Andre Norton - Witchworld 5 - Sorceress of Witchworld

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\cSorceress of the Witch World
A Witch World novel by Andre Norton
Version 1.1
I
\cThe freezing breath of the Ice Dragon was strong and harsh over the heights, for it was
midwinter, and the dregs of a year which had been far from kind to me and mine. Yes, it was in the
time of the Ice Dragon that I took serious thought of the future and knew, past all sighing and
regret, what I must do if those I valued above all, even my own life, were to be free from a
shadow which might teach them through me. I am\a151I was\a151Kaththea of the House of Tregarth,
once trained as a Wise Woman, though I never gave their oath, nor wore the jewel which lies so
heavy on the breasts of those who take it to them. But such learning as was and is theirs was
given me, though not by my choosing.
I am one of three, three who once became one when there was need: Kyllan the warrior, Kemoc
the seer-warlock, Kaththea the witch. So my mother had named us at our single birthing; so we
were. She was of the Wise Women of Estcarp also, and was disowned for wedding with Simon Tregarth.
He was no ordinary man, though, being a stranger who had come through one of the otherworld gates.
Not only was he one learned in the stern art of war (which was of vast use to Estcarp, for that
torn and age-worn land was then locked in struggle with Karsten and Alizon, her neighbors), but he
had that which the Wise Women could not countenance in a man, some of the Power for his own.
Thus, upon her wedding and bedding it proved that Jaelithe, my mother, was not summarily
shorn of her witchery as all believed she would be, but rather found a new path to the same
general end. This raised the ire of those who had turned their faces from her on her choice.
However, though they would not openly acknowledge she had proved tradition naught, they had to
lean upon her support when there was great need, as there was.
Together, my father and mother went up against the remnants of the Kolder, those outland
devils who had so long menaced Estcarp. They found the source of that spreading evil and closed
it. For the Kolder, like my father, were not from our time and space, but had set up a gate of
their own through which to spill their poison into Estcarp.
After that great deed the Wise Women dared not openly move against the House of Tregarth,
though they neither forgot nor forgave what my mother had done. Not that she wed\a151for they
would have accepted that, feeling only contempt for one who allowed emotion to beckon her from
their austere path\a151but because she remained one with them in spite of her choice.
As I have said we were born at a single birthing, my brothers and I, I being the last to
enter the world. And for a long time thereafter my mother ailed. We were put into the care of
Anghart, a woman of the Falconers whom fate had used hardly, but who gave us the loving care my
mother could not. As for my father, he was so enveloped in my mother’s sufferings that he scarcely
knew during those months whether we lived or died. And I think he could never, in his innermost
heart, warm to us because of the hurt she took to bring us forth.
When we were children we saw little of our parents, for their combined duties in that ever-
present war kept them at the South Keep. My father rode the borders there as Warden, and my mother
as his seeress-in-the-field and more. We lived at a quiet manor where the Lady Loyse, who had been
a comrade-of-war of my parents, kept a small circle of peace.
Early did the three of us learn that we had in us that which set us apart: we could link
minds so that three became as one when there was need. And, while we used this Power then for only
small matters, we were unconsciously strengthening it with each use. We also instinctively knew
this was a thing to be kept secret.
My mother’s break with the Council had kept me from the tests given all girl children for the
selection of novices. And she and my father, whether they guessed our inheritance or not, set
about us such guards against absorption into the Estcarp pattern as they could.
Then it was that my father disappeared. In one of the lulls of active raiding he had taken
ship with the Sulcar, those close allies of Estcarp and his old battle friends, to explore certain
islands rumored to have suspicious activity sighted on them. Neither he nor his ship were
thereafter sighted nor heard from.
My mother rode into our sanctuary and for the first time she summoned Kyllan, Kemoc, and me
to a real trial of power. With our strength united to hers, she sent forth a searching and saw our
father. With so slender a clue, she went forth again to seek him; we remained behind.
When Kyllan and Kemoc joined the Borderers and I was left, the Wise Women moved as they had
long prepared. They sent to the hold and had me taken to their Place of Silence. And for some
years I was cut off from the world I knew and my brothers. But other worlds was I shown and there
is a kind of hunger for such knowledge born in those of my blood which feasts and grows, until at
times it fills one to the loss of all else. I fought, how I fought, during those years not to
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yield to the temptation of full eating, to keep part of myself free. So well did I succeed that at
last I was able to reach Kemoc. Thus, before they could force the final vow upon me, he and Kyllan
came to bring me out.
We could not have broken the Council’s bond had it not been that all the Power was gathered
up for a day and night as one pulls into one hand all the threads of a weaving. They hoarded their
strength that they might deal a single blow to Karsten and put an end to their most powerful
enemy. They took all their force and aimed it at the mountain lands, churning the heights,
twisting the very stuff of the earth by their united will.
So they had none we could not break to spare elsewhere. And we rode eastward into the
unknown. Kemoc had discovered a new mystery, that those of the Old Race of Estcarp had been mind-
locked in some very ancient time, and therefore the direct east to them did not exist. This had
been done when they had come from that direction into Estcarp.
