Lore of Witch World (Witch World Collection of Stories) (Witch World Series)

by Andre Norton

  The Falconer had already reached the other end of the hall. Now he was silent, facing a dais on which were four figures. These were not in solemn array, rather frozen into a tableau of action. Deadly action, Tanree saw as she trotted forward, puffs of dust rising from the floor underfoot.

  A man sat, or rather sprawled, in a throne-chair. His head had fallen forward, and both hands were clenched on the hilt of a dagger driven into him at heart level. Another and younger man lunged, sword in his hand, aiming at the image of a woman who cowered away, such an expression of rage and hate intermingled on her features as made Tanree shiver.

  But the fourth of that company stood a little apart, no fear to be read on her countenance. Her robe was plainer than that of the other woman, with no glint of jewels at wrist, throat or waist. Her unbound hair fell over her shoulders, cascading down, nearly sweeping the floor.

  In spite of the twilight here that wealth of hair appeared to gleam. Her eyes—they, too, were dark red—unhuman, knowing, exulting, cruel—alive!

  Tanree found she could not turn her gaze from those eyes.

  Perhaps she cried out then, or perhaps only some inner defense quailed in answer to invasion. Snake-like, slug-like, it crawled, oozed into her mind, forging a link between them.

  This was no stone image, man-wrought. Tanree swayed against the pull of that which gnawed and plucked, seeking to control her.

  “She-devil!” The Falconer spat, the bead of moisture striking the breast of the red-haired woman. Tanree almost expected to see the other turn her attention to the man whose face was twisted with half-insane rage. But his cry had weakened the spell laid upon her. She was now able to look away from the compelling eyes.

  The Falconer swung around. His good hand closed upon the sword which the image of the young man held. He jerked at that impotently. There was a curious wavering, as if the chamber and all in it were but part of a wind-riffled painted banner.

  “Kill!”

  Tanree herself wavered under that command in her mind. Kill this one who would dare threaten her, Jonkara, Opener of Gates, Commander of Shadows.

  Rage took fire. Through the blaze she marched, knowing what must be done to this man who dared to challenge. She was the hand of Jonkara, a tool of force.

  Deep within Tanree something else stirred, could not be totally battered into submission.

  I am a weapon to serve. I am—

  “I am Tanree" cried that other part of her. “This is no quarrel of mine. I am Sulcar, of the seas—of another blood and breed!”

  She blinked and that insane rippling ceased for an instant of clear sight. The Falconer still struggled to gain the sword.

  “Now!” Once more that wave of compulsion beat against her, heart high, as might a shore wave. “Now—slay! Blood—give me blood that I may live again. We are women. Nay, you shall be more than woman when this blood flows and my door is opened by it. Kill—strike behind the shoulder. Or, better still, draw your steel across his throat. He is but a man! He is the enemy—kill!”

  Tanree swayed, her body might be answering to the flow of a current Without her will her hand arose, blade ready, the distance between her and the Falconer closed. She could easily do this, blood would indeed flow. Jonkara would be free of the bonds laid upon her by the meddling of fools.

  “Strike!”

  Tanree saw her hand move. Then that other will within her flared for a last valiant effort.

  “I am Tanree!” A feeble cry against a potent spell. “There is no power here before whom Sulcar bows!”

  The Falconer whirled, looked to her. No fear in his eyes, only cold hate. The bird on his shoulder spread wings, screamed. Tanree could not be sure—was there indeed a curl of red about its feet, anchoring it to its human perch?

  “She-devil!” He flung at her. Abandoning his fight for the sword, he raised his hand as if to strike Tanree across the face. Out of the air came a curl of tenuous red, to catch about his upraised wrist, so even though he fought furiously, he was held prisoner.

  “Strike quickly!” The demand came with mind-bruising force.

  “I do not kill!” Finger by finger Tanree forced her hand to open. The blade fell, to clang on the stone floor.

