by Andre Norton
There followed a blurring of the walls, of all the things in that room, as if stout stone were melting, flowing away into nothingness. I thought I felt the steps of that stairway crumble and tremble under my weight. And I guess whatever illusion Laidan had set there was now disappearing, and that we might even be either trapped between times or perhaps buried under blocks of stone which the ages between would tumble from their settings.
At last, panting, we stood in the open, with around us only moss-grown and broken stones, a corner of what might once have been an outer wall. Tsali did not relax the hold he had kept on my wrist. His head darted from side to side with a speed my own species could never have equaled as he stood tensely, in such a position of instant alert that I knew that we were far from safe.
"Laidan?" I aimed a single thought at his mind.
"Is not gone—yet—" he confirmed my own fear. "She fled into her own corner of nothingness lest that which she had summoned turn upon her. But there she nurses her hate—which will grow the greater when she learns what has happened elsewhere. And because she has linked with you—then you can furnish her a door through time once more."
"What has happened elsewhere?" I seized upon that part of his warning.
"He whom she would have awakened is at last truly dead. The youth you call Yonan and Uruk of the Ax have wrought their own kind of magic. But in so much will Laidan's hate now be the greater. Though I think she dare not try anything as yet. That recoil of spell drove her too far from us. Only not yet are we finished with her."
He led the way, still keeping hold on me, out of that shell of ancient ruin. Now autumn-withered grass brushed thigh-high about me, near waist-high for him.
"What—why did the spiders—" I began. For though those spinners had done my will and had apparently broken Laidan's sorcery, I did not understand how such a thing could be.
"The balance of all spells," Tsali returned, still more than half of his attention given to what lay about us, even though the last of the tumbled blocks now lay behind, "rests very delicately. What Laidan summoned demanded a blood price—and what she had ready for it." He thought-sent matter-of-factly, as if he had not been that same price. "But when other life came into it, then it was confused, angry—believing that Laidan had sought to engage its aid with so poor an offering. Those which are truly of the Shadow trust no one. Some spells they are forced to obey, but if any bargain is not kept scrupulously, then they are freed from their obedience. Three spiders did not equal one Tsali—" There was wry humor in that which brought a smile to my own lips in spite of that lowering feeling of being naked of defense in a threatening world which had and did burden me as we went.
"Where are we?" I asked. Was this my own time? And could we win back to the Valley?
"To each question," my companion picked up those thoughts very quickly, "I cannot give full answer. But we must go with all caution. Laidan will have a chance to replenish her powers. When she finds that Targi is no more"—his scaled head shook from side to side—"then she will not be appeased except by a full letting of blood. Since she perhaps cannot get at those who killed that which was Targi, she shall be the more bitter against us—"
"Yonan—Uruk?" I made a new question of their names.
Tsali's answer came as if now more important matters were in his mind.
"Their road is their road—they have done well. It is up to us to keep faith with the Valley. We cannot return while Laidan—" his thought seemed to flicker there as if he wanted to veil it from me. But, bitterly, I knew what he would have added and so did so myself:
"While Laidan can lay her spell on me." I made no question of that, for I knew that it was the truth and one which I must face with all my strength of body and spirit.
Chapter Five
We wandered on. Tsali amended his pace somewhat after we had won farther from the ruins. The land was drably brown. Autumn in its last stages had set its imprint here and had emptied the country of all growth, even as frost had drawn subsistence from the grass and weeds, now so dried and sere they rattled faintly in the wind.
There showed the remnants of a road, mainly a block here and there, overcast with drifted soil, or canted upward by the roots of a leafless tree. I stared around, trying to locate some landmark that I could fix on. Though I knew now I could not venture back once more into the Valley—not until I was entirely free of Laidan's influence.
Now I knew hunger and thirst, and I wondered where Tsali would lead us. But I did not ask. Rather I walked as one in a dream, following his urging. Yet inside I sought for what might lie there as a part of my Talent. Against Laidan I had no defense—or so I believed. How long before she dared venture out of hiding, strive to make me again her tool?
Tool?
Somehow my apprehensive thought fastened on that word. Man wrought in two ways, by the vision of his mind (which is not sorcery in itself) and with his hands—or those extensions of his hands which in the dim beginning some thinkers had devised to answer problems they strove to solve.
There were the tools of a landsman—the plow to turn the earth for the receiving of seed, the rake and hoe, the hammer, the saw; others I could not even name. There were, in addition, the tools which I had known—pots one could sling over a fire to withstand heat and cook the food within, the spindle for the making of thread, the needle, the loom—the spoon, if you will, and a short knife, and—
Also, there were other tools—those of war. There was the dart gun—my fingers moved without conscious orders as if to close about one of those weapons, seek its firing button. There were the swords, and lances; men turned more to them in these days when we could no longer fashion the darts. There were shields for defense. And in the Valley, each of the Green People carried at belt one of the force whips which were the children of lightning, tamed and domesticated to their service.
All these were tools—even the mind. But my defeat lay in that I had not been properly taught what might be done with the tool I was born with.
Tsali angled off from the ancient remains of that road, pulling me eastward. I stumbled along at his bidding because I had no other plan to follow.