Thus we went over mountain to find Escore. And there, to save us and to learn what we must
know, I worked certain spells, almost to the undoing of the whole land. For this was a place where
in the past mighty powers and forces had been unlocked by adepts, very ancient, but of my mother’s
people. And they had blasted the land in their strivings for mastery. At last those who had
founded Estcarp had fled, rolling the mountains into a supposedly eternal barrier behind them.
But when I wrought my spells (small compared to what had been done in Escore in the past),
forces were awakened, a delicate, hard-won balance was destroyed, and struggle between good and
ill once more awoke.
We came into the Green Valley, which was held by those older even than the Old Race, though
they had a measure of our blood too. But they were not of the Shadow. As we stood comradely to
arms, and sent forth a warning sword to summon all of good will for a combat against the Dark,
there came one they accepted as of their kind.
He was of the Old Race, a hill lord who had had for a tutor one of the last of the adepts to
choose to stay in Escore and not meddle. But Dinzil was ambitious and he was a seeker. Nor was he
corrupted by the love of domination when he first began that seeking. He was long known to the
Green People and they met him with honor and good will. He was a man with much in him to draw
one’s liking\a151yes, and more than liking, as I can testify.
To me, who had known only my brothers and the guardsmen my father had set about us, he was a
new kind of friend. And there was that which stirred in me for the first time when I looked upon
his dark face. Also, he set himself to woo me, and that he did very well.
Kyllan had found his Dahaun, she who is the Lady of Green Silences, and Kemoc was as yet
unheart-touched. Kyllan did not set hand to sword when I smiled upon Dinzil, and Kemoc’s frowns I
took, may I be forgiven, for jealousy because our three might be broken.
When Kemoc vanished, lost to us, I yielded to Dinzil’s promise for aid in finding him, as
well as to the wishes of my heart. The end being that I went secretly with him to the Dark Tower.
Now when I try to remember what was done there, I cannot. It is as if someone had taken water
and a strong soap to wash away all the days I was Dinzil’s aide in magic. Though I try to force
myself to recall it, I have only pain and more pain within me.
But Kemoc, together with the Krogan maid Orsya, came seeking me, as he tells in his part of
this chronicle. And he wrought with more than human endurance and strength to bring me forth from
what had become an abiding place of the Shadow. By that time I was so tainted with what Dinzil and
my own folly had plunged me into, that I stood at the end with Dinzil to do hurt to those I loved
best. And Kemoc, daring to see me dead before I fell so low, struck me down with half-learned
magic.
From that hour I was as one newborn, for that stroke rift from me my learning. At first I was
as a little child, doing as I was bid, without will or desires of my own. For a little I was
content to be so.
Until the dreams began. I could not remember them wholly when I awoke; it was well I did not,
for they were such as no sane mind could hold. And even the faint memory of some portions left me
sick and cold, so that I lay upon my bed in Dahaun’s feather-roofed hall and could not eat, and
dared not sleep. All the protection I had learned against such ills in my days among the Wise
Women had been stripped from me, so that I was as one body bare to the winter’s blast. Save that
what I stood naked before was worse than any sleet-laden wind, for what buffeted me was of the
Shadow and very foul.
Dahaun wrought as she could, and she was a healer. But her healing was of the mind and body,
and this was a matter of spirit. Kyllan and Kemoc sat by me and strove to keep the Shadow at bay.
All the knowledge of those within the Valley was shaped to the end of saving me. But in those
moments when I knew what they did, I understood the evil of this. For the Valley needed full
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protection, not only the protection of visible weapons, but also of the mind and spirit. To fight
my battle weakened their defenses.
My child’s clinging to the small safety and comfort they offered I must put away. So did I
grow older and no longer only an unthinking child. I also knew that the dreams were only the
beginning of what might attack me, and through me others. For when my own knowledge had been taken
an emptiness had been left, and into that something alien was striving to pour itself.
So, even though I no longer thought as Dinzil had made me, I was still enemy to those I loved
best. And I could prove a gate set in their midst through which ill could reach them, breaching
their defenses.
I waited until there was an hour when Kyllan and Kemoc went into council of war. And I sent a
message to Dahaun and Orsya. To them I spoke frankly, saying what must be done for the good of
all, perhaps even for me also. “There is no rest here for me.” I did not ask that, I stated it as
a truth. And in their eyes I read agreement. “This is also true: I am fast becoming a door to that
which waits only for an entrance to be shaped for it. I am a worse enemy than any monster prowling
beyond your safeguards. Strong are you in ancient magic, Dahaun, for you are the Lady of Green
Silences, and all which grows must pay heed to you, all animals and birds. And you, Orsya, also
have your own magic, and I can testify that it is not to be lightly thought on. But I swear to you
that this struggling to enter through me now is greater than you two joined together.
“I am empty\a151I can be filled, and with that which we would not like to think on.”
Slowly Dahaun nodded. There was a sharp stab of pain within me then. For, though I knew I
spoke the truth, yet some small, weak part of me had held a dying hope that I could be wrong and
that she, who in her way was so much the superior of anyone I had once been, would tell me so. But
rather she agreed with the verdict I had to face.
“What would you do?” Orsya asked. She had come from the stream to my side and her hair was
drying, forming a luminous silvery cloud in the air, but there were still droplets of water on her
pearly skin, and those she did not wipe nor shake away, for to the Krogan water was life itself.
