by Andre Norton
Thus turned upon her own resources, Ysmay spent much time thinking. Why had Hylle married her? Surely not just for a few lumps of unworked amber! With all that wealth of his own, he had no need for such a pitiful supply. And because the question was one to which she had no answer, she found it disturbing. The unknown provides rich soil for growing fear.
Hylle was not one of the shieldless men who wished to unite with an old family. And what had she to offer him? He had already made it plain that it was not for her body he had taken her.
Now they threaded through woods. Though the bitter wind no longer lashed, there was nothing reassuring about this forest. Their trail, which had to accommodate the wagon, twisted and turned among trees which were tall and old, whose trunks wore feathery lichens in green, rust, white or even blood red. Ysmay disliked the lichen. Underfoot, centuries of leaves had turned to dark muck and gave forth an unpleasant scent when stirred by the hooves of their mounts.
For a day they traveled so, pausing to eat of their provisions, to breathe the horses and rest. Hylle did not set a fast pace, but he kept a steady one. The silence of the forest acted upon them. There was little speech, and when a man voiced words, he sometimes glanced over his shoulder, as if he feared he had been overheard by one not of their party.
The trees thinned, their way sloped up. They camped that night in hills. There followed days which had so much of a sameness that Ysmay lost track of time.
This was no easy passage in the hills. Hylle took time nevertheless to go out each night with a rod of metal which he held to one eye to look upon the stars. He warned them they must make haste for storms were not too far away.
He was right. The first flakes of snow began before dawn. All were roused out in the dark to ride. Now the slope was down again and in that Hylle appeared to take comfort, though he continued to urge them.
Ysmay had lost her sense of direction, for they had turned this way and that. However, by midmom, there came a wind which carried a new scent. A man-at-arms had been detailed to ride with her (for Hylle accompanied the wagon). She heard him say, “That is a sea wind!”
They came down into a cut between ridges which ran as straight as if it marked an old road. The ridges banked away the wind, though here the snow piled deeper.
Suddenly the path curved and the right-hand ridge fell away, placing the travelers on a ledge. Cliffs glittered with the accumulation of salt crystals. The sea pounded below. Strangest sight of all was a wider section of ledge where the wind had scoured away the snow to clear three great stone chairs, carved from rock certainly not by nature but by intention. Each bore upon its seat a pillow of snow, softening its harsh austerity.
Ysmay recognized another ancient work of the Old Ones. Now she was sure that they were following a road.
Once more the way turned, this time inland. They saw ahead among the rocky cliffs a structure which seemed a part of its stony setting. It arose by wall and tower to dwarf any Dale-hold.
Hylle loomed out of the fine shifting of snow. With the stock of his whip he pointed to the vast pile.
“Quayth, my lady.”
She realized with a chill that her new home was one of the ancient remains. And, contrary to all the precautions and beliefs of her own people, she must dwell in a shell alien to her land. But there was no turning back. She made an effort not to show her unease.
“It is very large, my lord.”
“In more ways than one, my lady.” His eyes held, searched her face as they had at the first meeting in the merchant's booth—as if fiercely he willed her to reveal the fear which lay within her. But that she would not do. In a moment he spoke again.
“It is one of the ancient places, which the Old Ones had the building of. But time has been kinder to it than to most such. You will find it not lacking in comfort. Ha—let us home!”
Their weary mounts broke into a trot. Soon they passed the overhang of a great, darksome gate into a vast courtyard whose walls had towers set at four corners.
Two of those towers were round. That through which the gate opened was square. The fourth displayed odd sharp angles, unlike any she had seen before.
Though there were faint gleams of light in some of the narrow windows, no one was here to bid them welcome. Troubled, she came stiffly out of the saddle into Hylle's hold, and stumbled through beginning drifts of snow under his guidance to the door at the foot of the nearest round tower. The others scattered through the courtyard in different directions.
Here there was rest from the wind, the heartening blaze of a fire.
