by Andre Norton
The murmur which had begun at Simond’s words died away. Tursla pushed closer. She had done as Mafra had urged, laid her mind open to whatever power lay in her. But she felt no swelling of force, no new warmth within. How then could she stop this thing which was of dark evil and which would indeed bring an end to the Torfolk?
“Take him—” Unnanna was on her feet, her arms spread wide. In her pale face there was exultation.
Tursla moved. Those about her were so intent upon the scene before them that they were not aware of her until she was through their line and had shoved past one of Affric’s followers to reach Simond. Once there she stationed herself before him, facing the man moving in to obey Unnanna’s order.
“Touch me if you dare,” she said. “I am one Filled. And this one I take under my protection.”
The nearest man had raised his hands to sweep her aside. Now he stood as rooted as one of the dead trees, while those behind him retreated a step or two. Unnanna leaned closer from her perch upon the chair.
“Take him!” She lifted her hand as if to strike Tursla in the face, so drive her away. The girl did not flinch.
“I am one Filled,” she repeated.
The Clan Mother’s face twisted with stark rage. “Stand aside,” she hissed as might one of the pallid vipers of the deep muck. “In Volt’s name, I order, stand aside! And if you are truly Filled—”
“Ask it of Mafra!” challenged the girl. “She has said it—”
“Shall it be needful then—” Mafra’s voice rang out from the gathering of the Torfolk, “for a Clan Mother to state this again? Do you aver that on such a thing there can be a false swearing, Unnanna?”
The crowd stirred, fell away to form a lane. Along that Mafra advanced. She did not totter now, but walked as firmly as if she could indeed see what lay before her, bumping into no one, but keeping straight course down that open way until she, too, came to stand before the chair of Volt.
“You take much upon you, Unnanna, very much.”
“You take more!” Unnanna shrilled. “Yes, once you sat here and spoke for Volt, but that day is past. Rule your own clan house as you may until the messenger of Volt comes to call you. But do not try to speak for all in this time.”
“I say no more than is my right, Unnanna. If I say this house daughter is Filled, then do you deny it?”
Unnanna’s mouth worked. “It is your word before Volt, then? You take on you much in that, Mafra. This one came not to the moon dancing—who then filled her?”
“Unnanna—” Mafra raised her right hand. Her fingers moved in the air as if gathering threads of mist and rolling them into a ball. In the silence which now fell between them, she made a tossing motion, as if what she had pulled out of invisibility had indeed substance. Unnanna shrank back until her shoulders touched the high back of the chair.
Suddenly she flung both hands up before her face. From behind that slight defense she sputtered words which had no meaning as far as Tursla was concerned. But that Unnanna was, for the moment, at bay, the girl understood. Turning a little she caught at Simond’s arm which was closest to her.
“Come!” she ordered.
Whether they could win from Volt’s Hall, and if so what she might do then, Tursla had no idea. For the moment all she could think of was to get away from this place where only the slender thread spun by custom had so far protected her.
She did not even look to Simond. But he apparently yielded to her urging, for when she stepped away from Volt’s chair he did in truth come with her. Hoping that he would continue to be able to stay on his feet, Tursla led him forward.
Affric moved into their path. His good arm raised, he balanced a short stabbing spear. Tursla met his gaze squarely and moved closer to Simond. She said no word but her intention was plain. Any attack upon the stranger would be met by her. To raise a weapon against a Filled One—Affric snarled, but he gave way when she did not, just as those others made a path for her, even as they had for Mafra.
Somehow they reached the outer wards of the Hall. Tursla was breathing as fast as if she had run all the way. Where now—? They could not return to the clan houses. Not even Mafra could hold back the weight of outraged custom long enough for Simond to escape. And the trails out from here would be speedily covered.
The trail to the pool, the sea! That flashed into her mind even as if some voice out of the mist had reminded her. For the first time she spoke to her companion:
“We dare not stay here. I do not think even Mafra can long hold Unnanna. We must go on. Can you do it?”
She had noted that he staggered though he kept his feet. Now she could only hope.
“Lady—by the Death of the Kolder—I shall try!”
So they went into the boiling of that strange, heavy mist. She could not even see beyond the length of an outheld hand before her. This was the strongest folly. If they missed the road, the step-tussocks farther on, the marsh itself might claim them and no one would ever know how they passed.
Still she walked, and brought him with her. After a space they went side by side, as she drew his arm about her shoulders, took a measure of his weight. He muttered now and then—broken words without any meaning.
They were well away from the clan-house isle when once again the deep-throated alarm trumpet of the Torfolk aroused echoes across the marsh. Now they could expect pursuit. Would this mist which enclosed them work as well to delay the hunters? She feared because such as Affric knew the outer ways of the Tormarsh far better than she.
On and on, Tursla fought a desire to hurry. For he whom she now half supported could never step up the pace. The surface of the road was still under them. She was, she realized, trusting in an inner guide which was an instinct and something she had never called upon before. Unless it was that same feeling of rightness which had led her this way when she had met Xactol under the moon. Always she listened, after the echoes of the alarm died away, for any sounds which might mean they were closely followed.