“I must go forth from here\a151”
But to that Dahaun shook her head. “Beyond our safeguards what you fear will surely come, and
soon. And Kyllan and Kemoc would not allow it.”
“Yes, and yes,” I answered. “But there is something else. I can return whence I came and find
aid. You have heard that the churning of the mountains broke the power of the Council. Many of
them died then because they could not contain so long the force they had to store until they aimed
it. The Wise Women’s rule is done in Estcarp. Our good friend Koris of Gorm is now the one who
says this is done or that. But if even two or three of the great Wise Ones still live they can
raise this from me and Koris will order them to do that speedily. Let me return to Estcarp and I
shall be healed and you will be free to carry on battle here as you must.”
Dahaun did not answer at once. It is part of her magic that she is never the same in one’s
eyes, but always changing, so that sometimes she seems of the Old Race, dark of hair, white of
skin, while at other times her hair is ruddy, her cheeks golden. Whether this is done by her will
or not, I do not know. Now it seemed she was of my own race as she absently smoothed a strand of
black hair, her teeth showing a fraction upon her lower lip.
At last she nodded. “I can set a spell, a spell which may carry you safely as far as the
mountains, if your travel is swift, so you need not fear invasion. But you must aid it with all
your strength of will.”
“As you know I shall,” I told her. “But now you must give me aid in another way, the two of
you, standing with me when I tell this to Kyllan and Kemoc. They know that I will not be in danger
once I reach Koris. . . . We have learned from those coming to join us that he is seeking us. But
they may try to hold me here even so. Our tie is as old as our years. So we must be three set firm
for this, saying even that I shall return once I am given a new inner shield.”
“And this will be the truth?” asked Orsya. I did not know if she thought of me with any
charity. When I was Dinzil’s I had been an enemy to her, even seeking her life by my brother’s
hands, so she had no reason to wish me well. But if she were as one with Kemoc as I suspected,
then perhaps she might, for his sake, do me this service.
“I do not think so. I might be cleansed. But to return here would be a chance I would not
dare.” I told her frankly.
“And you believe you can make this journey?”
“I must.”
“It is well,” she said. “I shall stand beside you.”
“And I,” promised Dahaun. “But they will want to ride with you\a151”
“Set your own spells, the two of you. Let them seek the border with me; I do not think we can
keep them from that. But thereafter make them return. There is nothing in Estcarp for them, and
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they have now given their hearts to this land.”
“That also can we do, I think.” Dahaun replied. “When will you ride?”
“As soon as can be. If I grow too worn with this battle, I shall lose before you are rid of
me.”
“It is the month of the Ice Dragon; the mountains will be ill going.” But again Dahaun spoke
as if she were not forbidding the effort, but rather searching in her mind for ways to overcome
difficulties. “There is Valmund, who has ridden those trails many miles, and we can call upon the
keen eyes of Vorlong and his Vrangs to scout before you, that no great ill may lie in wait. But it
will be a cruel, cold trail you take, my sister. Be not overconfident.”
“I am not,” I assured her. “Only the sooner I am out of Escore, the sooner will what we hold
dear be the safer!”
So it was settled among us, and having set our minds firmly upon the matter how could those
others stand against us? Hard and fierce arguments they raised, but we showed them the logic of
what we would do, even until they were in agreement against their wills. I swore and swore again
that once healed I would return, with one of the parties from over-mountain. Now and again there
came those to join us, their coming always made known in good time by sentinels the Green People
maintained where there were passes. The sentinels were of many kinds, some scouts from the Valley,
a few former Borderers who had come to serve under my brothers, others the winged Flannan, or
Dahaun’s green birds, whose messages only she could understand, or once in a while a fighting
Vrang, wide-winged hunter from the high clouds.
It was one of those who broke our first plan into bits when he reported that the direct route
to the pass over which we had first come into Escore was now closed. Some messenger or liege thing
to the Shadow had wrought a sealing there which would be better avoided than assaulted\a151with me
as one of the party facing it. I think Kyllan and Kemoc rejoiced to hear that, deeming that we
would now abandon the project altogether.
Only I sweated and shrieked under the dreams more and more, and perhaps they knew that I
could not long continue to stand against that which sought to occupy me. Death would have to be my
portion then, and I had sworn them to that by an oath they could not break.
Summoned, Vorlong himself came to the Valley. He perched on a rock already well worn by the
scraping of his talons and those of his tribe before him, his red lizard head in bright contrast
to his blue-gray feathers, his long neck twisting as he turned his eyes from one of us to another
while Dahaun made mind talk with him.
At first he would not give us any hope, until, at last, with continued pressure, she brought
out of him an admittance that by swinging farther east and north, it might be possible to avoid
the pass we knew for a higher, more difficult passage. And he would send us a flying scout. From
the Green People volunteered their best mountaineer, Valmund.
In the Green Valley the Ice Dragon was kept at bay. The season there was no cooler ever than
late fall in Estcarp. As we rode past those symbols of power which kept that small pocket
inviolate, the full blast of winter met us.
