by Andre Norton
“Witchery has its prices.” She smiled upon us wanly. “But I believe that this has bought us time—more than just a night. And now we may rest in peace.”
We half-carried her between us to the blanket-branch bed we had earlier made her, and, as she lay with closed eyes, Kemoc looked to me. There was no need for a reading of minds between us—to attempt the mountain climb tomorrow was beyond the borders of reasonable risk. If those who tended those watchfires did not advance and Kaththea’s magic bought us more time, we need not push.
Dawn found me back on the lookout ridge. The fires still burned, more difficult to see with the coming of light. I searched for the horses. It was a long and anxious moment before my lenses picked them up, moving across an open glade. And I was startled. There were riders in those saddles, and they would truly have deceived me had I been on scout. They would be watching, those others, and they would see their prey returning. How good the illusion would be at close quarters, I could not guess. But for the time we were covered.
Kemoc joined me and we took turns watching the horses, until a fold in the earth concealed them from us. Then we went down to inspect the cliff wall. It was rough enough to promise adequate holds, and not far from the top was a ledge of some depth to afford a resting place. As to what lay beyond its crests we did not know, but neither could we say that we would be faced by something we could not surmount.
For that day we rested in camp, sleeping so deeply in turn that no dreams troubled us. And Kaththea recovered that strength which had been drawn from her in the weaving of illusion. At the first shadow of night I climbed the ridge again. This time there was no sparkle of watchfires, nor did we sight any later in the night. What this could mean might be either of two things: Kaththea’s painfully wrought illusions might have provided the waiting company with prisoners for a space—or they had speedily discovered the trickery, struck camp, and were moving on. Yet a most painstaking use of the lenses, studying each bit of cover which might attract a stalking hunt, showed nothing amiss.
“I think they are truly gone,” Kaththea said with a confidence I did not altogether share. “But it does not matter. In the morning we shall go also, up and back—there.” She pointed to the mountain.
And in the morning we did go. Our provisions, weapons and blankets were made into packs which Kemoc and I shouldered. And roped between us both was Kaththea, her hands free, no weight upon her. She had discarded the eye bandage, but still kept her eyes closed, striving to “see” through mind contact, since she was still in the confusing fog.
It was slow work, that upward pull, and I found it doubly hard when I had to concentrate not only on my own efforts, but as an aid for Kaththea. She showed a surprising dexterity in spite of her self-imposed blindness, never fumbling or missing a hold I pictured in my mind. But when we reached the ledge I was so weak with fatigue I feared it was not in me to pull up the last short way. Kemoc reached across Kaththea as she crouched between us, his hand falling on my shaking knee.
“The rest to me,” he stated as one who would not be denied.
Nor could I have fought him for that danger. I was too spent to risk their safety on my own fast failing strength. So from the rest we reversed and my brother took the lead, his face as rigid with concentration as mine must have been. For I discovered my chin stiff, my jaw aching with pressure when I had come to those moments of relaxation.
It was lucky that I had given way to Kemoc, for the last part of that climb was a nightmare. I forced my trembling body to the effort, knowing well the danger of pulling back upon the rope and distracting Kaththea. But there came an end and we were on a space almost wide enough to be a plateau.
There was a cold wind here which dried our sweat, chilled us. So we pressed on hurriedly to where two peaks jutted skyward, a shadowed cleft between them. And when we entered that slash Kaththea suddenly flung back her head and opened her eyes, giving a small but joyful cry. We did not need any words to know that her blindness was gone.
The cleft we entered intensified the cold of those heights. Kemoc scuffed a boot toe through a patch of white and I saw that he had kicked up snow. Yet this was summer and the heat of the year had weighed heavily on us below. We stopped to undo our packs and bring out the blankets, pulling them cloakwise about our shoulders. That helped in a small measure as we came to the end of the cleft and looked down—into the world of the unknown.
Our first impression was one of stark disbelief.
There was a kind of wrongness about the broken land which receded down and down from our present perch, into a misty lowland so hidden we could not tell whether land or water, or both, lay far below. All I could think of was a piece of cloth which had been soaked in thin mud and then twisted by hand before being allowed to dry, so that a thousand wrinkles ran this way and that without sane purpose. I had thought that I knew mountain country, but this cut up land was worse than the foothills we had passed.
Kaththea was breathing deeply, not just as one who would fill her lungs, but as if she could separate some one scent from many, and identify it, as a hound or a snow cat could identify a hunting trace.
“There is that here—” she began, and then hesitated. “No, I make no judgments. But this land has felt the lash of a fury which was man-born and not the stroke of nature. Only that was long and long ago, and the destruction is under mend. Let us get from this place; I do not like my winds ice-tipped.”
In one way the broken nature of the descent served us well—for while the finding of the way was time consuming, yet the terrain was so rough here there were natural stairways of rock to be discovered. Since Kaththea was now sure of her sight, we made far better time than we had on the other side of the mountain.
