by Andre Norton
“Moth-child—” Though Mafra turned sightless eyes in her direction never was she mistaken concerning the identity of those who came to her. “You are a seeker—”
“True, Clan Mother. I have sought in other places and other ways, and I do not understand. But this I have seen; from Volt’s own chair did I venture out in a strange way beyond explaining.” Swiftly she told Mafra of the rider.
For a long moment the Clan Mother sat silent. Then she gave a quick nod as if she affirmed some thought of her own.
“So it begins. How will it then end? The foreseeing reaches not to that. He whom you saw, moth-child, is one tied to us by part blood—”
“Koris!”
Mafra’s hand, where it rested upon her knee, tightened, her head jerked a fraction as if she strove to avoid a blow.
“So that old tale still holds meaning,” she said. “But Koris was not your rider. This is he whom I told you about—the child of those who would move mountains with spells, slay men with steel, that naught comes to harm him. He is Koris’ son, and his name is Simond, which in part was given by that outlander who fought so valiantly beside his father to free Estcap of the Kolder.”
Mafra paused and then continued. “If you wonder how these things are known: when I was younger, strong in my powers, I sometimes visited in thought beyond the edge of Tormarsh, even as this day you have done. It was Koris’ friend Simon Tregarth who was brought hither through strangers’ magic and delivered to his enemies. Also with him was she who was Koris’ choice of mate after the manner of the outlanders. Then we chose ill, so that in turn the outlands set their own barriers against us. We cannot go, even if we wish, outside the Marsh, nor can anyone come to us.”
“Is the seashore also barred, Clan Mother?”
“Most of the shore, yes. One may look at it, but the mist which rises between is a wall as firm as the stone ones about us now.”
“But, Clan Mother, I have trod the sand beside the sea, found shells within it—”
“Be silent!” Mafra’s voice was a whisper. “If this much was given you let no other know it. The time may come when it will be of worth to you.”
Tursla allowed her voice to drop also. “Is that a foreseeing, Clan Mother?”
“Not a clear one, I only know that you will have need for all your strength and wit. This I can tell you, Unnanna calls tonight and, if she is answered, then—” Mafra lifted her hands and let them fall again to her lap. “Then I leave it to your wit, moth-daughter. To your wit and that which is in you from that other place.”
She gave the sign of dismissal and Tursla went to her own place and took up her spindle, but if any watched her for long they would know that she had little profit from her labors.
Night came and around her the women of the clan stirred and spoke to one another in whispers. None addressed her, being Filled she was carefully set apart that nothing might threaten that which she was supposed now to carry. Nor did they approach Mafra either, rather ranged themselves with Parua and slipped quietly away.
There were no guards set about the House isle, save on the two approaches by which a wak-lizard might come. No one would watch those bound for the Shrine in any case, so that Tursla, pulling a drab cloak about her, even over the soft silver of her hair, thought she could follow behind without note.
Once more she crept along the same path she had taken earlier that day. Those ahead carried no lighted torches; there was no gleam save the moonlight, but she saw that every house must be represented. But this could not be a complete Calling after all, for there were no men. Or so she had thought until she caught sight of moon gleam on a spear head and noted those cloaked men, ten of them, standing in a line facing the Chair. While in that seat huddled a figure who raised her face to the light even as Tursla found a hiding place back behind a pile of fallen rock.
Unnanna sat in the place of Seeking. Her eyes were closed, her head turned slowly from side to side. Those standing below began to croon, first so softly that it was hardly to be heard over the lap of water, the wing rustle of some flying thing. Then that hum grew stronger—no words, but rather a sound which made Tursla’s skin tingle, her hair move against her neck. She found that her head was swinging also in the same way as Unnanna’s and, at that moment, realized the danger which lay in being trapped into becoming a part of what they would do here.
She raised her hands and covered her eyes so that she might not see that swaying, while she thought, as one catches a line of safety thrown wide, of the sand sister, or the racing sea waves. Though a pulse now beat within her, Tursla also fought her own body; and, without being fully conscious of what she did, she rose to her full height and began to move her feet, not in the pattern Unnanna’s head had set, but in another fashion, to break for herself the spell the Clan Mother was raising.
There was power building here; her body answered to it. Force pressed in upon her like a burden, trying to crush her. Still Tursla countered that, her lips moving in words which sprang from behind those doors in her mind which she had earlier tried to open and could not. Only such danger as this would free them for her.
She opened her eyes. All was as before—save that Unnanna had moved forward on the chair of Volt. One after another those waiting men came to her. She touched them on the forehead, on the eyes. Then each made way for his fellow. From the tips of those fingers which she used to touch them came small cones of light, and those who stepped back from her anointing carried now a mark on the forehead of the same eerie radiance.
When all had been so marked they turned and made their way from the hall, the women giving back to open their path. As they passed by Tursla she saw that their eyes were set and they stared as men entranced. Their leader was Affric; and those who followed him were all young, the most skilled of the hunters.
When they had gone from her sight, Tursla looked back to the hall. Once more Unnanna sat with closed eyes. Power surged; it came from each of them there. Unnanna in some manner drew that unseen energy from them, consolidated it, shaped from it a weapon, aimed that weapon, and sent out on course.
