by Andre Norton
However, Ylon remained where he was. His sightless eyes were centered in her direction but except for that maiming he stood as if he were truly his own man again.
Lotis's wide gaze narrowed, it switched from Ylon to Twilla, and then she had a hint of a smile.
“So you have been playing your own games— healer,” she made of that term a name of defamation. “You believe that you can use your skills—yet here he is still blind.”
“Yes,” it was Ylon who answered before Twilla could summon words. “I am blind, Lotis. But bond still— no—I think not!”
Now her mouth worked and her hands enfolded into fists struck together on the tabletop. “I will deal with you later, bondman. As for you"—once more she gave Twilla her attention—"your meddling has cost us dear. That changling I would have made sure of to our gain you freed to her kin and they are able to pick her thoughts and learn what they must not know. Then"— again her fists struck the table—"you have broken the restraints laid long ago that those below not rise to trouble us. We had a taste of their ambitions, their deviousness, and then we had indeed a leader who could see where their rebellion might lead. He took proper action—they were not—until you summoned them again. Unfortunately for us in the passing of growth time some of our kind have grown weak of will. We shall not let them in any way break the ancient laws.
“These two,” she said now to the guards who had brought them here, “you will see them into safekeeping. They call you Moon Daughter—dirt woman—” Lotis continued. “Be sure that our knowledge is very old, and greater than any power an outlander can summon. Yes, you have a power of a sort, and so do others among your kind—or they believe they have, and, as long as it suits us, they may think so. But with you we shall certainly deal when it is time!”
Twilla could not see any good in challenging the forest woman now. She must discover, if she could, what had happened to Oxyle, Karla and the others she had held in a measure of trust. Had it proven true then that Lotis had tapped some of the knowledge which had brought that Khargel to rule long ago?
“Well, do you remain silent, dirt woman?” Lotis's smile curved the perfect line of her lips. “You shall have time to think of what you have done—creeping among us as a spy for those outer ones. Yet I believe, from what has drifted to my ears, that you are not well rooted there among your kind either and may find yourself a sapling brought down in the first of the season's storms. Anyway—we have no time for this now— take them!”
Once again they transversed the hallways. It seemed to Twilla as they went that the ever-present mists she had always known here before were less in number, thinned in substance, as if somehow those had been weakened, sapped. They came to a door and one of their guards stepped to it, drawing his branch down its surface in a crossing of lines. It opened and he nodded. Twilla, hand in hand with Ylon, went through, turned quickly, only to see there was no longer any door but rather what appeared to be an unbroken wall of rock.
The room in which they found themselves was smaller than any of the private chambers she had seen, and there was none of the magnificent furnishings of her former quarters. Also the light began to fade as the door closed upon them. The chamber did not fall into complete darkness—she could still see a pallet-like bed place in one corner, a trio of stools. But there were no fine carpets or cushions here. It might be cleaner and of a good standard compared with the city dungeons, but it had the same feeling as those prisons.
“So,” Ylon spoke first, “Lotis has her power—she has worked for it long, she must relish it.”
“I do not understand how Oxyle defeated her by the door if she has become so strong.” Swiftly Twilla outlined what she had seen of the breaking of that be-spelling. “How did she gain a victory over him—over Karla—for Karla has knowledge.” (She remembered well that visit to the moon reflection pool which had cleansed and restored her own focus for power.)
“Lotis,” Ylon had found one of the stools by knocking against it as he moved and now he sat down, supported by elbows set on his knees, his shoulders hunched as if some of that strength Twilla had sensed in him, was cracking.
“I was bond to her. You cannot understand what that means, Healer. For a while she was all a man could long for in his life. She was—his life when she desired. Lotis ruled me as if I were an empty pot into which she poured what she willed, and stirred as she pleased.
“Somehow I cannot remember how—I managed to break free—to leave the forest. The men I had once commanded found me staggering brain bemused— blind. Slowly my wits returned but my sight did not— thus I was of no use to anyone. Then—with you, I returned.”
He drew a heavy breath which was near a sob. His face continued hidden from her.
“Again returned that binding—I was her—thing! But also something within me awakened, fighting for life. I think, Healer, it was partly of your doing. You could not give me back my sight, but since we came out of the Keep I have gained back a portion of my manhood, so I managed to do what must be done.”
Twilla remembered his downing of Ustar, of their battle with the river flood.
“You were a man, you are a man!”
“Perhaps.” Now he raised his head, turned it a little toward her. “By fortune's favor that which had been awakened in me grew even when Lotis claimed me again. And then"—there was a kind of eagerness in his face—"there was the matter of the iron and I knew that in one thing I had power greater than any of the forest. That brought a further loosening of the bond hold. I do not know whether she found me too difficult to control without effort she did not want to expend—or perhaps, in her contempt, she was not even aware that I was slipping from her. She had already determined on bringing under command someone younger, whom she could mold as she pleased.
“Thus she summoned the child. Though she did it against the intentions of her own people. In these past few days she has become very sure, very confident. And she has long wanted power.”
“However,” Twilla said softly, “she has no longer control of you.”
