by Andre Norton
But to foresee so far into the future—was such a thing possible? Kadiya had doubts of that. Therefore there had been once other evil in the heights, one so strong that even the Vanished Ones must record a warning of it.
She turned on Jagun. “Mountains—you can read that sign. Let us look for it here first.”
Such a small clue—how long would it take? And even if they found the proper sign could it have a meaning if they were not able to read more than that one symbol?
“Farseer,” Jagun said slowly, “you wear again the sword of harsh justice. Perhaps that may afford us a search tool.”
Surprised, Kadiya put down her lamp to draw the sword, taking care not to slip a hand over those slits of eyes. Eyes were for seeing—and that top eye had the Power of the Old Ones. On impulse the girl swung the sword pommel out over that strip of writing which had been so long lying here.
“Sssssaaaa …” Jagun hissed like a sal-snake.
Kadiya kept firm hold on the sword. It had not resisted her grip but the top eye had come fully open. A spot of light from it reflected on the long strip.
Parts of the weaving lines were changing color though the hues were not sharp. There were greens with the darkness of likan pads, traces of red which might have been the swirling of blood drops on water, a blue, and there was a touch of violet becoming purple-brown, like pool muck.
A weaving of which she could make no sense at all. It no longer even resembled any writing that she could imagine.
Jagun’s large eyes were opened to the fullest extent.
“Speaker’s records!”
“You can read these?” Kadiya was still hopeful. If this was Oddling script, surely Jagun must know something!
He now stood, hands spread flat on either end of that strip, his eyes intent.
“Place of the Sals,” he said slowly. “Guard … danger … mountains.”
“Place of the Sals,” Kadiya repeated. “Where does that lie?”
He looked up at her and there was an expression close to awe on his face.
“It was once a village, but with the coming of the great-great rains it was taken by the river. Those who dwelt there—they who survived after the churning of the waters—built again elsewhere. Farseer, you have seen their place—It is the village of my clan!”
She remembered well her visit there, that place where the long houses were built on piled platforms out in the lake. It was far, close to the Golden Mire, down river, back through the Thorny Hell.
Kadiya glanced at the surrounding litter. Perhaps this script was not the only thing which could be unlocked by the eye. Lamp in one hand, sword in the other, Jagun helping to unroll scrolls, and open such books which looked as if they might be forced, she circled the table, held out the pommel over those records piled closest. But there came no result, nor could she see any familiar symbol. Jagun protested that he could do no better.
A stir from the door shattered their intent search. Gosel appeared and with him Tostlet. Both of them held their tattered drapery close to their small bodies lest they bring down some of those piles between which they threaded a way.
“Noble One.” The thought brought Kadiya’s full attention. “Quave has dreamed again. There is a coming of the Dark. Summon forth your Powers that nothing can reach here.”
Kadiya fronted the Hassitti squarely.
“Gosel, I have no true Powers. This”—she held up the sword so that he could see the three orbs on the pommel—“served my people well, through me. Yet I do not know from whence its force comes, or if I can summon it at will. To test it in open battle when I am so ignorant is to play the fool. This is all it has done for us today.” At her gesture Jagun picked up the strip on which the script was so changed. “My battle comrade tells me this is a recording of his people, but he is not one taught to read such. What can you read in this place, Gosel?”
The Hassitti stared at her.
“Noble One, we are not those chosen to record. We”—his clawed fist indicated the room—“have brought hither all which we have found for safekeeping, but what may be among this we do not know.”
“Your dreamer,” Kadiya said, losing what had been a very faint hope. “What has the dream brought?”
“Dark and dark, Noble One.” Tentatively Gosel reached forward toward the sword, though he did not put claw to its surface. The lid of the eye at the top was up, it was almost as if that orb was studying the Hassitti.
Gosel stared back. And then, to Kadiya’s surprise, both of his clawed hands came up, touching the Hassitti’s own elongated face between the eyes.
