by Andre Norton
To her vast surprise the liquid was not chill but warm, as if it had lain under a summer sun. She puddled it in the palms of her hands and raised it to her face. It had a faint spicy scent.
Daring to use it she washed her arms and her abraded knees, then gingerly bent her head forward so she could pour handfuls over her bloody head and hair. The water was very clear; she could see the bottom of the basin clearly.
Flecks of light glinted there even though there was no sun to seek them out. She leaned over and scooped one up. Out of the water came a chain of finely wrought metal. She recognized it as one of the strange treasures of the past which had ever puzzled her father’s smiths at the Citadel. It had neither the yellow-red of gold, nor the cool sheen of silver, but seemed rather to be fashioned of thread drawn from a blue-green gem substance and woven into a cord.
As Kadiya held this high, water dripped from scores of pale silver stones set along the chain, and those too gave off flashes of light. She stared at her find entranced. For all of her life she had heard stories of treasures to be found in the ruins, and she had seen artifacts (mainly broken), which lucky traders had brought from the fair at Trevista. Those had always been pieces and bits with only hints of what form they might once have held. This was entire, perfect.
When the girl straightened it out she saw it was formed like a bib, made to extend from the throat down collar-wise across the breast. Her mother had had jewels, some so fine they were brought forth in reverence only for state occasions, but this overshadowed all such.
There were other glints in the water. Kadiya held the necklace and looked farther along the basin. Here was wealth beyond any reckoning she knew. Beauty, riches exceeding all the stores of the Citadel, beyond even the imagining of her people, if all those sparks equalled even in part what she held. Kadiya turned the necklace around and around, bemused by it. The drops seemed frozen water holding all the range of rainbow light.
Deep inside her a question formed. Why did this treasure lie here—so discarded?
The leaping spray of the fountain was warm against her skin, yet Kadiya no longer felt refreshed. Her uneasiness dampened her wonder at the find. Suddenly she loosed her hold on the necklet, allowing it to fall back into the depths from which she had drawn it. She did not try to fish it forth again, nor reach for any of the other pieces she could see.
The ways of the Vanished Ones were not those of her people, even though those statues had forms like her own. Two seasons ago it had been her turn, much as she had been impatient with ceremonial customs, to attend the first sowing of the polders. It was a duty each woman of the Royal blood took in turn.
There she had made the required sacrifices to fortune, fertility, and the fields to ensure good harvests. She had been escorted to a pool of water not as clear as that which leaped and dashed here, but at least not too stained with the matter of the swamps, and there she had ritually taken from her arm a cherished band of twisted gold—for the offering must be something of value to the giver—to toss it into the pool before the Spring Maidens of her escort had thrown thither their flower garlands. So she had paid dues to some power, though no one explained what that power might be, nor why it must be appeased by treasures.
Kadiya stared at the basin. Was this just such a place of propitiation as that polder pool? Did what lay within it now represent petitions for good fortune? She arose slowly. Be that so or not, she would take nothing.
With the coming of full morning the haze had gone. Still, the insistent feeling which had brought her this far had not lessened. She wheeled about to face the buildings which surrounded the fountain. These were far more ornamented than any she had seen elsewhere.
To explore them all …
That thought did not have time to daunt her. Even above the splash of the fountain she heard what sounded clearly—a chime as sweet as if from crystal bells. Drawn by that she rounded the basin to approach a building where a columned overhang made a shadow.
As Kadiya approached she could see a doorway. It was open without sign of barrier. This, too, was flanked by a statue on either side. However, these silent Guardians were not wearing forms like her own. Rather the twin sentries were copies of the creatures in the wall painting—those oddities Jagun had not identified.
Unlike the statues by the entrance to the garden these had none of that odd sense of buried life. Grotesque as they were, Kadiya was sure they had not been erected to inspire any dread. She stood surveying them, one and then the other, when she became aware of something else.
