by Andre Norton
He was frowning. “I heard—a strange story—You carry some talisman they say which they do not understand. They fear iron above all things because it is truly poison for their kind. Yet your talisman defeated the death brought by iron. If you have such power why—”
She could guess what he would say, “Why did I not use it before—back at the village—at the river? Because"—she drew a deep breath—"it is a tool I do not know how to use, I can only guess and if my guess proves to be wrong—then I believe that never can it be put right. It was Hulde's gift to me but she said that I must learn its use by myself. I think that she meant I had—somehow put a part of me into it as it could answer only me.
“But, Ylon, for the child we must try—”
She tried to free her hand from his grip, but it was like a fetter holding her.
“Ylon, can you find our way out of here?” she tried another question. To her joy she saw him give a slow nod.
“I wondered why the bond raised. Yes, I can find a way—but, Twilla, do not deal with Lotis unless you are sure of your weapon. She is different, I think, from the others. They, those I have had contact with, are not as twisted of purpose as she. It is with them as it is with us, each has his or her own kind of spirit, is able to choose good or ill.
“They are, you must understand,” he had swung around, towing Twilla with him by that hold he kept on her, “akin in some strange way to the forest. Any destruction within it—the felling of a tree, the pressure of an uncaring boot to crush a plant, is to them as great an injury as a sword thrust through the body can be to one of us.
“They have been fighting a war of protection for the Wood, their way of life. To them our kind are a great and abiding threat. And the weapons they use are strange and sometimes beyond belief of our race.
“Those who harm the Wood, would raise ax to a tree, grub forth a bush—they are inviting attack in return. Until our people understand this—”
“But a child! And she was not near the Wood when we first saw her.” Swiftly Twilla told of that hunt for the bright flowers which had drawn her into Lotis's reach.
“Foul!” His lips twisted as if he would spit. “They have few children themselves, and surely they hold them high because of that. Thus Lotis is daring—She may think that to take such a youngling she can change her, shape her as a potter shapes his wares, so that she will be forgiven her deed because she has added to their company. Though that would be a new way of thinking than any Lotis has shown—at least to my knowledge.”
“She—she made you seem like a—a hound at her call.”
There was a dull red flush on Ylon's cheek. “To her I was—a hound, yes. She enticed a man and made him less than a servant, for a servant is not under such commands as can be laid here. I do not think that even Oxyle knows what lies in Lotis's mind, what pattern she weaves in secret.”
14
“WHAT DOES SHE desire then?”
Ylon had quickened pace and Twilla, in spite of her fatigue, had to match that because of his continued hold on her. Once more he was running fingers along the wall. Just as she asked her question his touch passed from the stone to one of those sealed doors.
He gave a small exclamation and swung that guide hand away.
“Another—” he muttered. “Trap? It must be so. But why set here? Surely Lotis does not look forward to so protecting all the corridors—”
“Trap?” For a moment Twilla forgot her question concerning Lotis. “That is a door—sealed. Karla told me. There was a war long ago and some ancient enemy sealed away in those portions they may still hold.”
He paused, took a backward step so he was again opposite that stretch of what appeared to be wood scrawled over with long-faded signs. Very gingerly he touched it. To Twilla's amazement his finger appeared to sink straight into the seemingly solid slab.
“What do you see?” Ylon demanded.
“A—a door—flat within the wall—it has symbols on it. There is no latch, no seeming way to open it.”
“A door?” He thrust his questing finger deeper until it was swallowed past the second joint and then jerked it back.
“Something soft enough to yield to my touch. But let them have their mysteries—we are fast caught in our own tangle.”
He started on and Twilla returned to her earlier question. “What does Lotis want?”
Again Ylon gave that grating laugh. “I think sometimes even Lotis does not know. She tried me as a tool—or a weapon. Now she will do the same for this child.”
“Unless we stop her!”
“That we can is another question,” he returned.
They had come to a place where the passage they were following now split in two. To the left the way held the same dusk as masked all the stone walled ways, to the right was a gleam of light. Ylon had paused again, his head swung to the right and she saw his nostrils expand to catch some scent. In a moment she also picked up that faint hint of fragrance such as had no place in these gloomy ways.
Ylon seemed as certain here as he had been in their night's journey out of the Keep. And undoubtedly he had his own guide; they were heading toward the silvery light. She caught a glimpse ahead of what could only be a flutter of that mist which used its trails to cloud and then uncurtain the way beyond.
The walls here were also pierced by niches in which stood figures. But there was something subtly unpleasant about these, all humanoid as they were. Beautiful forms still hinted at hidden misshaping, there were sly quirks of lips, a sidewise leer of eye.
Ylon no longer held to that wall as a guide but strode confidently forward, and the mist drifted toward them in long trails.
He came to a halt and wheeled to the left, to face a doorway. At the same moment that mist came down upon them, as might the net of a fisherman hurled at a school of his prey. Ylon's hold on her hand loosened—was gone.
Though they stood nearly shoulder to shoulder Twilla could no longer see him. He was enveloped—hidden. Yet, though the mist curled about her, sifting, nearing, she was not totally caught by it. Tendrils reached out for her, touched her body and slipped away again. Those might have been roots seeking earth to nourish them but finding only stone.