There were five of us who rode the sure-footed Renthan\a151those four-footed beings who were
not animals, but comrades of battle as they had proved many times, and who were the equal of all
in wit, perhaps superior in courage and resource. Kyllan took the fore, Kemoc rode to my right,
Valmund for a space at the left, and behind was Raknar out of Estcarp, who had chosen to go over-
mountain with me to my final goal, since he sought to find certain liegemen of his and bring them
back to swell the host in Escore. He was a man of more years than the rest of us and one my
brothers trusted highly.
Beyond the boundaries of the Valley, as the Renthan beat down snowdrifts with their hooves, a
shape dove from the sky to become clear in our sight as a Vrang, Vorlung’s promised guide.
We traveled by day, since those of the Shadow are more used to the ways of night. Perhaps the
severity of the weather had immured them in their lairs, for, though we once heard afar the
hunting cries of a pack of wolf-men, the Gray Ones, we did not sight them or any other of the Dark
ones. We wove a way with many curves and small detours to avoid places which Valmund and the Vrang
found dangerous. Some were only groves, or places of standing stones. But once we looked upon a
somber building which seemed not in the least gnawed by time. In those walls were no windows, so
it was like a giant block pitched from some huge hand to lie heavily on the earth.
Around it the snow was not banked, though elsewhere it lay in white drifts from which a weak
winter sun awoke sparkles of diamond. It was as if the ground was too warm there, so that a square
of steaming earth enclosed that ominous masonry.
At night we sheltered in a place of blue stones, such ones as were to be found here and there
as islands of security in the general evil of the land. When it grow quite dark pale light shone
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from these; that light beamed outward rather than toward us, as if to dazzle anything prowling
beyond, to blind them from seeing our small party.
I tried not to sleep, lest those crowding dreams bring disaster, but I could not fight the
fatigue of body, and, against my will, I did. Perhaps those blue stones had some remedy even
greater than the power Dahaun had brought to my succor. For my sleep was dreamless and I awoke
from it refreshed as I had not been for a long time. I ate with an appetite, and I took heart that
my choice was right and perhaps our trip might be without ill incidents.
The second night we were not so lucky in finding a protected camp site. Had I still the
learning I had once made my own, I might have woven a spell to cover us. But now I was the most
helpless. Vrang and Valmund between them had brought us into the foothills of the mountains we
must cross, but we were still heading north, rather farther to the east then would serve us.
We had rested in a place where stunted trees made a thick canopy, in spite of the fact they
had lost their last year’s leaves. And in that half shelter the Renthan knelt, giving us their
bodies to lean against wearily as we chewed journey cake and drank sparingly from our saddle
bottle. It was Green Valley wine, mixed with water from the springs there, a well-known
restorative.
The Vrang winged off to a crag of his own choosing and the men settled the watch hours among
them. Again I fought sleep, sure that with no safeguard I would be vulnerable to whatever the
Shadow sent after us.
I did not think beyond our piercing of the mountains and the coming to Estcarp. Only too well
did my imagination create for me what might happen between this hour and that when I was again in
the land of my birth . . . though I knew that in the marshaling of such ills I was harming myself.
Valmund sat to my left, his green cloak about him. Even in the gloom, for we dared not light
a fire, I could see his head was turned to look toward the mountains, though before him now was
such a screen of brush and tree limb that he might not see through. There was something in his
stance which made me ask in a half-whisper: “There is trouble ahead?”
He looked now to me. “There is always trouble in the mountains at this time.”
“Hunters?” What kind? I wondered. There had been fearsome surprises enough in the lowlands.
What foul monsters might seek us out in the heights?
“No, the land itself.” He did not try to hide his fears from me and for that I was glad. For
what he spoke of seemed less to me than things my dreams brought. “There are many snowslides now
and they are very dangerous.”
Avalanches\a151I had not thought of those. “This is a dangerous way? More so than the other?”
I asked.
“I do not know. This is new country for me. But we must go with double care.”
I dozed that night and again my apprehensions were not realized. I might not have slept in a
protected place, but I did not dream.
In the morning, when the light was strong enough for us to move on, the Vrang came to us. He
had been scouting across the heights above since first light and what he had to report was none
too good. There was a pass leading west, but we must reach it on foot, and would need a
mountaineer’s skill to do so.
With a great curved talon the Vrang drew a line map in the snow, went over each point of
probable danger for us. Then he rose again, once more to seek the heights and so scout even
farther ahead than the distance we could cover in the hours of this day. Thus did we begin our
mountain journey.
\cII
\cAt first our way was no worse than any mountain trail I had yet seen, but by the time the
pale sun was up we had reached that portion the Vrang had foretold where we must say farewell to
the Renthans and go thereafter on our own two feet. What had been a path, though steep and to be
followed warily, now became a kind of rough staircase fit for two feet but not four.
The men packed our scant supplies and brought out the ropes and steel-pointed staffs which
Valmund among us knew best how to use, and he now took the lead. We started up a way which was to
be a test of endurance.
I could almost believe that we did indeed tread a stairway, one fashioned not by the whim of
wind and weather, but by the need of some intelligence. I could not believe that the maker, or
makers, had been men like us, however, for the steps were far too steep and shallow, sometimes
giving only room for the toe of one’s boot, very seldom wide enough to set the full length of a
foot upon them.
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Yet there was no other indication that we trod a way which had once been a road. And the
constant climb made one’s legs and lower back ache. At least the wind had scoured the snow and ice
from these narrow fingers of ledge so that we had bare rock to tread and need not fear the
additional hazard of slippery footing.