From the darker interior beyond the doorless portal there drifted a scent. In the Citadel on great feast days they had lit tall lanterns which burned a spicy oil. Here was a hint of that same odor. Had such a lantern been the source of the light which had set her exploring? If so, that beacon would require more than one lamp, set higher in the building, or she would not have sighted it. No Oddling ever used such.
Kadiya ventured forward, very glad that her boots made no sound. Her hand was at her dagger hilt. Involuntarily she drew the weapon as her second stride carried her into complete darkness. Her head swam with vertigo and queasiness; she feared entrapment in this place of utter darkness.
The dizziness got worse—she fought it with movement. Kadiya threw herself forward, bursting from the curtain of blindness into a gray light where she had the power to see again.
Before her opened a great hall. What awaited her held her motionless for several gasping breaths. This was a place of formal elegance, far richer than the audience chamber of the Citadel. She looked for a dais, for a throne.
There was movement as if shadows came and went, though what or who threw them remained invisible. But shadows … colored! She blinked and blinked again. When she tried to focus on one of those very tenuous forms, to see it clearly, the wisp fled or flickered out. Still from the corners of her eyes she could catch glimpses of what might have been a company in festival garb gathered in stately and formal patterns.
Again the chimes sounded. This time the tinkle of notes echoed from the tall walls of the room. Somehow Kadiya was emboldened by that sound. As the echoes died she dared to speak:
“Great Ones—” She had resheathed her dagger. One did not stand before overlords with bared steel in hand, whether those she could half see be only shadows or not. “Great Ones, if I have judged aright, there has gone forth a summons. I have come.”
4
Did those shadows shift, seem to gather in two long lines, opening a path before her? There came another and louder singing of the crystal notes. Down that only partly seen space which had been left open, two small, strange figures which had the firmness of real bodies moved.
They were only half as tall as she. The first was partially shrouded in a wide shawl or scarf draped about broad shoulders, one piece muffling its head, the other end trailing on the floor. Hand-like appendages protruded from this covering to clasp a rod with a wide loop at its top. Hung in that were crystal bell-like drops which sounded at each step the bearer took.
The companion of the bell ringer was the same size but obviously wearing a garment intended for a very much larger being. Sleeves had been rolled back, and a high standing collar served now as a cowl, hiding its features as completely as the scarf veiled those of its fellow.
In its two claw hands it bore a lamp with a flame which shot from a spout at the fore. From that wafted the fragrance she had scented, as if it were fed by oil distilled directly from flowers. The oversized garment trailed behind it to form a heavy train.
Both the scarf and the robe were alive with color, covered by glints which echoed the rainbows of the crystals. Neither appeared to regard the shadows. Yet as they passed along that aisle, some of those seemed for an instant to take on great substance—though never long enough for Kadiya to be sure of what she saw. There was a solemnity in the approach of the two. They might have been children dressed in their elders’ robes of ceremony, attempting to mimic rites they had once witnessed—with the same serious attention th
e original priests or priestesses would have shown. There was nothing alarming about them for all their oddity of appearance. Kadiya slowly relaxed as she watched them in wonder.
Plainly they were intent upon her as the goal of that formal advance. She wondered fleetingly how they could see through the muffling about their heads. To address such as these as “Great Ones” … no, that did not seem right.
The girl gave a greeting as she would have to an Oddling Speaker, setting both palms together and inclining her head.
“May the day be fair, the harvest and the hunt good, the waterways clear to your going.” She spoke in the Oddling trade tongue, hoping that perhaps she would be understood.
The creature vigorously rang the bells three times more, then held the rod steady to still the chime. There followed a chittering which was certainly no Oddling speech, rather sounds she had never heard before.
Kadiya was at a loss. She must find some way to communicate with this pair, but how?
Jagun had instructed her in hand signs which were used in the swamps when there was a need for silence—as when an Oddling force lay ambush for the Skritek. The girl flexed her fingers, then moved them in the simplest of those gestures—one meaning a truce.
