Lost Lands of Witch World

by Andre Norton

  Suddenly Orsya’s grip tightened. Though we now stood in utter dark, yet ahead were lights—two grayish disks just above water level. From them came a little diffused glimmering. Those disks were set in a line—

  Eyes! But eyes which glowed, which were equal in size to the palm of my hand: eyes far enough apart to suggest a head of proportions beyond any beast I had ever seen!

  I pushed Orsya against the wall behind me. The sword was in my maimed hand; now I tried to transfer it to my left. But found, to my dismay, that I could not clasp it as well, that even with my stiff fingers it was better in my right hand.

  The eyes, which had been close to the surface of the water, now suddenly jerked aloft to a level above my own head. We heard a sibilant hissing as the thing came to a full stop. I had no doubt that it had sighted us, though the beams of light those eyes cast ahead did not reach to where we now stood.

  Since the only target I had were those gray disks, those must be my point of attack. The hissing grew stronger. A fetid puff of air struck me full face, as if the creature had exhaled. I brought up the sword and, though I have used a blade since childhood, it seemed to me that never had I held one before which felt like an extension of my own body.

  The eyes swung downward, and now, though still at water level, they were much closer. Again a puff of stinking breath.

  “Kemoc!” Orsya’s mind thrust was harsh. “The eyes—do not look into them—Ahh! Keep me . . . keep me with you . . . ”

  I felt her move stiffly, trying to break the pressure of my body, to slip from between me and the wall.

  “It wills me to it! Keep me—” Now she cried aloud as if terror had filled her. I dared not wait any longer. With a push from my shoulder I sent her stumbling back and heard a splash as she must have fallen into the water. But whatever compulsion those eyes exerted on her, they did not hold for me.

  One could not rush nor leap through the current of this stream. It was rather like wading through slipping sand and I dared not lose my footing. Those eyes, at the level of my own waist . . . if the thing had a skull shaped in proportion to their size, its jaws must now be submerged.

  “Sytry!”

  That was no word of mine, but it had come out of me in a cry like unto a war shout. Then it was as if I were no longer Kemoc Tregarth, but another, one who knew such fighting and was not dismayed by either the dark or the nature of the unseen enemy. In my mind I seemed to stand aside and watch with a kind of awe the action of my body. Just as my maimed hand was put to use it had not known since that wound years ago, so did I thrust and spring in waves in which I had never been trained.

  The golden sword went home in one of those gray disks. A bulk arose high, with a terrible scream to tear through one’s head. But my hand held to hilt, and, though I was hurled away with a punishing stroke from what must be a great paw, yet I kept my weapon and struggled up to my feet again, back to the wall, facing straightly that bobbing single disk.

  It struck at me and I flung out my arm, the sword straight pointed, in what I deemed a very short chance at any victory. My blade struck something hard, skidded down, to slash open that other disk. Then I was crushed back against the rock wall as a vast, scaled weight fell upon me. Had I been pinned below the surface of the stream I would have died, for that blow had enough force to drive both wits and breath out of me. When I struggled back to full consciousness I felt a weight across me waist-high, but it did not move.

  Cautiously I used my left hand to explore: scaled skin, and under that the general shape of a limb, now inert. Revulsion set me to working for freedom. I wavered finally to my feet, the sword still in my hand as if nothing but my conscious will could ever dislodge it.

  “Orsya! Orsya!”

  I called first with voice and then mind. Had she been caught in the struggle, lay now perhaps crushed under the body of the thing I had apparently killed?

  “Orsya!”

  “Coming—” Mind touch and from some distance. I leaned against the wall and tried to explore by touch any damage I had taken in the encounter. My ribs and side were sore to any pressure, but I thought they were not broken. My jerkin was rent from one shoulder.

  But I had been very lucky, too lucky to believe that it had been good fortune alone which had brought me through. Were the Sulcarmen right? When I had taken that sword into my hand, had I also taken into my body some essence of the one to whom it had once belonged? What meant the strange word I had hurled into that face (if the monster had a face) when I attacked? I would not lose it now . . . I never could. . . .

  “Kemoc?”

  “Here!”

  She was coming. I put out my hands, touched skin and instantly her fingers were about my wrist in a fierce, hurting hold.

  “I fell into the water; I think I was dazed. The current carried me back. What—what happened?”

  “The thing is dead.”

  “You killed it!”

  “The sword killed it. I was merely one who held it for the kill. But it seems we have picked a dangerous road. If we have met one such surprise, there may be others ahead.”

  “The Thas are coming—and with them that other . . . ”

  “What other?”

  “I do not know. Save that it is of the Shadow. It is not even remotely humankind and they even fear it, though they are bound to its company for the present.”

  So our road must still lie ahead. We struggled over the monster bulk of the dead thing. Behind it the waters of the stream arose, partly dammed by the body. Where the current had washed only a little above our knees, now it rose rapidly. We quickened pace for I feared it might choke the passage.

  “The eyes—you said that the eyes drew you.” I questioned as we went.