That stairway seemed endless. It did not go straight up the slope, although it began that
way, but rather turned to our left after the first steep rise, to angle along the cliff face,
which led me even more to surmise that it was not natural but contrived. It brought us at last to
the top of a plateau.
The sunlight which had been with us during that climb vanished, and dark clouds lowered.
Valmund stood, his face to the wind, his nostrils expanded, as if he could sniff in its blowing
some evil promise. Now he began to uncoil the rope which had belted him, shaking it out in loops,
so that the hooks which glinted in it at intervals could be seen.
“We rope up,” he said. “If a storm catches us here . . .” Now he pivoted, looking toward what
lay ahead, seeking, I believed, for some hint that we might find shelter from a coming blast.
I shivered. In spite of the clothing which made me move clumsily, the wind found a way to
probe at me with icy fingers which wounded.
We made haste to obey his orders, snapping the rope hooks to the front of the belts we wore.
Valmund led the line, and after him Kyllan, then Kemoc, and I, and, bringing up the rear, Raknar.
I was the least handy. During the border war my brothers and Raknar had had duty in mountain
places, and, while they did not have Valmund’s long training, they knew enough to be less awkward.
Staff in hand, Valmund moved out, we suiting our pace to his, to keep some slack in the line
linking us, but not too much. The clouds were thickening fast, and while as yet no snow had
fallen, it was hard to see the far end of the plateau. Nor had the Vrang returned to give us any
idea of what might await us there.
Valmund took to sounding the path before him with his staff as if he thought some trap might
await under seemingly innocent footing; he did not go as fast as I wanted to, with the wind
striking colder and colder.
Just as the climb up the stair had seemed to be a journey without end, so did this become a
matter of trudging toward a goal which was hours, days before us. Time had no longer any true
meaning. If it was not snowing, the wind raised the drifts already fallen to encircle us with
bewildering veils. I feared that Valmund was indeed a blind man leading the blind, and we were as
well able to blunder over some cliff as to walk a path to safety.
But we won at last to a place of shelter where the wind-driven snow was kept from us by an
overhang of rock. There my companions held council as to the matter of going on or trying to wait
out what Valmund feared to be a storm. I leaned back against the rock wall, breathing in great
gasps. The cold I drew into my laboring lungs seemed to sear, as if I inhaled fire. And my whole
body trembled, until I was afraid that if Valmund did give the signal to return to that battle
outside I could not answer with so much as a single step.
I was so occupied with the failure of my own strength that I was not really aware of the
return of the Vrang until a harsh croaking call aroused me. The Vrang waddled in under the
overhang, an awkward creature out of its element of the upper air. It shook itself vigorously,
sending bits of snow and moisture flying in all directions, and then it squatted down before
Valmund in the stance of one come to settle in for some tune. So I gathered that perhaps our
travel for this day was over, and I slid thankfully down the wall which supported me, to sit with
my legs out, my back still resting against the mountain rock.
We could not have a fire, for there was no wood to feed it. And I wondered numbly if we would
freeze here under the lash of the wind which now and again reached in to flick us. But Valmund had
an answer to that also. He produced from his pack a square of stuff which seemed no larger than my
hand when he first pulled it forth. In the air, though, as he began to unfold it, it spread larger
and larger, fluffing up, until he had a great downy blanket under which we crept and lay together.
From this heat spread to thaw my shivering body as it served my companions also, even the Vrang
taking refuge beneath one end, its bulk making a hump.
The covering had the soft consistency of massed feathers where it touched my cheek, but it
looked more like moss. When I ventured to ask Valmund explained that it was indeed made from
vegetation but via insect handling, since a small worm found in the Valley feasted upon a local
moss and then spun this in turn, meant to make a weather protection shell. The Green People had
long since, in a manner, domesticated these worms, kept them housed and fed, using the tiny bits
of substance each produced to fashion such blankets. Unfortunately, as it took hundreds of worms
to make a single blanket, each one was the work of many years; there were few of them, those in
existence being among the treasures of the Valley.
I heard my companions talking, but their words became only a lulling drone in my ears as I
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drowsed, because of the fatigue of my aching body no longer trying to fight sleep. It seemed that
here all my fears faded, and I was no longer Kaththea who must be constantly alert lest I fall
prey to the enemy, but rather a mindless body which needed rest so sorely that lack of it was
pain.
I dreamed, but it was not one of those nightmares from which I roused crying out with dread
horror, though it was as vivid, or more so, as one of those. It seemed that I lay with the others
under that soothing blanket and watched, with a kind of lazy content, the roar of the gathering
storm outside, secure and safe with my protectors around me.
From that storm there spun out a questing line, silvery, alive, and this beamed over us,
hovering just above our huddled bodies. In my dream I knew that this was a questing from another
mind, one which controlled Power.
Yet I did not think it evil, only different. And the end of that silvery beam or cord swung
back and forth until it came to hold steady over me for a space. Then I seemed to rouse for the
first time to a feeling of vague danger. But when I summoned what small defenses that I had, the
line was gone and I blinked, knowing that I was now awake, though all was just as it had been in
my dream, and we lay together with the storm beyond.
