The Warding of Witch World

by Andre Norton

  Now there was a shadow of expression on Vixen’s face—a none too pleasant one. “The sisters are assigned by the Council in the Place of Wisdom. Only those selected to protect these expeditions move about.”

  “I do not think that the council will refuse any request which has a bearing on the safety of this world,” Koris returned. “Now—what news has come from the Lady Frost?”

  “None, save that which was beamed last night. The captain comments on the unusual number of icebergs. Frost is to speak with the shaman in Korinth today.”

  “Then”—Koris leaned back a little in his chair—“we should have a good reporting, so your watcher will not have to fare north from her post to give us one.”

  Loyse saw how hard Vixen’s hands were gripping her jewel. There was not always a smooth joining of the generations of witches. And those chosen to go with the searchers were of the younger. Luckily Frost had impressed all of those at the choosing with her quiet strength and goodwill.

  Vixen arose with a swirl of her gray robe. “What is sent you will have in good time, Lord Marshal.” Without any further adieu she strode out of the room.

  “Trouble in the north.” Loyse allowed herself enough relaxation to repeat that. “My heart, when have we not faced trouble in one quarter of the world or another?” A weariness had settled on Koris.

  “True. But it is easier to fight in person than to wait on this shuttling back and forth of news!”

  Now he reached out and put his hand on that map, and impulsively she laid hers on it.

  “He is of your blood and mine, Loyse. And neither of us ever accepted defeat, nor were we disappointed by having it forced upon us. He is also man grown. He has taken a mate of his choice—one we can respect. And the jewel selected the two of them. It is always the harder for the watcher than the doer. I send to Simon tonight—he prowls the north Border, since we still are not sure what boils in Alizon. Though it seems by rumor that that young lordling Lady Mereth tamed is very busy. If his actions can keep his countrymen within their own Borders, baying for each other’s throats, he serves us well. Loyse”—his grip on her hand was tight now—“it seems our destiny to be ever on the alert. I think that peace is not to be our portion, so let us bear that as we can. This much have I gained from war—my dear lady, without whom my life would be a barren thing.”

  “As I have gained you, my dearest of lords. In the end good comes out of evil—or else of what value is life itself? I made my choice long ago,” Loyse said slowly. “Never have I regretted it. Now I shall teach myself not to regret that Simond has made his also—or else it has been made for him—as perhaps it was for me. We have been blessed, my heart.”

  “As we shall be again.” Koris took her into his arms and they were one—as it had been for so long and would continue always to be.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Korinth, North of Alizon

  S o new . . . Trusla moved closer to Simond. The canal which ran through the center of this town was not strange to one who had been born and raised in Tor Marsh, where all clan houses existed on islands divided by bogs and channels. But there she had always been aware of a feeling of kin-age—of timelessness where things remained always the same from season to season.

  And when Simond had taken her to Es City, that was a place of awesome age—as was even the keep where they had later made their home together.

  Here were no stone walls—only barked log houses, many of them still roofless, all the center of activity. The mud from the last rain was thick enough between these crude shelters to be ankle deep if one were forced off one of the planked walks. Always one could hear the pound of hammers, the shouts of those raising beams, warnings to get out of the way of this or that train of burden bearers.

  The ship from which they had embarked only a short time since had come heavily laden with supplies to keep those hammers busy. And after Sulcar custom the women were busy as the men, poling laden craft along the canal, even steadying materials for the builders and wielding axes themselves.

  Trusla had never before heard of creating a whole new town, but there were many things in this strange world outside Tor Marsh of which she had been unaware.

  “Ware!”

  Simond’s arms about her waist swung her back, with himself, to avoid a team of sweating men linked together by a log slung in a series of rope loops.

  All those so busy around her were so very big. They towered above her, even above Simond, who partly shared her Tor blood. She had found it difficult to adjust to life on board the ship, not that she allowed anyone to guess that.

