by Andre Norton
I had no wish to dissemble with her: between us must be only the truth as well as I could give it.
“For refuge.”
“And what do you flee, stranger? What ill have you wrought behind you that you must run from wrath?”
“The ill of not being as our fellows—”
“Yes, you are not one but three—and yet, also one. . . .”
Her words aroused memory. “Kaththea! Kemoc? What—?”
“What has happened to them since you would go ariding the Keplian, thus foolishly surrendering yourself to the very power you would fight? They have taken their own road, Kyllan. This sister of yours has done that which has troubled the land. We do not easily take Witches to our bosoms here, warrior. In the past that served us ill. Were she older in magic, then she would not have been so eager to trouble dark pools which should be left undisturbed in the shadows. So far she has not met that which she cannot face with her own shield and armor. But that state of affairs will not last long—not here in Escore.”
“But you are a Wise One.” I was as certain of that as if I saw the Witch Jewel on her breast, yet I also knew that she was not of the same breed as the rulers of Estcarp.
“There are many kinds of wisdom, as you well know already. Long ago, roads branched here in Escore, and we Green People chose to walk in different ways. Some led us very far apart from one another. But also through the years we learned to balance good against ill, so that there was no inequality to draw new witchcraft in. To do so, even on the side of good, will evoke change, and change may awaken things which have long slumbered, to the ill of all. This has your sister done—as an unthinking child might smite the surface of a pool with a stick, sending ripples running, annoying some monster at ease in the depths. Yet. . .” She pursed her lips as if about to give judgment, and in that small movement lost more of the strangeness which separated us, so that I saw her as a girl, like Kaththea. “Yet, we can not deny to her the right of what she has done; we only wish she had done it elsewhere!” Again Dahaun smiled. “Now, Kyllan of Tregarth, we have immediate things to see to.”
Her hand went from my head to the baked clay over my chest. Down the center of that she scratched a line with the nail of her forefinger, again marking such along my arms and legs.
The creatures that had accompanied her thereupon set to work, clawing away along those lines, working with a speed and diligence which suggested this was a task they had performed many times before. Dahaun got to her feet and crossed to the snow cat, stooping to examine the drying mud, stroking the head of the creature between the eyes and up behind the ears.
Speedy as her servants were, it took them some time to chip me out of my covering. But finally I was able to rise out of the depression which was the shape of my body. My limbs were whole, although scarred with marks of almost-healed hurts I would have thought no man could survive.
“Death is powerless here, if you can reach this place,” said Dahaun.
“And how did I reach this place, lady?”
“By the aid of many strengths, to which you are now beholden, warrior.”
“I acknowledge all debts,” I said, giving the formal reply. But I spoke a little absently, since I looked down upon my nakedness and wondered if I was to go so bare.
“Another debt also I lay upon you.” Amusement became a small trill of laughter. “What you seek now, stranger, you shall find up there.”
She had not moved to leave the wounded cat, merely waved me to the saucer’s rim. The ground was soft underfoot as I hurried up the slope, a couple of the lizards flashing along.
There was grass here, tall as my knees, soft and green, and by two rock pillars a bundle of nearly the same color. I pulled at a belt which held it together and inspected my new wardrobe. The outer wrapping was a green cloak, within garments which seemed at first well tanned and very supple leather, and which I then decided were some unknown material. There were breeches, with attached leggings and booted feet sections, the soles soft and earth-feeling. Above the waist I donned a sleeveless jerkin which latched halfway down my chest by a metal clasp set with one of the blue-green gems Dahaun favored. The belt supported not a sword, but a metal rod about as long as my forearm and a finger-span thick. If it was a weapon, it was like none I had seen before.
The clothing fitted as if it had been cut and sewn for me alone, and gave a marvelous freedom to my body, such as was lacking in the mail and leather of Estcarp. Yet I found my hands were going ever to feel for the arms I did not wear: the sword and dart gun which had been my tools for so long.
With the cloak over my arm I strode back to the edge of the saucer. Now that I could look down upon it I saw that the area was larger than I had thought. A dozen or more of the mud pools were scattered haphazardly about it, and more than one had a patient immobilized—though all of these were animals or birds.
Dahaun still knelt, stroking the snow cat’s head. But now she looked up and waved with her other hand and a moment later arose and came to join me, surveying me with a frankly appraising stare.
“You are a proper Green Man, Kyllan of the House of Tregarth.”
“A Green Man?”
It did not seem so difficult now for me to read her features, though I still could not have given a positive name to the color of her hair or eyes.
“The Green People.” She pointed to the cloak I held. “Though this is only their outer skin that you wear, and not our true semblance. However, it will serve you for what needs be done.” She put her half closed fist to her mouth as had my sister when engaged in sorcery, but the sound she uttered was a clear call, not unlike the high note of a verge horn.
A drumming of hooves brought me around, my hand seeking a weapon I no longer had. Sense told me this was not the stallion that had been my undoing, yet that sound now made my flesh creep.
