by Andre Norton
That fire struck the monster’s face only a finger length away from one of the eyes. The whole body of the thing tensed. Kadiya had only a breath of time to throw herself to one side, carrying Salin with her, before it rose for another leap, one which would bring its giant weight down upon the whole party.
There came a scream from the sky overhead. Then Kadiya was sent flying by the huge paw which scraped against her as the monster landed. She fell facedown, dazed. A din arose behind her as she scrabbled in the moist soil to bring herself up and around.
What she saw through blurred vision was a battlefield indeed. Not only was the toad monster in action but from the sky over their heads voor were zooming in. They were not huge, but even voor of ordinary size were able to raise and carry an Oddling, bearing off any such captive to tear at it as they flew.
She fumbled for the sword. Without a point, it was of no use as a blade. Her hope was that the Power would come making it a potent weapon.
But it did not warm in her hand; there was no life in it—the eyes were near closed.
Flashes from the weapon rods of the Sindona laced back and forth. The toad thing bellowed, raised a foot high, and crashed it down. Kadiya stiffened in shock as she saw it beat one of the Hassitti into the mud.
Then as sharp as a battle shout a word struck into her mind:
“Illusion!”
She had scuttled out of range of that foot. The tongue hung in a limp loop from the creature’s mouth, though the end of it wriggled like a serpent’s severed length.
“Illusion!” Again that imperative signal.
How could there be any illusion to this? She could see one Hassitti leg still protruding from under that paw. There were darts in the monster’s skin—and from the sky another voor planed down, its deadly talons ready for a strike.
She sighted Lalan with three other of the Sindona. They were making no effort to avoid that strike from above. Were they indeed captive to some illusion?
Kadiya found voice at last: “’Ware—voor!”
None of them raised head to look at that attacker. The thing had winged close enough now that its claws were closing about Lalan’s helmet. Though the Sindona might be too great a burden to bear skyward, the voor’s talons could kill.
“Illusion!” For the third time that mind word.
Kadiya clenched her hold on the useless sword. The voor’s claws had closed about Lalan’s neck. The foul thing was beating its wings heavily, striving to rise with its prey. Yet the woman’s hands did not raise her rod to beat it off, nor did she move.
Illusion? Kadiya’s one hand went to her breast. The amulet! She tugged now at the chain, dragged it out into the open, and held the amber drop to her forehead, lifting the mask helm. Why she did so she could not have told save that it seemed she must.
There was a sudden rending pain as if the amulet had the Power to cleave its way into her very skull. Her sight blurred and then cleared.
The sky was empty, Lalan stood free of any clawed hold. Kadiya gasped and looked toward that other monstrous enemy. There was no rounded warty shape as large as a trade boat. Lamaril stood over one of the small reed dwellers she had long known. He stooped to prod at its puffed body, which deflated under that touch.
Illusion—all illusion! It was still hard for the girl to believe it true. She crawled to the Hassitti who lay facedown where that powerful leg had felled her.… Tostlet … No!
As the amulet swung back and forth on her breast, Kadiya used both hands as gently as she could to turn over the small scaled body. There was an impression in the ground; she had not imagined that. And Tostlet rolled limply beneath her touch.
Kadiya’s fingers flew to the Hassitti’s throat, searching for a sign of life. How could one be slain by an illusion—or could belief in it be the real weapon?
“Tostlet?” She sought for mind send, for reassurance that the healer still lived. “Tostlet, it was all illusion!” Even as Lamaril’s word had reached her she strove now to reach the Hassitti mind.
The long nose quivered. That funneled tongue showed a tip and the small eyes opened.
“It was an illusion, Tostlet!” The girl had drawn the small body up against her, the scales rasping her skin unnoted. “An illusion—look!”
Kadiya supported Tostlet so that she could see the lumpish reed dweller which Lamaril was still examining.
The healer gasped, uttered a chittering cry. One of her hands closed on Kadiya’s arm as she turned her head upward to see the girl’s face. Kadiya nodded to enforce her mind words.
“A trick, Tostlet, a trick to set us against ourselves.”
“True.” Salin hobbled over, sank painfully to her knees, still gripping her support staff. “But such a strong one”—she shook her head from side to side—“this is indeed of the great Dark.”
“Who?” Kadiya still held the healer. “What Power?” And why had the sword failed her? She shivered. Had she come to depend too much on her Power, that which in truth she did not and had never understood?
Lamaril at last turned away from the toad thing.
“Again it is the old pattern: the land turning what it holds into a weapon.” There was a twist to his mouth below the edge of the helm. “But this is a game for those unknowing. How could Varm’s creature believe it would hold against us?”
“Because it did—against some of us,” Kadiya returned bleakly. “I saw death—and Tostlet felt it. The belief held us, if not those who follow you. Can he know how full our Powers may be? Even my sword failed.”
“But that which you wear did not,” Lamaril returned.
“Only because of your warning,” she said stubbornly. “Otherwise … I think these illusions would have indeed brought us death. Is that not so?”
For a moment he gave no answer.
