by Andre Norton
“Let me go, touch me not now,” she told Rothar. “I seek that which must be found, and your slightest touch will confuse my course.”
Slowly she turned away from the wind, facing to her right.
“What lies before me?”
“The Captain’s bed, lady.”
Step by step she approached in that direction. The sniff of evil was stronger. What it might be she had no idea, for though Ingvarna had taught her to distinguish that which was of the shadow, she knew little more. The fetid odor of some black sorcery was rank.
“The bed,” she ordered now, “do you strip off its coverings. If you find aught which is strange, be sure you do not touch it with your hand. Rather, use something of iron, if you can, to pluck it forth. And then throw it quickly into the sea.”
He asked no questions, but she could hear his hurried movements. And then—
“There is a—a root, most misshapen. It lies under the pillow, lady.”
“Wait!” Perhaps the whole of that bed place was now impregnated by what evil had been introduced. To destroy its source might not be enough. “Bundle all—pillow, coverings—give them to the sea!” she ordered. “Let me back then into the treasure cubby, and if there be time, make the bed anew. I do not know what manner of ensorcelment has been wrought here. But it is of the Shadow, not of the Power. Take care that you keep yourself also from contact with it.”
“That will I do of a certainty, lady!” His answer was fervent. “Stand well back, I will get rid of this.”
She retreated, hearing the click of his sea boots on the planking as he passed her toward the source of the sea wind.
“Now"—he was back at her side—"I shall see you safe, lady. Or as safe as you can be until the Captain comes to his mind once more and Vidruth be removed from command.”
His hands closed upon her, lowered her back down into the cubby. She listened intently. But if he closed that trap door, and she was sure that he had, it had fallen into place without a sound.
3
SHE had not long to wait, for the opening on the floor level of the cubby was opened and she recognized Vidruth’s step.
“Listen well, girl,” he commanded. “Usturt is an island, one of a string of islands, reaching from the shore. At one time, they may all have been a part of the coast. But now some are only bare rock with such a wash of sea around them as no man can pass. So think not that you have any way of leaving save by our favor. We shall set you ashore and keep down-sea thereafter. But when you have learned what we wish, then return to the shore and there leave three stones piled one upon another. . . .”
To Dairine, his arrangements seemed to be not well thought out. But she questioned nothing. What small hopes she had she could only pin on Rothar and the Captain. Vidruth’s hand tightened about her arm. He drew her to a ladder, set her hands upon its rungs.
“Climb, girl. And you had better play well your part. There are those among us who fear witchcraft and say there is only one certain way to disarm a witch. That, you have heard. . . .”
She shivered. Yes, there was a way to destroy a witch—by enjoying the woman. All men were well versed in that outrage.
“Rothar shall set you ashore,” Vidruth continued. “And we shall watch your going. Think not to talk him out of his orders, for there is no place elsewhere. . . .”
Dairine was on the deck now, heard the murmur of voices. Where stood Captain Ortis? Vidruth gave her no time to try to sort out the sounds. Under his compelling, the girl came up against the rail. Then Vidruth caught her up as if she were a small child and lowered her until other hands steadied her, easing her down upon a plank seat.
Around her was the close murmur of the sea, and she could hear the grate of oars within their locks.
“Do you believe me witch, Rothar?” she asked.
“Lady, I do not know what you are. But that you are in danger with Vidruth, that I can swear to. If the Captain comes into his own mind again—”
He broke off and then continued. “Through the war, I have come to hate any act which makes man or woman unwillingly serve another. There is no future before me, for I am wastage of war, having no trade save that of killing. Therefore, I will do what I may to help you and the Captain.”
“You are young to speak so, of being without a future.”
“I am old in killing,” he told her bleakly. “And of such men as Vidruth leads, I have seen amany. Lady, we are near the shore. And those on the ship watch us well. When I set you on the beach, take forth carefully what you find in my belt, hide it from all. It is a knife made of the best star-steel, fashioned by the hand of Hamraker himself. Not mine in truth, but the Captain’s.”
Dairine did as he ordered when he carried her from the sand-smoothing waves to the drier reach beyond. Memory stirred in her. Once there had been such a knife and—firelight had glinted on it—
“No!” she cried aloud to deny memory. Yet her fingers remained curled about that hilt.
“Yes!” He might not understand her inner turmoil, but his hold on her tightened. “You must keep it.
“Walk straight ahead,” he told her. “Those on the ship have the great dart caster trained on you. There are trees ahead—within those, there the spiders are said to be. But, lady, though I dare not move openly in your aid now, for that would bring me quick death to no purpose, yet what I can do, that I shall.”
Uncertainty held Dairine. She felt naked in this open which she did not know. Yet she must not appear concerned to those now watching her. She had the riband of silk looped about her wrist. And within the folds of her skirt, she held also the knife. Turning her head slightly from one side to another, she listened with full concentration, walking slowly forward against the drag of the sand.