Tursla was not one of them. Now she stood tense, seeking within herself something she sensed must be ready to answer her call. She used her thought to mould it, thinking of what she would hurl—not as the spear Unnanna’s wish had fostered—no, what then? A shield? She did not hold strength enough in herself to interpose any lasting barrier. But perhaps there was something else she could mind-fashion. She thought of the likenesses of all the weapons known to the Torfolk, and fastened in the space of a breath upon—a net!
Clenching her hands until her nails cut into her own flesh, the girl centered all of her unknown energies, untested to their full extent since that night by the pool, and thought of a net—a net to entangle feet, to impede those who marched by night, those who would set a trap. Let they themselves be now entrapped.
As blood draining from a grievous, mortal wound, the energy Tursla summoned seeped from her. If she could only call upon that greater well of strength which Unnanna could tap for herself! But a net—surely a net! Let it catch about the feet of Affric; let it ensnare him where he would go. Let it be!
The girl stumbled back against the wall, weakness in her legs, her arms hanging heavily by her sides, as she had neither the will nor strength now to raise them. With her back against the rough stone she slipped downward, the ruins rising around her like a protective shield. Her head fell forward on her breast as she made her last attempt to send what remained in her to reinforce the net her vivid mind picture had set about Affric’s stumbling feet.
It was cold and she was shivering. Dark lay about her, and she no longer heard that sound which had built up the energy for Unnanna’s mind dart. Rather what came was the whisper of wings. Lifting her head, Tursla looked upward to the night sky above the pocket in the ruins where she rested.
There were two moths a-dance, their beautiful shadowy wings outlined with the faint night shine which was theirs when they flew in the de
ep dark. Back and forth they wove their meetings and partings. Then the larger spiralled down, and for just a moment it clung to the dew-wet robe on her breast, fanning its wings, tiny eyes which were alight looking into hers . . . or so it seemed to the bemused girl.
“Sister,” Tursla whispered. “I give you greeting. Fair flying for your night. May the blessing of Volt himself be with you!”
The moth clung for another instant and then flew away. Stiffly Tursla pulled herself up. Her body ached as if she had done a full day’s stooping at the loom, or at harvest in the fields. She felt stupid, also, when she tried to think clearly.
She tottered along, one hand against the wall to support her. There was no one here—Volt’s chair was empty. For a moment she wavered as she gazed upon that seat. Should she try again? There was a longing in her, a strange longing. She wanted to see how the rider fared. What had Mafra named him? Simond, an odd name. Tursla repeated it in a whisper as if a name could be tasted, said to be either sweet or sour.
“Simond!”
But there was no answer. And she knew that, even if she mounted Volt’s chair again, this time there would be no answer. What she had done or tried to do here this night had exhausted for a time her power. She had nothing to aid her to reach out.
Walking slowly, catching now and then on some half-broken wall or pile of stones, she won out of Volt’s hall. But she needed to sit and rest several times before she got back to the clan house.
Then it took all the skill she had to be able to make her way through Mafra’s house to her own corner. Should she tell the Clan Mother what had been done this night? Perhaps—but not in this hour. To rouse any of the nearby sleepers would be the last thing she wished.
She lowered herself onto the sleeping mat. In her mind then there was only one picture, already becoming fuzzed with sleep—the image of Affric fighting a web about his feet, his sneering mouth open as if he shouted aloud in fear. Though she was not conscious of it, Tursla smiled as she fell asleep.
4
MIST was heavy about the island where the ancient clan houses stood, hanging curtains between house and house, turning those who went outside into barely seen shadows moving in and around through the fog. The moisture in it pearled on every surface in large drops which gathered substance and then trickled down-ward. That same damp clung to skin, matted hair, made clammy all garments.
Such fen mists had been known to Tursla all her life. Still this one was far thicker than any she could remember; and it would seem her uneasiness was matched within the clan house, for no hunters went forth, while those within stirred higher the fires, drawing in closer for the light and heat. Perhaps they did this not for any warmth to send their garments steaming but because the very brightness of the flames themselves had a kind of cheer.
Tursla had sought out Mafra again. But the Clan Mother appeared unwilling to talk. Rather she sat very still, her blind eyes staring unwinking at the fire and those about it, though she made no move to add herself to the circle of company there. At length Tursla’s foreboding of a shadow to come made her greatly daring and she touched timidly one of Mafra’s hands where it lay palm up on the woman’s lap.
“Clan Mother—?”
Mafra’s head did not turn, yet Tursla was sure she knew that the girl was beside her. Then she spoke, in so low a voice Tursla was sure it could not carry beyond her own ears.
“Moth-child, it comes close now—”
What—the fog? Or that other thing which Tursla felt, though she had no part of Mafra’s powers.
“What may be done, Clan Mother?” The girl shifted her body restlessly.
“Nothing to stop these witless ones. Not now.” There was a bitter note in that. “You cannot trust in anything or anyone save yourself, moth-child. The ill act has been begun.”