To Ysmay's surprise, instead of a thick matting of rushes and dried herbs on the floor, she saw a scattering of mats and rugs of fur stitched together in fanciful patterns, light matched to dark.
These formed roads and pathways across the stone, the main one leading to an island of warm cheer by the hearth. There stood two tall-backed chairs, cushioned with pads of colorful stuff, even having small canopies above to give the final measure of protection against wandering drafts. There was also a table with platters and flagons. Hylle brought Ysmay to the blaze where she loosed her cloak and held her hands thankfully toward the warmth.
A musical note startled her. She turned her head. He had tapped a bell that hung in a carved framework on the table. Soon a figure came down the winding stair which must serve as a spine for the tower. Not until the newcomer reached the fire could Ysmay make out who it was. Then she caught her lip that she might not utter her instinctive protest.
For this creature, whose head was level with her own shoulder, was that Ninque who had told the gabbled fortune at the very beginning of this change in her life. Only now the seeress did not wear her fancifully embroidered robe, but rather a furred and sleeveless jerkin over an undertunic and skirt of rusty brown. Her head was covered with a close-fitting cap which fastened with a buckle under her flabby chin. She looked even less likely as a bower woman than as a prophetess.
“Greetings, Lord—Lady.” Once more that soft voice came as a shock from the obese body. “By good fortune you have outrun the first of the bad storms.”
Hylle nodded. When he spoke it was to Ysmay.
“Ninque will serve you, Lady. She is very loyal to my interests.” There was an odd emphasis in his words. Ysmay was intent only on the fact that he intended to leave her with this oddling.
She lost pride enough to start to lay her hand in appeal on his arm. But in time she bethought herself and did not complete the gesture. He was already at the outer door before she could summon voice.
“You do not rest—sup—here, my lord?”
There was a glitter in his eyes which warned her. The master of Quayth has one lodging, and none troubles him in it. You will be safe and well cared for here, my lady.” And with that he was gone.
Ysmay watched the door swing shut behind him. Again the dark question filled her mind. Why had he brought her here? What did he need or want of her?
4
YSMAY STOOD at a narrow slit of window, looking down into the courtyard. The tracks below made widely separated patterns. In a pile constructed to house a host, there seemed to be a mere handful of indwellers. Yet this was the eve of Midwinter Day. In all the holds of the Dales there would be preparation for feasting. Why should men not rejoice at the shortest day of the frigid winter when tomorrow would mean the slow turn to spring?
However, in Quayth there were no visitors, no such preparations. Nor did Ninque and the two serving wenches (squat and alien as herself) appear to understand what Ysmay meant when she asked what they were to do. Of Hylle she had seen little. She learned that he dwelt in the tower of sharp angles and that not even his men-at-arms—who had their quarters in the gate tower—ventured there, though some of the hooded men came and went.
Now when she looked back at her hopes, to be ruler of the household here, she could have laughed, or rather wept (if stubborn pride would have allowed her) for the wide-eyed girl who hoped she rode to freedom when she left Uppsdale.
&
nbsp; Freedom! She was close-pent as a prisoner. Ninque, as far as Ysmay could learn, was the true chatelaine of Quayth. At least Ysmay had had the wit and wariness to go very slow in trying to assume mistress-ship here. She had not had any humiliating refusal of the few orders she had given. She had been careful not to give many, and those for only the simplest matters concerning her own needs.
This was at least a roomy prison, no narrow dungeon cell. On the ground floor was the big room which had seemed a haven of warmth at her first entrance. Above that was this room in which she stood, covering the whole area of the tower, with a circling open stair leading both up and down. Above were two bare chambers, cold and drear, without furnishing or signs of recent usage.
Here in this second chamber there was a bed curtained with hangings on which the needle-worked pictures were so dim and faded by time that she could distinguish little of the patterns, save that here and there the face of a dimmed figure, by some trick of lamp or firelight, would flare into vivid life for an instant or two, startling her.
