by Andre Norton
14
On the third of the wide steps Kadiya stopped abruptly. From below the water sighed against the landing stone, appearing to ebb and flow with a trace of current they had not noted during the voyage. However, now she caught another sound, faint, hardly more than a vibration, through the stone about her. The girl could not put name to it, yet it brought an inner chill.
Jagun’s whisper hissed:
“Skritek!”
To continue to climb was perhaps the act of a fool, but in her hand the amulet glowed with an ever increasing fire. They were certainly drawing close to a very strong core of Power. The Drowners were thought to possess no wisdom, no weapons save their fangs, claws, and some crude spears and clubs. They accomplished their most successful raids mainly by stealth. Yet she and her companions were now well into their home territory, and who knew what forces they could muster here?
It was not Salin’s voice but the wisewoman’s thought which came now.
“These pay honor—they do not hunt.”
The certainty in the Uisgu’s statement made Kadiya accept it. But whom did those scaled monsters honor? Some chieftain or First of their own—or that thing which had spread death in its passing?
There was no going back; they could only proceed with all the caution they could summon. At least Jagun’s senses were well tuned for just such situations as this.
Resolutely Kadiya started on. Though she expected otherwise, the sounds did not grow any louder. In fact they appeared to fade at times.
In competition to the glow of the amulet, Kadiya became aware of a second source of light on the stairway that increased as she took each step.
The light radiated from the top of that flight, but the beam was broken as if filtered through patterns of small openings.
Kadiya allowed the amulet to fall back against her breast, half covering it with her fingers. The heat within it was more than mere warmth. It now approached a burning point, and she had to will herself fiercely to keep her flesh pressed against it.
That outer light increased suddenly and dramatically as the stairway ended. Across its upper entrance was a barrier—seemingly a screen which had been deeply carved, allowing light to stream through curves and angled apertures.
She had seen something akin to this before! There were passages within the walls of the Citadel of Ruwenda—part of a system of secret and hidden ways. Many of these had been discovered, and in Kadiya’s childhood she had dared Haramis or Anigel to follow her into those forgotten ways. Some of them were hidden by portions of wall which were pierced by ornamental fretwork. From without, these appeared to be no more than fanciful decoration, but in truth they furnished light, air, and spying places for those lurking along the hidden ways.
They were faced now by just such a screen. From its other side the light was strong. Kadiya moved to the right to allow the others room on that ledge which topped the stair so that all might share her vantage point.
Beyond was a room. The walls were of the same time-resistant white stone as those in the city of the Vanished Ones. Placed at either end were hooks from which lamps swung by chains. Those burned smokily as they must have done many times previously as the walls were discolored with fans of black soot.
The surface they illuminated was as deeply carved as the one behind which Kadiya and the others stood. Perhaps it had once also been painted to highlight some of those carvings; Kadiya was sure she could trace dabs of red, blue, a touch of much faded yellow.
This was no picturing of any form of life. Rather the swirls and circling, the jutting rosettes, the meaningless, twisting lines, were eye-bewildering puzzles.
Those in hiding stiffened. Skritek jabber suddenly sounded. Kadiya closed her hand once more over the amulet, wincing against the heat of the amber but intent that none of the glow would be seen. How effective their screened hiding place would be no one knew but she was completely certain they must witness what passed here.
Through the door to their left, the only visible entrance into this windowless chamber, there emerged a strange company.
Jiggling from one clawed foot to the other advanced a Skritek. On its lizardlike head was mounted a skull which might be from one of its own kind, and yet was so much larger it suggested there had once existed a giant form of the species. The exposed fangs of this head gear were stained red and in the eyeholes were fastened the glow insects which served all swamp dwellers for lights.
Besides the skull which it wore as a crown the Skritek, after the customs of its kind, had little in the way of clothing. Its scaled shoulders supported twin belts drawn across the body, crossing on the chest and back. From them dangled bones strung close enough together to rattle as the creature walked. Around its paunchy waist was another belt. This was apparently of fur patched skin, which supported the sheath of a knife, almost long enough to be termed a sword, as well as a large pouch. In one hand the creature held a pole from which dangled another skull, this one obviously human in contour.
Reaching the center of the chamber the Skritek wheeled to face the wall. Raising the staff, it waved that sign of office overhead and brought the butt down against the stone floor in a steady beat which matched the harsh rumble of the mutter springing from its fanged jaws. It was, Kadiya thought, engaged in some kind of ritual.
The stench of Skritek was strong and speedily grew as two more of the creatures entered. These did not wear the skull headdress, and they carried crude spears instead of skull headed poles. Once within they moved back until their shoulders near touched the screen behind which Kadiya and her companions stood.
While the skull crested leader continued a rasping chant, there entered another. That shriveled, plague eaten figure Kadiya had seen in the scrying basin shambled into the full light of the two lamps. Behind it, after a noticeable gap, were four more spear-bearing Skritek.
