Tales From High Hallack, Volume 2

by Andre Norton

  Now the archway leading to the courtyard of the larger building was an open gape. Suddenly her staff swung forward at knee level.

  There was a flash of blue flame, a speeding of sparks both to right and left as she took a single step into the courtyard.

  “Here entered no darkness—” She spoke that sentence aloud as if it were a charm—or password—at the same time pushing back the hood that had concealed her face, so displaying a countenance like a statue meant to honor a Queen or Goddess long forgot. While the hair wound tightly about her head was silver, there were no marks of age on her, only that calm which comes to one who has seen much, weighed much, known the pull of duty.

  “Come—” Her staff moved in a small beckoning.

  The two who first advanced into the open moved warily and plainly showed that they were coming against their will. There was a boy, his bony frame loosely covered with a patchwork of badly cured skins cobbled together. Both his hands were so tight on the smaller end of a club that the knuckles showed, nearly piercing the skin. But the girl was not far behind him, and she weighed in her two hands a lump of stone, jagged and large enough to be a good threat.

  There was also movement from the wall behind, wherein that gate was, though the traveler made no attempt to turn or even look over her shoulder. Another boy, near as thin as the taut bowstring arming the weapon he carried, and a girl, with a dagger in hand, sprang from some perch above. A second boy, also with bow in hand, joined them. The three sidled around the stranger, their weapons at ready, their faces showing that they were not ignorant of the lash of fear nor the use of the arms they carried.

  Five—

  “The others of you?” The traveler made a question of that.

  Those arose out of hiding, as if the fact that she asked drew them into sight. Two boys, twins, so alike that one might be the shadow of the other, each armed with a spear of wood, the points of which had been hardened by careful fire charring and rubbing. Another girl, who had no weapon, carried a younger child balanced on her hip.

  Nine. In so much—

  Yet this was not what she had expected. The traveler looked intently from one gaunt face to the next. No, not what she had expected. But in a time of need a weaver must make do with the best there is to hand.

  It was the eldest of the boys, he who had leaped first from the wall, who gave challenge. He was of an age to have been a squire, and he wore a much too large and rusty coat of mail, a belt with an empty sword scabbard bound about it to hold it to his body.

  “Who are you?” His demand was sharp and there were traces of the old high tongue in the inflection of his speech. “How came you here?”

  “She came the sea path—” It was the girl who had lain in hiding with him on the upper wall who spoke then, and her dagger remained unsheathed. However, it was the younger one who carried the baby who spoke, her gaze holding full upon the traveler:

  “Do you not see, Hurten, she is one of Them.”

  They stood in a semicircle around the woman. She could taste fear, yes, but also with that something else, the grim determination that had brought them to this ancient refuge, kept them alive when others had died. They would be stout for the weaving, these nine threads distilled from a broken and ravaged land.

  “I am a seeker,” the woman answered. “If I must answer to a name let it be Lethe.”

  “One of Them,” repeated she who played nursemaid.

  The boy Hurten laughed. “Alana, They are long gone. You see tales in all about you. Lethe—” He hesitated, and then with now more than a touch of the courtly tongue, “Lady, there is nothing here—” Still holding bow, he spread his hands wide apart, as if to encompass all that lay about him. “We mean no harm. We can spare you a place by a fire, a measure of food, a roof against the storm—little more. We have long been but wayfarers also.”

  Lethe raised her head so that the folds of her hood slid even farther back.

  “For your courtesy of roof and hearth, I give thanks. For the goodwill that prompted such offers, may that be returned to you a hundredfold.”

  Alana had allowed the small boy in her arms to wriggle to the ground. Now, before she could seize him back in a protective hold, he trotted forward, one hand outstretched to catch full hold on Lethe’s cloak, supporting himself as he looked up into her face.

  “Maman?” But even as he asked that his small face twisted and he let out a cry. “No—maman—no, maman!”

