Three Against the Witch World ww-3

by Andre Norton

  “Have you forgotten? They have set a witch bar. But you and Kemoc—perhaps that will not encompass you—”

  Our combined dissent was quick and hot. As three we would escape or not at all.

  “There is no way left to fight them with the Power?”

  She shook her head. “Already I have done too much. My acts troubled the quiet here and aroused that which hunts us now. A child playing with a sword cuts itself because it had neither the skill nor strength to use such a weapon properly. There is only this, my brothers: that which sits out there cannot take us. For which we should give thanks, for if it could we would not face clean death of body, but that which is far worse!”

  Remembering what I had learned as the stallion bore me towards that city of dread silence, I understood. Yet I was not meant to await death, clean or otherwise, without a struggle. And all I had now was a very faint hope that a wraith girl, who had saved my life and then ridden from me, would redeem a half promise she had made.

  I covered my eyes with my hands and strove with every bit of any small power I had to fix upon her face, to somehow reach her, to learn if I could in any way find hope. For if I could not, then I must turn to some desperate and doubtless fatal move of my own.

  But those features of many changes could not be so pinned in mind for a real picture. All the vision faces she had shown me spun elusively, sometimes singly for an instant, sometimes superimposed one on the other. Dahaun was not one of the created ones, produced by a whim of the Old Race; she was one of those who had stood apart, being of yet more ancient blood, and in her the human portion was the lesser.

  There was a snort from Shabra. With the coming of evening a pale luminescence fingered up the menhirs. About them swirled threads of light, twining about them as planted vines might seek support on such rough stone. Also the blue platform on which we now rested had its measure of such spectral radiance. By the light I saw the horned one face about, head up, nostrils expanded. Then, with a toss of head so that his red horn caught the light, he voiced a cry, not unlike the challenge of a fighting stallion.

  I almost expected to see that black thing which had entrapped me come pacing along with the other besiegers. But Shabra’s answer came in another form—a crackle of fire on the crest of the slope down which the line of pillars marched. There was no mistaking its source—the lash of an energy whip!

  Dahaun! I put into that silent call all my need.

  No answer, save once more the whip cracked an arc of raw lightning in the sky. A bush flamed where its tip must have stuck the ground. And from outside the circle arose a concentrated, growling roar from the things who kept sentry duty there.

  Shabra—I reached for contact. Who rides there?

  Be still! Would you have the Dark Ones know? It was a sharp rebuke.

  I was startled. This was no contact with any animal; this was equal chiding equal, or perhaps even an adult rebuking a child. I might have ridden Shabra to this place, but his function was not only that of mount. And now I caught a flash of amusement at my surprise. Then his mind was closed to me as a door might be locked and barred to any entrance.

  Kaththea grasped my arm and Kemoc’s and pulled herself up.

  “There are forces on the move,” she said. But something in the curling light about the pillars bedazzled our eyes to anything which lay beyond. We could hear the evil host but we could no longer see it. No more whip cracks broke the night.

  “Can you reach—have any contact at all?” Kemoc demanded.

  “No, I must not. I could disturb, awaken—Our power is a mixture. Ceremonial magic comes from ritual, from study, used by those who learn as scholars and priestesses. True witchcraft is older, more primitive, allied with nature, not truly bound by our standards of good and evil. In Estcarp we have united the two, but always give the greater weight to magic, not witchcraft. Here magic went utterly wrong and crooked, becoming a twisted, wicked thing. But witchcraft stepped aside and walks in its earlier guise. Thus when I strove to use what I knew I drew magic, yes, but I used a force which had been distorted. What may work in our favor is witchcraft, and of that I have no mastery. Tell me, quickly, Kyllan, of this Lady of Green Silences and how you met with her!”

  With my attention half for anything which might move outside the lights of the menhirs, I told my story—and more slowly of what had happened after my awaking in the mud basin.

  “Natural forces,” Kaththea broke in. “Shapechanging—because she has Power which adapts—”

  “How do you mean?” I had not guessed that my sister, never having seen Dahaun, could yet explain some of her mystery.