However, the mist which choked the lower lands still curtained them from us, and that did not inspire confidence. There was this also: on the other side of the mountain, broken as the way had been, there had been life. I had seen fresh tracks of animals, and we had noted birds, even though their number had been few. But here were no such signs of life. We were down from the bare rock and into the first circle of vegetation to find that this had a strange look. The green of the narrow bush leaves was lighter in shade than that we had always known, and the very shape of the leaves had a shriveled appearance as if they had been born from blighted seeds.
It was when we came out at the head of a valley that I called a halt. The territory below was even more unbelievable than that we had sighted from the pass. At first I could not really tell the nature of what I looked upon. Then, glancing about me, the sight of seedlings spreading from that growth gave me the answer to that choked gap. They must be trees, for no bush grew to such a height, but they were no normal tree. And they must have grown so for centuries of time, for they completely filled the valley, their tips reaching only a few feet below the rocky point on which we now stood.
Sometime in the distant past they had begun as might any normal tree, but when their boles had reached perhaps ten feet above the ground surface they had taken a sharp bend left or right. After proceeding in that new direction for some feet, they again pointed skyward, to repeat the process again and again, lacing a vast criss-cross of such branched levels, with the true ground of the valley far below. To cross this we would have to walk the branches, for the woven growth gave no chance of penetration any lower, which meant balancing from limb to limb, with fear that a slip meant either a bone breaking fall or even impalement on one of those shooting uptips.
I edged back from our vantage point. “For this I want a full day.”
Kaththea shaded her eyes from the last sun rays, reflected glitteringly from some quartz in the rocks. “That is truth. But it is cold here—where can we shelter?”
Kemoc found protection, a crevice about which we piled other stones until the three of us, huddling closely into that crack, could endure the chill.
There was wood, but none of us suggested a fire. Who knew what eyes might pick up a spark on a mountain side where no spark should rightly
be, or what might be drawn to investigate such a phenomena? Kemoc and I had lain rough before, and Kaththea made no complaint, we putting her between us and bringing the blankets about us all.
If the mountain had seemed dead, a lifeless world in daytime, that was not true at night. There was the wail of a snow cat that had missed its kill, and a hooting from the air over the choked valley.
But nothing came near us as we dozed, awoke to listen, and then slept again through a night which also was different this side of the mountain—one far too long.
VII
IN THE EARLY morning we ate the last crumbs of journey bread, and discovered there were only a few sips of water left in the saddle bottles we had filled at the streamside. Kemoc shook his bag over his hand.
“It would seem we now have another very good reason to push on,” he remarked.
I ran my tongue over my lip and tried to think back to the last really filling meal I had eaten. That was hard doing, for I had lived more or less on emergency rations since Kemoc’s summons had taken me from camp. We had seen no trace of game—yet a snow cat had yowled in the night and one of those hunters would not be prowling a prey-less land. I visualized a prong-buck steak or even a grass burrower, sizzling on a spit over a fire. And that provided me impetus to approach the verge and survey the springy bough road we must travel.
We made what precautions we could, using the rope once again to unite us, so that a slip need not be fatal. But it was not with any great confidence that any of us faced that crossing. We could not aim straight for the other rim, but had to angle down the length of the branch-filled cut in order to keep moving east to the presumed lowlands. The mist still clung there and we could only hope that there were lowlands to be found.
I had always held that I had a good head for heights, but in my mountaineering I had trod on solid stone and earth, not on a footing which swayed and dipped, giving to my weight with every step. And I was almost a few feet out on that surface when I discovered, almost to my undoing, that this weird valley had inhabitants.
There was a sharp chattering cry; and from the upthrust branch tip, to which I had just reached a hand for a supporting grip, burst a thing which swooped on skin wings and skittered ahead to disappear again into the masking foliage.
Kaththea gave a startled cry and I found my hold on the branch very necessary, for I was almost unbalanced by my start. So our advance became even more slow.
Three times more we sent flitters flying from our path. Once we needed to make an exhausting detour when we sighted another and more frightening inhabitant of this tree top maze, a scaled thing which watched us unblinkingly, a narrow forked tongue flickering from its green lips—for it was colored much like the silver-green of the leaves among which it lay. It was not a serpent, for it had small limbs and clawed feet with which to cling, yet it was elongated of body, and its whole appearance was malefic. Nor did it fear us in the least.
All time has an end. Sweating, weary from tension to the point of swimming heads and shaking bodies, we made the last step from the quivering boughs to the solid rock of the valley rim. Kaththea dropped to the ground, panting. All of us bore raw scratches and the red marks left by lashing branches. While our field uniforms were sturdy enough to withstand hard usage, Kaththea’s robe was torn in many places, and there were bits of broken twig snarled in hair ends which had escaped from the kerchief into which she had knotted them before beginning that journey.
“I would seem to be one of the Moss Ones,” she commented with a small slightly uncertain smile.
I looked back at the way we had come. “This is proper country for such,” I said idly. Then silence drew my attention back to my companions. Both of them were staring at me with an intensity which had no connection with what I had just said, or so I thought, but as if I had uttered some profound fact.
“Moss Ones,” Kaththea repeated.
“The Krogan, the Thas, the People of Green Silences, the Flannan,” Kemoc added.
