by Andre Norton
I shook my head determinedly. “I do not seek to know the future—”
“But,” it was Orsya who interrupted me, “you can see only one future—there be many for the same viewer. If one awakes one morning and does so, then the day will end with that future carried out. But if one arises making another choice the day will ran otherwise. Then which, foreseeing, can you choose?”
“That is an argument I have used with myself,” I told her. “Only the few times I have foreseen for others—and that almost always against my will—the evil waiting was what they met. They say my foretellings are curses compelling someone to meet the fate I outlook. And—for myself …” I shook my head. “Such foreseeing as that is always murkey, seeming like a picture which has been slashed into tatters, this part or that part visible as in a dream, but no orderly progress I can view for my own enlightenment. No, I can foresee—blackly—for others, and that I will no longer do. For myself there is nothing to make choices for.”
“That is the way of all who foresee—to lack the Power to set their own life forward,” Kemoc answered. “But that you always foresee evil for others arid that comes to them thereafter, that I cannot understand.”
“Say then that curse them, my lord. Not that I do so deliberately, with malice. That is my Dark heritage perhaps.”
My hand was at my breasts feeling for Gunnora's amulet and again I clung to the one small hope that had brought me. A seeress who cursed—that was not my destiny. That path I could choose not to follow.
“My father,” Kemoc continued, “has the foreseeing, but it comes to him as a warning and only shortly before the peril it heralds. He also can bond with us when there is need, feeding what talent we may use with his strength. With my mother he can be one-minded even at a distance. But that he learned later; it was not a birth gift”
“And you"—Orsya dropped her comb into her lap and drew her hand caressingly down across his scarred flesh—“you meddled in what you did not even know, choosing a path of great peril—yet it was also one of safety.”
He was frowning, looking to the sea rather than at her. “I did not know how much a fool I was to use what I did not understand. And what I have learned thereafter has made me only more aware of that.”
“My lord—” I began, and then he smiled at me and returned:
“Lord? No, I was a simple fighting man of the Borderers and I am still a fighting man when there is need. I have no lordship nor do I want one. I am Kemoc first and so I remain.”
“Kemoc,” I corrected myself. “What chances in Escore?”
“Now that"—again he smiled a little—"is a very large question and I can only answer a small part of it. It is thus with us—”
4
He talked then of battles, of evil driven back, only to have its forces surge onward again, of how it was to live eternally on guard when one rode forth from those islands of safety which had always been under the protection of the Light.
“Still,” Orsya said (she had tossed her hair until the sun, which was growing warmer, had dried it), “there are now times of peace and those are growing more and more, longer and longer.”
“Is it, could it be true,” I wondered aloud, “that Escore curves westward, in the south, to touch upon the sea?”
Kemoc shrugged. “Who knows? We have ridden and fought our way far westward. My sister-lives now upon another sea of which we of Estcarp had no knowledge in the old days. Judging by the extent of what we know nothing, it could well be that southward the land comes to an end and that sea is part of this one bordering the east as well as the west.”
“Be still!” Orsya was leaning over the side of our small boat. There was a look of such concentration on her face now that a seeress might wear when in a self-summoned trance.
I stared into those waves but nothing could I see. The ocean was not like the clear water I had trudged beside inland, through which one could sight sand and bubbles, the coming and going of the creatures which made that course their natural home.
Kemoc did not glance at the water, rather his face was fixed in the set look of he who mind searches. All those who have any of the talents can develop mind touch to some degree. They cannot always communicate or receive direct messages from another but they can know where life runs, hides, or lies in wait.
Tentatively, with all the caution my own use of gifts taught me, I sent out a quest-touch tendril. Because Orsya still looked into the sea I strove to send in that direction.
For a second I flinched. What I had caught the fringe of was hunger, a mighty hunger, rawer and greater than any rage, and perhaps the more dangerous for that reason. There was no real thought, or if there was, the hunger overbore that.
Kemoc turned and caught at the rope which tethered us to the Far Roveir and my own grasp was with his only a second later. We pulled with all our strength and our small craft answered, heading for the side of the Sulcar vessel. Orsya still kept her post as if she listened (could one name it so) to the thing which lurked out of sight.
I could keep in touch with it only slightly for the vibrations were too close to the edge of my ability to read to afford me more than that. However, I knew that the thing had certainly now turned its attention to us, that it had altered its swimming pattern and was following our skiff. I thought of a fish intent upon the swallowing of some bait and that lent more strength to my pull on our lead rope.
Now Orsya settled lower in her place, her chin propped upon her folded arms, which rested on the gunwale of the boat, her head forward, staring as if to force the swimmer below into view for all of us. That consuming hunger was now as sharp in my own mind as a shout might be in my ears.
We slid into the shadow beside the Far Rover facing the ladder dangling from her deck. Kemoc gestured to me to climb, but I indicated Orsya. He shook his head and I gathered that the Krogan girl might in some manner of talent be better armored than either of us. I sprang to catch the dangling cordage and was up and over unto the deck. Kemoc followed and then turned to reach a hand to Orsya.