There was one which appeared to do this more often than the rest. Thinking of it, Ysmay turned from the window, went to that part of the hanging and spread it with one hand while she fingered the face. This time it was dim, features blurred. Yet only a short time ago she had looked up from the hearth and it had given her a start as if a person stood there watching her with brooding earnestness.
She could close her eyes and see it feature for feature—a human face, which was better than some of the others flickering into life there at night. Some had an alien cast as if their human aspect were but a mask, worn above a very different countenance. This one was human, and something about it haunted her. Perhaps her memory played tricks but she remembered a desperate need in its expression.
Which proved how narrow her present life was, that she must make up fancies about old needlecraft! Ysmay wondered whose needles had wrought this and when. She smoothed the length of cloth with her fingertips, feeling the small irregularities of the stitching.
Then her nails caught in something which was no soft embroidery, but a hard lump. She fingered it, unable to detect it by eye, only by touch. It seemed to be within the material. She went for a hand lamp, holding it as close as she dared.
Here was the figure which had intrigued her. It wore a necklace—and this lump was part of the necklace. Inspection showed it concealed within the threads. With the point of her belt bodkin Ysmay picked delicately at the object. It had been so tightly covered by overstitching that the task was a long one. But at last Ysmay could pull out the ends of cut threads, squeeze what they held into her hand. It was smooth— She held it close to the lamp. Amber certainly! Wrought into a device so intricate that it took her some time to see it in detail.
A serpent crawled and turned, coiled and intercoiled. Its eyes were tiny flecks of butter amber set in the darker shade of its body. The almost invisible scaling on its sides was a masterwork of carving. In spite of inborn repugnance for scaled creatures, Ysmay did not find the stone unpleasant. In fact, the opposite was true.
Then—she gave a little cry and would have flung it from her but she could not.
Those coils were turning, writhing, coming to life!
She watched with horror as the serpent straightened from the involved knot in which she had found it, then coiled again in the hollow of her palm after the fashion of the living kind it resembled. Its head was upheld, with the yellow eyes turned to look at her, and there was a flickering at its tiny mouth as if of tongue play.
For a long moment they remained so, Ysmay and the thing she had freed. Then it slid across her hand while she still could not move to hurl it away. It was not cold as a serpent would have been, but warm. She was aware of light perfume. Certain rare ambers had that scent.
Down to her wrist, under the edge of her sleeve, the serpent went. She felt the warmth encircle her arm and snatched back her sleeve. The serpent was now a bracelet, one she could not rid herself of, no matter how hard she tried. She must either cut it in twain or break it into bits.
Ysmay returned to a chair by the fire, holding her arm stiffly before her. What she had seen was not possible. True amber had once been a part of a living tree. The old idea that it was dragon spittle or dung was only a tale. Living things were found entrapped in it, such as small insects. She recalled the flying thing Hylle had shown her. But the stuff itself did not live! It had certain odd properties to amuse the curious. Rub it well and it would draw to it, as a magnet attracts iron, small bits of chaff, hair and the like. It could be crushed and distilled into oil.
Distilled! Ysmay stood up, her hand still outstretched lest her wrist touch her body. She went to the chest which she had packed with such care at Uppsdale. She had to use both hands to lift the heavy lid. She searched among the packets.
At last she found what she sought, brought out the bag which could be the answer to any witchery. Back in her chair she worried open the fastening, using her one hand and her teeth.
She savored the good odor from within. Of all herbs grown this was the greatest defense against the powers of dark—angelica, herb of the sun in Leo, talisman against poison and evil magic. Ysmay stretched forth her wrist to expose the serpent. Taking a pinch of the precious herb she rubbed it along the brown-red thread of body.
But the circle remained solid, as it might have been if wrought in this form from the beginning. She rubbed it well and then drew out the amulet of Gunnora. For She who was the protector of life would stand against all things of the Shadow. And to the serpent she touched that talisman. Word by word she repeated the charm.