“Noble One,” his thought reached her. “This is a thing of Power which we do not know, save that it is such that leads one to the doing of strange and great things.”
Now he turned his head a fraction to view the strip Jagun still held.
“If that was what it showed to you, then, Noble One, you must know its meaning.”
Kadiya could have hissed like Jagun in her exasperation. She had no answers for all her searching, only more and more questions!
Very well, they had a message which had been left behind, translated by the aid of the one thing she was sure carried with it what her people might term “magic.” This mentioned a long-ago village, storm-drenched into nothingness, then reborn as Jagun’s own. If nothing more concrete could be discovered here, why waste time searching through these unintelligible records of another race and people, having to listen to constant warning of dark dreams?
She could take their find to Jagun’s home. Surely they must have fuller records, something more helpful. Mountains, dark forgotten villages—if there was any sorting out to be done it should be by action. That was Kadiya’s way of life. They must take their find to where it could be translated into useful information.
8
Once she was decided upon the journey, Kadiya had to withstand the arguments of the Hassitti. The little people were rooted fast in the city and they seemed unable to think of anyone voluntarily venturing out of it. She faced warnings and pleas which ate at her patience. Once or twice she wondered if the Hassitti might even take steps to detain them—perhaps using some trick such as the maze of light.
However, Kadiya continued to draw upon her store of hard learned patience, insisting that she must go. To her surprise she was suddenly backed by the dreamers when she sat in council with Gosel and the other Seniors.
Quave was the leader of those sleep sages, a Hassitti whose eyes were not bright buttons but rather veiled by a cloudy film as if he used other means of sight. He was treated with great ceremony by his people. When he came into the meeting one of his attendants carried a bowl, not of the metal Kadiya had seen elsewhere but rather fashioned of some age darkened wood.
After Quave had settled in the seat Gosel hurriedly quitted, the bowl was set on the table before him. He seemed to huddle there with his head lowered, looking into the bowl’s depths where a dark liquid was cupped. His next move was so sudden that Kadiya was caught by surprise. The Hassitti’s paw shot out from beneath the edge of the thick shawl draped about him and the claw digits caught at Kadiya’s wrist where the girl’s hands lay on the board.
That grip was tight enough to jerk her forward and Quave raised his head so that the seemingly blind eyes fixed on her.
“Dreams have come.” Quave’s words were sharp in her mind with a demanding note. “Noble One, if you cannot dream—then look! Call upon that which you need for your purposes!”
Need for her purposes? Kadiya’s thoughts were not in clear order. She needed knowledge of a kind which was not common, which in the very depths of her she dreaded. Who might have such knowledge? There were wisewomen among the Oddlings—and there was Haramis!
She stared down into the bowl, fastening her thoughts upon her sister, striving to picture her in those depths as she had seen her last at the Citadel.
“Haramis—” she called the name aloud even as she also sought with the inner thought.
There was n
o stir of liquid in the bowl, but its dark surface grew brighter from a spark in the very center, the dim radiance spreading out toward the edges from the heart of light.
The picture was not clear. Walls seemed to flicker in and out of being. Along those she thought she could see books and scrolls stored, though kept in neater order than the room she had searched here. There was a table on which clustered flasks and jars, a pile of parchment sheets. She who sat before those, pen in hand, was even less visible than her surroundings.
“Haramis!” Kadiya drew upon her will and energy to make contact with her sister.
That shadow which was Haramis suddenly raised her head as if summoned, turned a little so that Kadiya could now see her sister full faced. Lips moved in that face, the eyes peered as if the other strove to see through some barrier.
“Haramis!” The whole scene wavered and rippled as if the liquid mirror in which she viewed it was disturbed. Then it was gone.
“Who is this Weaver of dreams you strive to summon?” Quave loosed his grip on Kadiya.
“My sister, she whom the Archimage Binah chose to take her place as sorceress and Guardian.”
“She is of great Power, this Haramis?”