  “Fool!" The power sent swift punishing pain into her head. Crying out. Tanree staggered. Her outflung hand fell upon that same sword the Falconer had sought to loosen. It turned, came into her hold swiftly and easily.

  “Kill!”

  That current of hate and power filled her. Her flesh tingled, there was heat within her as if she blazed like an oil-dipped feast torch.

  “Kill!”

  She could not control the stone sword. Both of her hands closed about its cold hilt. She raised it. The man before her did not move or seek in any way to dodge the threat she offered. Only his eyes were alive now—no fear in them, only a hate as hot as what filled her.

  Fight—she must fight as she had the waves of the storm-lashed sea. She was herself, Tanree—Sulcar—no tool for something evil which should long since have gone into the Middle Dark.

  “Kill!”

  With the greatest effort she made her body move, drawing upon that will within her which the other could not master. The sword fell.

  Stone struck stone—or was that true? Once more the air rippled; life overrode ancient death for a fraction of time between two beats of the heart, two breaths. The sword had jarred against Jonkara.

  “Fool—” a fading cry.

  There was no sword hilt in her hands, only powder sifting between her fingers. And no sparks of life in those red eyes either. From where the stone sword had struck full on the image's shoulder cracks opened. The figure crumbled, fell. Nor did what Jonkara had been vanish alone. All those others were breaking too, becoming dust which set Tanree coughing, raising her hands to protect her eyes.

  Evil had ebbed. The chamber was cold, empty of what had waited here. A hand caught her shoulder, pulling at her.

  “Out!” This voice was human. “Out—Salzarat falls!”

  Rubbing at her smarting eyes, Tanree allowed him to lead her. There were crashing sounds, a rumbling. She cringed as a huge block landed nearby. They fled, dodging and twisting. Until at last they were under the open sky, still coughing, tears streaming from their eyes, their faces smeared with gray grit.

  Fresh wind, carrying with it the clean savor of the sea, lapped about them. Tanree crouched on a mat of dead grass through which the first green spears of spring pushed. So close to her that their shoulders touched, was the Falconer. His bird was gone.

  They shared a small rise Tanree did not remember climbing. What lay below, between them and the sea cliff's edge, was a tumble of stone so shattered no one now could define wall or passage. Her companion turned his head to look directly into her face. His expression was one of wonder

  “It is all gone! The curse is gone. So she is beaten at last! But you are a woman, and Jonkara could always work her will through any woman—that was her power and our undoing. She held every woman within her grasp. Knowing that, we raised what defenses we could. For we could never trust those who might again open Jonkara's dread door. Why in truth did you not slay me? My blood would have freed her, and she would have given you a measure of her power—as always she had done.”

  “She was no one to command me!" Tanree's self-confidence returned with every breath she drew. “I am Sulcar, not one of your women. “So—this Jonkara—she was why you hate and fear women?”

  “Perhaps. She ruled us so. Her curse held us until the death of Langward, who dying, as you saw, from the steel of his own Queen, somehow freed a portion of us. He had been seeking long for a key to imprison Jonkara. He succeeded in part. Those of us still free fled, so our legends say, making sure no woman would ever again hold us in bond.”

  He rubbed his hands across his face, streaking the dust of vanished Salzarat.

  “This is an old land. I think though that none walk it now. We must remain here—unless your people come seeking you. So
upon us the shadow of another curse falls.”

  Tanree shrugged. “I am Sulcar but there was none left to call me clan sister. I worked on the Kast-Boar without kintie. There will be no one to come hunting because of me.” She stood up, her hands resting on her hips, and turned her back deliberately upon the sea.

  “Falconer, if we be cursed, then that we live with. And, while one lives, the future may still hold much, both good and ill. We need only face squarely what comes.”

  There was a scream from the sky above them. The clouds parted, and through weak sunlight wheeled the falcon. Tanree threw hack her head to watch it.

  “This is your land, as the sea is mine. What make you of it, Falconer?”

  He also got to his feet. “My name is Rivery. And your words have merit. It is a time for curses to slink back into shadows, allowing us to walk in the light, to see what lies ahead.”

