by Andre Norton
It was a meal which had to be consumed slowly, risking teeth. And the taste of the stuff was nearly as foul as the smell. Even in the most hungry days of the refuge he had never been reduced to dealing with a noisome mess such as this.
However, the food was not all-important now. It was that suggestion of the guard, threatening his cellmate, which was foremost in his mind as he chewed the hard mouthful he had managed to break off.
He swallowed and spoke: “That was a threat….”
The other was still grinding away at his portion but he nodded.
“Did you see the death stone?” he asked after he had swallowed with an effort. “He is the second such to wear one—in my seeing.”
“Death stone?” Kryn tried to remember the appearance of both men in detail. Then he tensed. Yes! Around the neck of the one who had delivered that warning had rested a thong and sliding across the breast of his rusty mail shirt—one of those amulets! The ones he had seen displayed in the marketplace.
“Out of the old legends.” The other had again immersed a fraction of his loaf in the bowl. “It is said that things such as that—truly serving the dark—were given to those Razkan had reason to tie to his cause. To touch one opens a way between the dark power and the one who wears it, so that the Master can see what happens, even deliver messages thus. I have not the Hands—but I have served Lyr and it is given to those of us who remained loyal to sense even at a distance such devilment.”
Kryn found himself believing the old man.
“There was a man in the marketplace selling such amulets,” he said. “Though I only saw one pass into other hands. It was a woman who took it.”
“A way to breach walls without losing men,” stated the other. “So—they are selling them openly in Kasgar. Now I wonder if Markus has a hand in that. Though anyone who plays with such is a fool beyond all bounds.”
“They looked like the stones the rathhawks wore.” Kryn downed another bite of the stone hard bread.
His companion stopped in the middle of inserting his loaf once more into the bowl.
“What tale is this, young stranger?” There was a force in that demand as if he were a Hold lord in command.
Kryn found no reason not to explain that part of the past. And when he had finished, the other stared straight at that wall which had sprung a door, as if he expected some ill to come through it.
He lifted both his bony hands and rubbed aside the overhang of hair on his forehead, smoothing the grimed skin above his eyes back and forth. It was as if he were trying to bring to the fore some long hid memory.
“It is hard,” he said slowly. “Once, if you can believe it when you look upon me now, I was a keeper of ancient knowledge. That is why Markus took me in his net. But what I could tell him was not what he wanted and he believed that it was stubbornness on my part, so…” He made a small gesture toward his scarred legs.
“What information did this Markus want?” Kryn worked at the bread, twisting it and striving so to soften it a little.
“Old lore, mostly. What I had to say I did, for there was no reason not to repeat what has been written in many chronicles. I think what he truly sought was a Dreamer.”
“Nosh!” If Markus knew that about the girl, he could twist her, even as Kryn worked this hard bread.
“She dreams?” demanded the other.
“She can lay finger to a stone and see…” Kryn answered slowly. “The priestess she followed dreamed— could touch another in a dream. But I know nothing of such powers…” Nor wanted to either, he added silently.
“May Lyr cup Hands over her! Markus will use her whether she will or not. His men wear death stones….”
“She knows those,” Kryn answered. “She dealt with one, as I told you.”
“But not when it was in the possession of an enemy,” the other pointed out. “Markus has access to many secrets—and few of these he shares even with those who believe themselves close to him. I fear for this Nosh….” He looked down at the last of the bread in his hand. “Armsman, Markus will lay a blood debt on you—through the girl if she does not serve him. There was one taken with me….” His head dropped toward his chest as if he no longer wanted to exchange glances with Kryn.
“I was no Dreamer but I had something of power— none could serve Lyr from boyhood and not gain that. I was…” Again he hesitated. “I was of the Ryft by blood, though we had long lost that land to death. And my House was a proud one—I was Gudelph of Far Garth. And she who shared my exile was of the Inner Circle. Her name—remember it, armsman!” There was a sudden fierce note in his cracked voice. “For some day it must be honored before the Great Hands. When they took us for Markus she was quick, quicker than I, and escaped in her own fashion by the blade of one of those who were minded to ravish a priestess. So Markus lost his Dreamer, and he who let her choose death was himself killed—in a most unpleasant way. But remember her name, for she died with pride—she was Darthia.”
Kryn felt anger spark within him. He knew well the fate of women who fell as booty into the hands of armsmen of the dark mold. Nosh—was Nosh to be treated so?
Gudelph might be reading his very thoughts for he answered: “This Nosh need not fear that—her talent means too much to Markus. He will keep her safe as long as he has a use for her.”
“And when he believes he has gotten all he can from her?”
“Then… wish her a blade even as Darthia had.”
Kryn got to his feet and went to the wall wherein was set the ring to which his confining chain was fastened. Had they left him even a bootknife, he might have had a small chance to work at that. There was a crust of rust thick upon the metal but when he grasped the chain in both hands and exerted all his strength he knew that such an effort was hopeless.
Gudelph watched him and when Kryn turned he was shaking his head. “Not even a varge could break free of that.”