“Is that not so?” she demanded a second time. “I am not of your race, nor are the Oddlings, nor these little ones who cherished your memory so long. If we cannot read illusions sent upon us by one who is a master, then cannot our deaths ensue?”
“Yes,” his answer came at last. “But such illusions have now been revealed for what they are and we are warned—”
“Warned so that we must mistrust all our eyes see, our ears hear. This is a land which is already against us in part. Every bog and muck patch can be turned into traps now.”
His nod was one of agreement and Kadiya shivered again. She had wanted more from him, reassurance that this was not so. She had known fear—but always before it had been real, issuing from some confrontation she could understand. Now she was helpless.
“King’s Daughter—Kadiya.” Lamaril moved closer. “We are what we were born to be. You have wrought much in the past. Do not dwell upon what you lack, rather look to what can be done. If the sword failed you, your birth gift did not. You are not without resources.”
She hoped his mind touch could not sink deeper and release to him the whirl of her feelings, the doubts which arose like black shadows to lessen her confidence. Always she had been termed reckless, one to take chances without proper thought. Now—now thought was blanking out her courage, showing her a chasm which she might never be able to cross.
“I do what I must do,” she muttered and was very glad when he turned away in answer to the summons of one of his command.
Tostlet sat up straighter within the girl’s hold.
“Noble One—”
Kadiya winced. “Please, Tostlet, you can see that I am not of the company of these great ones. My name is Kadiya and I would that you would call me also ‘friend.’”
“Friend,” the Hassitti repeated. “Yes, there is goodness between us, Kadiya. But also you are not less than we have called you. You wear Power.” She had wriggled around in the girl’s hold and now held her hand toward the amulet but did not touch it. The glow of the trillium, caught forever within the casing of the amber, was steady—warming even—to look upon.
“Do not lessen yourself in your own eyes, friend,” Tostlet continu
ed. “We go to match Power with Power, each of us has something to offer. When a worker in metal fuses one kind with another he creates a stronger weapon. We shall be such a weapon as can free this land.”
If illusions had been sent to delay their march the mage who had summoned them was not well served. They pushed on following that encounter at a pace which was even faster, the Sindona taking turns with the scouts to seek out any more such traps.
Whether their enemy wished to lull them into carelessness might be a question, but they were not so involved again during the next two days of march. On the second day they took again to boats, but these had come to meet them. They were not only Uisgu-manned but also harnessed to rimoriks, giving them speed which Kadiya had thought beyond their hopes.
They proceeded up this lesser branch of the Nothar and now the sun sank behind the towering ridges of the western mountains. Uisgu scouts came in twice to report that the Skritek were in force and mountain-bound. But on the south side of the river there was another army assembling—Uisgu, with Nyssomu of the northern clans.
Many of these Kadiya recognized from the gathering which had joined against Voltrik. Twice she asked to be set ashore to speak to commanders of clan forces, warning them against illusions.
The Hassitti dreamer was nearly frantic with frustration. All the talent he knew could not prevail over a cloud of darkness which closed in the north. Nor did Kadiya dare to try to reach Haramis again.
On the third morning after their struggle with the illusions the stream was already among the foothills. The water had lost the peat hue that it carried in the swamp and it had turned chill, so that one cringed when trying to wash in it. This stream was born of the everlasting snows of the upper heights.
Also the warmth of the swamp was gone. The Oddlings wrapped themselves in woven reed cloaks and offered the same to their companions, though such garments were far too small to clothe the Sindona. Kadiya gratefully accepted one, discovering that it was less of a protection against the probing of mountain winds than she had hoped.
Those Uisgu who had brought the rimorik-drawn craft regretfully reported that they could no longer ask their water living companions to travel on. This chill was not for those who were at home in the swamp.
Thus their party took to the slower pace of land travel once more. But the foothills were beginning and the footing continued firm.
For the first time Kadiya saw the wind twisted trees of the heights. The air was so crisp in the early mornings that it seemed to burn as she drew it into laboring lungs. Lamaril used his rod weapon in an odd fashion when they broke camp the morning after the Uisgu boats deposited them on the west side of the river. Standing a little ahead of their company he had balanced that length of gleaming metal on his flattened palm and stood watching it with complete absorption.
Kadiya had taken to wearing the amulet on the outside of her mail, depending on it for warning. It had glowed for days now, and was always warm, the sign they were nearing some source of Power.
On Lamaril’s palm the rod moved, swinging a fraction toward the south. Once more he set it straight and watched, until again it made the same move. So it was in that direction that they started off.
They entered a valley between two of the foothills. Underfoot gravel marked the bed of a vanished stream—or perhaps one which only filled at certain times of the year. The lush growth of the swamp was gone. Here was a tough grayish grass which had a sharp edged blade as Kadiya discovered when her foot turned on one of the water rounded stones. She grasped at turf to steady herself, only to have to lick drops of blood from her fingers.
Their going was not silent; now and then there was the clatter of a weapon against a boulder where the valley narrowed. Once they heard a scream from above and saw the spread of lammergeier wings as the huge mountain-born bird swung down as if to closer inspect these invaders of its country. Lammergeiers were in the service of Haramis. If there was only some way of communicating with this possible sentry.… Kadiya watched it wing away. But surely her sister knew that there was trouble and such a sighting would alert her.