  Shoulder to shoulder they went down from the hillock, the falcon swooping and soaring above their heads.

  LEGACY FROM SORN FEN

  By the western wall of Klavenport on the Sea of Autumn Mists—but you do not want a bard's beginning to my tale, Goodmen? Well enough, I have no speak-harp to twang at all the proper times. And this is not altogether a tale for lords-in-their-halls. Though the beginning did lie in Klavenport right enough.

  It began with one Higbold. It was after the Invaders’ War and those were times when small men, if they had their wits sharpened, could rise in the world—swiftly, if fortune favored them. Which is a bard's way of saying they knew when to use the knife point, when to swear falsely, when to put hands on what was not rightfully theirs.

  Higbold had his rats running to his whistle, and then his hounds to his horn. Finally no one spoke (save behind a shielding hand, glancing now and then over his shoulder) about his beginnings. He settled in the Gate Keep of Klavenport, took command there, married a wife who was hall-born. (There were such to be given to landless and shieldless men then, their kin so harried by war, or dead in it, that they went gladly to any one who offered a roof over their heads, meat in the dish and mead in the cup before them). Higbold's lady was no more nor less than her sisters in following expediency

  Save that from the harsh days before her marriage she held memories. Perhaps it was those which made her face down Higbold himself in offering charity to those begging from door to door.

  Among those came Caleb. He lacked an eye and walked with a lurch which nigh spilled him sprawling every time he took a full stride. What age he was no one could say; cruel mauling puts years on a man.

  It might have been that the Lady Isbel knew him from the old days, but if so neither spoke of that. He became one of the household, working mainly in the small walled garden. They say that he was one with the power of growing things, that herbs stood straight and sweet-smelling for him, flowers bloomed richly under his tending.

  Higbold had nothing to interest him in the garden. Save that now and then he met someone there where they could stand well in the open, walls too often having ears. For Higbold's ambition did not end in the keepership of the Klavenport Gate. Ah, no, such a man's ambition never ceases to grow. But you can gain only so much by showing a doubled fist or a bared sword. After a certain point you must accomplish your means more subtly, by influencing men's minds, not enslaving their bodies. Higbold studied well.

  What was said and done in the garden one night in early midsummer was never known. But Higbold had a witness he did not learn about until too late. Servants gossip as always about their masters, and there is a rumor that Caleb went to the Lady Isbel to talk privately. Then he took his small bundle of worldly goods and went forth, not only from the gate keep, but out of Klavenport as well, beading west on the highway.

  Near the port there had been repairing, rebuilding, and the marks of the Invaders’ War had faded from the land. But Caleb did not keep long to the highway. He was a prudent man, and knew that roads made for swift travel can lead hunters on a man's tracks.

  Cross-country was hard, doubly so for his twisted body. He came to the fringes of the Fen of Sorn. Ah, I see you shake your heads and draw faces at that! Rightly do you so, Goodmen, rightly. We all know that there are parts of High Hallack which belong to the Old Ones, where men with sense in their thick skulls do not walk.

  But it was there Caleb found that others had been before him. They were herdsmen who had been driving the wild hill cattle (those which ranged free during the war) to market Something had frightened the beasts and sent them running. Now the herders, half-mad with the thought of losing all reward of their hard labor, tracked them into the fen.

  However, in so doing, they came upon something else. No, I shall not try to describe what they startled out of its lair. You all know that there are secrets upon secrets in places like the fen. Enough to say that this had the appearance of a woman, enough to incite the lust of the drovers who had been kept long from the lifting of any skirt. Having cornered the creature, they were having their sport.

  Caleb had not left Klavenport unarmed. In spite of Ms twisted body he was an expert with crossbow. Now he again proved his skill. Twice he fired and men howled like beasts—or worse than beasts seeing what they had been doing—beasts do not so use their females.

  Caleb shouted as if he were leading a group of men-at-arms. The herders floundered away. Then he went down to what they had left broken behind them.

