by Andre Norton
There was a drift of mistlike grey crossing her mind. Nosh pushed through it. Once more she swung free of body but this time she found herself right outside the door Sahsan had so abruptly slammed. The armswoman herself leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs which were the only path out of the room-prison.
So clear was Sahsan to Nosh that she fully expected the armswoman to sight her in return. But when the girl gathered the strength to will herself forward she appeared to waft by Sahsan as if she had less substance even than a shadow.
Down the stairs, she knew her goal but she was delaying the reaching of it, mastering as best she could the way she must go. There was another guard stationed before that way which led to the cells. However, save for him and Sahsan she saw no one else.
The doors were shut—some of them warded, she sensed as she wafted past. Then she was at the one which closed upon Kryn’s cell. Yes, a ward here also. But her thought broke forward as if she put out a hand to tear a curtain and she was again in that dark prison.
Kryn was stretched out on one of the bundles of decaying straw, his arms flung up to cover his eyes. If he only had Dreen’s power—if they could meet on this strange plane which was not of this world, and yet in it.
At least he seemed unharmed—there had been no mutilation, no signs that he had been professionally and roughly handled. His arm moved, fell into place at his side. His eyes were open and slowly his head turned in her direction.
Nosh knew a leap of hope. Could he at least sense that he was not entirely alone? She was no adept, this was a hard struggle and—she could hold no longer. This time there was no lengthy passage back to mark the way, the second self of her was snuffed as one might put out a reed dish lamp. She was aware instantly of the bed beneath her, of a patting on her hand where it held the crystals in place. Nosh opened her eyes to see the head of the zark bent so that its lizard nose nearly touched hers. And she could not help but think there was a hint of concern in the creature’s wide stare.
Kryn lay looking out into the dim light of the cell— which came from the two holes no larger than would allow a man’s arm to reach through just below where ceiling met wall. They had not brought Gudelph back. Judging by all logic the priest must be dead. Which was perhaps what any man would have chosen rather than exist as he had in Markus’s hold.
He had thought over the same mental paths until his head ached. Surely this lord knew that Kryn had been trying to find him, that he had a purpose….
Not any longer. The purse he had guarded so carefully was gone. Markus had the pay whether or not he delivered the goods. There was Nosh… Markus wanted the girl. Her cherished talent had brought her here—and him with her. To what purpose?
Those death stones—sold openly in the marketplace—one worn by a guard here. Kryn was almost certain they were none of Markus’s work. Which meant there was a force beyond Markus, also inimical to the ones Markus preyed upon. That story he had heard of the embassy from Valcur… He stared down at his hands. Something stirred here—Danus had known it. What was abroad in this city?
To be trapped here where he could not learn even the face of danger…! He had had to learn patience over the past years—now his shield of it was wearing very thin. There were too many hints and no answers save guesses.
Nosh—his thoughts kept swinging back to her. That thing she had found in the mask above the entrance to the shrine—he found himself now rubbing one hand with the other. He had caught that piece of crystal that the zark had twisted free after he had lent his own weight to the business. Now there was only a faint ripple of memory. It had been warm to his touch, had left, for a very brief moment, a strange tingling in his flesh. A thing of power—Kryn shook his head in denial. Not for him….
He called upon memory to exile that uneasiness from his mind. In the past he had heard plenty of hidden intrigues between House and House. There were tall tales told of subtle—and sometimes outright hostile moves made by the Lords to advance some ambition or greed.
In the immediate past it had been the Temple—with Valcur as the leader—cutting away at the old rulers of the land and bringing any strong House down. The same game might well be in play here.
Danus’s comments on the sudden deaths of people in the hierarchy of command—those amulets on open sale… Yes, there could well be a game under way in Kasgar. Kryn rubbed sword-callused hand against hand. This was like being trapped in a bog across which there were hidden roads but to which he had no guide.
Those at Dast must be his first concern—yet here he was trapped like a greedy insect in congealed juice….
He had no way of telling time save that the light from those holes grew more or less. At night there was left the faintest of glows as if a lamp was set close enough to provide that. But he had a feeling that Gudelph had been away too long, that what the priest had hinted at had come—the man of Lyr was dead.
Kryn had made close inspection of his chain. The collar galling his neck could not be loosened, he did not even feel-find any catch in it. The chain he passed through his hands link by link, testing the durability of each with all his strength. That wall ring which was coated with rust was equally strong, though flakes of the rust rubbed away in his fingers. He had been left nothing to use as a tool.
Kryn brought his fists down on his knees in savage blows. To wait tamely here—be subjected perhaps to that horror Gudelph had known—! He refused to believe in the help of any powers—there was none which would answer to any petition from such as he.
What good had Lyr done for Gudelph?
Kryn stared across the narrow cell to that other heap of moldering straw. That hiding place under it—what it held… But if it were any power talisman, why had Gudelph remained here? An amulet which promised and did not give—as were all the devices of “gods.”