At that moment there sounded, through the doorway of the clan house (like the bellow of some great beast), a call which brought Tursla and all the rest sheltering within to their feet. Never before had the girl heard such a sound.
Then the cries of those by the fire, who were now all turning to the mist-hidden doorway, running toward that, made her understand. That had been the Great Alarm, which had never been sounded in her lifetime, perhaps even in the lifetimes of all now here. Only some action of overpowering peril could have brought the sentries on the outer road to give that alert.
“Girl!” Mafra was also standing. Her hand tightened about Tursla’s arm. “Give me your strength, daughter. Ill, thrice ill, has been this thing! Dark the ending thereof!”
Then she, who so seldom left her own alcove nowadays, tottered beside Tursla. At first her slight body bore heavily upon the girl’s support. Then she straightened, and it appeared that strength returned to her limbs as she took one step and then another.
They came into the open but there the mist was very thick. Figures could only be half seen and that just when close by. Mafra’s pressure on her arm drew Tursla in a way which it would seem the blind woman knew well.
“Where—?”
“To Volt’s Hall,” Mafra answered her. “They would carry this through to the end—profane the very place which is the heart of all we are, have ever been. They will slay, in the name of Volt. And, if such a slaying comes, why, then their own deaths must follow! They have decided upon their road—and evil is the end of it!”
“To stop—” Tursla got out no more than those two words when her companion interrupted her.
“Stop—yes. Girl, open now your inner thoughts, give yourself freely to what may lie within you. That is the only way! But it must be quick.”
She had never believed that Mafra’s strength might still be such as to send the Clan Mother at so fast a pace. There were others around them, all were heading in the same direction. The stones of the ancient road under their feet were slimed with water, yet Mafra, for all her lack of sight, made no missteps.
About them loomed the broken walls of Volt’s Hall. Still on they pressed, until they were in the place of the chair. Here through some trick perhaps of emanations from the ancient stones themselves, the mist thinned, raised, to lay above their heads like a ceiling, yet allow them full sight of all which was below.
Those torches set upright in the vases to either side of the chair were ablaze. Other brands were in the hands of those standing along the walls. In Volt’s chair sat Unnanna once again. Braced with a hand on either arm of the giant seat she leaned forward, an eager, avid expression on her face.
Those she so eyed were gathered immediately below. Affric stood there; but he had not the arrogant pride which he had worn so confidently when he had strode forth from this place at the Clan Mother’s bidding. He was pale of countenance, and his clothing was smeared with swamp slime, while one arm was bound to his side with vine fiber, as if bones had been broken that must be straightened and protected for healing.
Seeing him so brought a picture into Tursla’s mind: that of Affric unsure of foot as if he had been caught in some snare, stumbling and falling, falling against one of the upright pillars which bore Volt’s own face deep carven. Her wish—dream! Had that indeed left Affric like this?
If so, she had not done all that she had wished. For between two of Affric’s followers was the stranger she had seen mounted on the road, the one Mafra had named Simond.
His helm was gone, so his fair hair, near as bleached as her own, shown in the torch light. But his head rolled limply forward on his breast. It was plain his legs would not support him and he had to be kept on his feet by the help of his guards. There was a matting of blood in his hair.
“Done!” Unnanna’s voice rang out silencing the murmurs of those gathered there, producing a quiet through which the sounds of the marsh life without could be heard. “Done, well done! Here is that which shall give us new life! Did I not say it? Into our hands has Volt brought this one that we may drink of his strength and—”
Tursla did not know if she had made some signal but the guards suddenly released their hold u
pon Simond and he fell forward. There must have remained some spark of awareness in him, for he put out his hands, though he was on his knees, to catch at the edge of the step on which the chair stood. Now he raised his head by visible effort and lurched forward and up, for he grasped at the chair itself, and dragged himself to his feet.
The girl could not see his face. Without knowing she had done so, she broke from Mafra’s side and edged along, pushing by others, seeing none of them, coming closer to where the captive stood.
“What do you want of me?” he asked as he edged around, so that he half faced the Torfolk.
Affric took a step forward and spat. His mouth was a vicious slit.
“Half-blood! We want from you what you have no right to—that part which is of Tormarsh!”
There was a sound like the far-off squall of a wak-lizard. Unnanna laughed.
“They are right, half-blood. You are part of Tor. Let that part now give us what we need.” Her tongue curled over her lower lip, swept from side to side as if she licked moss-honey and savored the sweetness of that delicacy.
“We need life,” she leaned closer to the arm of the chair where Simond still had his hand, using that hold to support him. “Blood is life, half-breed. By Volt’s word we dare not take it from our own kind, and we cannot take from one who is full outlander, for between the twain of us there is no common heritage. You are neither one nor the other; therefore you are ripe for our purpose.”
“You know of what House I am.” Simond held his head high and now his eyes caught the Clan Mother’s in a compelling stare. “I am the son of he who took Volt’s axe—by Volt’s own wishing. Do you think then that Volt will look with approval on the fate you would give me?”
“Where is the axe now?” Unnanna demanded. “Yes, Koris of Gorm took it; but is it not now gone from him? Volt’s favor follows the axe. With it destroyed, he has lost interest in you.”