  No man knows what happened thereafter, for Caleb spoke of it to no one. In time he went on alone, though his face was white and his work-hardened hands shook.

  He did not venture into the fen, but traveled, almost as one with a set purpose, along its edge. Two nights did he camp so. What he did and with whom he spoke, why those came—who can tell? On the morning of the third day he turned his back on Sorn Fen and started toward the highway.

  It was odd but as he walked his lurching skip-step was not so evident, as if, with every stride he took, his twisted body seemed straighter. By the night of the fourth day he walked near as well as any man who was tired and footsore. It was then that he came to the burned-out shell of the Inn of the Forks.

  Once that had been a prosperous house. Much silver had spun across its tables into the hands of the keeper and his family. It was built at a spot where two roads, one angling north, one south, met, to continue thereon into Klavenport. But the day of its glory passed before the Battle of Falcon Cut. For five winter seasons or more its charred timbers had been a dismal monument to the ravages of war, offering no cheer for the traveler.

  Now Caleb stood looking at its sad state and—

  Believe this or not as you will, Goodmen. But suddenly here was no burned-out ruin. Rather stood an inn. Caleb, showing no surprise, crossed the road to enter. Enter it as master, for as such he was hailed by those about their business within its courtyard.

  Now there were more travelers up and down the western roads, for this was the season of trade with Klavenport. So it was not long before the tale of the restored inn reached the city. There were those unable to believe such a report, who rode out, curious, to prove it true.

  They found it much as the earlier inn had been, though those who had known it before the war claimed there were certain differences. However, when they were challenged to name these, they were vague. All united in the information that Caleb was host there and that he had changed with the coming of prosperity, for prosperous he certainty now was.

  Higbold heard those reports. He did not frown, but he rubbed his forefinger back and forth under his thick lower lip—which was a habit of his when he thought deeply, considering this point and that. Then he summoned to him a flaunty, saucy piece in skirts. She had long thrown herself in his direction whenever she could. It was common knowledge that, while Higbold had indeed bedded his lady in the early days of their marriage, to make sure that none could break the tie binding them, he was no longer to be found in her chamber, taking his pleasures elsewhere. Though as yet with none under his own roof.

  Now he spoke priv
ately with Elfra, and set in her hands a slip of parchment. Then openly he berated her loudly, had her bustled roughly, thrown into the street without so much as a cloak about her shoulders. She wept and wailed, and took off along the western road.

  In time she reached the Inn at the Forks. Her journey had not been an easy one so she crept into the courtyard as much a beggar in looks as any of the stinking, shuffling crowd who hung around a merchant's door in the city. Save that when she spoke to Caleb she gave him a bit of parchment with on it a message which might have been writ in my lady's hand. Caleb welcomed her and at length he made her waiting maid in the tap room. She did briskly well, such employment suiting her nature.

  The days passed. Time slid from summer into autumn. At length the Ice Dragon sent his frost breath over the land. It was then that Elfra stole away with a merchant bound for Klavenport. Caleb, hearing of her going, shrugged and said that if she thought so to better her life the choice was hers.

  But Elfra stayed with the merchant only long enough to reach the gate. From there she went directly to Higbold's own chamber. At first, as he listened, there was that in his face which was not good to see. But she did not take warning, sure that he looked so only because her tale was so wild. To prove the truth of her words she held her hand over the table.

  About her thumb (so large it was that she could not wear it elsewhere on her woman's hand) was a ring of green stone curiously patterned with faint red lines as if veined with blood. Holding it directly in Higbold's sight, Elfra made a wish.

  Below on the table there appeared a necklace of gems, such a necklace as might well be the ransom for a whole city in the days of the war. Higbold sucked in his breath, his face gone blank, his eyes half hooded by their lids.

  Then his hand shot out and imprisoned her wrist in a grim grip and he had that ring. She looked into his face and began to whimper, learning too late that she was only a tool, and one which had served its purpose now, and having served its purpose—