Three Against the Witch World ww-3

by Andre Norton

  My host touched his lips to the edge of the goblet and handed it to me. I swallowed a mouthful and then dribbled a few drops to right and left, to the house and the land, before I passed it back, to go from hand to hand in that company, finally to the guard who now stepped up to my side, shooting me a still suspicious glance. He was a lean mountain wolf right enough, tough and hard as the steel he wore. I knew his like well.

  Thus I came into the Manor of Dhulmat—or what was the germ of that manor-to-be. My host was the Lord Hervon, and, though he never said it, I could guess that he must once have been lord of a far larger land than this. The Lady Chriswitha who now headed his household was his second wife—for his first family had vanished during the horning in Karsten. But she had given him two daughters and a son, and both daughters had married landless men who had chosen to join the clan. These, with such shield men as had attached themselves to Hervon during the twenty years or more of border warfare, and the wives of such, had come here to found a new life.

  “We marked this valley during patrol,” Hervon told me as they put food before me, “and camped here many times during the years, raising part of this hall. You may not understand at your age, but a man needs a place to return to, and this was ours. So when the sealing of the mountains was done and we needed no longer bear swords south, then we were minded to set our hearthstone here.”

  How much dared I ask him concerning what had happened in Estcarp during the time I had been east of the mountains? Yet I had to know.

  “Karsten is truly sealed?” I risked that much.

  There was a grunt from the other man at the board—Godgar, who had played sentinel in the heights.

  Hervon smiled thinly. “So it would seem. We have not yet any real news, but if any of Pagar’s force survived that sealing, then he is not a human man. With their army gone and all passes closed, it will be long before they can move again. The Falconers still ride the mountains—where they may find passage, that is—and the eyes of their scout-hawks are ready to report any movement from that filth.”

  “But Alizon is not sealed,” I ventured again.

  This time Godgar gave a grating laugh. “Alizon? Those hounds have slunk back to their kennels in a hurry. They do not want to sniff the same kind of storm in their noses! For once the Power has been a—”

  I saw Hervon shoot him a warning look and he was suddenly silent, flushing a little.

  “Yes, the Power has wrought well,” I interposed. “Thanks to the Wise Ones we have now a breathing spell.”

  “The Wise Ones.” The Lady Chriswitha seated herself on the bench beside her lord. “But in such action they served themselves ill. The tidings are that they wrung the forces out of them, to their great hurt—many died and others are spent. If Alizon knew of this, surely they would not be so wary of us.”

  Hervon nodded. “Yes, so you do well, young man, to call this peace a breathing spell.” His gaze dropped to the board before him. “Perhaps we waste our strength and our hopes in what we strive to do here now. It is very hard to lose all—”

  His lady’s hand fell over his in a warming clasp. Then her eyes went to the daughters at the other end of the hall, and those with them. And I was shaken, for, if by some miracle I could rouse such men as these to follow me to the east, what could I offer them save danger once more? Perhaps worse danger than these had fled when they came out of Karsten. Leave them be in their small, hard won time of peace. My memory of the golden land when it was free faded. Though nothing would lift from me the geas in this matter.

  Godgar cleared his throat. “You, young man, where do you ride—or walk, since, though you wear horseman’s boots, you come hither on your own two feet?”

  And the compulsion which had brought me over the mountains set on me now an order for truth though I did not wish to speak in this place where peace was a birth of hope.

  “I hunt men—”

  “Men—not a man?” Hervon’s eyebrows lifted. I thought he had credited me with some motive from his own past, the desire for private vengeance. For a feud vow, taken in the right time and place—or the wrong, depending upon how you looked on the matter—could also be a geas.

  “Men—those willing to carve out a new future—” How could I put my mission into words without revealing too much to those inclined to betray me?

  Godgar frowned. “You are no Sulcar recruiter for a raiding voyage. To venture this far inland when you could have men beyond counting along the river or in any port would be folly. And if it is foray against Alizon—the Seneschal has forbidden such, save under his own banner.”

