by Andre Norton
Some distance away, more Thas worked along the river, some piling rock out in the stream bed, though they entered water with very visible reluctance and had to be constantly urged to it by two of the saffron robes who kept constant watch over their activities. How we were going to pass them if we kept to the water I did not see.
With my sword blade I motioned left. Orsya studied the ground there and then nodded. It seemed to me that our splashing progress out of the stream would surely alert the workers. But we gained the far bank unobserved.
I guessed that Orsya had by some means rendered us invisible to those workers. The illusion had protected us—so far. But I breathed more freely when we were in cover in broken country. The footing was less smooth, but this type of lurking was familiar to me. Threading in and out among the rocks and brush, we worked our way safely past the activity by the river. I wished I could learn the reason for it. That it meant no good to us I could guess.
“Listen; I will climb . . . see what lies ahead.”
“Take care. When we are apart, the illusion does not cloak you.”
“This is a game not unknown to me,” I returned with confidence.
Orsya pushed back between two rocks, crouching down. I fastened the sword to my belt and began to climb behind a chimney, which was weather sculptured almost free of the cliff wall. I had nearly reached the perch I had selected when there was a whistling screech behind. Had that attacker not so made clear its intentions, I would have been easy prey. But at that cry I pushed away. My spine and shoulders were now firm against the parent cliff, so narrow was this portion of the break through which I crawled, though my feet were still in place on the chimney. I freed the sword as death on wings hurtled down at me.
It made one pass over the top of the chimney, screeching, and the wind of its wing flapping nearly upset my precarious balance. Then it circled and came back, landing on top of the chimney, striking down at me with a murderous beak. It had a long neck which was very supple. The head was small, and seemed mostly to be that beak, with eyes to guide its attack.
The runes on the sword blazed high as I brought the blade point up at the darting head. With my shoulders so wedged I could not strike freely. It seemed I was cornered, unable to either defend myself or retreat.
Again the beak reached for me. I tried to move the sword and the red runes on it dazzled my eyes. The blade touched something by pure fortune, for I could move it only a few inches either way. There was a screech broken off in mid-cry and that snake neck tossed. I saw that the beak had been slashed off close to its roots. The thing took to the air; cries came from it as it flew wildly back and forth, as if bereft of whatever wits it ever had. One of those swoops brought it crashing into the cliff wall and it hurtled, end over end, broken and writhing down to the ground below. I stared at the sword in unbelief. As it had when I had faced the monster in the tunnel, it answered some life or purpose of its own. I had certainly not aimed that blow, had tried feebly to use it in defense. What power-thing had I brought out of that long sealed tomb?
Then my mind turned sharply to the present. Surely the cries of the winged thing would draw the attention of those working at the river. The sooner we were away from here the better. I pulled up to the perch and gave a hurried survey to what lay ahead.
The canyon opened on hilly country, less high than the heights behind us, but very broken and rough. I could see movement here and there, but a haze hid much of it. Farther to the left was the streak of what might be a road. But I did not sight any buildings. And the broken land promised lurking places in plenty.
I dared remain no longer to spy out the best route. However we went we would have to cross that road. Thinking about that I dropped from hold to hold, to find Orsya waiting for me at the foot of the chimney.
“Come!” She held out her hand. “They will come to see why the Rus cried. If they find it they will know strangers are abroad. I do not know if I can hold an illusion against searching.”
“Do you know where the Dark Tower stands?” To venture just blindly on was utter folly.
“Only that it stands somewhere near. But you have a better guide than my scant knowledge.”
“What?” I did not understand her.
“She whom you seek. If the tie is strong between you, open your mind and heart, and it will draw you.”
“Perhaps they can detect us so.” I remembered how Kaththea had once warned me against such seeking.
“If you use magic, perhaps. But use your heart hunger rather, Kemoc. You have said that you three are a part of a whole in a way which is to no other born. Therefore, think upon her, using no lore you have learned, but only your own longing.”
“I do not know how.” I could think of Kaththea, fear for her, long to see her—but was that what Orsya meant?
“Set aside your fears, for this land holds much which feeds happily on fears and will in turn use that to weaken you. Think rather of when you were all together and happy in that joining. Set her in your mind as she was in those days. Now—this also will I tell you, Kemoc; beware of illusions. Fair may be foul, foul fair . . ..”
“You have said that before.”
“And never can I say it enough. For danger from beast and weapon may walk this land, but greater danger than that we carry in our own minds.”
We had been making our way along, shoulder to shoulder. Though Orsya spoke as one certain, yet still I shrank from trying as she had suggested, to find Kaththea in that fashion. Mind touch I knew, but this other kind of seeking was something new—unless it was like unto that which I had used to guide me through the bewildering stone forest. That magic in the scarf had worn away, but it had served its purpose. Could such be tried again?
Swiftly I told Orsya what I had in mind. She listened, and then looked, with narrowed, speculative eyes upon the scarf now wrapped about her cone-rod.