They came out of the green shadow of a copse, shoulder to shoulder, cantering easily and matching their paces. They were bare of saddle or bridle, but only in that were they like the stallion. For they had not the appearance of true horses at all. More closely allied to the prong-horns, yet not them either, they were as large as a normal mount, but their tails were brushes of fluff they kept clipped tight against their haunches as they moved. There was no mane, but a topknot of fluffy longer hair on the crest of each skull, right above a horn which curved gracefully in a gleaming red arc. In color they were a sleek, roan red, with a creamy under-body. And for all their strangeness I found them most beautiful.
Coming to a stop before Dahaun, they swung their heads about to regard me with large yellow eyes. As with the lizard, they shared a spark of what I realized was intelligence.
“Shabra, Shabrina,” Dahaun said gravely in introduction, and those proud horned heads inclined to me in dignified recognition of their naming.
Out of the grass burst one of the lizards, running to Dahaun, who stopped to catch it up. It sped up her arm to her shoulder, settling there in her hair.
“Shabra will bear you.” One of the horned ones moved to me. “You need have no fears of this mount.”
“He will take me to the river?”
“To those who seek you,” she replied obliquely. “Fortune attend you—good, not ill.”
I do not know why I had expected her to come with me, but I was startled at the suggestion she would not. So abrupt a parting was like the slicing of a rope upon which one’s safety depended.
“You—you do not ride with me?”
She was already astride her mount. Now she favored me with one of those long, measuring stares.
“Why?”
To that I had no answer but the simple truth.
“Because I cannot leave you so—”
“You feel you debt weighing heavily?”
“If owing one’s life is a debt, yes—but there is more. Also, even if there was no debt, still I would seek your road.”
“To do this you are not free.”
I nodded. “In this I am not free—you need not
remind me of that, lady. You owe me no debt—the choice is yours.”
She played with one of the long tresses of hair hanging so long as to brush the gems on her belt.
“Well said.” Plainly something amused her and I was not altogether sure I cared for her laughter now. “Also, I begin to think that having seen one out of Estcarp, I would see more—this sister of yours who may have stirred up too much for all of us. So I choose your road . . . for this time. HO!” She gave a cry and her mount leaped with a great bound.
I scrambled up on Shabra and fought to keep my seat as he lunged to catch up with his mate. Sun broke through clouds to light us, and as it touched Dahaun she was no longer dusky. The hair streaming behind her in the wind was the same pale gold of her belt and wristlets, and she blazed with a great surge of light and life.
XII
THERE WAS A thing loping awkwardly in a parallel course towards us. Sometimes it ran limpingly on three legs, a forelimb held upcurved; again, stumbling and bent over, on two. Dahaun checked her mount and waited for the creature to approach. It lifted a narrow head, showed fangs in a snarl. There were patches of foam at the corners of its black lips, matting the brindle fur on its neck and shoulders, while the forelimb it upheld ended in a red blob of mangled flesh.
It growled, walked stiff-legged, striving to pass Dahaun at a distance. As I rode to join her, my hair stirred a little at skull base. For this was not animal, but something which was an unholy mingling of species—wolf and man.
“By the pact.” Its words were a coughing growl and it made a half gesture with its wounded paw-hand.
“By the pact,” Dahaun acknowledged. “Strange, Fikkold, for you to seek what lies here. Have matters gone so badly that the dark must seek the light for succor?”
The creature snarled again, its eyes gleaming, yellow-red pits of that evil against which all clean human flesh and spirit revolts.
“There will come a time—” it spat.
“Yes, there will come a time, Fikkold, when we shall test Powers, not in small strikes against each other, but in open battle. But it would appear that you have already done battle, and not to benefit for you.”
Those yellow-red eyes shifted away from Dahaun, as if they could not bear to look too long at the golden glory she had become. Now they fastened on me. The twisted snarl was more acute. Fikkold hunched his shoulders as if he wished to spring to bring me down. My hand sought the blade I did not wear.
Dahaun spoke sharply. “You have claimed the right, Fikkold; do you now step beyond that right?”
The wolf-man relaxed. A red tongue licked between those fanged jaws.
“So you make one with these, Morquant?” he asked in return. “That will be pleasant hearing for the Gray Ones, and That Which Is Apart. No, I do not step beyond the right, but perchance you have crossed another barrier. And if you make common cause with these, ride swift, Green Lady, for they need all the aid possible.”
With a last snarl in my direction, Fikkold went on, staggering, weaving toward the mud pools, his blood-streaming paw pressed tight to his furred breast.
But what he had hinted at, that Kaththea and Kemoc might be in active danger, sent me pounding along his back trail.
“No!” Dahaun pulled up beside me. “No! Never ride so along a were-trail. To follow it straightly leaves your own track open for them. Cross it, thus . . .”
She cantered in a criss-cross pattern, back and forth across the blood-spotted track the wounded Fikkold had left. And, though I grudged the time such a complicated maneuver cost us, I did likewise.
“Did he speak the truth?” I asked as I drew level with her again.
“Yes, for in this case the truth would please Fikkold.” She frowned. “And if they felt strong enough to meet in an open fight with Power such as your sister can shape and mould, then the balance is surely upset and things move here which have not stirred in years upon long years! It is time we knew what or who is aligned . . .”
