by Andre Norton
In the Green Valley the Ice Dragon was kept at bay. The season there was no cooler ever than late fall in Estcarp. As we rode past those symbols of power which kept that small pocket inviolate, the full blast of winter met us.
There were five of us who rode the sure-footed Renthan—those four-footed beings who were not animals, but comrades of battle as they had proved many times, and who were the equal of all in wit, perhaps superior in courage and resource. Kyllan took the fore, Kemoc rode to my right, Valmund for a space at the left, and behind was Raknar out of Estcarp, who had chosen to go over-mountain with me to my final goal, since he sought to find certain liegemen of his and bring them back to swell the host in Escore. He was a man of more years than the rest of us and one my brothers trusted highly.
Beyond the boundaries of the Valley, as the Renthan beat down snowdrifts with their hooves, a shape dove from the sky to become clear in our sight as a Vrang, Vorlung’s promised guide.
We traveled by day, since those of the Shadow are more used to the ways of night. Perhaps the severity of the weather had immured them in their lairs, for, though we once heard afar the hunting cries of a pack of wolf-men, the Gray Ones, we did not sight them or any other of the Dark ones. We wove a way with many curves and small detours to avoid places which Valmund and the Vrang found dangerous. Some were only groves, or places of standing stones. But once we looked upon a somber building which seemed not in the least gnawed by time. In those walls were no windows, so it was like a giant block pitched from some huge hand to lie heavily on the earth.
Around it the snow was not banked, though elsewhere it lay in white drifts from which a weak winter sun awoke sparkles of diamond. It was as if the ground was too warm there, so that a square of steaming earth enclosed that ominous masonry.
At night we sheltered in a place of blue stones, such ones as were to be found here and there as islands of security in the general evil of the land. When it grew quite dark pale light shone from these; that light beamed outward rather than toward us, as if to dazzle anything prowling beyond, to blind them from seeing our small party.
I tried not to sleep, lest those crowding dreams bring disaster, but I could not fight the fatigue of body, and, against my will, I did. Perhaps those blue stones had some remedy even greater than the power Dahaun had brought to my succor. For my sleep was dreamless and I awoke from it refreshed as I had not been for a long time. I ate with an appetite, and I took heart that my choice was right and perhaps our trip might be without ill incidents.
The second night we were not so lucky in finding a protected camp site. Had I still the learning I had once made my own, I might have woven a spell to cover us. But now I was the most helpless. Vrang and Valmund between them had brought us into the foothills of the mountains we must cross, but we were still heading north, rather farther to the east then would serve us.
We had rested in a place where stunted trees made a thick canopy, in spite of the fact they had lost their last year’s leaves. And in that half shelter the Renthan knelt, giving us their bodies to lean against wearily as we chewed journey cake and drank sparingly from our saddle bottle. It was Green Valley wine, mixed with water from the springs there, a well-known restorative.
The Vrang winged off to a crag of his own choosing and the men settled the watch hours among them. Again I fought sleep, sure that with no safeguard I would be vulnerable to whatever the Shadow sent after us.
I did not think beyond our piercing of the mountains and the coming to Estcarp. Only too well did my imagination create for me what might happen between this hour and that when I was again in the land of my birth . . . though I knew that in the marshaling of such ills I was harming myself.
Valmund sat to my left, his green cloak about him. Even in the gloom, for we dared not light a fire, I could see his head was turned to look toward the mountains, though before him now was such a screen of brush and tree limb that he might not see through. There was something in his stance which made me ask in a half-whisper: “There is trouble ahead?”
He looked now to me. “There is always trouble in the mountains at this time.”
“Hunters?” What kind? I wondered. There had been fearsome surprises enough in the lowlands. What foul monsters might seek us out in the heights?
“No, the land itself.” He did not try to hide his fears from me and for that I was glad. For what he spoke of seemed less to me than things my dreams brought. “There are many snowslides now and they are very dangerous.”
Avalanches—I had not thought of those. “This is a dangerous way? More so than the other?” I asked.
“I do not know. This is new country for me. But we must go with double care.”
I dozed that night and again my apprehensions were not realized. I might not have slept in a protected place, but I did not dream.
In the morning, when the light was strong enough for us to move on, the Vrang came to us. He had been scouting across the heights above since first light and what he had to report was none too good. There was a pass leading west, but we must reach it on foot, and would need a mountaineer’s skill to do so.
With a great curved talon the Vrang drew a line map in the snow, went over each point of probable danger for us. Then he rose again, once more to seek the heights and so scout even farther ahead than the distance we could cover in the hours of this day. Thus did we begin our mountain journey.
II
At first our way was no worse than any mountain trail I had yet seen, but by the time the pale sun was up we had reached that portion the Vrang had foretold where we must say farewell to the Renthans and go thereafter on our own two feet. What had been a path, though steep and to be followed warily, now became a kind of rough staircase fit for two feet but not four.
The men packed our scant supplies and brought out the ropes and steel-pointed staffs which Valmund among us knew best how to use, and he now took the lead. We started up a way which was to be a test of endurance.