  “In here.” Simond was now urging her along one of the muddy plank walks toward a large house which looked finished, even though the scent of freshly cut wood met them at the wide-open door. As they entered, Trusla hoped they were not breaking any custom.

  “Ha, welcome. Come in, come in! Bertel, the guesting horns for our friends!”

  To Trusla’s ears that came as a roar. She had to bend her head well back to see the grinning face of her host. Even among his own kind Mangus Shieldarm was reckoned tall.

  She found herself installed in a chair which was certainly older than the walls about her, its hide-cushioned seat well worn, and her feet did not quite touch the floor over which were scattered rugs of fur as well as the woven kind she was used to.

  A tall girl with long blond braids was at her side before she was securely seated, a drinking horn in one hand and the guesting plate of bread and salt in the other. Trusla accepted the horn and a piece of the bread dipped in salt and spoke in as easy a voice as she could summon.

  “Fair fortune to this house and all who shelter here. May your hunters be skilled, your crops ripen well, and your ships return safely to port.”

  She did not dare glance at Simond to see if she had learned that correctly from his coaching. The girl was handing another horn and the bread dish to him now.

  “And may your voyage, my Lady, my Lord, be easy and your search trail open and free.” Mangus drank deeply from the horn he himself held.

  “Now . . .” He waved and Bertel disappeared. “There is news! All-Knowing One”—he raised his voice to a near shout again—“they have arrived and wait.”

  A curtain woven in strange and colorful patterns was swept to one side at his hail and a woman entered, a little ahead of her companions. Perhaps she had once stood nearly as tall as Mangus, but now she walked slowly, her back rounded so she had to peer up to see them. Most of her thin white hair was covered with a blue-green hood—the color of the sea at its calmest—and a large part of her body was concealed by a cloak matching it.

  A step or so behind her was another woman, much younger, wearing the usual jerkin, shirt, and breeches of the Sulcars but with a scarf of the green-blue crossing from right shoulder to left hip. She carried (as if it were something most precious) a small drum, a hint of great age about its scuffed surface.

  Just behind these two came Frost, the witch out of Estcarp assigned to their mission. She was young and though Trusla had been wary of her at first (the witches of Estcarp having had an awesome reputation in the past), Trusla had come to like listening to her explanations of things strange to the Tor girl.

  The fourth and last of the party was strange enough to center all their attention once they sighted her. Beside the somber gray robe of the witch she was a blaze of color. Trusla could not guess her age or even her race—she was certainly not Sulcar, nor like any of Estcarp.

  From her shoulders drooped a cape of feathers which she did not wear closely held as did the old woman. They were brilliantly black and white, set in patterns, and the cloak was loose enough to show that under it she wore a thigh-length garment of shining white fur, sleek and edged at the throat with fluffy down. Her feet and legs were covered with boots up to the thigh, seeming to offer the advantage of both shoes and trousers. As far up as her knees these were closely bound to the leg with narrow ribbonlike strings on which were strung large beads in a multitude of bri
lliant crystallike colors.

  Her black hair was looped up and clubbed at the nape of her neck with more of the beaded strings. Against the white of the jerkin her skin looked dark and her eyes had a curious upward slant at the corners. She walked as one with authority, but what Trusla noted, with an odd feeling of kinship, was that she, too, was short, towered over by both Frost and the Sulcars.

  “Here be those out of Estcarp, All-Knowing One.” Mangus himself placed a chair for the oldest woman, and her attendant took her place behind her, while Mangus seated Frost and the stranger.

  “This is the Lady Trusla out of Tor,” Mangus was continuing, “and Lord Simond, son to Marshal Koris.”

  The woman in green favored each of them with a measuring stare, which Trusla met firmly. Of old she had dealings with priestesses and gave formal honor to their calling, whether they would be friends or not.

  “The Lady is known to you all.” The witch inclined her head in a short nod. “And this is the Winged One of the Latts.” Trusla thought he looked a little uncertainly toward the woman in fur and feathers.