“To use magic within this land is perhaps the same as lighting a fire in a beacon basket to draw the attention of half the countryside. But there is this—the scarf has shrouded this for long now, and that will give it virtue. You might not be able to command that virtue . . .” Now she turned that speculative look upon me. The question she asked next was one which I would never have expected to hear in that time and place, for it seemed to have no relation to what was to be done.
“Tell me, Kemoc; have you been with a woman and known her after the fashion of male and female?”
Startled, I answered, “Yes.” That was long ago during border leaves and it might have happened to one who was no longer me.
“Then it would not work for you. But for me . . . What were the words you used to send the scarf seeking before?”
I repeated them slowly, in the softest of whispers. Her lips moved soundlessly as if she shaped those words. Then she nodded again.
“I cannot go far from the streamside. Once we are in those broken lands we must find a place where I can shelter while you go ahead, if your path leads from the water. Then I shall lay a spell upon this. You must hold the picture of Kaththea in your mind. For her I have not seen, nor does there stretch any tie between us. Once that is done, the scarf may once more lead you—only, remember; it must be your heart and not your mind which sets it on its way. This”—she held the cone tighter to her breast—“cannot work for any save a virgin. Even if it is taken into another’s hand some of its virtue will depart. For it is the horn of a unicorn, and it carries great power for those who can use it.”
Only the top protruded from the wrapping of scarf, but I looked at that, startled. The forces which could be channeled through such rare objects were more than just legends. We still named our years for beasts of old—Firedrake, Griffin, and there was a Year of the Unicorn.
We made our way from one bit of cover to the next until we came to the road. Orsya put up her hand in warning, though I did not need that gesture, for the runes on the sword ran red. There was no way of passing over it, and we trailed impatiently along beside it until we came to whe
re a stream cut across the land. There was no bridge to carry the road as one might suppose—rather the pavement ended abruptly on one bank to begin on the other, and Orsya smiled.
“So . . . as yet they have not mastered water.”
“What is it?”
“Running water.” She pointed to the stream. “Evil cannot cross it without some powerful, nature-twisting spell. They can build on one side and the other, but they cannot yet successfully span it. This is our road.”
She splashed joyfully into the stream and perforce I followed. We kept well away from either bank, but as we passed the two ends of the road, my sword appeared to drip crimson drops, so shimmering were the runes.
Once beyond the road I wished to go ashore again, lest in the open river we be too visible, but Orsya insisted that our covering illusion held. We were still arguing the matter when she gave a little cry and pointed downstream, the way we had come. I turned my head.
There was something swimming there against the current, a vee of ripples, but nothing making them. I looked to the sword which I swung into readiness. The surface was cool and gray, no bloody runes along it. Yet something moved toward us at good speed and it was invisible.
XIII
ORSYA TOOK ONE STEP and then another toward that rippling in the water. I had the testimony of my blade that it was no danger, yet the unseen and unknown will always be feared, for that is inherent in us.
“Kofi!”
At my companion’s hail, the vee of ripples veered, pointed to Orsya. Then there were splashings and movements in the water as if whatever swam there was now treading water.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“Merfay,” she answered before her lips shaped soft twitterings, not akin to any speech I have ever heard. Nor did “Merfay” mean anything to me.
The invisible one swam forward again, splashing us with waves made in his passing. Orsya caught my hand once more.
“Come! Oh, this day we are favored! Kofi will lead us to a safe place.”
“Can you see him—her—it?” I asked.
Her eyes went wide in surprise. “You do not?”
“Nothing but water rippling as if something swims there.”
“But he is there—plain—”
“Not to me. Nor have I ever heard of a Merfay.”
Orsya shook her head. “They are like unto us in some instances, save smaller, and closer akin to the furred and finned ones than we. Mostly they dwell apart, not needing others. But Kofi—he is of like mind with me, one who explores beyond the haunts of his people. We have shared ventures in the past. He is not subject to the illusions, since his mind is so unique he cannot be so entrapped. He has roamed the water lands here for a space, watching to see what the enemies do. They are preparing for a great march of men, to the west—”
“The Valley!”
“Perhaps so. Yet, the hour has not yet come when they muster. They await some order or sending.”
I thought of Dinzil and what Loskeetha said he might do, now that Kaththea was within his hands. The need to seek the Dark Tower, even though that seeking might lead to disaster, boiled within me. So that I quickened pace, pulling Orsya after me by our hand clasp. While ahead of us that guide I could only trace by ripples swam steadily onward.
More and more vegetation grew about. Orsya plundered here and there, finding more of those edible roots, cleaning them and storing them in her net bag. We munched some and they were better to me than the fish. Always the Merfay served as our scout. Once he (though it seemed odd to grant any identity to a wedge of ripples) made a wide detour about a block of stone which had fallen into the river. Orsya followed his lead, beckoning me well away from any contact with it.
As we passed, I saw that the stone had been dressed, and that once it might have been a pillar. There were others like it lying in confusion on the shore, as if they had been tumbled this way or that by some titanic blow of nature or man. They were not blue, as those in the havens experience had taught me to watch for, but rather a yellowish-gray, unpleasant to the eye.