“Only my eyes!” Those words rang through this small chamber as if he cried out against all the injustices he had known. “I am a frighting man who is now no more than a child. She has robbed me well.”
Twilla settled on the edge of that pallet which had been placed on a ledge jutting out of the rock wall. She was trying to find words to answer him when Ylon continued:
“A woman fights my battles. You stood before me when that horror of the underways would have downed us. Even the dwarf made a better showing—”
“No! It was not me—not truly me, Lord Ylon. I am a healer, no worker with power. My mistress gave me an ancient thing and told me only to make it truly mine through certain labor. As I did. Even yet I know not how much I can command. While to use it to any extent brings a weakness to me. If Lotis wishes to challenge me she is the better armed for she has all her people's learning behind her. My mistress was only an explorer of ancient learning, she longed to know, but she was not adept. And I am even less than her.”
“Yet so far you have survived well,” Ylon said. “You cannot claim you are maimed.”
“Still—” Twilla was beginning. Then she stiffened and her hands went instantly to the mirror as they always did when such only half understood warning came upon her.
There was a curdling in the air, movement, and then opaque streamers, not the shining of the silver mists, only a dimmed shadow of such. On impulse Twilla raised the mirror to face that disturbance. If Lotis had sent one of her monsters to them, then perhaps this would be again a defense.
The surface of the mirror cleared to bright silver. There was a small spray of motes in the air before it. Why she did so, Twilla did not know, but she gave the disk a twist, almost as if it were a spindle for the spinning of thread. Now spin it did—sending out threads of silver, needle thin but striking toward that troubling in the air. There they struck and clung. The glitter born from them spread across the muddy surface. In a moment or two what Tw
illa saw was a true whirl of the travel mists. Out of the embrace of that stumbled, nearly to fall, Karla. Ylon must have sensed her coming for he was on his feet, and when her body touched his, he supported her.
The forest woman was gasping. There was a dusky tinge to her normally ivory pale face, and she wavered in Ylon's hold.
Then she found her voice: “Moon Daughter—to you my thanks. That cursed one has rewoven that what has been untouched since the first sapling arose from the earth! May she be swallowed into the Maw of Grippar! Even Khargel did not so twist that which is our lives.”
Twilla helped her to sit on the bed. Karla continued to gasp for several breaths. Then she straightened a little.
“What news have you brought back from the underworld?” she asked. “Has that one managed to foul again any hope of effort?”
“Chard fears that the invaders may follow the riverway within. His people prepare certain guards—” Twilla described the nets.
Karla nodded. “As of old—yes, those entrapped very well the outmountain people who strayed into our land many seasons ago. Even after the sundering and Khargel wrought his will below we had still a supply of such. But their virtue weakens with time and they fall apart. So they weave such again? That is good hearing—we have had little enough to make us hope.”
“Chard will only act with you,” Ylon spoke up, “if you release their women and children.”
Karla clasped her hands together and stared down at those entwined fingers.
“So we would have agreed—”
“But not now?” Twilla interrupted.
“Lotis has made her move—and so far she has gathered others to her following. We did not know—we were ever bound by our law that one does not question the powers of another—though that was what brought us trouble before long ago. Lotis has somehow discovered knowledge which was sealed and bound after the destruction of Khargel. She"—Karla waved one hand now in the air—"you have seen her power—she keeps us who have not sworn themselves to her service from the mist travel. Oxyle has gone searching in the unused ways for where she has made such discoveries. With him stand the strongest of our empowered. It may even be that they have been entrapped by some snare long forgotten, for we have not heard from them.
“Lotis has spoken against you, Moon Daughter, saying that you are one sent by the invaders to weaken us and bring discord. She has stated again the warnings that the underworld are our enemies and that you have moved to release their fighting men and artificers to lead another attack. And—Moon Daughter,” she twisted about to face Twilla as if to read an answer in the other's expression as well as hear it, “the invaders do have a power—something we did not dream of. In some way Lotis has tapped this—perhaps because power is ever drawn to power—and she—we believe, those of us of the inner council she has driven into hiding, that she makes a common cause in some way with this power. What power is it, Moon Daughter, that your race have and Lotis can treat within this fashion?”
“The Dandus priest.” Ylon had not reseated himself and now he took a step forward, looming over both of the women. “The old stories—the warnings—yes, those Dark Ones had their strengths which they kept jealously secret. Such a believer might well think that he could gain his will by causing dissension here—and if he is truly in touch with Lotis, perhaps he has!”
“So,” Karla accepted that. She sat straighter and her expression was one of determination. “We draw from the forest, it provides our strength, if Lotis meddles with that which is not grown from this soil, then she disputes all which is our birthright. Let those tricked and teased into following her realize that and they will fall away. For it is she who has truly betrayed.
“How powerful is this outer world magic, Ylon?” Twilla noted that Karla addressed him by name and not by the contemptuous “bondman” used toward him earlier.
“Who knows,” he replied. “Once the Dandus rule was tight upon my land—and mistake it not—it is a vicious rule! Those of my blood died horrible deaths to break it in the end. Here—should it be able to draw upon a new source—who knows?”