There were ploppings from swamp sloughs where small creatures, disturbed by their passing, leapt into hiding; and the hoarse cries and calls of other life. They did not move out of the mist, nor did that grow any thinner.
Time lost any measurement. From one moment to the next Tursla could only hope that they were still well ahead of any pursuers. That she had been proclaimed Filled would save her, for a space, until her false claims would be proven. But she could not hope to protect Simond.
Why did she risk all for this stranger? Tursla could not have answered that. But when she had seen him in that vision which had visited her in Volt’s Hall she had known that, in some way, they were linked. It was as if some geas of power had been laid upon her; there was no avoiding what must be done.
They were nearly to the end of the pavement now. Though she could see nothing, the girl could sense that in an odd way as if the knowledge came to her by a talent which had nothing to do with sight, hearing, or touch. She halted and spoke sharply to her companion, striving to bring him, by the very force of her will, out of the daze of mind in which he walked.
“Simond!” Names had power; the use of his might well awaken him to reality. “Simond!”
His head raised, turned a little so he could eye her. Like the Tormarsh men he was of a height such that they could see each other on a level. His mouth hung a little open; there was a runnel of blood from one temple clotting on his cheek. But in his eyes there was also the look of intelligence.
“We must take to the swamp itself here.” She spoke slowly, pausing between words as one might do with a small child or a person gravely ill. “I cannot hold you—”
He closed his mouth and his jaw line finned. Then he tried to nod, winced, and his eyes blinked in pain.
“What I can do—that I shall,” he promised.
She looked on into the mist. Folly to venture so blindly. But this mist might lie for hours. With the Torfolk aroused they had no hours; they might not even have more than the space of a dozen breaths.
She had as yet heard no sounds of pursuit, for Torfolk were wily and had learned long since to move with practiced silence through their territory.
“You must come directly behind me,” Tursla bit her lip. That they could do this at all she was dubious. But there was no other choice.
He drew himself straight. “Go—I’ll follow,” he told her quietly.
With a last glance at him the girl stepped out into the mist. That inner guide had led her aright; her foot came down on the firmness of the hassocks he could not see. She went slowly, lingering before she took each step to make that he saw her, though for him this blind journey must be much worse, for he did not have the same certainty which was hers.
Step by step she wove a way, trying hard to remember how long this most perilous part of their flight must last. Still he did not call to her, and each time she turned her head she could see him well upright, safely balanced on a foothold.
Then she stumbled out on firm ground, the tenseness of her body leading to pain in her back and shoulders, a warning tremble in her legs. This was, at last, that island like a finger which marked the last part of the way to the pool. With her feet firmly planted she waited once more for him to draw close to her. When he gained that solid stretch of land he fell to his knees and his body swayed from side to side. Swiftly she knelt beside him, steadied him.
There was the sheen of sweat across his face and the clotting blood melted under that. He breathed heavily through his mouth, and his eyes, when he looked at her, were dull. He frowned as if she were difficult to see and he must expend much effort to hold her within his range of vision.
“I—am—near—done—Lady—” he gasped, word by painful word.
“There is no more. From here the footing is good. It is only a little way.”
His mouth stretched in a stark shadow of a smile. “I can—crawl—if—it—not—be—too far—”
“You can walk!” she said firmly. Rising, she stooped and locked both her hands under his nearer armpit. Exerting the full of her remaining strength, Tursla indeed brought him to his feet. Then, pulling his arm once more about her shoulders, she led him on, until they were on the rocks above the silent pool encircled in sand.
Her hands fumbled first with the fastenings of her robe. She moved now in answer to her knowledge of what must be done. The answer slipped into her mind as the maker of dye might measure and add a handful of this, a counter of that, while intent on boiling some fire-cradled mixture. There was custom to be faced here also. Only by a certain ritual might that which she must summon be approached.
Tursla’s robe fell about her feet. Now she stooped once more above the recumbent man, her fingers seeking buckles, the fastening of mail. His eyes opened and he looked up to her, puzzled.
“What—do—?”
“These—” She tugged at the mail where it lay across his shoulders, her other hand picking at the stuff of his breeches. “Off—we must go where these cannot be worn.”
He blinked. “One of the Old Powers?” he asked.
Tursla shrugged. “I know not of your Old Powers. But I know a little of what we can summon here. If—” She put her forefinger to her mouth and bit upon that as she considered a point which had only that moment occurred to her. This place would welcome her, had welcomed her, because she was what she was (and what in truth was she? one small part of her now asked. But the time for any such questioning was not now). Would he also be accepted? There was no way of proving that except to try.
“We must—” She made the decision firm—"do this thing. For I have no other way of escape for you.”
She helped his fumbling hands with the fastenings, the clasps, and belting, until his body with the wide powerful shoulders, the long arms which marked him as of Torblood, was bare. Then she pointed to the rock from which she had leaped that other time.
“Do not tread upon the sand,” she cautioned. “Not while it lays thus. We must leap from there—into the pool.”