“An ancient place of power,” Orsya explained. “But no power we would wish to raise.”
As we passed that place, I felt a clammy chill, or perhaps my imagination furnished that.
The brush became trees, weirdly leafed, resembling the blasted forests we had found on the Escore side of the churned mountains, where the witch power had set the ancient barrier between Estcarp, the refuge, and this country, the threat. Those leaves might have been living, still they had a skeleton look which made one think of ashes, of something long since dead and dry. The grass was a tall, sword-edged, spiky growth which could cut skin if one were unwary, and there were other nasty-looking things which one certainly did not want to touch at all.
But among all this rank and poisoned vegetation, there were islets and ways which had normal looking foliage growing. The unseen Kofi turned into a side stream, banked by such growth, leading to our left.
I was still hazy about directions. This territory beyond the Heights made one unsure of any north or south. But I thought now we might be heading once more east, so further and further into the unknown.
Splashing began ahead as the stream grew more shallow. It would seem Kofi now walked as we did. My boots were almost rotted on my feet, and I wondered at how I would replace them to go overland. Perhaps bindings cut from my jerkin would serve.
The trees here were of a species which grew thickly along waterways. They arched over our heads, meeting in a canopy which, while it did not shut out all light, kept away the sun. Within that tenting floated wisps of the haze I had seen from the survey point back in the hills.
“Good!” Orsya broke the quiet for the first time since we had left the main river. “Our thanks must be to Kofi.”
Her ejaculation appeared to be caused by the rise of a humpbacked hillock in the midst of the stream. It was, in spite of the brush growth rooted on it, too symmetrical to be a product of nature. My companion identified it.
“Aspt house, and very large. We shall find an entrance along the bank. The stream must have shrunk much since this was built and abandoned.”
A branch waved vigorously at the bank, not pulled by any wind. Orsya laughed.
“We see, Kofi. Thanks to you again,” and then she twittered.
There was a hole there. I pulled out a tangle of roots and some stones before we could crawl within, to find ourselves in a very darkish chamber like the one where Orsya had tended my wound. Luckily there were holes in the roof, where portions of the covering had fallen away, so that I was not moving blind. Our guide had led us well; we could not have found a more snug or safe place in which to spend the fast approaching night.
A small pattering noise drew my attention to the opposite side of the chamber. Nothing—or did Kofi now share our quarters?
“Right!” Orsya answered my thought. “I wonder . . . yes, let us try.”
She edged around behind me and leaned forward to place her two hands on my forehead just above my eyes. “Watch,” she ordered, “and tell me if you now see aught.”
I blinked and then blinked again. A wisp of mist against the dusk? No, it was not the floating mist which had found its way inside, rather it was a shape taking form. So, I saw Kofi.
He was small, about as tall as my mid-thigh. Unlike the aspts, he was humanoid in form. That is, he had four limbs, of which the upper two appeared to function as arms. He was like, yet unlike, the lizard folk of the Valley. Though his skin was scaled, his feet and hands were webbed as Orsya’s, the webs extending close to the tips of the digits. His head was round, and seemed to have very little neck. Front and back his body was covered by a shell which was shaped in a wedge, wide at the top, narrowing to a point between his legs. When I turned my attention on him, his head snapped down into the shoulder part of that shield, so that only the snout and two eyes could be seen.
“Kofi.” Orsya took away her hand and there was nothing to be seen.
I p
ut out my right hand in the universal peace sign, holding it palm up and empty. For want of better reassurance to this strange water person I gave the formal greeting of the over-mountain men.
“To Kofi of the river, greeting and peace from Kemoc Tregarth.”
There was another faint sound. Then, for an instant, on the thick scar of my wound ridge I felt a delicate touch, as if one of those webbed hands had rested there in acknowledgment of understanding that I meant well and was no unfriend.
Orsya opened her net and divided the roots she had harvested along the river, setting aside a half dozen of them. We ate, but Kofi did not share; I asked why.
“He has gone hunting. He will hunt for more than that to fill his middle, for he will bring us news of aught which comes near this clean place.”
She gathered up the roots she had put aside and said:
“Put these in your belt pouch, Kemoc. They will furnish food when you may need it. This is truly a land where you must heed Dahaun’s warning, and eat not, even when it might seem that you look upon food you know well. Now, let us rest. With the morning may come great demands upon us.”
Whether Kofi came back to share our shelter, I do not know. But this night I did not sleep sound. There was an abiding sense of something lurking just beyond the borders of what I could see. Whether it was aware of me and waiting to attack, of that I was not sure. In fact, perhaps I would have been less uneasy had I been certain that was so.
Orsya appeared no better at resting than I. I heard her stirring about. Then I saw a faint white spark and guessed that she had once more set up the cone-rod and with it wrought such protective magic as she knew.
We were both up and eager to go when the first gray of dawn lit up the deserted house. She had once more wound Kaththea’s scarf about the horn, and she tried to impart to that tie with my sister some virtue of her talisman. “Kofi?” I looked to her for enlightenment.