  Alana swooped to catch him up again and Lethe spoke to her softly:

  “This one is of your blood kin?”

  The girl nodded. “Robar, my brother. He . . . doesn’t understand, Lady. We were with a pilgrim party. The demons caught us by a bridge. Maman, she told me to jump and she threw Robar down to me. We hid in the reeds. He—he didn’t see her again.”

  “But you did?”

  For a moment there was stark horror in Alana’s eyes. Her lips formed a word she did not appear to have the strength to voice. Lethe’s staff raised; the point of it touched ever so lightly on the little girl’s tangle of hair.

  “Fade,” the woman said, “let memory fade, child. There will come a balancing in good time. Now,” she spoke to Hurten, “young sir, I am right ready to make acquaintance of this promised fire and roof of yours.”

  It would seem that any suspicion they had held was already eased. The weapons were no longer tightly in hand, though the children still surrounded her in a body as she walked ahead, well knowing where she was bound, through the doorway that led into the great presence chamber.

  Outside the day was fast darkening into twilight; herein there was light of a sort. Globes set in the walls gave off a faint glimmer as if that which energized them was close to the end of its power. What this dim radiance showed was shadow-cloaked decay.

  Once there had been strips of weaving along the walls. Now there were webs of dwindling threads from which all but the faintest of patterns had been lost. There was a dais on which had stood an impressive line of chairs, tall-backed, carven. Most of those had been hacked apart and, as they passed, the children each went forward and picked up an armload of the broken wood, even small Robar taking up one chunk, as if this were a duty to which all of them were sworn.

  They passed beyond a carven screen through another door and down a hall until they came into another chamber, which gave evidence of being a camping place. Here was a mighty cavern of a fireplace wherein was hung a pot nearly large enough to engulf Robar himself, and about it other tools of cookery.

  A long table, some stools, had survived. Near the hearth to one side was a line of pallets fashioned from the remains of cloaks, patched with small skins, and apparently lumpily stuffed with what might be leaves or grass.

  There was a fire on the hearth, and to that one of the twins added wood from the pile where they had dumped their loads, while the other stirred the sullen glow within to greater life.

  Hurten, having rid himself of his load, turned, hesitated, and then said gruffly:

  “We keep sentinel. It is my duty hour.” And was gone.

  “There have been others—those you must watch for?” Lethe asked.

  “None since the coming of Truas and Tristy.” The oldest girl nodded toward the twins. “They came over mountain three tens ago. But the demons had wrought evil down by the sea—earlier. There was a village there once.

  “Yes,” Lethe agreed, “there was once a village.”

  “It had been taken long ago,” the boy who had borne the club volunteered. “We—we are all from over mountain, Lusta and I—I’m Tyffan, Hilder’s son, of Fourth Bend. We were in the fields with Uncle Stansals. He bid us into th’ wood when there was smoke from th’ village over hill. But”—the boy’s fists clenched and there was a grim set to his young jaw— “he did not come back. We had heard of th’ demons an’ what they did to villages, still we waited in hiding. No one came.”

  The girl Lusta looked into the heart of the now bravely burning fire. “We wanted to go back—
but we saw th’ demons riding an’ we knew we could never make it.”

  Truas, tending the fire, looked over his shoulder. “We’re shepherds and were out after a stray. They saw us but we knew th’ rock trails better. At least those devils cannot fly!”

  “Hurten was shield-bearer for Lord Vergan,” the oldest girl spoke up. “He was hit on the head and left for dead in the pass battle. I am Marsila and he”—she pointed to the younger boy who had been on the wall— “is my brother, Orffa. Our father was marshal of the Outermost Tower. We were hunting when they came and so were cut off—”

  “How came you together?” Lethe asked.

  Marsila glanced around as if for the first time she herself had faced that question.

  “Lady, we met by chance. Alana and Robar, they fled to Bors Wood and there met with Lusta and Tyffan. And Orffa and I, we found Hurten and stayed with him until his head was healed, then we, too, took the wood road. There was, we hoped, a chance that Skylan or Varon might have held—only, when we met the others, Alana said the demons had swept between to cut us off.”