  She did not nod, but she eyed Trusla and Simond and then smiled, remaining silent.

  “Your mission is well known,” Mangus began, reaching for his drinking horn as if to sustain himself, and then pushing it away. “All we know about the sea lanes to the north, and the legends thereof, has already been given you.

  “As you know, we are establishing Korinth as a meeting port for our ships in the north trade. A moon ago we became hosts for others. Winged One, these have been sent by the Great Powers of the south to deal with what may be the very root of your own trouble. Let them hear what has befallen your people.”

  There was a long pause. She might either have been assembling her words or still be weighing the purposes of those about to hear them, but at last she spoke, using the trade language, but so accented Trusla and Simond had to listen very carefully and could not be sure they always understood. There had been no attempt at mind-send and it was not for them to initiate it.

  “We live . . . north.” She made a small sweeping gesture with one hand. “Hunt—the wasbear fears our spears and arrows as do the shadow hounds and the furred mountains.”

  There was pride in her voice and when she spoke of the bears she had stroked the fur of her jerkin.

  “Always there is fear.” She was picking her words slowly. “But most fears we have always lived with and they are a part of us—they are like the great snows, the bitter winters—our life. Now comes something else.”

  She stirred in her seat, edging forward on the cushion which was nearly too wide for her. “All peoples have their powers. You of Estcarp”—she nodded to Frost—“can summon that which is greater than any living being. You”—now she spoke to the woman in green—“can drum up or lay a storm, speak over great distances, doubtless do other things to make one marvel.

  “We Latts . . . dream.” She seemed a little uncomfortable, as if she doubted their belief. “Dreams find us game to be hunted, those who have lost their trail, foretell the worst of the storms. They can tell us how to heal the sick, the wounded, how to deal with others—others save the Dark!” Now her voice rose sharply and Trusla saw Simond tense, even as she was doing.

  “This Dark is not known to us before, nor have we any kin song about it save one—and that allies an ancient evil with the north. By this legend we know that we have been driven once before—southward.

  “Now it whispers in our dreams, it taints the flow of truth—our hunters are sent on the wrong trails. There have been deaths which should not have come. So we gather what we have and we come south, hoping to reach beyond the hand of the Dark. This land is fairer, but it is not ours. Also if the dream goes deep, as it should for the Power to rise, the shadow lurks and we must withdraw.”

  “You feel such interference even now?” Frost was fingering her jewel.

  “Twice. I do not enter the deep dream, for I have not the Power to hold walls when my need is only to seek.”

  “Perhaps we may have an aid for that,” the witch said crisply. “But that this thing stirs in the north, of that you are sure?”

  The woman of the Latts was frowning a little. “Are you sure when your crystal clouds against your will, Woman of Power? All which is of the Light is aware when the Dark prowls. This began when there was a great beating of the Wide Wings—such as none have known before. A storm it was, and yet it was not. For the thing which struck upon us we have no words. And it was as if that summoned the Dark—which was eager to come.

  “These good traders who had known our people for many seasons tell us to settle near—that together we shall fight evil. We are strong, we are ready. Yet how does one fight when one knows not the nature of the enemy? Now you from the south come and say that the Dark is moving upon our whole world and that you hunt the source to deal with it. You know not even the touch of the Great Cold. Even the strongest of our hunters do not venture into the ice palaces. Though there are those among us who have seen them from afar.

  “The Dark can use the land itself to bring you death.”

  “Yet still shall we search,” Simond’s voice came clearly. “Not only do some of us deal with Power, but there are those behind us who can work through us. This world has faced an ending drawn by Power before—and the Dark went down to defeat. If we die, it shall be still fighting.”

  She measured him eye to eye. “Boasting I know—it is the way of hunters. But you are not boasting, young chieftain. What you say you truly believe. Well enough—if you would carry war to the enemy, go with the best of dreams.”