The stench of their body odor, together with that foul effluence given off by the plague, would conceal any scent natural to her and her company, Kadiya hoped—though that had been well tempered by the herb paste they smeared on daily to ward off insect attacks. At least the girl had caught no sign from that foul company that those spying had been detected.
Having given a last and mighty bellow, the skull wearer brought down the staff with a final vigor, then turned halfway so it now faced the plague striken one. To Kadiya the latter was a more fearsome sight than the swamp demons, for here one of the fine bodies she had seen in the city statues was eaten into a form of disgust and dread.
Nearly as bent as Salin, skin raddled and pitted with suppurating ulcer-like spots, its head resembling a skull covered only with the thinnest shaving of skin, this was a nightmare.
Yet as it moved forward, the skull crowned Skritek not only fell to knees but groveled, facedown before that monstrous thing.
The thing halted, swaying as if it found difficulty in keeping erect. One arm arose jerkily sending out drops of yellowish liquid which spattered the floor as it gestured.
Pain exploded in her head so suddenly Kadiya nearly reeled against the screen. Only Jagun’s outflung arm steadied her. It was as if there was a din, a discordant roaring in her head. She bit her lip hard and fought to close her mind against it.
On the floor the prostrate Skritek writhed, perhaps experiencing some of the same torment as Kadiya now fought. The monster regarded its worshiper with eyes surrounded by great wrinkles, so buried in loose flesh as to be hardly visible. It made a movement with one foot, spurning the skull topped staff, and then lurched toward the wall.
With a visible effort it straightened. Both of those poison dripping arms moved out. Fingers, which appeared rotted to the bone, touched four places in the intricate patterning of the stone.
There came a sound as if the stone itself was protesting vigorously against what was demanded of it. Then a slit opened.
Out streamed a light as red as the flames of a vigorous fire. The creature tottered forward until those billows of light wrapped it around. Then it w
as gone.
The prostrate Skritek arose to hands and knees, saurian head up, turned to the wall into which both the flames and the thing which had summoned them had vanished. Then the priest—if priest this skull crowned one was—got to its feet and rounded on the guards, barking out orders which sent them quickly to the door.
However, the leader lingered behind, now moving close to the wall. In Kadiya’s mind surged something more than that blast which had been the communication of the plague sower to his following. This Skritek was avid for knowledge, in a way resentful that such had not been shared.
With the point of that staff the Drowner touched the places which must release the lock upon that doorway, touched them first tentatively, and then with some pressure. But there was no answer. Kadiya’s mind touch picked up bafflement and the beginnings of anger.
At length the Skritek gave up the vain attempt to solve the secret and left the chamber, thumping the pavement ill-temperedly with the pole.
Kadiya had to jerk her hand away from the amulet. The heat there had flared too high to touch with her fingers. Not only that, but it was rising of its own accord. In her a need was arising …
A door—to open a door—to follow.… The remnants of her small stock of prudence argued against the urge.
“Jagun … Salin …” She wanted reassurance, some aid from them to understand this compelling impulse now possessing her.
“Farseer.” The hunter’s words were in her mind and she held to them as a defense against the need which gripped her. “This is a place of great Power.”
“Yes,” Salin agreed, “but, King’s Daughter, it is neither of good nor evil. It will answer either call upon it.”
“But will it aid or entrap?” Kadiya demanded. “There is something pushing me now. I will not be swept into that place beyond the wall.” Her determination fought that pressure. Just as she had been driven through the monsoon to the lost city, so now there was eating into her the compulsion to go beyond the screen, to face that other wall, to follow the monster who had broken its ancient seal.
Kadiya edged along the screen, her will unable to still this other set upon her. Though none of the Skritek remained, there was no assurance that they would not return. Yet now Jagun and the others were following her, as if drawn in the same fashion as she.
When they sidled into the room beyond the screen the hunter and the Uisgu youth did not approach the wall holding that secret way but rather turned their attention to the entrance through which the party of the enemy had come. Smail had darts ready between his fingers, those made of the thorns and dipped in viper venom. Jagun handled his spear as one waiting orders to attack.
Step by step, her will overridden by her body, Kadiya was pulled on. The talisman still burned against her. Now she sensed something else, a kind of surge and retreat, then surge again, as if some force struggled for freedom, was baffled, then would attack once more.
With care she avoided those shiny yellowish spots on the stone floor which marked the path of the destroyer. Upon the wall carving she saw similar dots of glowing rot where those wasted fingers had touched. It was not in her to place her own hands in the same contact, unless she could burn off the poison with the sword.
Kadiya drew her talisman. Once more the blade below the pommel was warm, though it did not burn with the same bitter force as the amulet. She looked down to see that the lid over the great eye was lifting. Raising the weapon the girl attempted to focus that orb upon the poison marked spots.
But the blade fought her control. She could not hold it steady. The beam burst from the top eye, was joined almost at once by those of the other two orbs. However, though she clenched her grip to hold it, the sword twisted and turned as if she were indeed powerless.