I did not tell my brothers, for my dreams must not be used, I made certain in my own mind, to
flog them into dangerous efforts in the mountains. At that moment I decided that, if I did feel
the touch of true evil any time as we climbed these perilous ways, I would loosen my fastening on
the life rope and plunge, to end my problems, rather than draw them after me.
We spent the rest of the day and the next night in our hiding place. With the coming of the
second dawn there was light and no clouds. The Vrang took wing, to soar high, coming back with
news that the storm was gone and all was clear. So we broke our fast and went on.
There were no more stairways. We climbed and crept, up cliffs, along ledges. And all the time
Valmund studied the heights above us with such intent survey that his uneasiness spread to us, or
at least to me, though I could not be sure what he feared, unless it was an avalanche.
At midday we found a place on a wider ledge than we had heretofore traversed, and crouched
there to eat and drink. Valmund reported that we were now within a short distance of the pass and
that perhaps two hours would see us through the worst of the journey ahead and on the down slope,
where once more we could angle east. So it was with some relaxation that we munched our blocks of
journey bread and sipped from flasks filled with the Valley brew.
We had crossed the pass well within the time Valmund had set and were on a downward trail
which did not seem so bad compared to the way we had come, when our mountaineer leader called a
halt. He tested the rope ties and signaled he must reset them. So we waited while he shucked his
pack to begin that precaution. It was then that the danger he had foreseen struck.
I was only aware of a roaring. Instinctively I jerked back, trying to flee\a151what I knew
not. Then I was swept away, buried, and knew nothing at all.
It was very dark and cold and a weight lay on and about me. I could not move my arms nor legs
as I tried to reach out in a half-conscious fight against that punishing burden. Only my head,
neck and half of one shoulder were free and I lay face up. But all was dark. What had happened?
One moment we had been standing on the mountainside a little below the pass, the next, so had time
passed for me, I was caught here. My dazed mind could not fit that together.
I tried again to move the arm of the free shoulder and found with great effort I could do so.
Then with my mittened hand I explored the space about my head. My half numbed fingers struck
painfully against a solid surface I thought was rock, slipped over that. I could not see in this
gloom, only feel, and touch told me so little\a151that I now lay buried in snow save for my hand,
shoulder, arm, head resting within a pocket of rock. That chance alone had saved me from being
smothered by the weight which imprisoned the rest of me. I could not accept that imprisonment, and
began, in a frenzy of awaking fear, to push at the snow with my free hand. The handfuls I scooped
up flew back in my face, bringing me to understand I might thus bring upon myself the very fate
from which the rock pocket had saved me.
So I began to work more slowly, striving to push away the burden over me, only to discover I
was too well buried; I could make no impression on that weight.
At last, exhausted, sweating, I lay panting, and for the first time tried to discipline the
fear which had set me to such useless labor. There must have been an avalanche, sweeping us
downslope with it, burying us\a151me. The others could be digging now to find me! Or they might
all be . . . Resolutely I tried to blank out that thought. I dared not believe that a chance rock
pocket had saved me alone. I must think the others lived.
More bitterly than I ever had since I had fallen in that last struggle at Dinzil’s side I
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regretted my lost communication with my brothers. With my magic that had been rift from me also,
my punishment for being drawn into the underfolds of the Shadow. Perhaps . . . I shut my eyes
against the dark in which my head lay, tried to rule my mind as once I had, to seek Kyllan and
Kemoc\a151to be one with my brothers as had been our blessing.
It was as if I faced some roll of manuscript on which I could see words, clearly writ, but in
a language I could not read, though I knew that reading might mean life or death for me. Life or
death\a151suppose Kyllan, Kemoc, the rest of our company had survived; suppose that it would be
better for them now if they did not find me . . . Only there is that stubborn spark of life in us
which will not allow one to tamely surrender being. I had thought I might throw myself into
nothingness in their service if the need arose. Now I wondered if I could have done that. I tried
to concentrate only on my brothers, on the need that I now speak with them mind to mind.
Kemoc\a151if I had to narrow that beaming to one, I would select Kemoc, for always had he been the
closer. In my mind I pictured Kemoc’s dear face, aimed every scrap of energy toward touching
him\a151to no avail.
A cold which was not from the snow imprisoning me spread through my body. Kemoc\a151it might
be that I tried to reach one already gone! Kyllan then, and my elder brother’s face became my
picture, his mind that I sought, again to reach nothing.
It was the failure of my power, I told myself, not that they were dead! I would prove
that\a151I had to prove it!\a151so I thought of Valmund with what I hoped was the same intensity,
and then of Raknar. Nothing.
The Vrang! Surely the Vrang had not been included in our disaster! For the first time a small
spark of hope flashed in me. Why had I not tried the Vrang? But that creature had a different form
of brain channel: could I succeed with him where I had failed with men? I began to seek the Vrang
as I had the others.
There was the picture in my mind of the red head swinging above the gray-blue feathered body.
Then\a151I had touched! I had found a thought band which was not that of a man! The Vrang\a151it
must be the Vrang! I cried aloud then and the sound of my own voice in that small pocket was
deafening.
Vrang!
But I could not hold that band long enough to aim a definite message along it. It wavered in
and out so I could only touch it now and then. Only it was growing stronger, of that I was sure.