The fragrance was thick, so strong now as to seem rank, filling the air to stifle breathing.
“Ylon!” She dared to call his name. That pillar of mist beside her spiraled around furiously and was gone. While the portion of it which had tried to enfold her whipped back and forth until the girl could almost feel that rage embodied in it.
Ylon was gone. Twilla could not help but believe that in some fashion Lotis had reached out for him again. But there remained the door before her and this one did have a latch. Lotis's quarters? Twilla could but try and see.
She had more than half believed that she would find some barrier when she tested that latch, but it moved easily so she pushed the door wide to look within.
What she viewed was a room not unlike that in which she had slept and dreamed. Here also was a bed fashioned to form a well-opened flower. The colorful hangings on the walls—these were not ferns but blossomed vines massing together.
And—on the bed lay the child. Of Lotis there was no sign. Twilla advanced with caution. Surely the forest woman would not be so easily robbed of her new bond slave! Unless that mist which had removed Ylon had been meant to also pursue her small captive.
Why the mist had not engulfed Twilla also she did not know, save that perhaps the mirror was once more serving her, not as a tool, a weapon this time, but as a shield.
Twilla crossed to the bed. The child lay with closed eyes. She was smiling, and now and then she murmured a word in a whisper—
“Pretty—” Twilla heard. “Pretty flowers—pretty lady. Good drink—”
Drugged! But how deeply? The child suddenly rolled over in bed and her eyes opened so she looked straight up at Twilla.
“Pretty flowers—give Wandi pretty flowers—”
“Yes,” at least the girl did not app
ear to be so deeply sedated that she could not move, “we shall go—” Twilla held out her hand. “Go to look for the flowers.”
The child did not shrink from her this time. In so much the mirror had served her well. Wearing her over-mountain face she must look much like any of the landwomen Wandi knew.
Wandi scrambled out of the petals readily enough, took the hand Twilla held out without hesitation. Twilla was tense, waiting for Lotis to appear. This was too easy—far too easy—she could not believe that the forest woman would not rise to stop them.
However, she brought Wandi with her into the outer hall. The mist? Would that be Lotis's weapon—a coiling mist to enfold Wandi and take her as it had Ylon only moments earlier?
Abruptly the fragrance which wafted out of the room as they left changed. There came a whiff of stench, stomach-churning foulness. There was sound also—a scrambling—a heavy padding. The mist, which had hung there waiting for them, thinned. What came through, scuttling toward them was a monstrosity, not as large as that illusion which was set on border watch in the forest, yet carrying in its smaller form the same looming menace.
Wandi screamed, twisted her hand free from Twilla. She turned and ran blindly, so fear-possessed that she had only flight in mind. Only she had not headed back into the room, rather she was flying down the passage toward that dusky maze of other corridors.
The six-legged thing gave a leap, one of its clawed legs swung out in a blow promising to rip Twilla from breast to knee.
Illusion! It must be illusions. She backed, her hands fumbling to free the mirror. The thing leaped again—and vanished in the middle of that leap. Twilla could hear faint screams now—Wandi had found her full voice and it sounded as if the child had been truly driven out of her wits. Twilla followed, running. Again she heard sounds behind, looked over her shoulder at a second apparition. This was offensively humanoid and the worst for having taken that form. A skeletonthin figure, showing a skull face half eaten away by some loathsome disease. As it came it sputtered threats.
Once more Twilla made herself stand her ground and hold out the mirror shield. The stench of decay encircled her as might a reaching of the mist. Then—that, too, was gone. However, she had lost time. Wandi must be very far ahead now and she could not be sure, once the passages began to divide, which one the child would choose to follow.
She ran as best she could wondering if she dared call the child by name, or if she did so she would alert more crawling menaces.
Twilla came to where the corridor had split before. Which way? Had the child gone straight, the way Ylon had led Twilla, or taken the other way? She made herself stand and try to pick up some sound to lead her.
Yes! Wandi screamed again. Had the child confronted some other monster in the dark, sent to herd her back? Twilla whirled into the side passage and ran, mirror in her hand. Then she saw ahead a wall cutting off the way. Wandi had reached that point, heading straight for the barrier as if she could not see it. In a moment she would crash headlong into the stone!
Only she did not. She vanished. And, Twilla racing up, saw then ahead one of those symbol marked doors. Wandi had plunged through it—even as Ylon she seemed to find it no barrier. Twilla followed, though her eyes told her that she was going to hit a solid surface.
What she did plunge into was, as Ylon had reported, a kind of jelly fluidity which slowed her but did not prevent her entrance. Here was a dark far beyond any dusk of the outer ways.
Now she dared at last to call, knowing that if she could not find Wandi in this dark they were both in danger.
“Wandi! Wandi!”
Twilla took one careful step at a time into the dark.
“Wandi—?”
She stopped short. That had been an unmistakable whimper from ahead—and not too far away.