I could almost believe that we did indeed tread a stairway, one fashioned not by the whim of wind and weather, but by the need of some intelligence. I could not believe that the maker, or makers, had been men like us, however, for the steps were far too steep and shallow, sometimes giving only room for the toe of one’s boot, very seldom wide enough to set the full length of a foot upon them.
Yet there was no other indication that we trod a way which had once been a road. And the constant climb made one’s legs and lower back ache. At least the wind had scoured the snow and ice from these narrow fingers of ledge so that we had bare rock to tread and need not fear the additional hazard of slippery footing.
That stairway seemed endless. It did not go straight up the slope, although it began that way, but rather turned to our left after the first steep rise, to angle along the cliff face, which led me even more to surmise that it was not natural but contrived. It brought us at last to the top of a plateau.
The sunlight which had been with us during that climb vanished, and dark clouds lowered. Valmund stood, his face to the wind, his nostrils expanded, as if he could sniff in its blowing some evil promise. Now he began to uncoil the rope which had belted him, shaking it out in loops, so that the hooks which glinted in it at intervals could be seen.
“We rope up,” he said. “If a storm catches us here . . .” Now he pivoted, looking toward what lay ahead, seeking, I believed, for some hint that we might find shelter from a coming blast.
I shivered. In spite of the clothing which made me move clumsily, the wind found a way to probe at me with icy fingers which wounded.
We made haste to obey his orders, snapping the rope hooks to the front of the belts we wore. Valmund led the line, and after him Kyllan, then Kemoc, and I, and, bringing up the rear, Raknar. I was the least handy. During the border war my brothers and Raknar had had duty in mountain places, and, while they did not have Valmund’s long training, they knew enough to be less awkward.
Staff in hand, Valmund moved out, we suiting our
pace to his, to keep some slack in the line linking us, but not too much. The clouds were thickening fast, and while as yet no snow had fallen, it was hard to see the far end of the plateau. Nor had the Vrang returned to give us any idea of what might await us there.
Valmund took to sounding the path before him with his staff as if he thought some trap might await under seemingly innocent footing; he did not go as fast as I wanted to, with the wind striking colder and colder.
Just as the climb up the stair had seemed to be a journey without end, so did this become a matter of trudging toward a goal which was hours, days before us. Time had no longer any true meaning. If it was not snowing, the wind raised the drifts already fallen to encircle us with bewildering veils. I feared that Valmund was indeed a blind man leading the blind, and we were as well able to blunder over some cliff as to walk a path to safety.
But we won at last to a place of shelter where the wind-driven snow was kept from us by an overhang of rock. There my companions held council as to the matter of going on or trying to wait out what Valmund feared to be a storm. I leaned back against the rock wall, breathing in great gasps. The cold I drew into my laboring lungs seemed to sear, as if I inhaled fire. And my whole body trembled, until I was afraid that if Valmund did give the signal to return to that battle outside I could not answer with so much as a single step.
I was so occupied with the failure of my own strength that I was not really aware of the return of the Vrang until a harsh croaking call aroused me. The Vrang waddled in under the overhang, an awkward creature out of its element of the upper air. It shook itself vigorously, sending bits of snow and moisture flying in all directions, and then it squatted down before Valmund in the stance of one come to settle in for some tune. So I gathered that perhaps our travel for this day was over, and I slid thankfully down the wall which supported me, to sit with my legs out, my back still resting against the mountain rock.
We could not have a fire, for there was no wood to feed it. And I wondered numbly if we would freeze here under the lash of the wind which now and again reached in to flick us. But Valmund had an answer to that also. He produced from his pack a square of stuff which seemed no larger than my hand when he first pulled it forth. In the air, though, as he began to unfold it, it spread larger and larger, fluffing up, until he had a great downy blanket under which we crept and lay together. From this heat spread to thaw my shivering body as it served my companions also, even the Vrang taking refuge beneath one end, its bulk making a hump.
The covering had the soft consistency of massed feathers where it touched my cheek, but it looked more like moss. When I ventured to ask Valmund explained that it was indeed made from vegetation but via insect handling, since a small worm found in the Valley feasted upon a local moss and then spun this in turn, meant to make a weather protection shell. The Green People had long since, in a manner, domesticated these worms, kept them housed and fed, using the tiny bits of substance each produced to fashion such blankets. Unfortunately, as it took hundreds of worms to make a single blanket, each one was the work of many years; there were few of them, those in existence being among the treasures of the Valley.
I heard my companions talking, but their words became only a lulling drone in my ears as I drowsed, because of the fatigue of my aching body no longer trying to fight sleep. It seemed that here all my fears faded, and I was no longer Kaththea who must be constantly alert lest I fall prey to the enemy, but rather a mindless body which needed rest so sorely that lack of it was pain.
I dreamed, but it was not one of those nightmares from which I roused crying out with dread horror, though it was as vivid, or more so, as one of those. It seemed that I lay with the others under that soothing blanket and watched, with a kind of lazy content, the roar of the gathering storm outside, secure and safe with my protectors around me.
From that storm there spun out a questing line, silvery, alive, and this beamed over us, hovering just above our huddled bodies. In my dream I knew that this was a questing from another mind, one which controlled Power.