  “You decided then to come over the mountain? Why?” Lethe must know—already she sought the beginning of the pattern she had sensed. There was one or she, the weaver, would not have been summoned.

  It was Lusta who answered in a low voice, her head down as if she must confess some fault. “The dreams, Lady. Always the same dream an’ each time I saw clearer.”

  “Lusta’s gran was Wise,” Tyffan broke in. “All of Fourth Bend thought she had part of the gift, too. Lusta dreamed us here.”

  Marsila smiled and put her arm around the younger girl’s shoulders. “Not many have the Wise gifts now, but we had records of such at the Tower and—well—we had no other place to go, so why not trust a dream?”

  Her face became bleak again. “At least the demons did not try the mountains then. When we found this place we knew that fortune favored us a little. There is farm stock running wild in the valley, even some patches of grain we are harvesting, and fruit. Also—this place, it seemed somehow as if we were meant to shelter here.”

  “Dreams led!” Lethe moved to Lusta and, as she had with Alana, touched the girl’s head with her staff. There was a spark of blue. Lethe smiled.

  “Dreamer, you have wrought well. Good will follow in a way now past your understanding.”

  Then she drew back to survey them all, her gaze resting for a long moment on each face. So this was indeed the beginning.

  “Truly,” she spoke, “this is the place for such as you.”

  These were from very different beddings, these seedlings, yet their roots were the same. That had been clear to her from their first sighting. Their hair, tangled, unkempt, was of the same pale silver blond, their eyes shared the same clear sword-blade gray. Yes, the old stock had survived after all, though the seed might have been wide flung.

  Lethe shifted the bag she had carried from her shoulder to the top of the table. She loosed the string and reached within, drawing forth a packet of dried meat, another of herbs.

  There was already something steaming in the great pot; she was certain that they had not lost the chance for a day’s hunting. Now she shook forth her own offerings and added them to that. They watched her closely.

  “Traveler’s fare, but it may add to your store as is the custom,” she told them.

  Marsila had watched her very closely. Now, in spite of the fact that she wore breeches patched with small skins, she made the curtsy of a daughter of a House in formal acknowledgment.

  “If this be your kin, hold our thanks for shelter.” Still there was a measure of questioning in her eyes.

  However, it was Alana who spoke, and she did so almost with accusation. “You are one of Them, so this is your place.”

  “What do you know of Them, child?” Lethe had shrugged off her cloak. Her breeches and jerkin were of a dull green not unlike the walls about her.

  “They had strange powers,” Alana answered. She reached out and drew Robar to her. “Powers which gave them rule. None could stand against them—like the demons!”

  Lethe had taken a ladle from a hook in the hearth wall. Now she looked directly at the small girl. “Powers to take rule like the demons—that is what they say of us now?”

  For a long moment Alana was silent and then she flushed. “They—They did not hunt people—They did not . . . kill—”

  “They were guardians!” Marsila broke in. “When They were in the land there could be no death there.”

  “Why did They go?” One of the twins sat back on his heels.

  “When They had strong keeps like this, if They ruled th’ land, what did They do?”

  Lethe stirred the pot. She did not look around.

  “The land is old, many have been rooted here. When years pass another blood comes to masterage.”

  For the first time Orffa spoke: “So this is the time for demons to rule, is that what you tell us?” There was a fierce challenge in his voice and he was scowling.

  “Demons?” Lethe looked to the fire and the steaming pot. “Yes, to this land at this hour, they are demons.”

  Marsila moved closer. “How else can we see them? Tell me that, once guardian!”

  Lethe sighed. “No way else.” She turned to face the children. Children? Save for Robar, there was little childlike in those faces ringing her in. They had seen much, and none of it good. But that was the working of the Way, the spinning of the weaver’s threads. Standing in shadow behind each was the faint promise of what might be.