  “The Green Silences—the woodlands—have always had their guardians and inhabitants. And their magic is of wind, water, earth and sky—literally of those. Not as we witches use them, imposing our will for a space, either in illusion or for destruction, but with the rhythm and flow of nature. They will use a storm, yes, but they do not summon one. They can use the rushing current of a river, but within its boundaries. All animals and birds, even plants, will obey them—unless such are already in the service of evil, and thus corrupt. They take on the coloring of their surroundings. If they wish, you can not see them among trees, in water, nor even in the open. And they cannot live among stone walls, nor in places wherein only men dwell, or they wither and die. Because they are of the very stuff of life, so they are feared by the forces of destruction. But also they will be wary of the risking of life. In some ways they are indeed more powerful than we, in spite of all our centuries of magic; yet in others they are more vulnerable. Their like does not exist in Estcarp; they could not make the break to leave this land in which they are rooted. But still we had our legends of their kind—”

  “Legends centuries old,” I interrupted. “Dahaun—she can not be that Lady of those—”

  “Perhaps an office descending in some ancient line, the name with it. Morquant is one of the names by which we evoke wind magic, yet you say she gave it as her own. Also, note that unlike a sworn witch she gives you her name freely, proving that she has no fear of so delivering herself into your hands. Only her kind are so above the threat of counterspell.”

  There was a trill overhead. Startled, we looked up at a blue-green bird such as had been with me during my hours of pain. Three times it circled us, trilling in short bursts of clear, sweet notes. Kaththea gasped, her grip tightening to dig nails into my shoulder, her face becoming even more pale. She whispered:

  “They—they are indeed great! I have been—silenced!”

  “Silenced?” Kemoc echoed.

  “I cannot use spells. Should I strive to use an incantation it would not make sense! Kyllan—why? Why would they do this thing? I am now open to what lies out there. Kyllan, they wish us ill, not well! They have chosen this time to stand with evil!”

  She pulled away from me and clung to Kemoc. Over her bowed shoulders he gazed hostilely at me, as he had never done before.

  Nor could I deny that he might have some cause for such judgment. I had returned to them through the agency of this force which now acted against Kaththea, to take from her what might be her only defense. And I had come charging in blindly, not to bring them any real succor, perhaps merely to direct a final blow. Yet a large part of me would not accept that measurement of what was happening here, even though I could not give any reason for still believing that we had hope for aid.

  The prowlers were growing bolder. A lean wolf head was clearly outlined in the light from a menhir; a vast armored paw, talons outspread, waved in another direction. Kaththea raised her head from Kemoc’s shoulder. There was now fear in her eyes.

  “The lights—look to the lights!”

  Until her cry I had not noted the change. When we had awakened from the time spell those wreathing threads had been of a blue shade, akin in color to the rock platform they ringed. Now they were smoky, yellowish, giving one an unpleasant sensation when looked at too closely. That change in them appeared to summon the attackers. More and
more faces and paws were visible by their glare. Our besiegers were drawing in closely.

  Shabra stamped a forehoof, and the impact on the ground had the thud of hand against war drum, booming unnaturally in the air. Kaththea’s throat worked convulsively, as if she were trying to speak; her head turned from side to side, and her hands arose before her by visible effort, as if she struggled against bonds. They jerked, twitched, rebels against her will. And I knew that she was fighting to use her own craft—without avail.

  The horned one began to trot around with the blue stone the core of his circle. His trot became a canter, then sped to a gallop. Now he gave voice in a series of sharp barking cries. Still more faces of evil were plain in the yellow light.

  Then I sighted something else, something I had to stare at a long second before I could believe in what my eyes reported. Shabra might not be running on trampled grass, but hock high in a flowing, deep green stream of water. There was a rippling out and away from his circling, gathering impetus as he passed. Not light, nor mist, but a flowing—of what, I could not say. And, under us, the blue stone was growing warm. From its four corners spiraled tendrils of blue which arched over to touch that flowing green, and were swallowed, blue to green. And the green swept on, a little faster, towards the smoky yellow of the pillars. Round and round Shabra galloped.