Coolness ahead—she must be entering the shade of the trees. She put out her hand, felt rough bark, slid around it, setting the trunk as a barrier between that dart thrower of which Rothar had warned, and her back.
Then she knew, as well as if her eyes could tell her, that it was not alone the ship’s company who watched. She was moving under observation of someone—or something—else. Dairine used her sense of perception, groping as she did physically with her hands, seeking what that might be.
A moment later she gasped with shock. A strong mental force burst through the mind door she had opened. She felt as if she had been caught in a giant hand, raised to the level of huge eyes which surveyed her outwardly and inwardly.
Dairine swayed, shaken by that nonphysical touch, search. It was nonhuman. Yet she realized, as she fought to recover her calm, it was not inimical—yet.
“Why come you here, female?”
In Dairine’s mind, the word shaped clearly. Still, she could build up no mental picture of her questioner. She faced a little to the right, held out the hand about which she had bound the riband.
“I seek those able to weave such beauty,” she replied aloud, wondering if they could hear, or understand, her words.
Again that sensation of being examined, weighed. But this time she stood quiet, unshaken under it.
“You think this thing beautiful?” Again the mind question.
“Yes.”
“But you have not eyes to see it.” Harshly that came, as if to deny her claim.
“I have not eyes, that is the truth. But my fingers have been taught to serve me in their place. I, too, weave, but only after the manner of my own people.”
Silence, then a touch on the back of her hand, so light and fleeting Dairine was not even sure she had really felt it. The girl waited, for she understood this was a place with its own manner of barriers, and she might continue only if those here allowed it.
Again a touch on her hand, but this time it lingered. Dairine made no attempt to grasp, though she tried to read through that contact. And saw only bright whirls.
“Female, you may play with threads after the crude fashion of your kind. But call yourself not a weaver!” There was arrogance in that.
“C
an one such as I learn the craft as your people know it?”
“With hands as clumsy as this?” There came a hard rap across her knuckles. “Not possible. Still, you may come, see with your fingers what you cannot hope to equal.”
The touch slid across her hand, became a sinewy band about her wrist as tight as the cuff of a slave chain. Dairine knew now there was no escape. She was being drawn forward. Oddly, though she could not read the nature of the creature who guided her, there flowed from its contact a sharp mental picture of the way ahead.
This was a twisted path. Sometimes she brushed against the trunks of trees; again she sensed they crossed clear areas—until she was no longer sure in what direction the beach now lay.
At last they came into an open space where there was some protection other than branches and leaves overhead to ward off the sun. Her ears picked up small, scuttling sounds.
“Put out your hand!” commanded her guide. “Describe what you find before you.”
Dairine obeyed, moving slowly and with caution. Her fingers found a solid substance, not unlike the barked tree trunk. Only, looped about it, warp lines of thread were stretched taut. She transferred her touch to those lines, tracing them to another bar. Then she knelt, fingering the length of cloth. This was smooth as the riband. A single thread led away—that must be fastened to the shuttle of the weaver.
“So beautiful!”
For the first time since Ingvarna had trained her, Dairine longed for actual sight. The need to see burned in her. Color—somehow as she touched the woven strip, the fact of color came to her. Yet all she could “read” of the weaver was a blur of narrow, nonhuman hands.
“Can you do such, you who claim to be a weaver?”
“Not this fine.” Dairine answered with the truth. “This is beyond anything I have ever touched.”
“Hold out your hands!” This time Dairine sensed that the order had not come from her guide, but another.
The girl spread out her fingers, palms up. There followed a feather-light tracing on her skin along each finger, gliding across her palm.
“It is true. You are a weaver—after a fashion. Why do you come to us, female?”
“Because I would learn.” Dairine drew a deep breath. What did Vidruth’s idea of trade matter now? This was of greater importance. “I would learn from those who can do this.”
She continued to kneel, waiting. There was communication going on about her, but none she could catch and hold with either eye or mind. If these weavers would shelter her, what need had she to return to Vidruth? Rothar’s plans? Those were too uncertain. If she won the good will of these, she had shelter against the evil of her own kind.
“Your hands are clumsy, you have no eyes.” That was like a whiplash. “Let us see what you can do, female.”
A shuttle was thrust into her hand. She examined it carefully by touch. Its shape was slightly different from those she had always known, but she could use it. Then she surveyed, the same way, the web on the loom. The threads of both warp and woof were very fine, but she concentrated until she could indeed “see” what hung there. Slowly she began to weave, but it took a long time and what she produced in her half inch of fabric was noticeably unlike that of the beginning.
Her hands shaking, the girl sat back on her heels, frustrated. All her pride in her past work was wiped out. Before these, she was a child beginning a first ragged attempt to create cloth.
Yet when she had relaxed from concentrating on her task and was aware once more of those about her, she did not meet the contempt she had expected. Rather, a sensation of surprise.