She set her hand to her mouth again as she had when she had summoned the horned ones to our service. But no audible sound issued between her fingers. In my head was that sound, shrill, painful. Both our mounts flung high their heads and gave voice to coughing grunts.
I was not too surprised at the shimmer of a Flannan in its bird shape appearing before us. It flapped about Dahaun as she rode. A moment later she looked to me, her face troubled.
“Fikkold spoke the truth, but it is a worse truth than I thought, Kyllan. Those of your blood have been trapped in one of the Silent Places and the thrice circle laid upon them, such as no witch, lest she be more powerful than your sister, may break. Thus can they be held until the death of their bodies—and even beyond—”
I had faced death for myself, and had come to accept the fact that perhaps I had taken the last sword blow. But for Kaththea and Kemoc I would not accept this—not while I still breathed, walked, had hands to hold weapons or to use bare. Of this I did not speak, but the resolution filled me in a hot surge of rage and determination. And more strongly was I pledged to this because of my folly and desertion by the river.
“I knew you would feel so,” she said. “But more than strength of body, will of mind, desire of heart, will you need for this. Where are your weapons?”
“I shall find such!” I told her between set teeth.
“There is one.” Dahaun pointed to the rod which hung as a sword from my borrowed belt. “Whether it will answer you. I know not. It was forged for another hand and mind. Try it. It is a force whip—use it as you would a lash.”
I remembered the crackling fire with which the unknown rider had beaten off the rasti and I jerked the rod from its sling, to use it as she suggested, as if a thong depended from its tip.
There was a flash of fire crackling against the ground to sear and blacken. I shouted in triumph. Dahaun smiled at me across that burned strip.
“It would seem that we are not so different after all, Kyllan of the House of Tregarth, out of Estcarp. So you do not ride barehanded, nor, perhaps, will you fight alone. For that, we must see. But to summon aid will take time, and that runs fast for those you would succor. Also, it will need persuasion such as you can not provide. Thus we part here warrior. Follow the blood trail, to do what you must do. I go to other labors.”
She was at a gallop before I could speak, her horned one keeping a speed I do not believe even the stallion could have equaled. Before me lay the back trail of the werewolf for my guide.
I followed Dahaun’s instructions and continued to crisscross those tracks, but at a steady, ground-eating pace. We descended from that high ground into which the stallion had carried me, away from the healthy country. I did not sight that bleached wood, nor the city, unless a distant gray shadow to my left was a glimpse of that, but there were other places Shabra avoided, sometimes leaving the trail to detour about them—a setting of rocks, an off color splotch of vegetation and the like. I trusted to my mount’s decision in such matters, for it was plain this part of the country was a stronghold of those forces against which my kind were eternally arrayed.
Shabra slowed pace. I marveled at how far Fikkold had come with his spouting wound. A flock of black winged things arose from a tangle of brush and twisted trees, circled above us, crying raucously.
“Whip!”
Out of nowhere came that warning. Then I saw Shabra turn his head, and knew that the alarm came from the one who carried me. I gave a sharp jerk to the weapon, A light flash snapped out. One of the black things screeched, somersaulted in the air and fell. The rest broke, flew for a distance, and then reformed with the cunning of an advance guard, to try once more to complete their circle. Three times they attempted that, and each time the lash drove them off, broke their pattern. From the last attack they flew before us, as if determining somewhere on ahead to lay an ambush.
We were still going down slope. Here the grass in the open spaces was coarser and darker than that of the upper country. And in places it was broken and stamped fl
at as if a host had gone this way. My scout training asserted control. To ride face on into impossible odds was no way to provide help for those I sought. Tentatively I thought this at Shabra.
They know you come. You cannot hide from those who hold this land.
The answer came clearly and promptly. I was ready to accept any help from my mount which he had ready to offer.
His pace had dropped to a walk. He held his head high, his wide nostrils drawing in and expelling the air in audible sniffs, as if by this sense he could detect what lay ahead. Abandoning the blood trail which had guided us to this point, he swung to the right on a course which angled sharply from the one we had followed.
Along the pillar way. Peace holds there in part.
Shabra’s explanation meant nothing to me, but that he was willing to risk this route did. I could not scent anything in the air, though I strove to. But there was something else—a weight upon the spirit, a darkening of the mind, which grew as we advanced, until it was a burden on me.
We came out on the rim of another slope and below lay open country with, not too far away, the line of the river. In that plains land was a circle of menhirs, not concentric rings as had been the stone web, but a single line of rough pillars, two of which had fallen and lay pointing outward. They encircled or guarded a platform of stone of a slate-blue color. And on that platform were the two I sought. While outside the ring of menhirs, a motley pack of creatures crawled, prowled, sniffed. Black blots of rasti slithered in and out, visible where the grass was well trampled. Several werewolves paced, sometimes on four feet, other times erect. The black birds wheeled and dipped. An armorplated thing raised a ghastly head and clawed forefeet now and then. And white blobs of mist gathered, drifted, thickened and thinned. But all these moved outside the ring of stones, and they avoided the two which had fallen outward, leaving a goodly space free about those as they continued their siege.