“It comes!” she cried out as she dropped to the deck.
Three of the Sulcar crew crowded in as there was a flurry in the water below. I Caught sight of a black shadow just beneath the surface and then there gaped out of the water a mighty head larger than the boat in which we had been. Great jaws ringed with pointed fangs, two rows of them, closed upon the wood of the boat and that sank out of sight in a rush as the thing which had so surfaced returned to its own place. Lengths of splintered wood whirled upward. It must have crushed the stout timbers of the boat, which had survived storms, as one could take an egg between one's teeth and splinter the shell into bits.
“What was that!” Captain Sigmun leapt down from the quarterdeck to join us. A moment later the Far Rover lurched in the water. The menace below had signaled its disappointment by a headlong ramming of the vessel.
Sigmun shouted orders and our ship veered a fraction from its course. However, there was no way in what we might defend ourselves from the unseen monster. I wondered if the seams of our hull could take such a pounding were it to continue. Then I saw that the rope which had moored our boat to the Far Rover was stretched tight and that the ship was actually answering to that determined pull. Turning, I snatched one of the boarding axes which were never far from hand in the racks, kept ready in strange seas. With all my strength I brought the blade down on the rope. It parted; the One end lashed back to rip my sleeve and cut into the flesh beneath.
Once more, even as I folded my torn sleeve over the wound, the ship shuddered at a ramming attack from below. Then that did not come again, Orsya stood close to that rail, grooved where the rope had cut, her head slightly aslant as if she listened. Then she spoke:
“It has dropped below.”
The captain stared at her. “What is it?” he demanded, “Never have I heard of any sea. thing which was large enough to trouble the Far Rover. Will it attack again?”
“It hungers,” Orsya answered. “I kn
ow nothing of its kind. Only I think that such hunger will drive it far. It senses us.”
Sigmun glanced about the deck as if he sought some- thing which might be used in attack. The Far Rover mounted two of the dart machines which had been fashioned in imitation of those the Borderers carried. But they could only be used against a visible foe and had not been intended to shoot into the sea but rather across it. There were other aids to battle which might be used—the balls of glass which contained a blueish power to bring fiery death to man and sometimes ship when loosed from, nets slung around to give them speed. The Far Rover was as well equipped as any Sulcar fighter-merchant could be and all that in the way of defense and offense had been checked, resupplied and made ready before we sailed.
There were harpoons set like spears in another rack on deck but one of those would be no worse than a splinter of the Boat for that lurking below. We had a fair wind and the ship loosed of the small drag the boat had kept upon her cut the waves cleanly beneath billowed sails.
How we might have fared with a final attack we were not to know. Orsya sped across the deck, seeking the cabin she shared with Kemoc, and when she returned she held a bundle between her hands. Kneeling on deck she unfastened the strings of a stuffed bag which flopped open on the planking to show within a number of packets. One of these she caught up just as the water beast once again struck at the ship, this time dangerously close to the rudder. Kemoc, as if he well understood what she would do, tore off his shirt as he knelt beside her, holding the cloth as taut as he could against the planks. Onto that surface she poured a small stream of sandlike granules. They were dark and might have been the remain of well-crushed pebbles. Reknotting her first packet she took out another. From this she shifted a powder of blueish green. Kemoc took his side knife from its belt scabbard and with the point of that she stirred the mixture thoroughly. Then there was a last addition, this time of pebbles about as large as my thumbnail, of which she selected three of red and then six of blue.
Kemoc rolled and knotted the shirt into a bundle. I saw her lips moving as if she recited some spell or called upon a Power to serve her, then she ran, mounting to the upper deck here the steersman stood With a shipwoman beside him on either side to lend strength if need be.
Orsya drew back her arm and with all the strength she could muster she sent the package hurtling out over the water. It whirled downward at a speed I would not have granted it since it had no great weight. Touching the waves it sank like a stone. Orsya stood by the rail staring into the depths as if she could see the success—or failure—of her defense. There was a stream of bubbles boiling up through the water where that unwieldy package had sunk
I longed to search with mind touch yet I feared that that very act had been, what had aroused the creature in the first place. Then, without my searching, it struck at me, just as it must have Captain Sigmun, who was standing at arm's distance away, for I saw him sway. Not hunger this time but anger, a rage so great and dark that it near cut at one as might a sword. After that—nothing.
Now I did dare” to search—the hunger had vanished. If the monster still waited below, it was not because of a desire to shake us out into its waiting maw. Yet Orsya still stood intent upon the water, Kemoc beside her, his , own gaze fixed upon the ripple of the waves
Captain Sigmun shook off what had held him prisoner for those few moments out of time. He shouted orders” and the ship came to life—all of those on deck seemingly having been held in the same spell. It was then that the Krogan girl came away from the rail, Kemoc's arm still about her, supporting her. I guessed from her drawn face that she experienced, at least in part, the same overwhelming fatigue which came at the end of any use of the gift.
“Is it dead?” Sigmun paused beside the two of them.