  I read her surprise. “Did you not feel it? That there was naught to do but to surrender to it—to go to it as it wished? But, no, you could not, or you would not have fought! Truly, you have your own safeguards, overmountain man!”

  As far as Orsya could explain, the gaze of the creature had overpowered her will, drawn her to it. I wondered if that was not the manner of its hunting in these dark passages, so that it brought its prey easily within reach. Yet my own immunization to the spell puzzled us both. It might have something to do with the sword. For, folly though it might be, I was convinced that the blade had in the past been used against just such a monster and what had come to me was a memory of that other battle.

  To our relief the waters did not reach higher than our breasts; and I wondered what the Thas would make of that bulk stopped in the tunnel when they blundered into it.

  The waterway opened into a pool and there was the splash of a falls. Light, daylight, though grayed and dim from the distance, danced down to show us those falls, laced with foam, which cascaded from an opening far above.

  XII

  The spray from the falls was a mist of rain over us. But at least we could see. I drew Orsya with me back against the wall farthest from the falls, from where I could see best those openings (there were three of them) above us.

  It was clear we could not climb near the falls; the rock was too much under the blanket of spray. The second opening was no good to us either, for it was in the roof of the cavern and only a winged man could reach it. So I studied the third. It was a narrow slit, to the right of the falls, out of the direct force of the water for most of the climb.

  But even if we could reach that opening to the outer world we did not know what awaited us on the far side, nor in what part of the country we would emerge. I said as much to Orsya, but she shook her head.

  “We are in the highlands. You still have the Dark Tower ahead.”

  I could not see how she was so sure of our direction. But I did not argue about it.

  “Can you climb?” Whether her webbed feet could find toeholds as easily as mine, I did not know.

  “One does not know without trying,” she said.

  As I feared, even here the stone was slick with water. We were beyond all but the edge of the cons
tant dampening of the spray and the wall was rough enough to give us purchase for our hands and feet, bared to grip more firmly. However, it was not a progress to be hurried.

  I went first, testing each hold before I risked setting weight upon it. Now and then I glanced back to be sure Orsya was following. She did not seem in any distress, though she moved deliberately. About two thirds of the way up I came across a fault in the rock, hidden from below, a small shelf which could hardly be termed a ledge, but which would give us a resting place, sorely needed after those hours of flight.

  I lay down on the ledge and reached my hands to Orsya, helping her up and over beside me in that narrow space. But her head turned to a very narrow crevice in the wall at our backs, her nostrils expanding as she tested the air.

  “Thas!”

  “Here?” This shelf was no place on which to face a fight. Nor did I want to start to climb again and be attacked from below.

  “Not now,” she reported after a moment. “But this crack leads to one of their burrows. We had better not linger.”

  She was right. The entrance to a Thas run was no place in which to take our ease—especially not when a slight push could send us both over and down. I got to my feet, tried to forget the pain in my shoulders, the aching weariness of my arms. Behind lay the longest stretch. Keep my mind only on the few inches before me—the next hand hold—and then the one after that—

  It was a slowly rising agony, that last part of the climb. My maimed hand was numb. I could watch it move and hold, but I could not feel the stone beneath the awkward fingers. Always with me was the fear that that grasp could slip.

  But that was the hand which I at last pushed through the opening into the outer world. The light was not that of the sun and I wondered if we were coming out into a storm. But, as I struggled through, I discovered we were still at the bottom of a rift. The stream which made the falls in the cavern poured along there. The rest was only rock walls and sand. I turned to draw Orsya up beside me.

  We were a wild looking pair, our clothing tattered, with raw red scraps of skin on our arms and legs, along with dark bruises, the grime of mud and other signs of our journey. But the sheer relief of getting out of those ways made me feel light of head and heart—though some of that might have been due to lack of food.

  Orsya went to the edge of the stream, fell on her knees by it, staring into the water intently, as Loskeetha might have consulted her bowl of sand. Then she made a quick dart with one hand and brought it up clasped about a wriggling, fighting creature which was so long and slim of body it seemed more snake than fish. She knocked this against a rock and left it there, then made another grab. Hungry as I was, I could not find any appetite for her catch. But she gathered them together carefully and put them in the bag from which she dumped the quasfi shells.

  We started along the cut, I on the narrow bank, Orsya in the stream. Twice more she made a raid into the flood swirling about her feet and added to her bag.

  Twilight was dim about us as the ravine widened out and vegetation and grass began to show in ragged clumps. We drew away from the water a little and I found a place where a boulder and part of an ancient slide from the heights, together with the cliff wall, gave us a corner of protection. Orsya borrowed my knife to work upon the fish, while I piled stones to add to our shelter.

  I did not relish the thought of raw fish, but when she handed me some, I accepted it and tried not to think what I was eating. It was not as unpleasant as I had expected and, while I would not choose to live upon such foodstuffs, I could chew and swallow my share.

  It was already dark, but Orsya brought out the cone-rod, unwrapping Kaththea’s scarf. This she sat on the ground before us with much care.

  When it stood point up to her satisfaction, she bent her head and breathed upon it. Then, with her hands she made certain signs, one or two of which I recognized, for I had seen Kaththea sketch their like. I knew better than to disturb her concentration at such a time. But I wondered what Orsya was, and if she were indeed the Krogan equivalent of a Wise Woman.