However, he crossed the space to that other bed. The chain allowed him barely enough length to reach a spot from which he could strain out with his arms far enough for his hands to probe that hiding place. Working awkwardly against the choking pressure of the collar, he managed to do as Gudelph and bring out of that pocket the small bundle he had seen the other cradle in his hand.
It was well tied, with even a sealing like gum smeared over it—small—certainly no weapon. Yet the old priest had thought it worth concealing. Kryn weighed it in his hand, pinched it here and there to try and discover what lay within that wrapping of rag sealed over with a hardened substance.
At length he thrust it into the fore of his tunic. And then threw himself once more onto the bed. His body was tense, every nerve and muscle in him called for action. Only that patience he had so vigorously clung to back in the Temple of the One was his barrier against the need to do SOMETHING!
Nosh moved her hands slowly back and forth, stretching the fingers apart, bringing them together again as a fighter might exercise with her chosen weapon. The zark crouched beside her, its bright eyes closed, she thought that it slept. Escape… but how?
When? Certainly not by day when she could be easily sighted. And—not alone! She knew now that she could not leave Kryn here to suffer as had that dead man they had shown her.
By the sky outside her window it was dimming into twilight. Long ago she had tested those bars and found them firm set past any loosening.
To await on Markus’s will sapped her own spirit and energy, yet she could see no other path for her now.
There was a small chitter, the zark was awake, reached up with a forepaw to smooth the side of her hand.
“Little one.” Nosh caressed that upraised head. “I do not know how deadly is that weapon of yours but perhaps it may be one to serve us both—if I could only make you understand….”
Her half whisper was cut off by a sound from the door. Swiftly she laid a hand on that small scaled body, drew it toward her, and whipped up the edge of her skirt, pushing it as before into that ragged pocket she had made for its transport.
As if it understood perfectly what she wish
ed the creature burrowed into hiding, and she adjusted her belt as best she could so that its small weight would not cause a suspicious sagging.
Again it was the armswoman who gestured her out.
“Come.” She was scowling, and Nosh wondered what anger stirred in that hulking body and how it might touch her.
Once more they descended through the house and came to that chamber where in the morning she had sorted the jewels for Markus. And once more the creeper lord sat waiting her, spread before him on the tabletop those gems of ill omen which seemed, when she glanced at them, to pulsate with a dark intensity.
“We have a task waiting,” he greeted her with that forbidding smile. “I have had further information concerning your talent—which is greater than it seems. You read a riddle for Danus which saved him and his caravan…. Now you will serve me to an even greater extent. Sit!”
Nosh dropped on the stool. Against her breast, within her bodice, the fingers were warming—warning…. She did not know what he would have her do but that it was of the dark she did not doubt.
“Each of these”—he pointed to the gems before him—“hold power, as you have testified. Very well, if one is powerful, cannot all be made to act together, thus increasing such power? And can that power not be aimed?” He was leaning forward, and the tip of his tongue followed that last word outward, running across his lower lip as one who savored some treat to come.
“Lord, I do not know,” she held her voice level. That answer she had received to her dealing with the message stone was alive in her memory. Perhaps it would do only good to attract here that same return of blasting energy.
“You do not know,” he repeated in a voice which was hardly more than a purr. “So—now we shall discover. Unite these stones, Talented One, bind them one to the other. This night I have work for such a weapon.”
Then he stood up. “I have heard also from the chatter of others, repeating strange tales, that there may be a backlash from such an experience. If so, it is best that you do this alone. But you will do it!” He leaned down like a rathhawk swooping and his fingers bit into her shoulder. “You were shown this day what happens to those who do not serve me….” Now his lips appeared to flatten and show his teeth….
“You will combine this power and you will aim it,”— from one of the long sleeves of his robe he drew a flat plaque as wide as his palm, flipping it onto the table near the gems—“at this one—Lathia!”
She found herself looking at a painted representation of a woman, not as stylized as those illustrations in Dreen’s books, but with an air of life to it as if some essence of the other had been trapped by the painter and so imprisoned.
He turned a little and clicked his ward opener. Sahsan stood in that doorway.
“This one,”—Markus indicated Nosh—“does my work. Make sure that she does so.”
How could the armswoman make certain, Nosh wondered. Sahsan had given no indication that she had any talent for sensing the rise of power. But now Markus was setting something else on the table, a small globe within which swirled a greyish mist. He looked again to the girl.
“This is something from afar, Talented One, so perhaps not even known to you. But it will register what you do here. Behold…” He rolled it a fraction nearer one of the ominous gems. The swirl within began to change in shade—there was a touch of dull red.
“Lathia—” He gave another of those wakwolf grins. “I want her weakened, made ready for my challenge of her power. This you will do!”
He was gone. Nosh was aware that Sahsan had come to stand behind her, looming over her. And she did not doubt that the armswoman was alert to every move she would make.
But this was madness—she had no learning which would release disaster from these stones. He was crediting her with far more power than she had dreamed of—more than Dreen herself might have raised.
Now—this was the thin chance she had waited for— had unconsciously perhaps summoned by will, if one’s will could act upon another’s. Under her skirt her knee moved, nudging the zark. At the same time she leaned forward, seeming to study the stones as one might the pieces of a game.