If she only had some measure of light! Was that wish a command of the power she could not believe she had mastered? From the mirror spiraled a fine haze, far less than the corridor mists, but it was a weapon against the dark.
She swung the mirror back and forth, striving to see the way ahead. Again the whimper came and this time from a point to her right. Part of that very faint light’ showed a rough-edged hole rather than the well built other ways.
“Wandi?” she called.
“Here—” The word was choked forth amid heavy sobs.
Twilla moved in the direction from which it had come, under that rudely chiseled archway into the unknown.
The haze did not reach far. Twilla was fearful of becoming lost if this passage was like the mazes she had wandered through in the castle. However, she had not yet sighted Wandi and must keep on.
“Wandi—?” she called again.
Her answer was a whimper from somewhere still ahead. The haze showed walls which had not been smoothed but were pocked and ridged. Once, when her hand with the mirror swung closer to the right, she saw a gleaming stream of what might have been slime—perhaps marking the pathway of some creature of the dark. Only that stream was not any normal slug or snail trail—this was as thick as her wrist and she did not want to think about what might have crawled that way.
Then she was nearly bowled off her feet as a small form burst out of the dark and threw itself at her, clasping arms about her waist.
“Wandi!”
“Get me out—out—” The child's voice held the shrillness of hysteria. “The things—they'll get us!”
“The things are gone,” Twilla hoped that she was right—that there were no more monsters. To meet such in the dark would heighten their power to frighten. “Come—yes, we shall get out.”
Twilla slipped the mirror cord over her head so it rested on her breast and the haze seemed a little stronger. Perhaps her eyes adjusting somewhat to this complete gloom made it seem so. She had to unhook Wandi's clutching hands and then gathered the girl close and turned to go back the way they had come.
She kept on because she must, because she could not believe that she was lost, when she had made only a single turn beyond the door. Yet there was no jaggered edged arch ahead—and she was certain that she had come far enough to sight that.
“Please—please—get us out!” Wandi's small body, pressed still close to hers, was shaking. Twilla felt her own rise of fear.
“Yes.” She fought to control her own uneasiness, to reassure the child. “We shall get out.” Only the haze light brought into sight no arch—only a continuing rough passageway. Twilla was forced to admit to herself that there was surely some warding sorcery here.
The air about them was dry and something, probably their own passing, stirred up dust which set them both to coughing.
“I'm thirsty—” the child said. “Please—where is out?”
“We shall find it.” How long wondered Twilla could she keep up the pretense that she knew where they were and that there would shortly be an end to this?
There was only one thing to give her hope, the light from the mirror seemed to become more intense as they went. She could see now perhaps three or four feet before her. Save there was nothing to see but the endless rough wall on either side and the dust sanded pavement underfoot.
Not until that light caught something which gave back a wink of reflection. Twilla paused and turned a little to the left, so that the full light of the mirror could center there. Anything which was more than just the rough stone might be of importance.
What her turn so illuminated brought another scream out of Wandi, clutching at her, hiding her face in Twilla's bedraggled skirt. The older girl gasped, frozen in place for a moment.
There was a face there—and that glint had betrayed an eye, her turn another as well, in addition the surface of a sleek, lolling tongue, curling out of a full fanged cavern of a mouth.
Her surprise held her there long enough for her to realize that this was no monster apparently halfway through a solid wall, rather a mask of such. Placed as a warning?
As Twilla studied it, her fear now under control, she saw that it was carven in
bold relief and that it formed the head of a boar—but such a one as certainly was never seen over mountain. The carving had been done with such skill that mask-head had a pseudo life when the haze touched it.
“Wandi,” Twilla gathered the girl closer. “It is not alive. Someone has made it out of the wall stone. Remember the Harvest Dancers—the masks they wear?” She did not know if that custom had been brought over mountain but where there were landsmen and farming, generally the harvest festival was one of the great feast days of the year.
“—get us!” Wandi's voice was muffled. She continued to keep her face hidden in Twilla's skirt.
“No—it cannot!” Somehow she must get through to the child. She remembered only too well those stories of the mind-blasted who had come out of the forest. If Wandi was driven too far by fear—what could she do with the child?
She moved a step or so toward that mask on the wall, dragging Wandi with her. Then she worked to loosen the grip of those small hands, striving not to use hurtful force.
“Wandi—” Twilla went to her knees, the heavy dust of the way rising around to cling to her clothing, skin and hair. She held the child and turned her toward the wall.
“Watch!” she ordered. Twilla let go her grip with one hand and raised that to catch the end of the dangling tongue.
Wandi was looking, her eyes wide in a pale face.
“It is only stone,” Twilla urged. She pulled herself up, and now drew her hand along the carving which so closely and cleverly resembled the creature's bristly pelt, from between the ears, down the snout, venturing into the mouth as if to count the teeth, landing once more on the tongue.
Wandi gave a heaving sob. “Not real—”
Twilla nodded with relief. “Not real—only a made thing. Wandi, you live on a landholding, do you not?”
The little girl was still staring bemused at the carving but she nodded.
“And when the fields are early sown,” Twilla called upon what she knew of farm affairs, “do not the birds come often to try and eat the grain?”
