by Andre Norton
25
YLON SAID NO more and Twilla felt shy about any intrusion now into his thoughts. She studied his face as he sat there, one hand locked about the weapon he had brought from the underworld. He was, she thought suddenly, like to a bowstring, taut and ready to send an arrow to the target. And what target was he seeing in his mind?
Lotis—it must be Lotis who could be the only one to remove the spell which maimed him. Lotis—
Her thought was echoed by a sudden cry of that name aloud. Oxyle had risen from the stool he had chosen. He brought his hand palm down on the untidy pile of reading leaves before him.
“So that is how—” He did not finish his sentence. His eyes held a hard gleam which reminded Twilla of those in Chard's boar-headed staff.
Those other searchers who had shared his quest among the records looked to him questioningly. If he had found some answer they had not. He turned to Karla:
“The moon sighting—she would not have dared—she has gone too far into the shadow for that to come to her service. It is the Dank Fire which she has drawn upon, the monster blood!”
The faces of his listeners betrayed shock, Musseline half rose from her stool, leaning across the table.
“But none travel that way!” she protested.
Oxyle's mouth moved to shape a grimace far from a smile. “None? Did not Khargel?”
Now there was a soft cry from Catha, her hands up before her mouth—she might have been trying to so muffle some other denial.
“The Dank Fire—” Oxyle stated firmly once more, perhaps to impress it more strongly upon them.
“And to cut that tie,” Karla said slowly, “needs blood, even as the setting of it must have such. We do not slay for power—if we do we become one with Lotis. Is that what you urge upon us now?”
Oxyle strode from the table, walking back and forth across the chamber, his head down, what Twilla could see of his face set in new harsh lines.
“We dare not feed it thus. But—where did she get the true wood for the first firing? If she has turned any of the trees we would have known—”
“There are the fallen ones,” suggested one of the men.
Oxyle shook his head violently. “Dank Fire cannot rise from long-dead wood, it must be kindled from that which is still bleeding sap.” His pacing had brought him very close to where Ylon had taken his position at the door. Now the forest lord stopped short, his attention for the blind man and his weapon.
“Iron, cold iron,” he repeated softly, “cold to smother the Dank. There is no record of such ever being done—but iron is the enemy of our power, we cannot control it, we dare not touch it. The Dank Fire is unfortunately of the dark side of our learning. If we can find where that fire smolders perhaps your iron, outlander, will be the ending.”
“Where lies this fire?” Ylon asked simply, getting to his feet.
“Ah—Karla!” Oxyle did not turn to the woman but there was the urgency of an order in the way he spoke her name.
She fingered the leaves that had been spread before him, piling them together and putting them to one side. Having so bared a space before her she placed both hands, slightly cupped, on the space. Musseline had caught up the flagon and shook it. They could hear a faint slosh from within, some drops must remain. And those, in a thin trickle, she poured into Karla's waiting hands.
For a long moment the older woman sat silent, peering down into the tiny puddles within her palms and then she spoke:
“Not within this heartland. Which is true, for such meddling would bring down all our lives. In the forest—and there is something—a promise of something—to come in support!”
“You know the site?” Oxyle demanded. “It is warded?”
“I know—it is. But the bespelling is of the forest—” she jerked her head in Ylon's direction. “He bears iron—no ward may hold against that!”
“Then let us go!” But again there were no mists of transportation to come to their aid. They must travel afoot as they had through all the maze of passages.
Only Catha did not start toward the doorway. “Time has come to threaten us.” She held the boar's-head pendant close to her lips. “We of the under have our part in your struggle but that will come later. I must return to my own now that the hour draws near.”
Oxyle bowed his head. “As you will, Lady. Remember this—the Dank Fire burns and so it builds. You are right, time may now be our final foe.”
Leaving Catha to go her own way they came out of the castle on foot and down into the valley where was rooted the gemmed orchard. There were no asprites in the air, and over all the land there lay a kind of shadow, dimming the brilliance Twilla remembered.
Following a way she did not wholly remember they passed again through the giant tree and into a forest more of the nature she knew, she walking with Ylon as his guide. Once out in this world of the great trees she saw mists again. But these were forbidding, having the look of webbing. They swayed near, still never quite touching any of the party.
Karla was the foremost of them now and she wove a path in and out among the giant tree trunks, staring forward as one entranced, so that Oxyle pushed up to clear her way from dead branches, and small growth.
It was there that Fanna joined them, recklessly beating a way as if speed were the most important.
“The outlanders—they reach for power,” he panted out. “They have cut to pieces one of the great trees, and they turn it to their purpose. Vestel says to tell that they play with wild fire—Dank Fire!”
Oxyle caught at Karla, gave her a small shake as if to rouse her out of that seeming trance. “How far?” he demanded.
She stared at him, through him, and he released her so that once more she forged ahead. Then rocks rose out of the ground before them. There was certainly the smell of burning, a smell which held none of the odor of leaves or wood, but something which turned the stomach.