  She sat back at last, rubbing her hands together as if they were either cold, or she would free them of something clinging to her skin.

  “You may sleep without fear of surprise,” came her thought. “We have such a guardian as had not been known since my mother’s mother’s mother’s time.”

  I longed to ask her what manner of magic she had wrought. But the first law of power is that explanations must not be asked for—if they are volunteered, well and good. And, since she did not tell me, I could only wonder. Yet I believed in her promise of safety. This was good, for I do not think I could have stood any watch that night, my fatigue of mind and body was as a burden heavy enough to push me to earth.

  When I awoke Orsya was not curled in sleep, but rather sat, her hands arched over the cone-rod, not quite touching it, her position being that of one who warms herself at a fire. She must have heard me stir, for she gave a start as one awakened out of deep thought and turned her head to look at me.

  Her hair, well dried now, was a silvery cloud about her head and shoulders. Somehow at this moment she looked more unhuman, more alien, than she had since our first meeting by the guest isle.

  “I have been screeing. . . . Eat.” She nodded at what rested just beyond my hand. “And listen!”

  There was about her such an air of command as I had seen in the Witches of Estcarp, and automatically I obeyed. Screeing? The term was new to me, but I thought she meant foreseeing, after Loskeetha’s pattern, and I wanted no more of that.

  Orsya read my thoughts and shook her head. “I deal not with futures, possible or impossible, but with dangers which walk this land. There is much abroad here—”

  I glanced from her to the wider stretch of valley. There was nothing I could see except scanty growths of brush and the stream.

  “The eyes of the head cannot be trusted here,” she answered my thought once more. “Whatever you see, look twice, and thrice, and with the mind also.”

  “Illusions?” I guessed.

  Orsya nodded. “Illusions. They are deft at weaving such, these who deal in the powers of the Shadow. Look now.” She placed her right hand so that the point of the cone must touch the palm, then she leaned forward to touch my forehead.

  I blinked, startled.

  A rock not too far away was no longer a thing of rugged stone, but rather of warty gray hide, of large, questing eyes, of claws to tear.

  “Look now upon your sword,” Orsya’s thought commanded.

  I must have unconsciously reached for its hilt when I sighted the rock-monster. Along its blade red runes glowed; they might have been written in freshly shed blood. But they were in no language I knew.

  “Illusion? Or is it really there? And, if it is, why does it not attack?”

  “Because we have also a protection of illusion about us.”

  She raised her hand from the cone and I saw only a rock. “How long we can maintain our cover and—” She hesitated and then continued, “There is also this. We can go together only while we travel by water. I can not take wholly to land. Thus the last part of the journey will be yours.”

  “None of it need be yours,” I told her swiftly. “You have the means to make yourself safe. Stay here—” I could not say “Stay here until I return,” for I was sure that returning was not one of the things I could read into any future. This quest was mine alone and Orsya need not bear any of its burdens.

  It was as if she neither heard my words, nor read them in my mind. Instead she had gone back to studying the cone-rod.

  “The sword will warn you. It is not in my power to read its history, for it is of war and warriors. My gifts lie with the waters and, a little, of the earth across which they run. But there are tales which travel from one people to another across this riven land of ours. A blood runs on that blade when evil is nearby, as you have seen. Therefore, when we must part, you must use it as a touchstone to try the truth of what you see: the fair, the sa
fe, those may seem foul or dangerous. The seeming foul may be harmless. Do not trust your unaided sight. Now, it is day—let us go.”

  “That thing out there—” I stood up, sword in hand, half expecting to see the rock turn into a monster ready to charge.

  “It is a guardian, I think.” Orsya was rewinding the cone in Kaththea’s scarf. “Give me your hand, and walk softly with me in the stream. It may be able to sense that we pass, but it will not see us.”

  I kept my eyes upon that rock—fearing that the illusion might hold so that I could still be seeing it while what it covered was stalking us.

  “Think not of it,” she ordered. “And no more mind touch—such creatures cannot read it, but they are alerted by its use.”

  Hand in hand we hurried down to the stream and stepped into the water. As we had in the tunnels, we waded in a current which flowed with some power, and which reached our knees. I held the sword before me, watching the bared blade. The runes blazed as we passed the rock, and then they began to fade.

  The second time that warning showed we were well out in the canyon valley. But this time the danger was visible: small, scuttling things moving around the open end of a cut in the cliff—Thas!

  They were bringing forth baskets of earth and rocks, dumping it in piles, running back again in a fury of work. I felt Orsya’s hand tighten about mine, read the wave of disgust which filled her.

  We rounded a curve in the canyon and saw another portion of Thas labor. They were building a road with earth and rocks, angling it up along the side of the cliff. Among them were man-like figures wearing saffron yellow cloaks, and those carried staffs, but wore no swords. They were plainly in charge of the operation, ordering the Thas here and there, consulting maps or rolls of instructions. The reason for the labor was a mystery to me, but that it had great importance to the enemy was clear.