“But those are legend—tales to amuse children, to frighten the naughty, or to amuse,” I protested.
“They are those who are foreign to Estcarp,” Kaththea pointed out “What of Volt? He, too, was dismissed as legend until Koris and our father found his Hole and him waiting. And did not Koris bring forth from there that great axe, which was only legend too? And the sea serpent of Sulcar song—not even the most learned ever said that that was only fantasy.”
“But women of moss who seek a human mother to nurse their children and who pay in pale gold and good fortune, beings who fly on wings and torment those who strive to learn their secrets, creatures who dwell blindly underground and are to be feared lest they draw a man after them into eternal darkness, and people akin to trees with powers over all growth . . .” I recalled scraps and bits of those tales, told to amuse with laughter, or bring delightful shivers up the back of those who listened to terror while sitting snug and secure by a winter fire in a strongly held manor.
“Those stories are as old as Estcarp,” Kemoc said, “and perhaps they reach beyond Estcarp . . . to some other place.”
“We have enough to face without evoking phantoms,” I snapped. “Do not put one behind each bush for us now.”
Yet one could not stifle the working of imagination and this was the type of land which could give rise to such legends. Always, too, there was the reality of Volt which my father had helped to prove. And, as we advanced, my mind kept returning to shift old memories for descriptions of those fantastic beings in the stories.
We were definitely on a down slope, though the broken character of the land continued. Now our greatest need was for water. Though the vegetation grew heavily hereabouts, we came across no stream nor spring, and the growing heat of the day added to our discomfort. The mist still clung, and thus at times we could see only a short distance ahead. And that mist had a steamy quality, making us long to throw aside our helms and mail which weighed so heavy.
I do not know just when I became aware that we were not alone in that steam-wreathed wildness. Perhaps fatigue and the need for water had dulled my scouting sense. But it grew on me that we were under observation. And so sure was I of that, that I waved my companions to cover in the thicket and drew my dart gun as I studied the half concealed landscape.
“It is there . . . somewhere.” Kemoc had his weapon in hand also.
Kaththea sat with closed eyes, her lips parted a little, her whole attitude one of listening, perhaps not with the ears, but with a deeper sense.
“I cannot touch it,” she said in a whisper. “There is no contact—”
“Now it is gone!” I was as sure of that as if I had seen the lurker flitting away as the skinned flapped things had done in the tree valley. I beckoned them on, having now only the desire to put distance between us and whatever had skulked in our wake.
As we moved into yet lower land the mist disappeared. Here the trees and high brush gave way to wide, open glades. Many of these were carpeted by thick, springy growth of gray moss. And I had a faint distaste for walking on it, though it cushioned the step and made the going more comfortable.
Bird calls sounded, and we saw small creatures in the moss lands. There was a chance for hunting now, but water remained our major desire. Then we came upon our first trace of man—a crumbling wall, more than half buried or tumbled from its estate as boundary for a field. The growth it guarded was tall grass, but here and there showed the yellow-ripe head of a grain stalk, wizened and small, reverting to the wild grass from which it had evolved. Once this had been a farm.
We took one side of that wall for a guide and so came into the open. The heat of the sun added to our distress but a farm meant water somewhere near. Kaththea stumbled and caught at the wall.
“I am sorry,” her voice was low and strained. “I do not think I can go much farther.”
She was right. Yet to separate in this place of danger . . .
Kemoc supported her. “Over there.” He pointed to where a stand of tree
s grew to offer a patch of shade. When we reached those we discovered another piece of good fortune, for there was a fruit-laden vine on the wall. The red globes it bore I recognized as a species of grape, tart and mouth-puckering even when ripe as these were, but to be welcomed now for the moisture they held. Kemoc began to pick all within reach, passing his harvest to Kaththea.
“There is water somewhere, and we must have it.” I dropped my pack, checked again the loading of my dart gun, then slung the straps of two of the saddle bottles over my shoulder.
“Kyllan!” Kaththea swallowed a mouthful of pulp hurriedly. “Keep in mind touch!”
But Kemoc shook his head. “I think not—unless you need us. There is no need to arouse anything.”
So he felt it too, the sensation that we did not walk through an empty world, that there was here that which was aware of us, waiting, measuring, studying. . . .
“I will think of water, and water only.” I do not know just why that assertion seemed important. But I did walk away from them concentrating on a spring, a stream, building up in my mind a vivid mental picture of what I sought.
The walled field was separated from another of its kind; perhaps the gap between them marked some roadway long since overgrown. I caught sight, in the second enclosure, of a prong-horn family group at graze. The buck was larger than any of his species I had known in Estcarp, standing some four feet at the shoulder, his horns a ruddy pair of intricate spirals in the sunlight. He had three does, their lesser horns glistening black, lacking the ringing of the male’s. And there were four fawns and an almost grown yearling. The latter was my prize.
Darts are noiseless save for the faint hiss of their ejection. The yearling gave a convulsive leap and fell. For a second or two its companions lifted their heads to regard the fallen with round-eyed stares. Then they took fright and headed in great bounds for the far end of the ancient field, while I leaped the wall and went to my kill.