Movement in the air caught Twilla's eye and she looked up. There was a sinuous black roll which looked more like a tentacle than any drift of smoke. It wove back and forth. Karla came to an abrupt stop, as if she had run against one of those rocks, though there was no obstruction before her. Though he strained forward Oxyle was not more free to advance than she.
He looked now toward Twilla and Ylon. “If these wards can be broken—then use the iron, outlander!”
Twilla steered Ylon on. She certainly met with no barrier nor did he. They scraped a way between two upstanding rocks far taller than their heads and looked down into a cup of valley. In the center there was a heap of branches sullenly smoldering, hardly seeming enough to account for the thick uprise of smoke. But—
Twilla cried out. There crouched also one of those monsters Lotis had set to pursue Wandi and her. And the thing—what it held!
A thin trilling, worse to hear than any scream of torment arose. The monster was swinging back and forth a stick grasped in one clawed paw. And fastened to that by a cord, crumpled of wing but still alive to suffer, was another asprite.
Swiftly Twilla reported what lay before. Ylon skidded down the side of the bowl, his blade out. The thing amusing itself while playing guardian to the fire threw the stick from it, reared. An illusion? Twilla could not tell. She fumbled for the mirror.
However, Ylon moved first. In spite of his blindness he brought down the blade he held in a swing which struck against what was indeed a solid body. So the thing was alive!
One clawed paw raked at him, but at the touch of iron it staggered back, clutching at the wound which kept on widening as if some keen edge continued to hack away and enlarge the wound. Throwing back its massive head it cried out a great scream of rage and fear. Ylon advanced a stride, caught his foot in the straggle of broken branches, went to one knee, but then threw himself toward the beast, blade straight out so that it pierced the lower belly of the creature who reared back and fell, its screaming growing ever more. Until Ylon, regaining his feet and guided by those outcries, plunged his weapon deep into the middle of
the writhing creature.
Twilla attempting to keep away from the battle found her own action waiting. There was a rough cage and in it asprites crouched. Their thin trilling shrilled higher as she caught up the cumbersome cage and struck at the latching across the opening. Then she set the crude prison carefully down, the door to freedom open, while she edged around to where Ylon stood above his kill.
There was still the fire and tentacle of smoke twisting lower as if to net them in some noose. Twilla caught Ylon by the arm and faced him a little around. She had no idea how to deal with the fire she told him was there. It would seem that he could only use one form of action. To serve the fire as he had its guardian. He sent his weapon into the crackle of flames, twisting the length of steel around so that the piled branches scattered. Smoke rolled down upon them as a lash. They were choking as it twisted its great leaden coils about them.
Again and again Ylon, in spite of choking and gasping in the stifling smoke, stirred the fire. Instead of awakening the glowing wood to more fierce burning, his efforts acted as a masterful splash of water.
The smoke thinned, fell away from the hold about the two of them. Then it was gone and they stood by charred wood fast falling into gray ash.
Twilla felt a light touch on her cheek. One of the asprites hovered there. She remembered the one who had been bound in torment and found it easily enough for the others of its kind had gathered around and already had it freed from its bonds.
Gently Twilla raised the tiny being. There was the red burn of fire touch on the once perfect body. The hair of its head had been singed away, and she did not know if the crumpled wings could ever be straightened again.
Her healer's training made her long for her bag of herbs. Though whether those intended for human kind would serve for this little one she could not guess. Someone came up beside her. Karla.
“It is burned, and the wings—” Twilla said.
From a pouch at her belt the forest woman brought out a pad of what looked like green, fresh-picked leaves.
“Your mirror,” she gestured. “Lay these atop.”
Twilla instantly responded to that and now Karla was smoothing out two of those leaves, lying them flat on the surface of the mirror. At her direction Twilla deposited that small body as gently as she could on the stretch of green. Karla proceeded to lay two more leaves over the form and then she looked sharply to Twilla.
“Use healer skill now, Moon Daughter. Wish for return of health and strength, wish it with all your might!”
Twilla was carried away by the almost fierce note in the other's voice and concentrating her gaze all she could, she summoned her energy upon that bundle of leaves. She strove to see the asprite restored, free, the thing of beauty as it was meant to be.
Only dimly was she aware of others moving about her, that the forest people were circling the dead fire and chanting in such a way made her tingle in the wash of power.
She was still concentrating on what she held when she was steered by Karla back up the slope and into the woods. The stench of burning was gone, and now there whirled about them a breeze. The towering trees might have caught a light wind and somehow funneled it down to cleanse the air.
However, it was not the breeze which stirred the top leaf on the mirror she struggled to hold level. A small hand appeared, pushing that covering aside. Then the second top leaf followed, and she was looking down at the asprite.
The pale skin was no longer angry red from the lipping of the fire. And the wings were outstretched under the body uncrumpled. Though the fine hair was but a stubble on the tiny head.