  I dared not watch him, for his circling made me light-headed. The edge of the green flow lapped at the roots of the menhirs. There followed an explosion of light, as had when my whip had cut at the mist thing. Eyes dazzled, I blinked and rubbed, striving to clear my sight.

  Before me the menhirs were no longer a smoky yellow, but each a towering green candle, so lost in light that their rugged outlines vanished. No more did the sentries stare hungrily at us from between them.

  The columns began to pulse in waves, as the light mounted higher and higher. But it proved a barrier to our sight of all that lay beyond. We did not see; we heard—a crying, the sound of running . . . It was the breaking of the siege! I got to my feet, jumped from the platform, sought for the whip I had dropped hours earlier.

  Magic, perhaps not that which we knew, but still magic, had come to our aid. Whip in hand I strained to see beyond the pillar light.

  “Dahaun!” I did not shout, I whispered, but that I would be answered I was almost sure.

  XIV

  THEY APPEARED SUDDENLY between two of the candled menhirs—not as if they had ridden into view, but flashed from the air itself. No longer was Dahaun blonde or dusky; her hair flowed as green as the flood about Shabra’s hooves, her skin had a verdant caste, and the others with her were of a like coloring.

  They swung whip stocks idly, the flashing lashes not in evidence. But Dahaun carried her bow, strung and ready for action. Now she fitted arrow to string, aimed skyward and shot.

  We did not see the passing of that, but we heard sound, for it sang, almost as had the bird earlier, up and up, over our heads, its call growing fainter as if vanishing into the immensity of the night sky, never to return. Then, from some lofty point, there burst a rain of fire, splashing in green glitter widely between us and the real stars, and these flakes drifted down, glimmering as they fell. Still those three sat their mounts, gazing soberly at us.

  Those who accompanied Dahaun were both men, human to the most part, save that among the loose curls on their temples showed curved horns, not as long or as arching as those on their mounts, and of an ivory shade. They wore the same clothing as she had brought to me at the mud basin, but their cloaks were hooked on their shoulders and swung out behind them.

  There was none of that flickering instability about their features which Dahaun possessed, but a kind of withdrawn, almost chilling expression, freezing masculine beauty into a rigidly aloof pattern to put a barrier between us.

  Come! Her summons was imperious, demanding.

  That was what part of me wanted. But older ties held. I turned and reached out a hand to Kaththea. Then they stood beside me, my brother and sister, facing those others who made no move to pass between the menhirs to us. In a flash I knew without being told that they could not—that what made this a place of refuge for us locked them out.

  One of Dahaun’s companions snapped his whip impatiently, and sparks cracked in the air.

  “Come!” This time she called the summons aloud. “We have little time. That which prowls is routed only for a space.”

  With my arm about my sister’s shoulders, Kemoc on her other side, I walked towards them. Then I saw that Dahaun’s eyes were not for me any more; they were on Kaththea, and that between those two met and mingled a current.

  Dahaun leaned forward on her horned one. She had shouldered her bow and now one hand came fully into the green glow. With deliberation her fingers moved, outlining a pattern which continued to shine as lines in the air. Kaththea’s arm raised by vast and wearying effort which I shared through contact. Quickly I willed strength to her, as did Kemoc. Her fingers spread slowly, so slowly, but in turn she sketched lines—lines which burned blue after the fashion of the block behind us, not green like those of Dahaun.

  I heard a quick exclamation from one of Dahaun’s escorts.

  “Come—sister—” The hand with which she had sketched that sign Dahaun now held out to Kaththea. And I heard a small sigh of relief from my sister.

  We passed between the green-lit stones, feeling a tingling throughout our bodies. Small sparks flashed from our skins. I sensed a stir on my scalp as if my hair moved from its roots. Then Dahaun’s hand clasped tight about my sister’s.