  “No. I have fighting to offer, but not at sea nor in the north. I offer land—good land—to be sword bought. Where a son may uncover his father’s fire to a higher blazing—”

  The Lady Chriswitha had been watching me closely. Now she leaned forward a little, holding me with her gaze as if she were one of the Witches, able to pick true from false in my very brain.

  “And where lies this land of yours, stranger?”

  I wet my lips with tongue tip. This was the time of testing. “To the east,” I said.

  They were all blank of countenance. Did the block hold so tight that no thought of Escore could ever penetrate, that I could not arouse any of them even to think of such a journey?

  “East?” She repeated that with complete incomprehension, as if I had used a word entirely without meaning. “East?” she said again, and this time it was a sharp-asked question.

  This was a gamble, but all my life had been a wagering of one risk against another. I must learn here and now what luck I would have with any men such as these. Tell them the truth as we had discovered it, see if that truth would free them from the bonds tied long ago.

  So I spoke of what Kemoc had discovered at Lormt, and of what we had found over the mountains sealed in that long ago. Yet in that telling I did not reveal my own identity, and it was that fact the Lady Chriswitha struck upon unerringly when I had done.

  “If all this be so—then how is it that you went over these mountains you say we cannot remember, or are not allowed to remember, and which have been so long closed to us? Why did not such bonds hold you also?” Her suspicion was plain.

  But her lord, as if he had not heard her, spoke now:

  “This much is true, I have never thought of the east. In Karsten, yes, but here—no. It was as if that direction did not exist.”

  “The Lady has asked a question which needs an answer,” growled Godgar from the other side. “I would like to hear it, too.”

  There could be no more disguise. To prove my truth I must tell all—the reason for my going eastward. And I put it directly.

  “For two reasons did I go. I am outlawed, or believe that I am, and I am not fully of your blood.”

  “I knew it!” Godgar’s fist raised menacingly, though he did not strike with it. “Outlawed, yet he tricked you into guesting him, Lord. And with such a guest bond does not hold. Cut him down, else he bring us new troubles!”

  “Hold!” Hervon cut through that hot speech. “What name do you bear, outlaw? And talk of geas will not cover you now.”

  “I am Kyllan of the House of Tregarth.”

  For a second or two I thought that they did not know, that that name meant nothing here. Then Godgar roared in wrath and this time his fist sent me sprawling, my head ringing. I had no chance in my defense, for his men were in the hall and they piled on me before I could even gain my knees. Another blow sent me into darkness and I awoke, with an aching head and bruised body, to yet more darkness.

  From very faint traces of light outlining a door—or at least an entrance—well above me and the feel of pounded, hardened earth under my body, my hands being locked in rope loops, I concluded that I now lay in a storage place which must antedate, maybe by several years, this half-completed manor. I had helped to construct just such supply pits in the past, deep dug in the earth, floored and walled with stone if possible, if not with hardened clay, to be covered by a trap doo
r.

  Why did I still live? By rights they could have taken my life there in the hall. Apparently Godgar, at least, knew me for what I had been undoubtedly proclaimed. That they had not killed me at once probably meant they planned to deliver me to the authorities of the Council, and perhaps the first ending was the one I should desire the most.

  As a recruiter I was a failure indeed. One can always see one’s mistakes afterwards, as plain as the victors’ shields hung on the outwalls of a conquered keep. But I had never claimed to be clever at such work. How long would I lie here? I believed this holding to be one far to the southeast, perhaps the only one now in this section of the country. Any messenger to the authorities might have more than a day’s travel, even if he took extra mounts for relays. Unless, of course, there was an adept trained in sending somewhere in the neighborhood.

  I squirmed around, though the movement added to the pain in my head, and I had to fight nausea. Whoever had tied that confining rope knew his business well. I stopped my fruitless struggling, since no energy of mine was going to free me. To free me—had I the slightest hope left?

  But if I was going to be given up to the Council, there was something I must do, if I could, for others. Would the Witches ever dare to turn east?