“Of us all she holds the Power the strongest,” Kadiya answered. “I can wield this,” she touched the sword cautiously, “but I am not learned in the ways of magic. That is why I must discover all which I can. I have no dreams to warn or guide.” She tried to erase the hasty tone from her voice, to make Quave understand her real helplessness and through him these others.
For a space of several breaths the other did not answer. He made a small gesture with one claw and the attendant who had brought the bowl picked it up again.
“This is possible,” Quave’s reply came at last. “We are not those who deal with strengths as the Noble Ones knew. If you believe, One Who Has Been Dreamed, that you must seek knowledge, then you indeed prove that you are of the Ancient Ones—forever did they so.” He pulled fussily at his scarf and then looked to Gosel.
“If this one must venture forth, then let aid be given. There is that arising which will cloud the sky far darker than any storm we have known. Noble One,” now he turned to Kadiya, “there was evil in the past, and those you know fought it. Evil arises again. Be careful in your seeking, step lightly on any trail, and be ever ready with your eyes and this thing of Power. Lately I, too, have dreamed. I think that something begins to shadow us so that we cannot detect our danger.”
He arose and bowed his head to Kadiya. Feeling the force of personality in this dreamer, the girl inclined her head in turn.
So there was no more disinclination on the part of the Hassitti to help them. Jagun displayed satisfaction over that. They would once more face the fury of the storm and the trip down the Upper Mutar, daring again passage through the Thorny Hell. However difficult it would be to travel through the almost constant storms it would be better to go now than to wait for better weather, for the force of wind and flood would keep a-den many of the dangerous inhabitants along the way.
They would need a boat and supplies, the latter easier to assemble than the former. But at Kadiya’s questioning, Gosel produced a strange, skiff-like transport which could be used over both slimy mud and the river water—or so Jagun pronounced, having inspected it carefully.
The Hassitti had had other visitors through the years—or rather at a much earlier time there had been unlucky explorers entrapped in the ancients’ defenses. Those had been victims of the city but their gear had been harvested by the Hassitti to be puzzled over and then stored after their usual pattern of preservation.
Jagun admitted that the skiff-boat was unlike any he had seen but some features of it pleased and excited him. He was eager to try it out—or perhaps simply eager to leave the city entirely.
They gained food supplies easily enough. The mush the Hassitti favored could be fire dried. Fruit was pulped and put into sealed jars. And Tostlet supplied a number of packets, trying hard to make Kadiya aware of the value of each for both health and healing.
Outside the gate, the lowering clouds were dark on the morning they started. The skiff had been fitted with draw ropes which Kadiya and Jagun manned as a team. The Hassitti massed at the gate to see them out but the thick curtain of the rain soon hid all but the bulk of the ruins.
As all hunters, Jagun had an inborn and well-fostered sense of direction. He moved confidently forward, though burdened as they were, their speed was hardly more than a walk.
Kadiya had replaced some of her clothing which the rot of the swamps had ruined, using woven stuff from the collections of garments the Hassitti hoarded. She discovered to her satisfaction that in the most part her choice had been good and several of the materials she had chosen were actually waterproof.
They had some way to go before they could reach the Mutar. Rainy season though it was, Jagun was continually alert. Kadiya watched also for those perils which were rooted, as well as the ones which crawled and leaped through the slime path they needed to take.
She was as ready with a short spear she had found in the treasure chambers as was Jagun with his blow pipe when they were warned by a sudden sickly odor. The thing which wriggled out of the mud just before them was scaled, bearing twisted horns on a head which seemed too large and heavy for its many legged body.
Kadiya feinted, drawing the creature to the left, giving Jagun a good shot at one of its bulging eyes. They had played this game before, though the prey was new to the girl.
With a dart protruding from its eye, the thing twisted and yellowish ooze dribbled from its half open mouth. Kadiya struck the second blow straight into that mouth, giving her spear a twist inward. The thing jerked its head back, snatching the spear out of her hold, but it no longer snapped at them. Its many legged coils beat into the slime and it churned up mud to hide its dying body.