“Perhaps, but I am no varge which has only the mind of a beast, I am a man.”
“To Markus you will be a tool at his pleasure. Death is a better portion….”
Gudelph stopped almost in mid-word. His shaggy head turned a fraction as if he were listening. Then he hunched himself over more closely to Kryn.
“They are coming. If it is me they take—yes, if they have me forth it may be for the last time. Listen, then, armsman. You have seen that block which moved…” He pointed with a claw finger to his pile of straw. “If there is a chance for you and I do not return, take that which is hidden there and guard it well. By the grace of Lyr it cannot be detected by those of the dark. And only the dark rules here. So have I managed to keep it. But it must go to one with the talent—your maiden Nosh. Swear to this!”
He caught tight hold on Kryn’s wrist, reaching up from his crippled crouch.
“It may be that I shall also be taken,” Kryn pointed out.
“But—there is always a chance and you are not maimed. Swear!”
The force of that brought an answer from Kryn, a half-unwilling one. “I swear.”
There sounded that grating again and the door opened. The same two guards shouldered through the narrow opening. One held a bared blade and made a circling with its point at Kryn’s middle, sending him back a step or two and holding him at a point while the other guard loosened Gudelph’s chain and yanked it along, dragging the cripple across the floor.
“Rest easy, boy,” said the one holding Kryn at sword point, “your time will come. But Lord Markus wants the old one first.”
The first guard, dragging the cripple like a leashed hound behind him, edged back into whatever passage was left beyond. Now the sword wielder backed, his point still threatening, went through the door.
Kryn stood, fighting his growing rage. He was near as helpless here as he had been in the Temple—one against how many? Gudelph was no fighter—and he was weaponless. But—why had the guard held Kryn under a drawn weapon—did they somehow still fear him, unarmed and chained as he was?
CHAPTER 20
Almost Nosh could believe she was forgotten as the hours passed, night gathered darkness outside her window, and still no one came. Though Sahsan had not provided the restorative Markus had spoken of, her dizziness faded away—mostly because, she came to believe, she had concentrated on the crystals. However, she was hungry and the zark had come to her several times chittering and pulling at her sleeve, doubtless wanting to be fed.
She had early tried the door and discovered that it was locked, but she had expected no different. As time passed boredom caught her. She found herself looking more and more at the wall patterns. As it darkened inside the room some of those lines began to glow with a radiance of their own. Yes, she was more and more aware of some subtle trap.
Finally, aroused by the hungry chittering of the zark, she took the creature to the window from which could still be seen a portion of the roof garden below. Based there were lamps aglow here and there among the potted plants. Pointing in that direction Nosh sought to encourage the zark to go hunting for itself. And again the creature caught the meaning from her thought—at least it squeezed between the bars and vanished.
Whether she would ever see it again she did not know, but at least she had accomplished one thing this day: she had made sure that it had not died under club or sword in Danus’s house. Danus—he must be wondering what had become of her. If he followed the pattern Markus had laid out, he would think her bond broke, gone back to the trail with Kryn to return to Dast.
Kryn—Markus had said he was a fellow prisoner—less well situated. The Hold Heir’s dislike for her would certainly be fed by this last change in his fortunes. He had been dragged into imprisonment because he had done her a favor. Thus, she was indebted to the somewhat sullen young man who resented her talent so strongly.
She seated herself once more in the window chair. There had been much she had learned from Dreen’s books. But there had been gaps in that knowledge which even the priestess had been unable to bridge. Lord Markus had that stone of ill which she had detected for Danus. How great a weapon that might be for one of dark power she could not tell. Did Markus intend to use her talent to find for him other such ominous stones, that he might build an armory of such? She was inclined to believe that to be the truth.
And all she had for defense was a knowledge, faulty because of holes in her learning, and the Fingers. She now had four—there were six more—and they could be scattered afar, even into the plains lands. All which she had to guide her was that one stone would awake at the coming of the others and so reveal its hiding place.
A sound at the door made her turn her head. That portal swung aside and the stolid Sahsan came in, a tray balanced on the flattened palm of one hand, her other hanging loose as if to ward off any attack Nosh might be inclined to make. Though how the woman might believe that she offered any threat, Nosh could not understand. They had taken her knife from her belt while she had been unconscious and she had no other real weapon on her.
Sahsan set down her burden on the bed—which must be meant to serve as a table in this sparsely furnished apartment.
“Eat,” she ordered and went to lean her broad back against the wall, standing like a servant waiting to complete some task.
Nosh was willing enough to obey. It seemed that she had to thank Lord Markus for giving her guesting service, as the food she found in the covered dishes was equal to the best Danus had to offer. She ate heartily, long trained by a sparse diet to make the most of a full meal when it was offered.
However, she found it somewhat intimidating to eat with Sahsan staring at her in that fashion. There was that in the woman’s attitude which kept Nosh from trying to talk. And now she found herself hurrying, bolting down the contents of the last dish so that she would be free of that surveillance.
“Thank you.” She felt as if she must break the lowering silence.