The Vrang must be seeking us somewhere near, and I doubled my efforts to send an intelligible
message. The wavering of that communication band was first irking, and then raised the beginning
of panic in me. Surely when I touched that intelligent creature would try to pinpoint me in turn.
Yet as far as I could sense it did not. Was the consciousness of that touch mine only, so that the
Vrang could not be guided to where I lay?
And how much longer could I fight to hold my small sense of communication? I was gasping. For
the first time I became aware that it was difficult to breathe. Had I pulled too much snow back on
me when I made those first ill-directed attempts to free myself? Or was it that this pocket of
rock held only a limited supply of air and that was becoming exhausted?
Vrang! The picture in my mind slipped away. Another took its place. And I was so startled at
the single glimpse of a creature I did not expect that I lost contact.
No lizard-bird. No, this was furred, long of muzzle, pricked of ear, white or gray, like the
snow about me, but with amber eyes narrowed into slits. The Gray Ones\a151a wolf-man! I had
brought upon me a worse fate than being smothered by snow. Far better to gasp out my life in this
pocket than be broken loose by the thing or things now questing for me.
I willed myself into a kind of mind sleep, trying with all my strength of will to be nothing,
not to think, not to call\a151to hide to my death from discovery. And so well did I succeed, or
else so bad had become the air about me, that I did lapse into a dark I welcomed.
But I was not to end so. I felt air blow upon my face. My body, playing me traitor,
responded. But I would not open my eyes. If they had dug me free there was a small chance they
might believe they had brought into the day a dead body and leave me. So small a chance, but it
was all I had left to me now with my power gone and no weapons.
Then my ears rang as a baying began from far too close.
It was not quite a howl, nor as sharp as a bark, but somewhat between the two. There followed
a sniffing; I felt the puff of a strong breath across my face. My body jerked, not in answer to my
own muscles, but because there was a grasp on my jacket close to my throat and I was being dragged
along. I willed myself to lie limp, to seem dead.
The dragging stopped. There was another energetic sniffing of my face. Could the creature
tell I was not dead? I feared so. I thought I heard movement away. Dared I hope\a151could I
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escape?
I raised my heavy lids and light was a pain for a moment or two, I had been so long in the
dark. It was bright, sunshine. And for a space I could not adjust to it. Then a shape stood well
in my line of vision.
So sure had I been that one of the Gray Ones had dug me out that it took me a long instant to
see that one of the man-wolves did not crouch there. Wolf it looked, yes, but wholly animal. Its
hide was not the gray of the Shadow’s pack, but rather a creamy white; its prick ears, a long
stripe down its backbone which included the full length of its tail, and its four well-muscled
legs were light brown.
Most striking of all, it wore a collar, wide band which gave off small flashes of bright,
sparkling color as if set, with gems. As I watched it, my eyes now fully open in startlement, it
sat on its haunches, its head turned a little from me as if it waited the coming of another. Its
well-fanged jaws opened slightly and I could see the bright red of its tongue.
It was an animal, not a half-beast. And it was one who obeyed man or it would not wear that
collar. So much did my survey satisfy me. But in Escore one never accepts the unusual as harmless;
one is wary if one wants to hold to life or more than life. I did not stir, only slowly I turned
my head a fraction at a time, to see what lay about me.
There was a mighty churning of snow, not only of the slide, but also where the animal had
apparently dug to free me. It was day, though whether the same day we had come through the pass, I
could not tell. Somehow I guessed it was not. The sun was very bright, enough to hurt my eyes, and
involuntarily I closed them.
In that glimpse about I had seen no indication that any of our party, save myself, had been
dug free. And now, as I braced myself to look again, I heard the animal once more voice its
summons (for I was certain it was a summons) to master or companion.
This time a shrill whistle answered, to which the hound, if hound it was, replied with a
series of sharp and urgent barks. Its head was turned from me as it gave tongue and I used my
remaining rags of strength to push myself up. I had the feeling I wanted to face the whistler on
my feet, if I could do so.
The hound did not appear to notice my struggles. It was on its feet now, running away from
me, throwing up the loose snow in its going. I got to my knees with what haste I could, then to my
feet, where I stood weaving dizzily back and forth, afraid to take a step in the snow lest I
tumble again. The hound still floundered away, not looking back.
Now! Balancing with care lest I fall, I turned slowly, striving to discover some small shred
of proof that I was not the single survivor of the slide. I swayed and stumbled eagerly to it,
falling there to my knees, brushing and digging with my hands to uncover the pack Valmund had
shucked moments before the catastrophe had struck.
I think I wept then, my eyes blurred, and I stayed where I was on my knees, lacking the
strength to pull up. My hands rested on the pack as if it were an anchor, the only sure anchor
left, in a world gone wrong.
So it was that the hound and its master found me. The animal snarled, but I would not have
had the energy to raise a weapon even if I had one to hand. I stared blearily up at the man wading
through knee-high snow.
He was human as to body. At least I had not been found by one of the nightmare things which
roamed the dark places of Escore. But his face was not that of the Old Race. He was dressed in
garments of fur unlike any I had seen before, a wide gem-set belt pulling in the loose tunic of
bulky fluff about him. A hood, beruffed about the face with a band of long greenish hair like a
tattered fringe, had slid back on his head to show his own hair, which was red-yellow, though his
brows and lashes were black, and his skin dark brown. So wrong in shade did that hair tint seem
that I could believe it a wig colored so in purpose.