The ringer of the crystals responded with a vigorous shake of his instrument. Did that short, loud chime mean acceptance? The creature half turned, making a beckoning gesture.
Somehow Kadiya had no feeling of fear or uneasiness, only a growing curiosity. The lamp bearer had also turned about with a swish of robe, freeing one set of claws to jerk those folds from entanglement. Kadiya followed them down the long hall, taking care not to tread on the trails of the ill-fitting garments.
That of the lamp bearer, she noted as she drew closer, was so badly worn that only bands and swirls of what might be metallic thread held it together. Once it must have been a thing of splendor, truly a royal robe of state perhaps even from the days of the Vanished Ones, now put to some ceremonial use by these others.
As she advanced, those eye straining shadows began to fade, and by the time their small procession had reached the end of the huge chamber there were left only fleeting wisps like tatters of fog. There was no light save the lamp, and the walls vanished in dim obscurity. Kadiya slowed pace a little as her inborn distrust of the unknown which lay in all swamplands stirred.
In the wake of her guides, she passed through an archway in a wall into even deeper gloom. The chimes rang out and she caught other sounds: a scraping, a skittering, even the thud of what might be shod feet, a fluttering …
Out of the dark, the light of the lamp picked out a head—then another. Kadiya was startled. The long snout, the large ears, were covered by what did not seem skin but rather an overlay of iridescent scales. No statues, no paintings, these were the living models of the creatures which had been depicted on the wall.
Their skin might be scaled, even armor plated in places, but it had no resemblance to that of a Skritek. Nor was there any stench, though sound and some of the limited radiance of the lamp betrayed the fact that a number of them crowded about her. Their beads of eyes were fixed on her and Kadiya felt that they were viewing her with astonishment equal to her own.
The greeter who bore the lamp now set its burden down on a table. Straightaway, as if that had been a signal, there flared other points of light. Within moments a number of other lamps clustered near the first or bobbed about that board, bringing fuller sight to Kadiya.
The table itself was low as if meant to serve creatures of the size which milled about it now. Some of the plated bodies were nearly bare save for necklets or belts, gem-set to catch the light; others wore scraps of ancient clothing.
Into the full light of the table lamps stepped one for whom the others made quick room. Its body was not muffled by any worn-out robe, though it did wear loose about its wide shoulders a length of cloth. On it were fastened, in no regular pattern, brooches, spread out necklets, and other bits of jewelry as precious in appearance as the necklet of the fountain.
This newcomer beckoned Kadiya closer, and two others hurried out of the shadows dragging a bench which they placed before her side of the table in overt invitation.
The others were busy also. Platters appeared out of the further gloom, mostly piled with such fruit as she had seen in the garden. The dishes themselves were of crystal, some engraved in patterns, or fashioned in fanciful shapes—such as birds with outstretched wings, their backs hollowed to hold the fruit, or the shells of some of the swamp creatures, even curves of many petaled flowers. None she could see were chipped or cracked. Here was treasure any trader would give close to his life to garner.
In addition there were two goblets of the precious green-blue metal. One was set down before her, the other to the hand of the creature wearing the much-bejeweled scarf.
Another came forward to pour from a tall ewer. The liquid did not have the ruby tint of feast wine, but looked rather like pure water.
The creature who apparently had been appointed to share this meal with her—perhaps a feast of ceremony—raised the goblet and made a small gesture in her direction, not unlike proposing a toast. Kadiya, having seated herself opposite after a pause in which she defeated caution, followed that example, fitting her action to the other.
From the muzzle of her host a black tube-like tongue shot into the contents of the goblet, sucking instead of drinking. Kadiya took a mouthful. Water, yes, and yet there was the faint suggestion of a fruit flavor in it.