“Moon Daughter, you hold power,” Karla gestured to the mirror. “What can you summon?”
Twilla bit her lip. What could she summon? If she only knew more. Lotis was long skilled. She shuddered away from the thought of what the Dandus priest might use—those tales were too dark to hold in memory.
“I do not know,” she spoke the truth. “You, of all, Karla, must guess that I am one who holds a weapon of which I am unsure. But I can only try.”
“Can you find Oxyle? We must have him and those with him—if they are entrapped as we fear, perhaps they can be freed. Only with the real council in office can we reply to the under people, enlist them on our side.”
Find Oxyle? Twilla lifted the narrow cord from around her neck and settled the disk on her knees. She thought back to that time in the underworld when she had been able to raise Ylon's reflection on its surface by sheer willing. And she asked:
“Lord Ylon, sometime since—when I was lost in the under ways—was there ever a moment that you were strongly aware of me—almost as if I called upon you for aid?”
“Yes,” he returned simply. “I—I cannot say that I saw for that has been taken from me—but, yes, in a way I saw you as you are in my mind.”
Karla looked from one to the other of them as if she were avid to learn what she might.
“And you were not linked with power,” Twilla was really thinking aloud, now exploring this idea. “But Oxyle is one empowered. If my thoughts were carried by the mirror to you—then—”
“Then,” Karla broke in with a fierce note in her voice, “you can so communicate with Oxyle! Do so!” That was a command.
Twilla stared down into the mirror.
“Give me now sight of mind—” she sought the words which she believed might empower her strongest strivings.
"Link with power of other kind.
“Let us see whence they have sped.
Where strong power is truly led.”
Oxyle—this was the shape of his face, the odd slant setting of his eyes, the curve of his mouth. He was coming into being on the mirror surface. Hazy—too hazy. Twilla fought to make the reflection clear.
Then, as if some obstruction had snapped, it was clear. Not only clear but those green eyes were staring at her—seeing—she was sure of it.
“Where—” she began that thought and then quickly stopped for the reflection had quivered as if only her entire concentration on that one thing alone was all which could hold it so.
The lips in that so clear reflection of the Forest Lord moved.
“Yes! Yes!”
Twilla was partly aware of Karla's weight against her shoulder. “Yes!” Karla's third word was near a cry of triumph.
Still, in spite of all her efforts, Twilla could not keep to that peak of hold. The reflection quivered, was gone as Twilla weakened, sank in upon herself on the bed.
“So there we search!” Karla was on her feet.
“The mirror power worked?” asked Ylon. He looked in Twilla's direction as if he could see her shivering body. He was at the bed, then his arms were about her holding her fast, as if he would pour into her a portion of his own body's strength.
“She has done as you wished,” he spoke over her head in Karla's general direction. “You have what you want of her—what next, my lady?”
“We go in search,” snapped the other. “Unless you choose to await Lotis's pleasure here.”
“There is no door—now,” Twilla spoke wearily. “Do you call your mists for us, Karla?”
The woman stood very still. Some of the exultation faded from her face. She half raised a hand and then dropped it to hang by her side.
“She has warped the mists. It was all I could do to raise that poor remnant to reach you. We have to go on foot. As for the door—that is a matter of illusion and already you know the way to deal with such, Moon Daughter, as you have before.”
/> Ylon did not move, he still held the girl closely.
“And what do we find beyond your illusion?” he demanded. “Twilla is wearied, she cannot risk another pull upon her power.”
Karla hesitated there. “There may be guards. Lotis is not one who trusts without a second warding.”
“So, we find guards,” Ylon repeated. He loosed one hand of its hold about Twilla and it went to the front of his journey-worn jerkin. When it came forth again his fingers were curled about the hilt of a dagger.
Karla hissed, drew away.
“Iron!”
“Just so,” Ylon returned. “The underpeople use it without fear. This is of their forging. I need not even strike true, need I? A touch only—”
“Yes,” she was shivering.
“This time I hold a weapon and one which is greater in these halls than any power. Is it your will that we go follow fortune beyond?”
Twilla returned the mirror cord to its place about her neck.
“It is better to act than to sit and wait for what one is not sure of,” she replied. “Yes—Karla, do you know where we go?”
“Oxyle—yes. The words I was able to read from his lips. He is not trapped, but he needs us. He has found the place of old knowledge.”
“Then,” Ylon arose, drawing Twilla up beside him. She was glad of his support for the mirror weakness still held her. “Let us go.”
Karla walked purposefully forward straight at what Twilla saw as an unbroken wall and Ylon followed when she took her own first steps still beside him.
She aimed the two of them directly behind the forest woman, though at the last moment she could not help but shut her eyes as it seemed they were going to slam directly into the stone. When she blinked again they were out in the hall.
There was a cry and one of those guards Lotis had set upon them came in a rush, his branch wand ready.
Ylon had dropped his hold on Twilla and swung around. Now even the fainter light in the corridor showed clearly what he held at ready—the dagger.
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