  They might. Who can foretell any action when he has not even the dimmest of foresight? Those on the other side of the mountain must be warned.

  Matter would not aid me—but mind? I concentrated, building my mental picture of Kaththea, straining to contact my sister wherever she might be. Faint—very faint—a stirring. But no more than that shadow of a shadow. Kemoc? Having tried the greater first, now I strove for the lesser. And this time received not even a shadow reply.

  So much for our talent. Dahaun had been wrong when she had suggested I might communicate so in extremity. Dahaun? I set her in my mind as I had seen her last.

  Shadow—deeper than shadow—not real contact as I had with brother and sister so that words and messages might pass from mind to mind, but enough to give warning. Instantly there was a beating at me in return—only it was as if someone shouted to me in a foreign tongue some frantic message which I could not understand. I lay gasping under the pressure of that unintelligible sending. It snapped, and was gone.

  My breath came in fast, shallow gasps; my heart pounded as if I raced before some enemy host. There was a sound, but it was of this world and not from that place outside. The crack of light about the opening above grew larger and a ladder thudded down. They were coming for me. I braced myself for action which I must face.

  A whisper of robes. I tried to hold my head higher. Why had the Lady Chriswitha come alone? The door fell behind her so that the gloom was again complete as she came to stand over me. I caught the scent of that sweet fern women use to lay between fresh washed garments.

  She was stooping very close above me. “Tell me why you fled Estcarp.”

  There was urgency in her demand, but the way of it I did not understand. What made the reason of our escape of any importance now?

  I told her the whole of it, making a terse statement of facts and fears as we three had known them. She listened without interruption, then:

  “The rest of it. The lost land—the chance to bring it once more under our rule—?”

  “Under the rule of good instead of evil, through a war,” I corrected. Again I was puzzled, and asked:

  “What matters all this to you, lady?”

  “Perhaps nothing, or perhaps much. They have sent a messenger to the nearest ward keep, and it will go then by sending to Es Castle. Afterward—they will come for you.”

  “I had expected no less.” I was glad my voice held steady when I said that.

  Her robes swished. I knew she was turning away from me. But from the foot of the ladder she spoke once more:

  “Not all minds are the same in some matters. Outlaws have been born because of laws not all hold by.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She gave me no straight reply, only saying “Good fortune go with you, Kyllan of Tregarth. You have given me much to think on.”

  I heard her climb the ladder, saw her raise the door. Then she was gone, leaving me in turn with things to think on—though to no profitable purpose.

  XVII

  THEY CAME FOR me at last, on a morning when there were clouds across the sky and the softness of coming rain in the air. There were Godgar and three others, but, to my surprise, no Council guard. I do not know how long I had lain in the store-pit. They had brought me food and drink, but those who came so singly would answer no questions. I had time for many thoughts, but there were no more dreams. Except those I wove deliberately when awake, riding the golden land with one—but there is no need to dwell upon those.

  Now they produced a mount for me—a sorry animal, probably the worst of their stable—and they lashed me into the saddle as if they thought that I might suddenly produce the claw and fangs of a wolf-man. Save for these four there was no sign of life about the manor. That I wondered about . . . until my wonder became a tremor of uneasiness. It almost seemed that this expedition could be of Godgar’s planning alone, and there had been nothing in his attitude since our first meeting to suggest that he designed any good end for me.

  He took the fore in our ride out, my mount led by the rider just behind, the other two bringing up the rear. They were all older men, those guards, enough like their leader to have been fashioned in one dart stamper. And, while they did not use me with any unnecessary roughness, yet neither did I see any hope of escape.

  We turned north as we came out on the manor road, which was no more than a track of beaten earth. The pace Godgar set was that of any routine patrol, not forced, yet designed to eat miles. I glanced over my shoulder at the manor. The matter of the Lady Chriswitha’s visit still puzzled me. I had not dared to believe that anything in my favor might come of it. But still I thought that it had shown minds divided on some subjects within those half-completed walls. But the manor might now be deserted.