The day was as ash-gray as the life-sapped grass through which we trod a path. But there were no clouds I could see. Now I caught the sound of running water, and my tongue moved in a mouth which seemed filled with dust. Down an incline which grew even steeper, Tsali pulled me. Only now I was eager in my going for I saw the water, running around rocks and over a stony bed.
I knelt at the stream bank to wash my hands in the flow, which was chill, then made a hollow cup of closely held palms and fingers to raise to my lips. Tsali had gone a little away and crouched to lap with a long tongue. When I had drunk my fill I looked about me with a more conscious gaze. Drink I had had, but there was also the need for food.
Tsali made a sudden lunge with both forelimbs, and arose, water dripping from his scaled skin, a fish wriggling between his claws. He waited until it stilled and flipped it to the ground behind him, then squatted on the bank, his eyes once more intent upon the stream.
Though I had long set my own path of life, that I would not kill a living thing for eating, still now I knew that logic must determine my survival and if Tsali's catch meant life and strength, that I must accept.
But I could not bring myself to touch the dead fish. I could only watch as the Lizard man snaked a second out of its world. He hunted among the drift which bordered the stream, to return with a sharply pointed stick which he used to gut his catch and a stone with which he skinned the bodies.
There was no fire—Tsali would prefer his raw anyway, I knew. I eyed the portion he had set before me with repugnance. But I must live and this was the only food available. I made myself worry loose bits of firm flesh, choke them down. This was no worse than many ordeals a warrior must face. While against Laidan and her world, I had no choice but to go to war.
From overhead came a scream, startling me so I near spit out the last mouthful I had force
d between my lips. I looked up to see a bird, its bill opened to voice another such squawk, impudently planing earthward as if to snatch the food from our hands.
In plumage it was almost as dull-gray as the sky. But around its eyes there were circlings of light, blazing red—which gave a momentary impression that it looked upon us through dots of fire. Its like I had not seen before. And, though I immediately alerted my bruised and battered other sense, I found nothing in mind touch save what it appeared to be—a bird of prey, yes, but one which followed its own fierce nature and no order of the Shadow.
Its cries brought another of its kind. However, as they fed upon the offal Tsali had thrown to one side, I experienced once more that far-off stir of what could not be memory (for I would swear I had never seen these birds before), yet—
The flash of their drab feathered wings, the burning scarlet of the mask about their eyes, grew more and more important to me. I found myself on my feet, my hands forming fists pressed tight against my breasts.
"Ninutra—!" I cried that aloud, my voice at that moment rising even above the incessant crying of the birds.
Ninutra? A person—a place—? Under that need to know, I reluctantly opened my mind and sought, deeper, deeper—recklessly. For such delving I had done before only under the control of the Lady Dahaun. And in such a place and time as now I stood, the peril must be very great. But that I brushed aside. I must know!
Ninutra—there was a hazy image forming. I shut my eyes to the sky, the birds, to the world I knew, turned my sight inward. Ninutra—come! I gave order to that fragment of thought—or memory—what was Ninutra?
There was a feeling of giddiness. The mental image sharpened, I felt breathless, filled with an expectancy in which excitement outweighed, at this moment, both fear and prudence.
A figure—about which held a nebula of flame color to match the patches about the eyes of the birds. If I could only brush away that curtain of brilliant radiance—see the clearer!
Ninutra—a Power—not a place. Of the Shadow? What had I then evoked?
No, that built-in warning which Dahaun's teachings had strengthened, did not come to life. Only neither did I feel the confidence I believed would flow about me if I summoned that which was turned to the Light. Could there then be a third force in this rent and warring land, one which stood apart from both the Dark and the Light—followed some path incomprehensible to both?
I fought to clear my mental sight of that image—or Power. But the light clothed it too well. However, slowly there came from it, as water circles outward when one throws a stone into a pool, a feeling of energy which was warm, growing hotter—hotter—
Maybe I cried out. I know that I shrank within me, strove now to will away that image, but I could not. Heat licked at me, but with it no feeling of anger. I sensed that what Ninutra might be was curious, that it stirred out of some deep contemplation of its own because my feeble summons had disturbed it. Was this one of the adepts?
If so, all which had been its human heritage was long since gone. It was pure force of a kind I did not understand, so alien—
Then that image receded from the fore of my mind. With it went some of the heat. Now it was rather as if I looked down a long aisle to see at the far end a form standing. The red glow drew back into its body (I say "it" for there was no sense of sex in this Power, there was little left but a pure force).
As I looked upon it so I was certain that once "I" (or the inner part of me), now flawed and long buried perhaps by other lives and ages of time, had once had contact with this Force and it had sometimes answered me. But that was long and long ago and the cord between us had frayed into dust—
I opened my eyes upon the dreary world by the stream. The birds were gone. Tsali squatted on the stones, his jewel eyes on me. I found myself whispering still that name:
"Ninutra—" And then I mind-spoke to my companion. "Tsali—what or who is—was that Power?"
His head bobbed, not to me, but as if to the image I had evoked so mistily.