Having drunk, her host or hostess pushed toward the girl one of the flower-shaped plates on which, embowered in its own leaves, was a ripe ogarn, a delicacy seldom seen at the Citadel. Kadiya picked it up with a nod of thanks and bit into its plump side, savoring the juice and pulp, noting that the other diner bored into its fruit with the tip of that elongated tongue.
So encouraged Kadiya ate her fill of fruit and then part of a dish which seemed to be a soft mush, scooping this out with fingers as best she could, since there were no signs of spoons or other eating utensils about.
There was a constant clicking around her which she took to be speech. Certainly this language was beyond her understanding. Questions seethed in her mind, frustrating to her hard learned patience.
Then, light-swift in stroke, words formed in her mind.
“We have watched and waited long, Noble One. Now is the day of great joy as it was dream-promised—you have returned to us!”
The creature which had shared her meal met her eye to eye. Kadiya did not doubt that the mind message came from it. Mind-sending was rumored to be part of the old magic, spoken of only in the legends. She had achieved a small portion of such Power when scrying with her sisters. But this was like true speech though totally silent.
Kadiya did not know how to answer. Did one think out what message one must convey—form word pictures in one’s mind? And the message itself … She had not known these beings existed. Who and what were they? Whom did they take her for?
“I am Kadiya,” she spoke slowly, as one feeling a passage in the dark, trying to shape the words in her mind, “daughter to King Krain who was from the Citadel. I was one upon whom was set a geas, that of finding the Great Talisman of the Black Trillium in part—so that the whole might be used against the forces of evil. In this place I found that talisman and we used it well.”
Kadiya centered effort on building a mind picture of the orb pommeled sword now standing in the garden from which she had first taken it. Then she changed that picture to the one of the trillium stalk from which it had grown.
“Now I have come to return that thing of Power to the Will which granted it.”
There was an increased stirring among those surrounding the table. She sensed astonishment tinged with excitement. But also she somehow knew this was not what they expected from her.
“You are …” The mind picture which was transmitted to her resembled the mist-veiled being who had dispatched her to battle, something also akin to the statues on the garden
stair. A Vanished One! Did these strange small beings equate her with those ancient and awesome holders of the High Power?
Kadiya shook her head. It was important that she did not claim anything of that, allow them to believe that she was more than she truly was.
“Those Great Ones were of the long ago.” It was almost too difficult to translate the concept into a mind picture. She was not sure that she could. But surely these creatures must know it had been generations, hundreds of hundreds, since the city had been alive with those who had built it. They must see that there were differences between one bedraggled girl in swamp worn clothing and those statue people.
There was a long moment of silence. Even the movements and sounds made by the crowd were stilled as she continued to hold eye contact with the leader.
“Were you not awaited, you would not have come.” The answer seemed ambiguous. Kadiya could only guess at the meaning. Were there wards upon the city which would have barred any chance visitor, as the Oath barred the Oddlings? Would they have shut her out had this meeting not been intended?
Intended? Was this the beginning of the answers she had sought since that moment when the planted sword had remained unchanged? Had that strong pull which had brought her across the swamp, even through the monsoon, been meant to bring her to this meeting?
“We have waited long,” the words continued in her mind. “Dream search has been made many, many times. We have striven hard to seek those who must return—”
“But I am no kin of theirs!” she countered swiftly.
“Were you not accepted you would not walk these ways.” That was a flat statement and Kadiya sensed that no argument of hers would change it. But what did these creatures want from her? She had chosen the swamp as her own domain, but had another Power had a hand in that?
“I am Kadiya,” she said again. “I am no kin, share no blood with those who ruled here. Though it was by the favor of one”—she thought of the Archimage Binah—“that I first found this place. I am of another people who entered this land long after the Vanished Ones had gone. The Oddlings I know; they have been my battle comrades. The Skritek I know, and they are the enemy. Tell me, Speaker, who are you? For what people do you speak?” She gave him the premier title known to the swamp folk, not knowing how else to address one who must be a leader.