Life is breath, life is blood.
By the seed and by the leaf,
By the springtime with its flood,
May this power bring relief!
She might as well be dealing with any ordinary bracelet. Yet she had witnessed the transformation and knew differently.
Cut it, break it! Even as Ysmay looked about for the means of doing either she saw the fire. Fire! Amber would melt at the touch of fire. She felt now she could endure burns on her flesh rather than carry this band.
But she found she could not reach for a brand. Instead she huddled in the chair, staring at the serpent. Its yellow eyes turned upon her. Larger those eyes grew until at last they merged into one circle of light, and it was as if she looked through a window.
Among shadows and pools of light, she caught glimpses of tables piled with strange bottles, loops of metal, bowls—the sullen glare of a furnace was in evidence. Then she was looking into another chamber cut by pillars.
The contents startled and frightened her. For even as the winged thing had been enclosed in Hylle's cylinder, here other shapes were enclosed, save these were much larger.
Some were so grotesque she gasped, but these were swiftly passed. Ysmay was drawn to the center of the chamber where stood two pillars apart from the others.
In one, the nearer, was a man. His face might be Hylle's save for a subtle difference, as if they were akin in blood but not in spirit. This was less the Hylle of Quayth than the Hylle she had seen at the fair. Looking upon him Ysmay felt again that strange excitement which had first moved her. Also it seemed that his staring eyes sought hers in turn.
But Ysmay no longer faced the man in amber. Now she was drawn to the other pillar and it held a woman.
Her dark hair was dressed high and held in a net of gold. The net was studded with flowers carved of butter amber. She also wore a circlet of dark amber in the form of a serpent. Her robe was silken and amber in color and about her throat was a necklace of nuts, each encased in clear amber. These glowed, seeming to blaze higher when Ysmay looked upon them.
The woman's eyes were open like the man's. While there was no sign of Me about her features, those eyes reached Ysmay with appeal so strong it was as if she shouted aloud for aid.
Ysmay felt a whirling of the senses. Images formed in her head and were diffused before she could understand. Only that terrible need, tha
t cry for help, remained. And in that moment she knew that she could not refuse to answer—though what the woman and man wanted from her she could not tell. A picture in her mind, imposed over the pillars as if a veil arose, was the courtyard of Quayth as she could see it from her tower. And what she faced now was the angled tower of Hylle's forbidden domain. She was certain that this chamber of the image lay within its walls.
Then that picture shriveled and was gone. The pillar chamber, too, disappeared. She was blinking at the fire on the hearth.
“Lady—” Ninque's soft voice broke the quiet.
Ysmay hurriedly dragged her sleeve over the serpent, hid Gunnora's amulet in a swiftly closed hand. But nothing could conceal the scent of the angelica.
“What is it, Ninque? I have thought to order my herbs and see if I have the making for a Midwinter Eve cup.”
The woman's thick nostrils had widened, testing the air.
“Lord Hylle would speak with you, Lady.”
“Then let him do so.” As the woman turned her broad back, Ysmay slipped the cord of the amulet back over her head, hiding the talisman. Then she resealed the packet of angelica.
“My lord?” she looked up as Hylle came with his almost silent tread. Even if one could not hear his footfall on the fur mats of the room, one could sense his coming. He was like an invisible force disturbing the air. “It is Midwinter Eve, yet I have heard nothing of any feast.” She must play the innocent wrapped in the customs of the life she had left behind.
But she found herself searching his features intently. How much was he like that other? If memory did not deceive her the subtle difference had deepened. Had Hylle of the fair worn a mask now laid aside in Quayth?
“Midwinter Eve,” he repeated as if the words were in some foreign tongue. “Oh—a feast of your people. Yes, I am sorry, my lady, but you must keep it alone this year. An urgent message has come to have me ride out. Nor may I return before the morrow's morn.” Then he was sniffing the air. “What have you here, my lady? The scent is new to me.”