"One of the Great Ones—not born of your blood, nor of mine, nor of any race now living. One of the ones who lingered among us for a space—until those who sought the worst of the Dark arose and tried to summon—"
"But why do I now see this thing?"
"I do not know, Witch maid. Save those birds"—he made a gesture at the sky where I saw the distant wheel of wings—" were once, long and long ago, found in the Place Apart where Ninutra chose to dwell or else maintain some small contact with this world. There were also those there who opened their minds and hearts and at times they spoke of what lay in the future so that even the adepts listened when they were the Mouths of Ninutra."
Tsali—was I ever such a Mouth?"
He shook his head. "Ask me not riddles, Witch maid. Each race and species has its own legends. Do we live again once we have gone to the cleansing fire? And if we so live, can we remember? I do not know."
"I saw—Ninutra—" I answered slowly. "And—" I wrapped my arms about myself. "I was warmed by the Force. I—"
My head came up. Now it was not memory which moved within me, rather a portion of knowledge laid out clear and fresh in my mind, as if there was held in the air before me a scroll fresh from the writing of a keeper of the Deeper Knowledge. I had sought for a long time. And as such a seeker, I had left myself open so that Laidan had been able to enter into that part of me which lay vacant and ready for her sly suggestions. I do not know how my vision had worked upon me in those moments when I had fronted Ninutra, but now some of those empty chambers in my mind were filled.
Tsali stood tall, his crested head erect and swelling in color. I saw those flaps of skin quiver slightly as if his whole body would express emotion.
"Witch maid—what would you now—?"
"I do what must be done," I cut across his half-question, half-protest.
Eyeing the bank of the river under our feet, I found what I sought, a length of stick, drift, brittle and bleached, but as straight as the eye could measure it. This I took up, gripping it steadily. And as if it were a brush to lay on paint in the making of a picture, I drew with it in the air that which lay now in my mind. So it must go, and go, and go—
What I had drawn could be seen there. First only as faint lines. Then the color spreading inward from those lines, to give an opaque solidity. It glowed as a coal on a half-dead night fire might glow. I dropped the stick and stood looking at that hung in the empty air, while from my lips came sounds unlike any words, more resembling the harsh calls of those birds which had once nested in Ninutra's dwelling of force and now had come to scavenge in this much later day the results of Tsali's fishing.
Slowly, I put out my hand. In me was the certainty that once my fingers closed firmly on what hung suspended between the Lizard man and myself, I would have pledged my strength to a struggle I could not understand.
The red of that thing was fading, but its appearance of substance grew sharper and more distinct. Why hesitate? I had really known ever since Ninutra had answered me that this was to be done. I closed my hand upon a hard surface, though that was nearly as dull-gray now as the sky above us. Thus, I resolutely drew from the air what a knowledge I did not yet understand had wrought—a sword, which to the eye still seemed vaguely and mistily edged.
"Thus works the will of Ninutra," I said slowly aloud. "For here is the Sword of Shadow—not of the Dark, nor yet of the Light, but which can be born by either belief. Only now do I claim it—and for the Light!"
I swung the miracle blade through the air, as a warrior would test the balance of a new weapon. For that is truly what I did in that moment. It was not as heavy as the steel I had known, nor did it possess a slashing edge or even a sharp point for thrusting. Its threat lay in other directions.
Tsali's thought came to me. "It is done—" I read into those words a heaviness of forelooking.
"It is done," I agreed. "It was for this that I was born—I think. I am now what I must have been fashioned to be. A
nd let Laidan think of what hand she had in such fashioning."
Chapter Six
The strange sword lost substance slowly even as wisps of mist are banished by the strong sun, though there was no sun over us at that moment. Soon I held—nothing. Still there was now in me the right and learning to call it forth again. I drew a long breath of wonder. My mind—if I could only have a space of peace in which to sort out what had poured without any sequence in my mind. Now I had no guide but my own instinct, that and the sure knowledge that battle lay before me; such a battle as I could not imagine, even though brushed by a Power I had been.
I stared down at my empty hand and I knew that, when I summoned it, that weapon forged in the name of Ninutra would return. But Tsali suddenly looked to our back trail. He hissed as the crest on his head blazed near blood-red.
"Hunters— " his thought reached me in warning.
I was sure that those hunters were not from the Valley, nor perhaps of humankind at all. I sent my own mind questing out, to touch for a bare instant of time, traces of the Dark Ones. Though of what species they were, I dared not probe the deeper to discover.
"They hunt us—" Of that much was I sure.
"They quest for scent; as yet they have not found it," Tsali returned. He flexed his claws and hissed once more.
So—we were hunted. Had Laidan returned to betray us to her evil co-forces, or had our trail been picked up only by chance? The reason for their coming did not matter. It would appear I was not to be given the time I needed to marshal this new awaking of a talent I had never known lay within me.
"Can we seek a hiding place?"
Tsali's head had swung around to a degree no human neck would allow. There were hillocks about us—but the mountain heights lay well behind. And also to those I did not dare to go now. I saw no beacon of blue stone set up anywhere, promising a kind of phantom shelter to those who hated the Dark. We had early been advised that such could be islands of safety in a dubious land.