Tales From High Hallack, Volume 1

by Andre Norton

  “Voice?” her lips shaped a whisper, “Voice?”

  She scrunched herself forward and found that she could look out—but only at the level of the rough flooring. The edge of a dull green robe swung, blinding her peephole. She could guess that the Voice had not tried to run any more than she had tried to squeeze into this too small place, but was standing at the altar, even as when she called upon the High One.

  Lana stirred now, and then shrilled a cry which nearby Cassia viciously stifled, finding the other girl’s mouth quickly enough to muffle that. She bumped her head against Lana’s and whispered fiercely: “Be quiet!”

  The outside clamor was growing stronger, and there was a last piercing scream from just without the shrine. Then they came—Cassia could only see boots cobbled from badly dried skins, the point of a stained blade which still dribbled thick red drops to the pavement.

  “Calling down your Word-Wrath, slut?” That voice spoke words so oddly accented that Cassia found them hard to understand. She felt Lana strain and jerk beside her.

  “You have come to her, what would you?” That was the Voice and she spoke with such calm that Cassia could almost believe the woman’s wits had been rift from her and she did not see these crowding in—three of them, counting by the boots she could see.

  “In that, Spar. They keep their goodies in that!” A different voice, puzzling because Cassia had heard it before—when? Who could be evil enough to betray the secrets of the shrine?

  “Goodies, eh? Well, let us see these goodies you would guard, slut. We’ve found precious little worth the taking elsewhere in this swine’s pen.”

  “Spar, the slut’s got a knife.” There was a roil of movement among those tramping feet, the green robe edge swirled away, freeing Cassia’s line of vision the more. There was a choking cry, a hand slipped slowly down over the peephole and was gone.

  “Get that ring from her, Harve. You say their stuff’s in here?”

  Cassia shuddered and Lana twisted in her hold as there came a blow which vibrated through the altar stone above them.

  “Oh, so you weren’t talking out of the wrong side of your jaw after all, Vacom. Well, well. And here we were thinking that all the good stuff had been combed out of these pens long ago. Black, yes, but that’s silver. And this is something better!”

  Cassia could understand now what was happening. They had opened the top of the altar stone and were dragging out those very precious things which only the Voice might touch, and then only after purification. Vacom? Her lips formed a vixen’s rage snarl—that trader whose ship had come to grief on the outer reef a season ago and who had been given refuge in the village afterwards until he could join with a band of traders who had come through in the fall. He had been here at Midsummer.

  Again Cassia snarled. So that was how he knew about the Precious Things! Sneaking spy—Let the High One smite him with the sloughing of skin and the blindness of eye so that he would take a long time in dying!

  “Old,” that was the first voice, “this is damn old. And I’d wager on it that those are real stones! We’ve more’n enough paid for this raid!”

  “Hey—you broke it!” There was a sharp protest.

  “No. It just comes apart. What’s this inside? Some stinking clay pot thing—we can do without that.”

  It struck the floor straight in the line of Cassia’s sight, a round brown cup just such a one as Farllen the potter made and fired from riverbank clay. Oddly enough, the rough handling it received did not break it; through all her fear Cassia wondered at that.

  “That’s it. Get this slut’s cloak and bag it up.” The one who gave orders was already turning away from the altar. He toed the cup and it spun around, out of Cassia’s sight.

  Cassia waited, her ears straining for the slightest sound. All screams and cries had ceased, the feet she had watched had tramped out. Still . . .

  “Voice?” she whispered through dry lips and knew somehow she could expect no answer to that call.

  Lana squirmed around against her. Their heads were now so close she could feel the younger girl’s fast puff of breath against her cheek.

  “Wait.” Cassia dared to whisper again, this time to her fellow prisoner.

  How long did they wait? Cassia felt the sore cramp beginning in her arms and legs. If they did not move soon they might be too stiff to try at all. She loosened a hand and groped into the dark over her head, feeling along the inner side of the altar. She found that deep groove she sought and settled her fingers well in.