“You are one perhaps who can be taught, female,” came that mind voice of authority. “If you wish.”
Dairine turned her face eagerly in the direction from which she believed that message had come. “I do wish, Great One!”
“So be it. But you will begin even as our hatchlings, for you are not yet a weaver.”
“That I agree.” The girl ran her fingers ruefully across the fabric before her.
If Vidruth expected her return into his power now—she shrugged. And let Rothar concentrate upon the Captain and his own plight. What seemed of greatest importance to her was that she must be able to satisfy these weavers.
They seemed to have no real dwelling except this area about their looms. Nor were there any furnishings save the looms themselves. And those stood in no regular pattern. Dairine moved cautiously about, memorizing her surroundings by touch.
Though she sensed a number of beings around her, none touched her, mind or body. And she made no advances in turn, somehow knowing such would be useless.
Food they did bring her, fresh fruit. And there were some finger-lengths of what she deemed dried meat. Perhaps it was better she did not know the origin of that.
She slept when she tired on a pile of woven stuff, not quite as silky as that on the looms, yet so tightly fashioned she thought it might pass the legendary test of carrying water within its folds. Her sleep was dreamless. And when she awoke, she found it harder to remember the men or the ship, even Rothar or the Captain. Rather, they were like some persons she had known once in distant childhood, for the place of the weavers was more and more hers. And she must learn. To do that was a fever burning in her.
There was a scuttling sound and then a single order:
“Eat!”
Dairine groped before her, found more of the fruit. Even before she was quite finished, there came a twitch on her skirt.
“This ugly thing covering your body, you cannot wear it for thread gathering.”
Thread gathering? She did not know the meaning of that. But it was true that her skirt, if she moved out of the open space about the looms, caught on branches. She arose and unfastened her girdle, the lacings of her bodice, allowed the dress to slip away into a puddle about her feet. Wearing only her brief chemise, Dairine felt oddly free. But she sought out her girdle again, wrapped it around her slim waist, putting there within the knife.
There came one of those light touches, and she faced about.
“Thread hangs between the trees"—her guide gave a small tug—"touch it with care. Shaken, it will become a trap. Prove that you have the lightness of fingers to be able to learn from us.”
No more instructions came. Dairine realized they must be again testing her. She must prove she was able to gather this thread. Gather it how? Just as she questioned that, something was pushed into her hand. She discovered she held a smooth rod, the length of her lower arm. This must be a winder for the thread.
Now there was a grasp again on her wrist, drawing her away from the looms, on under the trees. Even as her left hand brushed a tree trunk came the order:
“Thread!”
There would be no profit in blind rushing. She must concentrate all her well-trained perceptive sense to aid her to find thread here.
Into her mind slid a very dim picture. Perhaps that came from the very far past which she never tried to remember. A green field lay open under the morning sun and on it were webs pearled with dew. Was what she sought allied to the material of such webs?
Who could possibly harvest the fine threads of such webs? A dark depression weighed upon Dairine. She wanted to hurl the collecting rod from her, to cry aloud that no one could do such a thing.
Then she had a vision of Ingvarna standing there. That lack of self-pity, that belief in herself which the Wise Woman had fostered, revived. To say that one could not do a thing before one ever tried was folly.
In the past her sense of perception had only located for her things more solid than a tree-hung thread. But now it must serve her better.
Under her bare feet, for she had left her sandals with her dress, lay a soft mass of long-fallen leaves. Around here there appeared to be no ground growth—only the trees.
Dairine paused, advancing her hand until her finger-tips rested on bark. With caution, she slid that touch up and around the trunk. A faint impression was growing in her. Here was what she sought.
Round and round—then her hand scraped another tree trunk. Dairine gave a sigh of relief, hardly daring to believe she had been successful in harvesting her first thread. But one was little enough, and she must not grow overconfident. Think only of the thread! She found another end and, with the same slow care, began once more to wind.
To those without sight, day is as night, night is as day. Dairine no longer lived within the time measure of her own kind. She went forth between intervals of sleep and food to search for the tree-looped thread, wondering if she so collected something manufactured by the weavers themselves or a product of some other species.
Twice she made the error she had been warned against, had moved too hastily, with overconfidence, shaken the thread. Thus she found herself entrapped in a sticky liquid which flowed along the line, remaining fast caught until freed by a weaver.
Though she was never scolded, each time her rescuer projected an aura of such disdain for this clumsiness that Dairine cringed inwardly.
The girl had early learned that the weavers were all female. What they did with the cloth they loomed, she had not yet discovered. They certainly did not use it all, neither had she any hint that they traded it elsewhere. Perhaps the very fact of creation satisfied some need rampant in them.
Those who, like her, hunted threads were the youngest of this nonhuman community. Yet she was able to establish no closer communication with them than she did with the senior weavers.
Once or twice there was an uneasy hint of entrapment about her life in the loom place. Why did everything which had happened before she arrived now seem so distant and of such negligible account?