  “Why have you come? Will others follow you?” demanded Orffa.

  “I have come because I was summoned. I alone.” She gave them the truth. “The kinblood have passed to another place, only it would seem that I am tied to this day.”

  “That is magic.” Tyffan pointed to her staff where she had laid it across the table. “But you’re one against many. Those raiders hold th’ land from Far River to th’ Sea, from Smore Mount Mouth to Deep Yen.”

  Lethe looked directly at him. His mop of hair reached barely above her shoulder, but his sturdy legs were planted a little apart, and he stood with his fist-curled hands on his hips as if in defiance.

  “You speak as one who knows,” she commented.

  To her mild surprise he grinned. “Not claimin’ magic, mistress, that. You find us here now, that’s not sayin’ as how we is always here. We has our ways o’ learnin’. What chances over mountain—and it ain’t by dreams.”

  Lethe pursed her lips. Looking at him she could believe in what he hinted. This one had stated that he was land-born, land-trained; and the young learned swiftly when there was need.

  “So you have used your eyes and ears to good purpose.” He nodded briskly. “Well enough. And what have you learned with your non-magic?”

  Orffa pushed past the younger boy. “Enough,” he snapped.

  “And the demons have not disturbed you here?” she asked.

  “There was a scouting company,” Marsila answered. “They followed the sea road inward but there came a sudden rockfall which closed that. At night they camped near that . . .”

  Tyffan grinned widely and the twins echoed his expression.

  “They didn’t like what they heard nor saw. We didn’t either, but then we guessed as how it weren’t meant for th’ likes of us. They ran—an’ some o’ them went into th’ river. Hurten, he brought down one with an arrow—he’s a champion shot—an’ we bashed a couple with rocks. Wanted to get their weapons, but river took ‘em an’ we didn’t dare go after ‘em. They ain’t been this way since.”

  “It wasn’t us, not all of it,” Marsila said slowly. “There was something there—we felt it but it did not try to get us—only them.”

  Lusta held to the other girl’s arm. “The rocks made shadow things,” she said.

  “So the old guards hold somewhat,” Lethe commented. “But those were never meant to stand against any who meant no harm. This”—she gestured with her hand— “was once a place of
peace under the sign of Earth and Air, Flame, and Water.

  “Now,” she pointed to the pot, “shall we eat? Bodies need food, even as minds need knowledge.”

  But her thoughts were caught in another pattern. Here was a mixture which only danger could have, and had, cemented—delvers, shepherds, soldier and lordly blood all come by chance together and seemingly already united. Chance? No, she thought she dared already believe not.

  They brought bowls and marshalled in line. Some had battered metal, time-darkened, which they must have found here; there were cups shaped of bark pinned together with pegs. Lethe tendered the ladle to Marsila and watched the girl dip careful portions to each. One over she set aside and Lethe took it up.

  “For your sentinel? Let this be my service.”

  Before any protested she headed out of the great kitchen. The dark had deepened despite the globe light, but she walked with the sure step of one who well knew the way, just as, once without, she climbed easily to the wall top.

  “No need for that.” She had heard rather than seen the draw of a belt knife, could picture well the spare young body half acrouch. “Your supper, sentinel, also your relief.”

  Shadow moved out of shadows. In her left hand the staff diffused a pale radiance. Though Hurten reached for the bowl, the dagger was still drawn. However, Lethe took no notice of his wariness. Instead she had swept the staff along the outer edge of the parapet that sheltered them a little from the incoming sea wind.

  “So are guards set, Hurten. I promise you that there need be no watch on duty this night. And there is much we all have to talk of . . .”

  She could sense the edge of the resentment that was rightfully his. What leadership this group had known in the arts of war must have come from him.

  “Shield Chief,” deliberately Lethe used the old tongue, “there is a time for the blooding of blades and a time for planning, that those blades may be better sharpened for the blooding.”