To her surprise Sahsan came away from the wall and stationed herself within touching distance of Nosh. Her right hand swung up, middle fingers and thumb bent under, only fore and little finger pointing outward.
It was a gesture the girl had seen used twice before— by the guards who had come with Danus into Dast, meant to avert the peril of ill power.
Though Sahsan said nothing, she waved that half fist back and forth in front of Nosh’s face, nearly touching the girl. There was an expression on her face at last, that of loathing fed by fear.
Having so warned Nosh off, the woman took up the tray and went back through the doorway, leaving Nosh knowing just how she must be judged by at least one of this household.
There was a chittering cry and a small body squeezed between the bars, took a flying leap, to land on her shoulder. Nosh scratched behind the fluttering frill and the forepaws patted her cheek. At least she had with her one devoted comrade. But she must not forget Kryn.
Deciding that she would not be visited again this night, she readied herself for bed. At the last moment she placed the bag of crystals beneath the fold of cover meant to support her head. There was just a chance— she was reaching into the dark but perhaps by Lyr’s favor she could do it.
Resolutely Nosh stretched out on the bed, the zark curling up beside that fold pillow, and closed her eyes, willing herself into the deep relaxation she had managed to reach only a few times under Dreen’s training—but which she knew had been one of the priestess’s own talents.
Feet relax, legs, hands, arms, body—head—it was difficult. She had to start over twice until she at last felt as if she were suspended in the air, bodiless, calm.
Kryn—she fixed his face in her mind. Kryn?
There was a strange feeling of loss which became freedom. She was no longer in that painted room, no longer even in her body. Kryn…
Stone walls made a corridor before her. There was moisture dripping from those walls, a feeling of… underground! This was below the earth surface. Kryn—a door in that wall. It might be sealed yet not against her questing this night.
And though she knew somehow that there was a nearly black pocket beyond the wall, she could also see even as if she read a gem. Kryn, collared, chained to the wall.
Where in this building lay that corridor and cell? She was back in the hallway and speeding in the other direction. Thought-picture—dream—but she was somehow the master of it—could bend this power to her will. Stairs now, ill lit by a flickering lamp set in a niche close to the head of the flight. Another door and now she passed into a wide hallway, a kind of center wall from which many ways were marked by curtained doors.
Which way lay the center of the power she sensed— that! She sped again, unaware of anybody. There was the room in which she had met Markus, and beyond the way upward to her own chamber. Kryn within the earth, and she in a sky-walled room—they were as far apart as they could be planted.
Nosh breathed deeply and opened her eyes upon those glaring paint-streaked walls. Her hand beneath the fold of the cover closed about the bag of crystals. Four she had, and now she was sure that her talent grew with each she had found.
Seek again? But she needed a guide and Kryn could not provide it this time. Markus was the only answer. Resolutely Nosh returned the crystals to the fold beneath her head. Markus—she pictured him in her mind as detailed as she could.
There was again that snap of release. She flashed along the way she had already studied, down the stairs, but not to the room where she had seen him before. No, this pull was from beyond the wall of that small chamber. A warded place even as the one Danus had but here the wards were stronger—and there was a lick of dark across her path.
In… she pulled on the full force of her strength, refusing to believe that she could not break this as she had the one the merchant kept to protect his riches.
It was hard but she pierced the ward shell at last and was there, and so was Markus. He sat before a table much like the one Danus had used for the judging of stones, and his fingers pushed gems here and there as if he worked some pattern, yet Nosh had no feeling that he us
ed any power. Rather she picked up a sensation of frustration as might haunt a workman who carried in his mind a picture of what he must do and found that he had not the materials for its success.
She dropped her gaze from the man to the jewels with which he toyed and it was as if she had put light to a fire. There were stones there which held power right enough, but not her power. And in that moment Nosh realized danger and cut her tie with man and room.
Again she lay on her bed. Her hand was twisted up under her head and she was so tightly holding that bag of crystals that the pressure of them bruised her flesh. Not again—she felt the ebb of that strength which had served her. Not tonight.
Instead she willed herself into a sleep which was unmarred by any dreams—or if she dreamed, she did not remember upon awakening. And the morning sun was already striking eye-blinding beams from the wall beside which she lay.
The zark was gone but, as she threw off her covers and sat up, it bobbed back through the window and chittered excitedly, jumping up and down on the bed.
When she strove to pet it as she had before, it swiftly backed away and its tail swung out farther into her sight. There was a change in that tail—at its very end now protruded a brilliant red spikelike point. The spike glistened as if it were wet.
The zarks of the Ryft had not been so equipped. What…
It was a sharp cry, almost a scream, which brought her to the window, gazing down at that roof garden. One wearing the tunic of a maidservant lay facedown, with an older woman bending over her.
A second scream brought a man, and, within a moment, two guards.
“Dead…!” The screamer’s voice shrilled up enough for Nosh to hear.
The man had rolled the maid over, held fingers to her throat as if seeking a pulse and then he spoke loud enough to drown the noisy sobs of the woman:
“Dead—no. She still lives. Get her below!” That order went to the guards.