The tripled beam shot forward right enough, but not at the spot where she had tried to aim it. It was choosing its own goals. Here—there—there—and there—that light pulsed forth to touch parts of the sprawling pattern—save none were the same the monster had chosen.
Once more there came that sound of a reluctant opening. Then the light flooded about her. This was no red of flame … rather it was sunlight bright. With it came something else: that fragrance she had known in the garden from which she had taken the weapon she had just now used as a key.
The goldenness engulfed her as the flames had engulfed that other. In a breath of time the chamber in which she had stood was gone. Kadiya gasped; it seemed that she could not draw air into her lungs, that she was in a place with no air. There was another sensation—that of being drawn up and up, whirling as if a mighty storm wind had lapped her round to play with her as a monsoon tempest played with leaves and branches it tore from plants and trees.
As suddenly as she had been so lifted she was lowered, and fear caught at her. The force of the wind might well dash her to the earth. Her half strangled breath came only in painful gasps. That perilous descent began to slow. Her feet gently touched a solid surface. The force which had held her now steadied her until her balance was secure.
But the glare of the golden light was still blinding and she could see nothing, not even the sword which she knew she still held.
Kadiya blinked and blinked again. When she closed her eyes momentarily she could still see the savage brilliance against the lids. However, that was fading at last. Now when she dared to look again, the golden glare was dimming, breaking up, as might a thinning mist in the swamplands.
She stood in a chamber so large that the other end appeared nearly the length of a street lane away. The pavement under her shabby and water worn boots was patterned in soft colors as if a woven carpet had been laid over it. Those colors faded, joined, mingled in designs which seemed to ease her light dazzled eyes as she studied them.
The walls were hung with strips of soft stuffs which were white but carried golden symbols she recognized from the scrolls in the library room of the city—writings which she could not read.
A tendril of soft blue smoke, heavy with that flowery fragrance, curled toward her from the left and Kadiya looked in that direction. There stood a block of stone inset with the blue-green metal secret to the Vanished Ones. The block might be hollow for from it arose a plant such as she had never seen. Its sturdy stem was perhaps as tall as she herself, the leaves as long as her arms, but what that stem bore was the true wonder.
There was a seeming giant of a three petaled flower like those she had known all her life, the sign of her house, a minute bud of which was sealed into her amulet. But instead of black, these huge petals were golden, a gold which glistened with an overlay of minute, colored specks as though it had been rainbow dusted.
Even as Kadiya watched that magnificent flower moved on its stalk to incline in her direction. Never in her life had Kadiya known such wonder and awe. Slowly she lowered the sword. Without consciously willing it she sank to her knees, but she did not bow her head. She could not; the flower itself seemed to draw her eyes aloft.
There arose a trilling. From the flower in some fashion? Kadiya could not tell, though in this place she would accept any wonder.
She lifted the sword by its pointless blade, held it in some vague idea of a salute. The eyes were all open now, but they did not shoot forth any fiery rays.
“Great One …” Kadiya accepted that this was a thing of Power. Perhaps not of intelligent life as she had always known it, but life equal in its way to her species.
“Great One,” she began again. “I have been called.” She still held the sword, one-handed now as she groped to bring out the amulet as well. The amber appeared as a ball of gold here, nearly equal in hue to the flower. Within it the Black Trillium was stark.
Once more that trilling answered her. She was saddened that she could not understand. Had she any right to stand in this place? Was she being questioned? On the chance that she was, she spoke for the third time.
“Great One, I am she who is one of three in Ruwenda—in the great land of the mires. This was my birth gift from the Archima
ge Binah.” She touched the amulet. “This,” now she held the sword higher, “was won when I followed the geas laid upon me after Ruwenda fell to the evil ones. I strove to return it when my labor was over, but the earth from which it was grown refused it. And, Great One, it led me here when I trailed a new darkness through the land. I am Kadiya, King’s Daughter, but I have chosen the swamps. Any evil which touches them is my concern. Great One, today I have seen this evil come before me through the wall gate—”
“Not so!”
Kadiya’s head snapped around. They had gathered very silently—or else she had been too ensorcelled by the flower to hear. Three of them—
Her eyes widened. Vanished Ones! And no statues to be wondered at and dreamed over.
15
Neither did they have about them any of the misty clouding which had been a part of the One she had met before. To her eyes they were as much alive as she.
They were taller than she, even as she topped the Oddlings—the Oddlings! For the first time since she had won through the golden haze to the temple, Kadiya remembered her companions. A quick glance right and left showed her that she stood alone.
She set the sword point-down on the flooring, but kept her hand below the pommel so that the open eyes were still visible. In spite of the awe which held her fast she eyed these others defensively.
They were two men and a woman. Their garments were few and so finely woven that through them their bodies could be plainly seen. The men wore belts, one over each shoulder crossing on the breast. These flashed with white and green gems, and at that crossing was set a large gemmed medallion. Another belt at waist level, even more ornamented, supported a kilt not quite knee length. Covering feet and rising nearly to the knee were footgear which glistened with a silver sheen.