“If I can—” but he pulled himself along as she mounted the rock.
Out she leapt and down. Once more that water closed about her. But she moved swiftly away toward the farther side of the pool, clearing the spot where he should land. Then she looked up as she trod water.
“Come!”
His body looked as white as the mist curling behind him. He had climbed onto the stone she had just quitted, and she saw his muscles tense. Then he stretched out his arms and dove, cleaving the water with a loud splash.
Tursla turned on her back and floated as she had before. He was no longer her charge, for she had brought him to what safety her instinct told her was all they could hope for, and the pool had not repelled him.
Tursla, her eyes up to the sky which she could see through ragged patches of mist which was being tattered by the sea wind, began to sing—without words—the notes rising and falling like the call of some bird.
5
AS before at her call that sand stirred. The girl could feel no wind, yet the grains of powdery stuff arose, began to twirl as she had seen them on that night. A pillar was born, now moving faster and faster, each turn making it more solid to the eye. Now came the rounding of a head, the modeling of the body below that.
Still Tursla sang her hymn without words as the vessel was formed to hold that which she summoned. She had half forgotten Simond. If he watched in astonishment he made no sound to disturb the voice spell she wove with the same certainty as her hands could follow a design upon her loom.
At last Xactol stood there. Seeing her waiting, Tursla came from the pool, standing erect on stone from which the forming of that other had swept the last minute grain of sand.
“Sand sister—” The girl raised her arms, but did not quite embrace the other.
“Sister—” echoed the other, in her hissing, sand-sliding voice. “What is your need?” Now her hands came forth also and Tursla’s lay palm down upon them, flesh meeting sand.
“There is this one.” Tursla did not turn her head to look upon Simond in the water still. “He is hunted. They must not find him.”
“This is your choice, sister?” inquired that other. “Think well, for from such a choice may come many things you could have reason to look upon as ills in the future.”
“Ills alone, Xactol?” asked the girl slowly.
“Nothing is altogether ill, sister. But you must think of this—you are now of Tor. If you go forth there will be no return. And those of Tor are not well looked upon by the Outlanders.”
“Of Tor,” Tursla repeated. “Only part of me, sand sister. Only part of me. Even as it is with him. I have the body of Tor but the—”
“Do not say it!” commanded Xactol, interrupting her sharply. “But even if it be so, Tor body may betray you. There is a spell set upon the Marsh boundaries. Torfolk cannot go forth—and live.”
“And this one?”
“He is divided. He was drawn in by the spelling of Tor, for there was that in him which answered to such a call. But his outland blood will help him to win forth again. Do you try to go with him—” Now it was the woman of sand who left unfinished a warning.
“What will happen to me?”
“I do not know. This spelling is none of ours. The Outlanders have their own witcheries and their learning in such is very old and very deep. You would go at your own peril.”
“I stay at even more, sand sister. You know what cloak of safety Mafra dared to throw over me; and, in the way they understand that claim, it is false.”
“The decision is yours. What now would you have of me?”
“Can you buy us time, sand sister? There are those who will trail us to the death.”
“That is so. Their rage and fear reaches out even to this place. It is like the mists which they love.” The woman withdrew her right hand from where it rested under Tursla’s. Now she raised that so that her finger touched the girl’s forehead between and just above her eyes.
“This I give you. Use it as you will,” she said in
a soft voice. “I must go—”
“Will I see you again?” Tursla asked.
“Not if this choice is yours, sister, this choice I read in your thoughts. My door between the worlds is here alone.”
“Then I can’t—” Tursla cried out.
“But you have already chosen, sister. In your spirit’s innermost place that choice lies. Go with peace. Accept what may lie before you with the courage of your spirit. There is a meaning behind what has happened to you. If we don’t see it now, all will be made clear in time. Do as you know how to do.”
Her arms dropped to her sides and Tursla fell once more to her knees, and veiled her eyes with one hand. But the other she rested on one knee, palm up and slightly cupped.
Xactol began to turn, her spin grew ever faster. The fine sand which had formed her whirled out and away as the body became a pillar, and the pillar, in turn, sand falling to the rock. But in Tursla’s hand there remained a small pile of the sand.
When the rest of that substance was once more spread out upon the rim of the pool she arose, cupping her fingers tightly about what she held. Now she hailed Simond.
“You may come forth. We must go on.”
Her head jerked around. There was a sound behind. The hunters may have been questing, at last they had the trail. Like Xactol, she could now sense the rage and fear which drove them. Not even her claim of being Filled would be a protection against what moved them now. She shivered. Never before had emotions other than her own been fed to her in this way. The alienness of this was frightening. But there was no time to hesitate, to learn fear fostered by that hate.
Simond came ashore. He walked more steadily, his head was up, but his attention was not for her, rather on their back trail as if he, too, had picked up some emanation from their pursuers.
Tursla climbed the rock to where she had left her robe. She held it up in one hand and spoke:
“Can you tear from this a portion of cloth? What I carry—” she showed him the fist which grasped the sand-dust—"must be safe until we have need for it.”