  “Do more than dream for us.” Trusla sat straighter. “You say your hunters know of the lands beyond. Can ships go there?”

  Mangus was already shaking his head when the woman answered. “Not so, for the ice ever covered the sea. A ship seeking a hunting trail there would be crushed by the great mountains of floating ice.”

  “Then if we must take to land”—Simond again took a part as if he knew what was in Trusla’s mind—“we shall need guides. Can we find such among your people?”

  There had been no formality in his request, it was a straight question and she answered it as straightly. “It shall be put before our Speaking Fire. It will be by choice if any such go.”

  He nodded. “As it should be.”

  Frost fingered her jewel. “Messages have come from the south. I have told our sister”—she bowed her head slightly toward the Latt woman—“of Lormt and what we hope to find there. There is much to be shifted and considered, tested. Hilarion is the last of the adepts and his chosen knowledge was along a special path, but now he has turned to that which did not interest him before. He has managed to contact those of the Gryphon in Arvon with a warning—and they, too, report trouble already on the march there. Their party ventures westward into lands unknown. However, our tie with them was broken and we know not how matters go now with them.”

  There was a small sound from Mangus as if he cleared his throat. He had set down his horn on a small side table and now produced a roll of map parchment.

  “We are seafarers, as all know, though the records of Lormt have little for us. This”—he was unrolling the square he held—“is a combination of reports from those captains who in the past have ventured north to the farthest extent—which can only be done at the height of the warm season. Added . . .” he hesitated and glanced at the woman in green, “is what is remembered from very ancient times. We have only this that we are sure of: that our people are not of this world—a condition we share with other races here—and that we entered on board ships through a far northern gate.

  “Since it may be that any gateway may be a danger, now it would seem we must return to our beginnings—if we can—and there see how it fares.”

  “The moon hangs full tonight.” The woman in green reached out her hand and her attendant held up the small drum so that she could tap lightly on it with her fingers.

  The sound might be slight, but Si
mond’s hand went to sword hilt, and Trusla caught breath in a small gasp. For it seemed that tapping somehow echoed oddly through their bodies.

  “The drum will speak.” The woman withdrew her hand. Then Trusla blinked, seeing the witch jewel on Frost’s breast gleam with life for only an instant, while the shaman of the Latts held out both brown hands and drew patterns in the air.

  “Old bones need rest.” The woman in green hauled herself up from her chair. “Do you,” she said, turning her full attention now on Trusla and Simond, “answer when the drum calls. What the sea accepts will be made plain.”

  She shuffled off with her attendant, with no more of a farewell. But it seemed that neither Frost nor the woman of the Latts was prepared to break up their conference.

  It was the witch who spoke first. “Those who have come from the south, sister, have been selected by the Power. The star light has touched Captain Stymir, and these two out of Estcarp. If any of your blood wish to try our trail, will they agree to such testing?”

  Toward woman of the Latts she held out her hand and on its palm lay her jewel, dull gray and seeming without life. But, perhaps even to her own amazement, as she turned slightly toward the stranger, it broke forth with light as rainbowed as the strings of beads which made up part of the other’s clothing.

  The slanted eyes narrowed. “I serve my people,” she said slowly. “It is laid upon me and my kind. Why does this Power thing of yours call me?”

  “I cannot tell,” Frost returned, “save it is not mine to command in this matter any more than it was when we stood in the great hall of Es Citadel and it chose from all the company there. Power calls to Power, and there is always the greater purpose.”

  The woman’s hand twitched as if she would raise them to ward off some unwelcome thing. She raised her head higher and her lips pointed now, not toward the others, but to the fresh-set beams above them. From those lips poured sounds, as body-filling in their way as the tapping of the drum had been. Trusla saw not the room about her, but a stretch of sand, and the sand moved, arose, became—and then was not, though the single instant of sight had left a residue of new energy within her.