  “Lana,” she breathed, “find the other turn point.”

  “They will kill,” the other girl protested.

  “They must be gone—at least from the shrine.” Cassia held on to her patience. “We cannot stay here any longer.” Though, of course, Lana might also be right and they would be simply betraying themselves. However, there was little choice.

  She felt the movements of the other girl, knew that she was indeed in search of that second hold which would give them a door to freedom.

  “Ready? Then move.” Cassia felt her nails break, the skin of her fingertips abrade, as she obeyed her own order. Slowly the stone walling them in answered, and there was enough light to set them blinking.

  Cassia squeezed through that opening. She pulled herself up by a grip on the altar itself and nearly lost her hold when there came a faint moaning from very near at hand. Then she was out, to crouch by the Voice. The woman’s robe was rent at the breast, and over that she was pressing tight her hands, as if she could so stem the blood which oozed between her fingers. Her eyes were open and she looked at Cassia with understanding and knowledge.

  “Voice—let me see!” The girl tried to pull away those binding hands.

  The woman opened her mouth, and a trickle of blood rolled down her chin.

  “This is an end blow, my daughter-in-light. There is no heal-craft which will answer.”

  Lana had crept to her other side, shaking, white faced. “Voice—Voice, what—what shall we do?”

  “That which is willed for you. First,” she turned her eyes, not her head, as if all the strength she had left would not allow more, to Cassia, “give—give me to drink—from the Blessed pool.”

  Cassia scrambled on hands and knees toward the entrance to the shrine. In going, her hand struck against something which rattled across the floor, and, catching at it, she found what she held was that earthen cup. Clutching it, she moved out. There was the stench of death here. Already carrion birds dropped out of the sky, their blackness an offense in the daylight. Cassia tried not to look at the two hacked bodies which lay most plainly in sight. Old Kazar, who had lost an arm three seasons ago, yet must have come to the shrine’s defense, sprawled half into the pool. The red from the gash, which had hewn him near in two, swirled out in the once clean, sweet water.

  Cassia stood helplessly looking at the befoulment, the cup in her shaking hand. She could not dip out—that. . . .

  She edged about the basin in the opposite direction from that body, seeking some place which was still clear. There was nothing—and farther on. . . . She caught her lower lip between her teeth to cut back a scream. A child, Rowna’s babe, staring sightlessly upward.

  Cassia broke and ran back toward the shrine. Alive—why was she alive when all else were dead, dead befouled—lost.

  As she entered the shrine she strove for control. She was a Chosen—she must remember that always.

  “Voice,” she knelt beside the woman whose head Lana now supported against her own thin shoulder. “The water—it cannot . . .”

  “Dip the cup, daughter-in-service, and bring it to me!”

  All the old command was in the Voice’s words. Cassia could only obey. She returned, found a place at the pool farthest from these two bodies, and dipped her cup into the water which was ever thickening with the red stain. She filled it near to the brim and started back, nursing the cup against her breast lest she spill some of its contents. But as she moved—surely that could not be
true—the water was clearing with each step she took.

  “Voice,” she cried breathlessly, “the water—it holds no more the stain of death—it is pure.”

  Swiftly she put it to those lips between which blood still welled a little. The Voice drank.

  “How . . .?” Cassia marveled.

  “Drink,” commanded the Voice. And Cassia, raising the cup carefully with both her hands, took a mouthful. Not just pure water—this had the richness of the first fruits—she could feel the warmth of it in her throat, and then through her, driving out the death chill, the ragged tatters of fear which had been a binding on her.

  “Lana,” commanded the Voice for a second time, “drink also!”

  Cassia passed the cup to the younger girl and watched her drink. Yet when Lana handed back that small rough bowl it was as full as it had been after the dipping at the spring.