The streambed was now walled in by slanting rocks which grew taller as they advanced. There was no longer any sight of vegetation—only ancient water markings on those walls to show the rise and fury of the water which had once battered a way here.
Before them there was a sharp turn—and their way forward was blocked by a towering sweep of stone, the gray surface of which was streaked with wavering flashes of dull red and a pale yellow. Crystals of a sort, Kadiya saw as she viewed them more closely.
The course of the streambed was to the south here. But Lamaril had not turned away from the barrier which fronted them. Instead his rod pointed to it.
Kadiya gasped. The weapon sped from his open hand—certainly he had not hurled it—and struck against the rock where it remained horizontal, as if the point had pierced the stone. At the same time her amulet flew forward, the chain which anchored it rasping against her neck. It, too, hung there until she grasped it and fought for a moment to tear it from some invisible grip.
On the surface of the stone those streaks of crystal glowed. Now the girl could see they appeared to form patterns, not unlike the weavings of Jagun’s people, or the characters in some of the ancient books of Yatlan.
Lamaril put his hand to the rod and pulled it back. For a period of several moments the glow of that inscription remained and then was gone. There was a shifting among the Sindona and Lamaril’s lips now set in a grim straight line.
Kadiya was aware of an uneasiness which was not active fear, but rather that which might follow direct disobedience of some old command, as it had been with Jagun when they had first taken the road to Yatlan forbidden to his people by very ancient Oaths.
Lamaril swung left. But no stream had worn this way—it must have been long dammed by the wall of crystals. This was a tumble of rock, looking loose and dangerous to the footing. It showed as a sweep from above where the wall had seemingly given way.
They shed their packs and lashed them together in bundles. Their cloaks followed, as they stripped for the ordeal of that climb. Kadiya looked to Salin—could the frail Uisgu woman do this?
However, the wisewoman showed no uneasiness. She had slung her staff to her back and stood now, her hands outstretched before her, flexing her fingers as if to prepare them for finding proper holds.
The Hassitti had already clustered at the foot of that slide and now the small ones started to test holds. Their clawed feet and forepaws proved to be highly fitted to the task and they went up eagerly, followed at a slower pace by Jagun and the Uisgu. Twice they froze tightly to holds as loosened rocks gave way to thud downward.
Kadiya made sure her sword was well fastened in its sheath and left her short spear with her pack.
How good a climber she might be she could not tell until she put herself to that task, but perhaps she could still aid Salin. She motioned toward the coiled rope on a Sindona pack.
“Together—” she thought to the wisewoman.
Lamaril, though she had not aimed the mind send at him, turned sharply. But he did not object. Rather he took the rope from his comrade and held it out to the girl.
At first Salin shook her head and drew back. But Kadiya, without warning, threw a loop of the rope about the little Oddling and had it knotted before the wisewoman could slip away. Resolutely the girl turned to the slope. Behind her Lamaril stood ready at the fore of the larger and heavier Sindona.
22
Kadiya had never tested her strength against the raw stone of such a climb before. There were no heights in the swamplands. However, she knew better than to look anywhere but straight at the wall of rubble before her. There were cracks enough to afford finger and toe holds, but whether they might support her weight was another matter. She was only too aware that some had shifted under the passage of the smaller and lighter Oddlings.
It was a slow matter, this testing as best she could of each grip before she
trusted her full weight to it. Her fingertips bruised and her nails broke against the stone as she fought to find crevices large enough to take the toes of her boots. But advance she did.
And so did Salin. The rope between them did not tighten; so far the Uisgu woman was able to match Kadiya’s climb. Then, under the girl’s right boot, a stone moved. Frantically she dug her hands into an upper hold which held her spread-eagled against the treacherous rock slide.
Fingers gripped her ankle; she could feel the determined force of the hold even through her foot covering. A moment later her toe was slammed into a space where it held steady. But she was shaking, and chill as was the breeze which lapped at them as they climbed, she was sweating. Drops ran down her chin from under the edge of her helm.
She held where she was, trying to steady her nerves, to find the courage to hunt out new holds above. Somehow she was able to do so. Finger hold, toe hold, she fought upward. Then hands reached down to fasten about her wrists, steady her, and lend strength to bring her, belly down, over the rim. Still on her hands and knees Kadiya scrambled away from the drop and felt the pull of the rope about her as Smail and one of the Hassitti closed hand on it to draw Salin also onto the dubious safety of their perch.
Perch it was for they had not reached the top of the cliff. Here was a ledge where they could get to their feet and stand backs to the rise, the battered scree up which they had made their way almost at their feet. Once erect Kadiya could see whence that slide had come. This ledge had been much wider but there were cracks across it, plain evidence that most of its width had broken off to cascade to the dried streambed.
There was something else. Kadiya raised her head higher, her nostrils expanded, as she strove to catch that odor. Faint, but still it was! And it was death!
“The plague!” She set the danger into words as well as sent out a shaft of thought. There was no blighted vegetation here, no form of life the fungus could have fed upon, yet there was no mistaking that wafted stench.