Yet I did not think it evil, only different. And the end of that silvery beam or cord swung back and forth until it came to hold steady over me for a space. Then I seemed to rouse for the first time to a feeling of vague danger. But when I summoned what small defenses that I had, the line was gone and I blinked, knowing that I was now awake, though all was just as it had been in my dream, and we lay together with the storm beyond.
I did not tell my brothers, for my dreams must not be used, I made certain in my own mind, to flog them into dangerous efforts in the mountains. At that moment I decided that, if I did feel the touch of true evil any time as we climbed these perilous ways, I would loosen my fastening on the life rope and plunge, to end my problems, rather than draw them after me.
We spent the rest of the day and the next night in our hiding place. With the coming of the second dawn there was light and no clouds. The Vrang took wing, to soar high, coming back with news that the storm was gone and all was clear. So we broke our fast and went on.
There were no more stairways. We climbed and crept, up cliffs, along ledges. And all the time Valmund studied the heights above us with such intent survey that his uneasiness spread to us, or at least to me, though I could not be sure what he feared, unless it was an avalanche.
At midday we found a place on a wider ledge than we had heretofore traversed, and crouched there to eat and drink. Valmund reported that we were now within a short distance of the pass and that perhaps two hours would see us through the worst of the journey ahead and on the down slope, where once more we could angle east. So it was with some relaxation that we munched our blocks of journey bread and sipped from flasks filled with the Valley brew.
We had crossed the pass well within the time Valmund had set and were on a downward trail which did not seem so bad compared to the way we had come, when our mountaineer leader called a halt. He tested the rope ties and signaled he must reset them. So we waited while he shucked his pack to begin that precaution. It was then that the danger he had foreseen struck.
I was only aware of a roaring. Instinctively I jerked back, trying to flee—what I knew not. Then I was swept away, buried, and knew nothing at all.
It was very dark and cold and a weight lay on and about me. I could not move my arms nor legs as I tried to reach out in a half-conscious fight against that punishing burden. Only my head, neck and half of one shoulder were free and I lay face up. But all was dark. What had happened? One moment we had been standing on the mountainside a little below the pass, the next, so had time passed for me, I was caught here. My dazed mind could not fit that together.
I tried again to move the arm of the free shoulder and found with great effort I could do so. Then with my mittened hand I explored the space about my head. My half numbed fingers struck painfully against a solid surface I thought was rock, slipped over that. I could not see in this gloom, only feel, and touch told me so little—that I now lay buried in snow save for my hand, shoulder, arm, head resting within a pocket of rock. That chance alone had saved me from being smothered by the weight which imprisoned the rest of me. I could not accept that imprisonment, and began, in a frenzy of awaking fear, to push at the snow with my free hand. The handfuls I scooped up flew back in my face, bringing me to understand I might thus bring upon myself the very fate from which the rock pocket had saved me.
So I began to work more slowly, striving to push away the burden over me, only to discover I was too well buried; I could make no impression on that weight.
At last, exhausted, sweating, I lay panting, and for the first time tried to discipline the fear which had set me to such useless labor. There must have been an avalanche, sweeping us downslope with it, burying us—me. The others could be digging now to find me! Or they might all be . . . Resolutely I tried to blank out that thought. I dared not believe that a chance rock pocket had saved me alone. I must think the others lived.
More bitterly than I ever had sinc
e I had fallen in that last struggle at Dinzil’s side I regretted my lost communication with my brothers. With my magic that had been rift from me also, my punishment for being drawn into the underfolds of the Shadow. Perhaps . . . I shut my eyes against the dark in which my head lay, tried to rule my mind as once I had, to seek Kyllan and Kemoc—to be one with my brothers as had been our blessing.
It was as if I faced some roll of manuscript on which I could see words, clearly writ, but in a language I could not read, though I knew that reading might mean life or death for me. Life or death—suppose Kyllan, Kemoc, the rest of our company had survived; suppose that it would be better for them now if they did not find me . . . Only there is that stubborn spark of life in us which will not allow one to tamely surrender being. I had thought I might throw myself into nothingness in their service if the need arose. Now I wondered if I could have done that. I tried to concentrate only on my brothers, on the need that I now speak with them mind to mind. Kemoc—if I had to narrow that beaming to one, I would select Kemoc, for always had he been the closer. In my mind I pictured Kemoc’s dear face, aimed every scrap of energy toward touching him—to no avail.
A cold which was not from the snow imprisoning me spread through my body. Kemoc—it might be that I tried to reach one already gone! Kyllan then, and my elder brother’s face became my picture, his mind that I sought, again to reach nothing.
It was the failure of my power, I told myself, not that they were dead! I would prove that—I had to prove it!—so I thought of Valmund with what I hoped was the same intensity, and then of Raknar. Nothing.
The Vrang! Surely the Vrang had not been included in our disaster! For the first time a small spark of hope flashed in me. Why had I not tried the Vrang? But that creature had a different form of brain channel: could I succeed with him where I had failed with men? I began to seek the Vrang as I had the others.