  “The cup that overfloweth,” the woman’s voice was thinner, as if she tired after some great task. “It cleanses evil—brings fresh life again. Things of power exist for our comfort, my daughters. Such may be lost from time, yet always they rise again. This much is true, that those who serve are themselves served in a different way. Now. . . .”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again they seemed to Cassia to be seeking, as if they could no longer find her face.

  “My time has passed, daughter-of-the-heart. Take you that Power and go forth from this place of death to find what may be healed or cherished under the wide arms of the High One. You shall be led, and when you find the place meant for you there shall be a sign. For a thing of Power knows well where it must shelter. Go with the blessing of sun and moon, earth and sky, fire and water, all that sustains life.”

  *

  There had been a feast long ago, in a far county. And a cup passed which held the promise of life. Things of Power are never lost, though they may pass from the sight of men for a time—yet always they shall come again.

  By a Hair

  Phantom Magazine (July 1958), Wizards’ Worlds, TOR (1989)

  You say, friend, that witchcraft at its strongest is but a crude knowledge of psychology, a use of a man’s own fear of the unknown to destroy him? Perhaps it may be so in modern lands. But me, I have seen what I have seen. More than fear destroyed Dagmar Kark and Colonel Andrei Veroff.

  There were four of them, strong and passionate: Ivor and Dagmar Kark, Andrei Varoff and the Countess Ana. What they desired they gained by the aid of something not to be seen nor felt nor sensed tangibly, something not in the experience of modern man.

  Ivor was an idealist who held to a cause and the woman he thought Dagmar to be. Dagmar, she wanted power—power over the kind of man who could give her all her heart desired. And so she wanted Colonel Andrei Varoff.

  And Varoff, his wish was a common one, though odd for one of his creed. When a man has been nourished on the belief that the state is all, the individual nothing, it is queer to want a son to the point of obsession. And, though Varoff had taken many women, none had produced a child he could be sure was his.

  The Countess Ana, she wanted justice—and love.

  The four people had faith in themselves, strong faith. Besides, they had it in other things—Ivor in his cause and his wife, Varoff in a creed. And Dagmar and Ana in something very old and enduring.

  It could not have happened in this new land of yours, to that I agree; but in my birth country it is different. All this came to be in a narrow knife slash of a valley running from mountains to the gray salt sweep of the Baltic. It is true that the shadow of the true cross has lain over that valley since the Teutonic knights planted it on the castle they built in the crags almost a thousand years ago. But before the white Christ came, other, grimmer gods were worshipped in that land. In the fir forest where the valley walls are steep, there is still a stone altar set in a grove. That was tended, openly at first, and later in secret, for long after the priests of Rome chanted masses in the church.

  In that country the valley is reckoned rich. Life there was good until the Nazis came. Then the Count was shot in his own courtyard, since he was not the type of man to suffer the arrogance of others calmly, and with him Hudun, the head gamekeeper, and the heads of three valley households. Afterwards they took away the young Countess Ana. But Ivor Kark fled to the hills and our young men joined him. During two years, perhaps a little more, they carried on guerrilla warfare with the invader, just as it happened in those days in all the countries stamped by the iron heel.

  But to my country there came no liberation. Where the Nazi had strutted in his pride, the Bear of the north shambled, and stamped into red dust those who defied him. Some fled and some stayed to fight, believing in their innocence that the nations among the free would rise in their behalf.

  Ivor Kark and his men, not yet realizing fully the doom come upon us, ventured out of the mountains. For a time it appeared that the valley, being so small a community, might indeed be overlooked. In those few days of freedom Ivor found Dagmar Llov.

  Who can describe such a woman as Dagmar with words? She was not beautiful; no, seldom is it that great beauty brings men to their knees. Look at the portraits of your historical charmers, or read what has been written of Cleopatra, of Theodora and the rest. They have something other than beauty, these fateful ones: a flame within them which kindles an answer in all men who look upon them. But their own hearts remain cold.

  Dagmar walked with a grace which tore at you, and when she looked at one sidewise. . . . But who can describe such a woman? I can say she had silver, fair hair which reached to her knees, a face with a frost white skin, but I cannot so make you see the Dagmar Llov that was.

