Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

Some time later, Trusla was coughing from a sip of a cup one of the women had offered her, clinging to Simond lest they be separated and whirled away into an impromptu dance which had begun down wharf. They were joined by Frost and Inquit, Odanki like a bodyguard behind her, Kankil clinging, slightly wild-eyed, to the shaman.

So Trusla was introduced to a third kind of city and one which was so different that at first she was secretly a little dubious about entering the door a grinning Sulcar had pulled open for her. It was before this mound that the trade flag had been raised and manifestly it must be the main building of End of the World.

It was necessary to go down a short flight of steps, each consisting of a worn rock set in the earth in order to reach the doorway which their host kept waving them toward. This was more a burrow than a house. Set well down in the earth, more than a Sulcar’s-height deep, the floor was a patchwork of stones fit together with skill. More stones paneled the wall of the first room into which they had come. But covering those for the most part were hides, painted as brightly as the clothing the owners wore.

Across one end of the room, farthest from the main door, was a raised ledge. This was heaped with cushions which looked as plump as if no weight had ever rested on them.

Above their heads were great curved pieces of bone, which must have been carefully matched for length, as they met in the center. Between these stretched tightly more hide, probably several thicknesses of it. Trusla, remembering what she had seen outside, believed the builders covered this foundation with layers of earth and sod, perhaps with some packing from the sticky seaweed.

There were, she was to discover, four rooms in all. The one in which they were now received was in the nature of the official hall. Behind it were two other chambers divided by high curtains, and, beyond them, a cooking place which extended out with a lower roof from the main dwelling.

The exuberant heartiness of the man who had welcomed them vanished when he waved them to seats among the cushions, which Trusla discovered were remarkably soft. He made them known to two women already waiting there. One was his wife and the other, whose strictest attention had been for Frost and Inquit, was a contrast to the other women they had seen. Her garment reached nearly to her ankles and was patterned only in white. A wide buckle of strips of bone was bound around her waist and she also had a kind of frontlet running from the neckline of her garment down to that girdle. This was patterned with a mixture of bone heads and stones of green and blue. A band of the same type of work drew her long hair into a fastening behind her neck.

Different from the aged wisewoman they had seen at Korinth, this woman was young, or at least wore an appearance of youth to match Frost’s. She had no drum, nor any attendant drummer, but she did hold a staff also of bone yellowed by time and carved with both runes and suggestions of weird creatures which might have been seaborn.

“This be our Watcher—the Lady Svan.” Lady Svan inclined her head but still held her gaze on the other two women of Power in the room, Frost and Inquit. “And my House Lady, Gagna.” Again a bowed head but there was lively curiosity to be read on the features of his wife.

It was Frost who made first answer. “To this house good fortune such as the Light sends. I am called Frost and am of the Sisterhood of Estcarp of the south.” She looked to Inquit, and the Latt shaman, brave in her feathered robe, holding and stroking Kankil, said in turn:

“For the blood kin of the Latts I have been Power-chosen to deliver the great Call when that is needed. My public name is Inquit, and this little one be my dream anchor.”

“These be the Lady Trusla and Lord Simond out of Es,” Captain Stymir said with proper courtesy.

“Out of Es,” repeated the Lady Svan. “Far have you come, yet not for trading. Captain”—she spoke sharply now, as if she found this company not greatly to her liking—“twice have the runes been read and the answer always lies on the Dark side. What danger follows on your heels? If you run hither for shelter, then know that that we cannot grant.”

“Cannot”—Frost’s voice was very soft and yet it held a core of ice—“or will not, Watcher? We do not flee, we seek, and that seeking may mean life or death for all which lies upon this earth.”

“As already evil has struck,” the captain interjected when Svan did not reply at once. “The Flying Crossbeak has fallen to the Dark.” Swiftly he told the main points of Audha’s story.

“Bergs that herd ships!” the trade master burst out. “That is against all nature.”

“Nature can be commanded by Power,” returned Frost.

“Truth,” agreed Svan. It was plain that her distrust of them was growing. “Did not your sisters cause the mountains to dance at your bidding not so long ago? What danger do you hunt here? This is a near barren land; we cling to the edge of it because we have learned how to make our compromises with nature. Let that balance be overset and indeed our lives shall cease to be.”

“How do you know that already the Dark does not lumber toward you like a wounded great boar who will have its vengeance?” Inquit was eyeing the Watcher almost as coldly as the other was viewing the whole of their party. “You have cast runes, you say, and what led you to that, Watcher?” She leaned forward a little. “Did you also dream?”

Svan flushed. “You speak boldly of hidden things,” she snapped.

“I speak so because it is a time for boldness, Woman of Power. We do not deal now with the fate of a single town, or even that of a single kin tribe. It is forbidden by Arska for His Voice to leave His people, yet I stand here under His orders. And this witch out of Es travels not for any pleasure. Listen to what may come upon us. Something perhaps worse than icebergs which herd ships into the waiting caldrons of maneaters.”

Oddly enough, it was not to Captain Stymir she gestured, but to Simond.

And he told of their quest starkly with no such embellishments as a bard would use. First of the loss of the Magestone and the wide rip of wild Power which answered that, and then of their concern about other gates which might be so unlocked—ready to open to the demand perhaps of new horrors from without.

He spoke of those who searched in Estcarp and Escore, and the party which was heading even farther south to lands unknown. Of the message alert sent to Arvon and what those who received it also decided upon. He told of the falling of Lormt’s fourth tower, of the strange storerooms that collapse had uncovered and of how all the sages of learning struggled there to find answers to what those of action might meet.

A serving lad came with ship’s lanterns to set around as the light began to fail, and twice the Trade Master pushed a drink horn into Simond’s hand as his voice grew hoarse.

Trusla could see that he had truly won to their side the Lady Gagna and the Trade Master. She tried to read behind the impassive mask that the Watcher continued to wear. At least the woman had at last turned her gaze from Frost and Inquit and was, she was sure, listening intently.

When at last Simond was done, his voice was harsh from use, for Trusla knew that he had put into his account all the force he could summon. Simond was not a man of many words, preferring mainly to listen and not to address any company in form. Now the Trade Master turned to the Watcher.

“Lady, by the right of office given me in this town, I ask you now, once more the runes!”

She did not move or answer him at once, her attention still on Simond. Trusla longed to voice aloud her own irritation that this Sulcar witch could not see at once it was the truth he was speaking.