  “Give her up to me!” she ordered. “We must ride, and swiftly!”

  I mounted then on Shabra, Kemoc behind me. Ride we did. Dahaun went first, her horned one skimming the ground at a pace which seemed to say that a double rider burden was nothing. Then came Kemoc and I, and the two whip swinging guards behind us.

  As we left the blazing menhirs a kind of greenish haze accompanied us, and in a measure, at least for me, walled off clean sight of the countryside through which we traveled. Though I strained to see better, I could not sight more than would be visible to a man caught in a fog. And at last I gave up, knowing we must depend wholly upon Dahaun.

  There was no uncertainty about her riding. And the first pace she set did not slacken. I began to marvel at the stamina of her horned mounts. “Where do we go?” asked Kemoc.

  “I do not know,” I answered.

  “It can be that we ride into yet deeper trouble,” he commented.

  “And maybe we do not! There is no evil in these—”

  “Still I do not believe that those now riding rear guard look upon us with much favor.”

  “They came to save us.”

  But he was right. Dahaun had brought us out of the refuge which was also a prison; in that much she had favored us. But we could not be sure of what lay ahead.

  Though I could not see our path, I believed we were headed back for the heights where lay the healing basin and perhaps the homeland of those who rode with us.

  “I do not like to go thus blindly,” Kemoc said. “But I do not think they use this screen to confuse us. This is a land through which we must feel our way, blinded by ignorance. Kyllan, if we have upset the balance of peace, what must we answer for—beyond our own lives?”

  “Perhaps a world!” Yet looking back through time I could not see wherein we might have altered anything we had done, given no more foreknowledge than we held when we rode out of deserted Etsford.

  I heard a soft laugh from my brother. “Very well, make it a world to be succored, Kyllan. Did not our parents go up against the Kolder blindly and with only the strength within them? Can we reckon ourselves less than they? And we are three, not two. It is in my mind, brother, that we ride now to a hosting—and with such company as shall suit us well.”

  On and on we rode, and within the envelope of haze perhaps time as well as space was distorted. Yet I thought that outside that the night passed.

  The mist began to fade slowl
y. Trees, brush, outcrops were more visible in it. And they were illumined by dawn light. Then there came a time when the first rays of the sun were bright as we rode into a pass between two crags. Beneath the hooves of the horned ones was a leveled road. And, on either hand, set into the rock walls of the cut, were symbols which looked vaguely familiar to me, but which I could not read. But I heard a small hiss from Kemoc at my back.

  “Euthayan!”

  “What?”

  “A word of power—I found it among the most ancient screeds at Lormt. This must be a well guarded place, Kyllan—no hostile force can pass such safety devices.”

  The rows of those symbols ended; we were descending again and before us opened a wide basin, well wooded, yet with open glades too, and a silver river in a gentle curve along its bottom. At first glimpse my heart pounded. This was a small slice of that golden ancient land before the coming of ill to twist and foul it. There was that in the air which we drew into our lungs, in the wind which reached us, in all our eyes feasted upon, which soothed, heartened, turned ages back to an untroubled time of joy and freedom when the world was young and man had not yet sought that which would lead to his own undoing.

  Neither was it an empty world. Birds of the blue-green plumage, shimmering Flannan, and others sailed above us. I saw two of the lizard folk sitting on top of a stone, their claw hands holding food, watching us as we passed. Horned ones without riders grazed in glades. And over it all was an aura of rightness such as I had never known in all my life.

  We had slacked pace as we came through the corridor of the symbol signs, and now we ambled. Flowers bloomed along the edge of our road, as if gardeners kept that brilliant tapestry of verge. Then we entered an open space near the river, and saw the manor hall.

  But this was no building—it was growth out of the soil, alive to shelter the living. Its walls were not quarried stone, nor dead, shaped timber, but trees or strong, tall brush of an unknown species, forming solid surfaces over which grew vines, flowers, leaves.