  Because of his leadership in the underground, Ivor was a hero to us. In addition, he was good to look upon: a tall whip of a man, brown, thin, narrow of waist and loins, and broad of shoulder. He had been a huntsman of the Count’s, and walked with a forester’s smooth glide. Above his widely set eyes his hair grew in a sharp peak, giving his face a disturbingly wolfish cast. But in his eyes and mouth there was the dedication of a priest.

  Being what she was, Dagmar looked upon those eyes and that mouth, and desired to trouble the mold, to see there a difference she had wrought. In some ways Ivor was an innocent, but Dagmar was one who had known much from her cradle.

  Also, Ivor was now the great man among us. With the Count gone, the men of the valley looked to him for leadership. Dagmar went to him willingly and we sang her bride song.

  It was a good time, such as we had not known for years.

  Others came back to the valley during those days. Out of the black horror of a Nazi extermination camp crawled a pale, twisted creature, warped in body, perhaps also in mind. She who had once been the Countess Ana came quietly, almost secretly, among us again. One day she had not been there, and the next she was settled in the half-ruinous gate house of the castle with old Maid, who had been with her family long before her own birth. The Countess Ana had been a woman of education before they had taken her away, and she had not forgotten all she had learned. There was no doctor in the valley; twenty families could not have supported one. But the Countess was versed in the growing of herbs and their healing uses, and Maid was a midwife. So together they became the wise women of our people. After a while we forgot the Countess Ana’s deformed body and ravaged face, and accepted her as we accepted the crooked firs growing close to the timberline. Not one of us remembered that she was yet in years a young woman, with a young woman’s dreams and desires, encased in a hag’s body.

  It was late October when our fate came upon us, up river in a power boat. The new masters would set in our hills a station from which their machines could spy upon the outer world they feared and hated. To make safe the building of that station they sent ahead a conqueror’s party. They surprised us and something had drained out of the valley. So many of our youth were long since bleached bones that, save for a handful, perhaps only the number of the fingers on my two hands, there was no defia
nce; there was only a dumb beast’s endurance. Within three days Colonel Andrei Varoff ruled from the castle as if he had been Count, lord of a tired, cowed people.

  Three men they hauled from their homes and shot on the first night, but Ivor was not one. He had been warned and, with the core of his men, had taken again to the mountains. But he left Dagmar behind, by her own will.

  Maid and the Countess were warned, too. When Varoff marched his pocket army into the castle, the gate house was deserted; and those who thereafter sought the wise women’s aid took another path, up into the black-green of the fir forest and close to a long stone partly buried in the ground within a circle of very old ‘oaks, which had not grown so by chance. There in a game-station hut, those in need could find what they wanted, perhaps more.

  Father Hansel had been one of the three Varoff shot out of hand, and there was no longer an open church in the valley. What went on in the oak glade was another matter.

  First our women drifted there, half ashamed, half defiant, and later they were followed by their men. I do not think the Countess Ana was their priestess. But she knew and condoned. For she had learned many things.

  The wise women began to offer more than just comfort of body. It was a queer wild time when men in their despair turned from old belief to older ones, from a god of love and peace, to a god of wrath and vengeance. Old knowledge passed by word of mouth from mother to daughter was recalled by such as Maid, and keenly evaluated by the sharper and better-trained brain of the Countess Ana. I will not say that they called upon Odin and Freya (or those behind those Nordic spirits) or lighted the Beltane Fire. But there was a stirring, as if something long sleeping turned and stretched in its supposed grave.

  Dagmar, for all her shrewd egotism (and egotism such as hers is dangerous, for it leads a man or woman to believe that what they wish is right), was a daughter of the valley. She was moved by the old beliefs; and because she had her price, she was convinced that all others had theirs. So at night she went alone to the hut. There she watched until the Countess Ana left. It was she who carried news and a few desperately gained supplies to those in hiding, especially Ivor.