  None of the guards spoke, nor did I see any reason to ask questions. We merely rode, first under clouds, and then in the beginning of a drizzle which seemed to affect them no more than might the sun of a pleasant day.

  In spite of the hopelessness of my situation I continued to study those who accompanied me, and the land about, trying to sight any chance for a break. My hands were bound before me to the high horn of my saddle, my feet lashed to the stirrups, the reins of my horse in the hands of him who rode before me. My helm was gone, though they had left me my mail shirt. There were no weapons in my belt. And the horse under me could be easily run down by any they bestrode.

  As for the country, we were in open land where there was little or no cover. The grass, which brushed as high as our stirrups beyond the edge of the narrow road, was autumn yellowed. And the rain was chill. But there were inhabitants in the grass. I saw prong-horns race away, their great start-leaps carrying them well into the air. And birds flew—

  I do not know why I began to watch the sky for any hint of green wings. It might be more probable for a Flannan to perch suddenly on the saddle horn above my tied hands. Yet each time I saw a bird I looked the closer.

  Then Godgar reined up, waiting for my leader to catch level with him. He said something in a low voice and the rein passed from guard to commander, the relieved man spurring ahead, Godgar pulling at the reins until my horse was beside his. He had fastened his helm veil across his throat and chin as if we were about to go into battle, and over that half mask of tiny metallic links his eyes were hot.

  “Who sent you, oath breaker? Who sent you to bring down the House of Dhulmat?”

  His demand made no sense to me.

  “I am neither oath-breaker, nor one who wishes ill to you and yours.”

  Tied as I was I could not escape the answering blow which made my head ring and swayed me in the saddle.

  “We know ways to make a man talk,” he snarled. “Karsten taught us much!”

 
“Perhaps you can make a man talk,” I got out, “but this man does not know what you seek.”

  Luckily, though he had come to depend upon pain and force to support his orders, he had a measure of intelligence behind such brutality. Now he chose to use it.

  “You go to the Council. If you are who you say, you know what they will do to you.”

  “Assuredly.” To Godgar the warrior’s creed was a living thing and part of that was a fatalistic acceptance of things as they were. I could do no more than summon that to my aid now.

  “They will wring out of you all knowledge; thus we shall learn sooner or later what we want to know. Why not tell us now—who sent you to take refuge with Hervon and so blacken his name?”

  “No one. I came by chance to—”

  “Riding one of our horses, a mount that bolted without warning from our holding and returned two days later only a little before you? By your own telling, oath-breaker, you have consorted with witchery, so all could be of your doing. But the why of it? Why do you move against Hervon? We have no family-feud with you! Who told you to do this?”

  “Any holding would have suited me,” I said wearily. There was no way of making him believe that. He was determined that I meant ill to his lord. But that private feuds were still alive among the Old Race refugees was new to me. Apparently Godgar expected such now. “A geas was laid upon me in Escore, even as I told you. I was to recruit such of the Old Race as wanted to try to free the land from which they once sprang.”

  I half expected a second blow, a demand that I speak what he would consider the truth. But to my surprise, Godgar turned his head with deliberation and looked to the east. Then he laughed, a harsh bark.

  “Did you think such a story would win you a fighting tail into nowhere, outlaw? Why, I could think of two handfuls of words which would serve you better in Hervon’s listening!”

  “Have it your own way then,” I told him, tired of argument. “This is the bare bones of it. My sister was forced to enter the Place of Wisdom against her will. She shared with me and my brother a gift. Through that she reached Kemoc before the time of her final vow, for she would not be one of the Witches. We had her forth from the Place, since the safeguards of the Power were exhausted by the closing of the mountains. Having won her freedom we strove to preserve it by striking east, into the unknown. We crossed the forbidden passes, found Escore, and those there, both enemy and friend, with the need for men to fight on the side of good in a very old war. Through no wish of mine—that I shall swear to by any Sign or Name—it was laid upon me to come here, and seek out any willing to cross the mountains. More than that no wile nor force can learn from me, for that is the full truth!”