Orsya shook her head slowly. “I do not think so. It has taken the Xalta inside it. But that will only confuse it for a while. It lie§ very deep now on the bottom of the sea and it is as if it sleeps. But for how long—what can I tell you? This is a defense made for use against creatures of the Dark who infest lakes and rivers—what it will do for one from the sea none of my people can guess.”
I saw a bird arise from the foredeck, a falcon wide winging, and I knew that one of the. Falconer marines on board was doubtless sending so a message to our sister ship, which was so far abeam that we caught only, a glimpse of topsails. A warning—we might only hope that the thing with which Orsya had dealt would still lie in the depths long enough for both of our small squadron to be well away before it roused.
I saw Orsya glance in my direction and then speak to Kemoc. He beckoned to me, and, with Orsya between us, we sought her cabin, I pausing only to take up the bundle she had brought from there earlier. Once within she insisted, on treating that burn the snapping rope had delivered to me, smearing it with a reddish stuff which had the consistency of mud and smelt acridly enough to make one sneeze. This hardened as soon as it was applied and that small pain I had only been dimly aware of during our encounter with the monster was instantly eased.
Kemoc went to the porthole and stood looking out. He was plainly troubled, and, when Orsya had finished with her heal-craft, he spoke that trouble aloud.
“You dare not swim again—”
Then I knew what-fear was rising in him and it was echoed in me. The Krogans must have water for their bodies. To remain dry for a length of time was as fatal as to remain without water to drink while one traveled in a desert region. If there were dangers hiding in the sea how could Orsya survive?
“Perhaps I cannot continue to swim,” Orsya assented, “but I can stay beside the ship with a rope about me to haul me forth speedily should any danger come. Also—” She brought out of that bundle which had held the materials for driving off the monster a jar which she un-topped. Almost instantly the cramped cabin was filled with a scent which set me to coughing and brought that same response from Kemoc. “This can be used.” She made a face and sneezed violently herself “It would seem,” she commented, “that this sea air has made it all the stronger. Nothing in any water of Escore will approach the source of this. Perhaps it is true also of sea creatures.” She speedily resealed the container but for moments afterwards we continued to cough.
“We have time enough"—she put the jar away—"to consider many plans, for the water need will not be on me yet a good while. Before I try to answer that there can be a searching.” Hanging, her bag on a hook driven into one of the beams overhead she settled herself cross-legged on the bunk. Kemoc leaned back Against the wall of the cabin and I edged forward a stool and seated myself.
Orsya reached up and took Kemoc's maimed hand in hers. She closed her eyes and’ I felt the surge of Power that went out in search—of what? The monster, to make sure that that was not coming to once more attack the Far Rover?
Awkwardly I set myself to match her pattern. One had first to close off the touches of life energy which marked members of the crew and the ship clan. However, one who has used the gift speedily learns how to do that. An entirely open mind would be a torment to the one who owned it if one did not quickly learn to center such a search on something else. Still here we—or I at least—had no quarry. I closed my eyes also, to picture the endless surging of the sea, the waves which spun white lace as the bow of the ship cut through them. Even this far from land there were birds overhead—those kerlins who were said never to seek solid shore except for their nesting and who slept upon the rocking waves far out from any land.
There was life. I caught sparks of energy but none I tried to follow. For I was seeking something else—a hunter out of the depths. That fierce hunger which had struck as a blow, the first time I encountered it was hot there. Perhaps Orsya's counterattack had worked better than even she had hoped. However, it was easier to center on something which one could mind-picture and I had seen no more than a portion of the monster's jaws as those crunched upon our boat.
Without Willing it my far gaze opened. Even as I had hung on thought above thos
e grim rocks of islands when I had used it at the lady Jaelithe's bidding so did I now once more forge ahead—or so I believed—and found—
The islands of rock again. They were scattered—rising from the sea in a half circle, one end of which reached to what was either a true shore of our own continent or else an island much larger, older, and—
Energy poured around me. That was not aimed at me, but over the outflung islands. There was Power here—to entrap! Hastily I drew back, closed down my searching tendril of seeking thought? The islands and the land behind them were gone. I did not yet open my eyes and admit defeat. Rather I fastened upon one corner of the land I had seen so momentarily—not among the islands, rather that portion of the shore. Into that effort I poured more striving than I had ever done before as in me there was growing a need for haste.
Now I no longer saw the sea, rather I looked down upon a range of sharply pointed teeth which in the guise of land mimicked the jaws of the sea creature. These formed an outer wall but farther in there was a blot of shadow. It was growing more and more difficult to hold that picture in mind; I was tiring. I was—
I was seized by a Power source far beyond my own against which I could raise no defense. Back spun my farsight over the sprinkle of islands. There was no distant fire this time—had the volcano I had seen before been quenched by the sea?
The force which had entrapped me swung back and forth as if it also combed the islands for some object. I halted my struggle, for now I knew it for what it was—the joined wills of “Orsya and Kemoc. There was a leap of heightened energy. Island and rock reef passed under my “sight” we were returning to the shore of that other mass of land. I realized that these other two were riding on the edge of that force I had earlier encountered, only to fear and flee from.