His face was broad instead of long and narrow as those of the Old Race, with a flat nose
having very large nostrils, and his mouth was thick-lipped to match. He spoke now, a series of
slurred words, only a few of which bore slight resemblance to the common speech of the Valley,
which in turn was different from what we used in Estcarp.
“Others”\a151I leaned forward, bearing my weight on my arms braced against the
pack\a151“help\a151find\a151others\a151” I used simple words, spaced them, hoping he would
understand. But he stood with one hand reaching to the hound as if to restrain that animal.
Measured beside the man I could mark the huge size of the beast.
“Others!” I tried to make him understand. If I had survived that fall, surely the others
might. Then I remembered the rope which had linked us together and fumbled to find it. Surely that
could be a guide to Kemoc, who had been before me. . . .
But there was nothing, save a tear which had cut into my jacket where the hook must have been
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pulled out with great force.
“Others!” My voice spiralled up into a scream. I crawled back to the tumbled snow where rocks
showed here and there, ripped loose by its sweep. I began to dig, without guide or purpose, hoping
that if the stranger did not understand my words, though I used the intonation common in the
Valley, he would follow my actions.
His first answer was a quick jerk which nearly brought me over on my back again. The hound
had set its teeth into the fabric of my jacket near the shoulder. With those fangs locked it was
exerting its strength to pull me back to its master. And at that moment the animal had more
strength than I could resist.
But the man made no move to approach me, nor to aid the hound in its efforts. Nor did he
speak again, merely stood watching as if this was no affair demanding his interference.
The hound growled in its throat as it pulled me back. And my position was such that I could
not have beaten it off, even if I had had a weapon. A final sharp jerk and I sprawled on my side,
sliding down and away from where I had tried to dig into the debris of the avalanche.
There was a shrill whistle again. This was answered, not by the hound which stood over me
still growling, but by a barking in the distance. Then the man waded down to me, though he did not
try to touch me, only waited.
What he waited came: a sled which was a skeleton framework, drawn by two more hounds, their
collars made fast to thongs. The hound which had found me stopped growling and wallowed through
the snow to the sled, where he took a position slightly to the fore of his fellows as if waiting
to be hitched in turn. Then his master reached down and put a firm grasp on my shoulder, pulling
me up with surprising ease. I tried to struggle out of his hold.
“No! The\a151others\a151” I mouthed straight into his expressionless face.
“Find\a151others\a151”
I saw his other hand lift, but I was still astounded as it flashed at my jaw. There was a
moment of shattering pain as it met flesh and bone and then nothing.
\cIII
\cThere was an ache running through my whole body. Now and then I was shaken so that the
sullen, constant pain became a twinge of real agony. I lay upon something which swayed, dipped,
was never still, but which added to my misery by movement. I opened my eyes. Before me, across
ground where the sun made a blaze to set tears gathering under lids, ran the three hounds, straps
from their collars fastened to the sled on which I now lay. I tried to sit up, to discover that,
not only were my wrists and ankles trussed tightly together, but over me was an imprisoning fur
robe made fast to the framework of the sled.
Perhaps that was meant for warmth as well as a safeguard, but at that moment of realizing my
helplessness, I saw it as another barrier between me and freedom.
The sleds I had known in Estcarp had always been more cumbersome, horse-drawn. But at the
pull of the huge hounds this one moved at what seemed to me a fantastic speed. And we traveled
more silently. There was no jingle of harness, no chime of bells which it was customary in the
west to hang on both harness and sled frame. There was something frightening in this silent
flight.
Slowly I began to think more clearly. The pain was centered in my head and that, added to the
shock which had come with the avalanche, made any planning now a task almost too great. My fight
against the bonds was more instinctive than reasoned.
Now I ceased to struggle, slitting my eyes against the too bright sunlight, enduring the
misery of my aches and pains, as I set myself to the needful task of piecing together what had
happened.
I could remember rationally now up to the blow the stranger had dealt me. And it was apparent
I was not rescued, but his prisoner, on my way to his dwelling or camp. Also all I knew of Escore,
which I was ready to admit was very little (even the Green People did not stray far from their
Valley stronghold), mostly came from rumor and legend. Yet never had I heard of such a man and
such hounds.
I could not see my captor now, but thought his place must be behind the sled. Or had he sent
me on alone in the care of his four-footed servants, to be made sure of before he turned his
attention to other survivors?
Other survivors! I drew a deep breath, which also hurt.
Kyllan . . . Kemoc . . .
There was this, which I clung to with all that was within me, as a mountain climber might
cling to an anchoring rope when his feet slipped from some precarious niche: so deeply were we
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file:///G|/rah/Andre%20Norton/Norton,%20Andre%20-%20Witch%20World%205%20-%20Sorceress%20of%20the%20Witch%20World.txtcSorceressoftheWitchWorldAWitchWorldnovelbyAndreNortonVersion1.1IcThefreezingbreathoftheIceDragonwasstrongandharshover heheights,foritwasmidwinter,andthedregsofayearwhichhadbeenfar...

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