When it had subsided to only quivering, Kadiya and Jagun cautiously approached to free their weapons. But he also drew his belt knife to strike at the root of the nearest fang, prying and working loose from the jaw first one and then another of the fore teeth of the thing. Wrapping these in a large leaf, he stored them in his pack. Kadiya guessed they would become formidable heads for water spears.
Other inhabitants of the mud gathered to feed on the dead monster but these they had no trouble in avoiding as they left the patch of writhing wet ground behind them.
They made camp that night on a scrap of higher ground where a mat of reed could be trampled to form a flooring for a shelter, the roof of which was the skiff. There could be no fire in this muck of mud and wet. For all her fatigue of body Kadiya was unable to settle into the nest of beaten reeds overlaid with a travel mat.
“Jagun—” She knew that the hunter had not gone to rest either for she heard the faint crackle of the reeds which betrayed restless movement. The rain had paused for a while, a respite not to be counted on. “How came your people to set up this far village of yours? You have said it is an outpost of Nyssomu land. Was it because of this long-ago flood you spoke of?”
“Why we came north, King’s Daughter? Well, that is a tale worn thin by many seasons. It is said that our clan was always caught by a desire to see beyond. More of us are hunters than is common in other villages. We have a custom of far travel. It was that which brought me first to your father’s court. There I chose to stay because I was curious about your people and what led them to do this and that which were not of our customs. I became a hunter for the court as you know—”
“Yes!” How well she could remember other days, and the time she had first seen Jagun. He had with him two inton kittings to whom he had taught simple tricks—simple and yet enough to amaze all who watched him exhibit their learning, for intons were shy and very seldom seen.
“There were Issa and Itta,” she named them out of memory. “Then you guided the traders into the Dark Ways and they brought back many ral shells and the skins of voor.”
“Which triple fingers count of my
clan mates could as easily have done,” he replied. “But there was also this. The Speaker of my House, as I said, is interested in strange knowledge. To her I sent much I had learned in the Citadel and during my wanderings. For this we were given clan credit so that those of my close kin stand well at the Great Speakings.
“This I did gladly for to me also there is a need to learn what many have forgotten or never have known. Now I have even more to add to the records.” Kadiya detected the satisfaction in his voice.
“These Hassitti—their dreamers—speak of great evil.” She mused.
“Farseer, the swamp is a ruin-broken land and it was formed so by ill design. That evil walks in it is as natural as the formation of seeds on a whittle vine. We have had our taste of what evil can do; we know that trouble may rise again—”
“Those of Labornok?”
“There is a Queen now of your land and that land and she shared your own birthing, Farseer. Also she was one who helped to wield the great talisman.”
“And Orogastus is dead. Also Voltrik,” Kadiya said slowly. “Haramis is Guardian—but she has gone afar. Binah chose to dwell in Noth, which was part of the mire lands, but my sister has gone to the mountains. And it is in the mountains that danger lies.… Jagun, in all your wandering have you ever looked upon the western mountains? Who or what live there?”
“Farseer, your wondering is like mine. No, I have never been that far into Uisgu land, which laps the mountain bases. Nor has any hunter of my clan whose records I have seen. Now, seek sleep, King’s Daughter, the first watch will be mine.”
Reluctantly Kadiya settled herself, but she was thinking of Haramis and that half cloaked sight of her sister which the Hassitti dreamer had shown her. Haramis had spoken of the Vispi, rulers of the snow and ice of the heights and for the most part invisible to any venturing there. Did Haramis have one of those to be her companion and support even as Kadiya had Jagun, or was she alone? Kadiya shivered. To be alone … that she could not have wished for Haramis. From childhood she herself had sought swamp ways. In the stricter confines of the court she had always been impatient that she was not in some fashion what she was meant to be. The Oddlings were her friends far more than the courtiers. Now a small spark of thought stirred. Would she ever find the mires lonely because she was not of their breeding? It was a question which had never troubled her before.