How much would her wishes reach the creature she carried hidden? She could not tell—she could only hope. It had displayed an unusual ease in communication during these past days.
Nosh reached out and took up the picture, holding it in her hand as she felt the zark wriggle from the pocket. She spoke, stringing meaningless words together as she would a chant of invocation. The weight in her skirt was gone.
Then Sahsan staggered back and Nosh turned. The armswoman’s skin was a dull gray, her eyes rolled up in her head. And the zark, its weapon waving at tall point, was leaping to cling to Nosh’s skirt once again.
Nosh was on her feet. Sahsan had crashed down. The girl froze, waited for any sound from without. That did not come. She turned back and caught up Bringhope— Kryn would not, she knew, leave that behind.
The zark had sheathed its weapon, and had climbed to her shoulder. Dragged a little to one side by the weight of the sword, Nosh walked forward straight through the wards. There was no alarm—apparently Markus felt that they were enough to keep safety.
She crept through the outer rooms—slipped along the wall of the hall beyond. There was another guard, one of the two men who had been at the table earlier. Nosh dodged back into a doorway. She put her hand to her shoulder and the zark clung to it. The creature dropped from her hold to the floor and made such a quick dash forward the eye could hardly follow.
The guard gave a start, raised his hand as if to slap at some portion of his leg, and then, as Sahsan had done, crumpled down.
Nosh darted forward to that door. Wards there, too…. She held the sword in both hands and plunged forward, feeling the resistance of the unseen lessen as she broke the barrier to the door of the cell. Her hand slammed down on the simple bar and then she was through, facing Kryn scrambling to his feet and looking at her wide-eyed.
CHAPTER 22
“What…” He found his voice but she closed on him, looking to the chain which held him. Putting one hand to the slack of the link, she gave a jerk.
“No—the sword!” His hands were both out to grasp the weapon she was holding against her. As he drew the blade free she understood. But Nosh doubted that it was strong enough to break that chain she had just tested.
“Stand here.” He motioned to the bed pile. “Hold the chain up to raise the ring, and hold it taut.”
She obeyed. He was surveying ring and chain with narrowed eyes and now he raised Bringhope and delivered a forceful downward blow. There was the clang of metal against metal and the chain dropped; Nosh was sent to her knees under the strength of that blow against the links she had tried to hold up and steady. But there was a broken link by the ring and the rest of the chain swung back and free against Kryn as he staggered backward.
“Come!” It was her turn to give orders and the chance they faced now she was not sure was in their favor. She could pass through the wards—but what of Kryn? She could only hope that the gained strength of the Fingers could aid them both.
The cell door was open as she had left it and then they were at the wards. “Your hand…” Nosh grabbed at his wrist as he shifted the sword to a one-handed hold.
Through, she was through, but her arm stretched back and Kryn was left behind. Then as her hold on him tightened and she strove to gather all the strength she could, he swept out with the sword against the unseen barrier. The weapon came up flat against what could not be pierced but Kryn stumbled on, knocked off-balance by that unsuccessful blow. Then the ward gave and they were together in the hall beside the downed guard.
From the side of the armsman the zark flashed and sprang, seizing on the folds of her skirt and climbing as if Nosh were some stone such as those of the valley used for perches. It gained her shoulder again.
Kryn looked down at the man and then to her. His expression turned to one of wariness as he sighted the zark.
“It will not harm us,” she told him in haste. But there was another problem now facing them. They were free of their individual prisons, yes. Kryn was tucking the dangling end of the chain still depending from his collar into his belt, so that it would not clang against the walls. But how were they to be free of this house?
Kryn knelt beside the guard. “Not dead,” he reported. Then with a turn of his head he directed her attention down the hall. There was another door on the opposite side near to where the stairs ended.
“Is that warded?” he asked.
Nosh ran to it, tested, turned and shook her head, hoping he could see that by the light which was so feeble. He gestured her back.
“Take him there.” He was keeping speech to a minimum as if he needed all his strength.
Getting to his feet he hooked hands in the armpits of the limp body and Nosh hurried back to pick up the dragging feet. The man was a hefty burden and she, for one, was breathing hard when they dumped him before one of the doors. Kryn flipped up what seemed to be a simple latch and they were through into a dense dark, drawing the armsman with them.
Kryn did not close the door at once; instead he held it open to draw within what light could penetrate this far. Then he made a quick stride to the left and Nosh saw that he was fumbling with what looked like a travel lantern. There was a small click, a spark enlarged to light in the dark, and then a glow. Instantly Nosh brought the door closed and they both looked around.
This was not another prison cell but rather appeared to be a warehouse or supply chamber of large proportions, for the lantern light did not reach far enough to pick up a wall, only illuminated piles of boxes and chests.
Kryn knelt once more beside the armsman and it was plain that he was striving to free the man of his mail shirt, his knife belt, and whatever other weapons he might carry. The lamplight caught on something else— that spot of red sliding back and forth across the mail Kryn worked to loose.