” She plucked a curled, silvery leaf from a nearby bush. “Lay upon this some hairs from your head, Kyllan—and pluck them from the roots, for the
y must be living hairs. Also, moisten them with spittle from your mouth.”

  Her tone summoned obedience. I took off my helm, and my forehead and throat, about which its mail veil had been wreathed, felt naked and chill in the night breeze. I plucked the hair she wished, and the separate threads curled about my fingers, for it had gone unclipped for some time. Then I spat upon the leaf and laid the hair therein, even as Kaththea was doing in another such improvised carrier.

  She crossed to Kemoc and awakened him to do likewise. Then she held the three leaves on her palm and walked to the horses. With her right hand she rolled the first leaf and its strange burden into a spill, all the time her lips murmuring sounds I could not make into any real word. The spill she tucked between the knotted reins and the saddle horn, taking great care as to its wedging. And this she did also with the others. Then she stood aside and raised her hands to her mouth as half open fists. Through these trumpets of flesh and bone she sang, first in a low semi-whisper, then louder and louder. And the rhythm of those sounds became a part of me, until I felt them in the beat of my heart, the throb of my pulses. While the brilliance of the moonlight was a flashing glare, its light condensed to where we stood.

  Kaththea’s song ended abruptly, on a broken note. “Now! Give your commands, brother—send them forth!”

  The orders I set in the Torgians’ befogged brains sent them moving down the vale, away from us, in the direction of that fire line. And as they so left us I will always believe that I saw the misty forms in those saddles, a swirl of something to form three riders, nor did I wonder who those riders would seem to be.

  “It would appear, sister, that the half has not been told concerning the powers of Witches,” Kemoc commented.

  Kaththea swayed and caught at his arm, so that he gave her his support.