There was a flash from the left and another of the small ones zoomed in from the side, grasping the edge of the mirror as anchorage. Twilla's charge sat up, held out her arms to the newcomer and was caught up in a close embrace. Together they turned their heads up to look at the girl. Then the male helped his companion to her feet, and she tested her wings with a flutter or two before rising directly before Twilla's face.
Those tiny hands were feather-tip light on her cheeks, as meaningful in this touch as an embrace such as she had just witnessed. Both of the asprites took to the air and now she saw they were flying with those liberated from the cage directly over the woods party.
Twilla tucked the discarded leaves in her tunic. She wanted time to study them if they were ever allowed time again for anything about meeting force with force, power with power.
Oxyle had not pushed on, instead he stood with his head high, staring to the right. The asprites gathered in a cloud about his head, circled twice, and sped on into the green gloom before the forest lord followed.
Twilla dropped back again to Ylon's side, once more to guide him as best she could. She noted that the faces of those around her showed a strain. If the failure of the Dank Fire had not given them any relief—she was tense within—what did lie ahead?
From among the trees came others of the forest people, a handful of men. These were armed with weapons which had the gleam of silver. Some were archers, and others held complicated meshs of the same silver netting as the under people looked upon for proper weapons—perhaps Chard's men had already began to supply them.
That murmuring of which she had always been aware in the forest was stilled. The great trees themselves might be listening, seeking—
The lines of those were beginning to thin. There were huddled shrubs here and there such as formed the out barriers of the fringe. And now there was something to be heard.
Voices—a mob might have been storming across the open toward the trees. Then, above that deep-throated growl, something else arose—chanting. Twilla shivered, clasped her mirror tighter.
This was no petition to any power she had been taught to serve. Though she did not understand those screeched words she felt them like blows, near heavy enough to make her sway as she went.
“Dandus rite!” Those words had been hissed by Ylon.
Odor followed sound. There was again something burning—wood—and with it other things—mind twisting herbs such as no sane healer ever harvested.
They came to a stop from which they could look out at what defaced the open land beyond. There was a fire here also! Surely only one of the forest giants could have provided such heavy billets of wood. From the peak of that pile arose a smoke as black and perilous as that of the fire Ylon had been able to quench.
The smoke was reaching—though Twilla felt no wind strong enough to blow in their direction. Now she could see that the hazy stuff was not entirely dark. Within it fiery bits were being carried on and out toward them.
“ Working with dogged haste the fire tenders—there were several of them—constantly drew up new loads of wood. But these workers were not alone. To the far right and left were drawn up Lord Harmond's fighters in full battle dress. They held their spears down across bodies, using them as staffs to push back the crowd, those who held no weapons.
The chanters marched in a circle about the fire, and their hooded and cloaked leader could not be any other than the Dandus priest. Now and then he brandished in the air a black rod from which hung a loop of heavy leather.
There were women to the fore among those guarded. In fact Twilla looking the closer she could make out that these women had been forced into a single mass, before them a double row of the guards. The chanting died away and the marching about the fire ended with the Dandus priest before the women.
He gave a flourish of his thonged rod and two of those who had followed him in his chanting wheel darted to one side, returning with a small body held between them. A child!
Twilla must have gasped that aloud for Ylon's face was working, rage warring with disgust.
“A blood fire!”
The child was dragged before the Dandus priest and, at some signal from him, that wheeling march about the ever growing fire began again. But the chanting did not rise high enough yet to drown out the screams. Those came not only from the vainly fighting child, but also from the women. There was a stirring in
their massed group. Some struggle might be starting.
The priest paid no attention. Instead he strode behind the child and her guards and, with each stride, flogged at the captive with his rod whip. Each time that lash fell the child jerked and screamed, until, as the marks grew red about its bare body, it wilted and was dragged limply on.
But Twilla had seen enough when the prisoner had rounded the fire closest to the forest.
“Wandi!”
There was no one there quick enough to restrain her. She was out and running across the open. Above her the waves of smoke blotted out the sun, and there were small fires sprung up wherever one of those flaming bits of debris touched the earth.
More than the smoke threat was suddenly aimed at her. She ran into a wave of terror as thick as any wall, sent to bar her path. Only that strength which came from the mirror sent her plunging on through the tall grass.
There were cries arising from the crowd ahead, and above all the bellow of the Dandus priest. He had ceased his lashing of the unconscious child. Now he turned in Twilla's direction. His face was so deep in the hood of his robe that she could see nothing but the folds of black cloth.
He raised his rod-whip and sent the leash hissing through the air in her direction. She winced as a bite-like fire touched her. However, if he had meant to bring her down with that he had failed.
She could feel the heat of the fire. There were men moving in from either side, some of the soldiers detached to close on her and take her. Yet even if she would Twilla could not retreat now. Something so strong she could not control had taken possession of her, near all her mind, and certainly all of her body.
26
FIRE WAS CATCHING more and more in the tall grass, bursting upward unnaturally fast. The soldiers did not attempt to force a way through toward her now, rather they were angling off on either side. They must believe that she was only the first of a company come to confront them.
