Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

So they ate and then their bodies demanded rest from the trials of the day. It was, Trusla thought, early morning when she settled on a still-damp bank cushioned by the moss beneath.

For the shaman there appeared to be no rest. The Estcarpian girl was too spent to do more than watch, but when Frost and the Latt woman drew a little away, she realized that Inquit intended a use of

Power, though Frost did not seem ready to rouse her talent. Perhaps she was anchorage for the shaman.

Trusla expected to dance once more in her dreams—to follow the pattern laid in her mind upon the sand. Instead…

Like one of the house pests of the ancient holds it came nibbling—seeking. Though it exerted no great Power, Trusla was well aware that it held such in abeyance. Curious— she presented some puzzle to what came spying.

Then there was a very clear picture. She was not a part of this but only a watcher—though there was a part of her which fought to aid.

They were fleeing, those white-sailed ships. Sulcar ships, she knew, even if their main sails were painted with strange patterns. Behind them all the sea and sky was dark—not with the honest dusk of night, but rather as if something like a great sword blade swept across the sky and sea.

There were lights on each ship, the strongest coming from their bows. Not from lanterns, she was certain, but rather as if each vessel had a life force of its own.

Out of the sea, near a lagging rearguard ship, arose huge snake—even greater than she had seen as part of the ice-bound creature. Those strove to seize upon the ship. But the light at the prow suddenly blazed high, and the sea thing fell away as if blinded.

So they came—with the Dark ever behind them. Now she could see that the waters boiled with a multitude of the monsters. But she sensed that on one of those ships rode a great will, one who had honed talent and Power into a weapon, wasting nothing of what he could control until this hour when it was needed most.

Out of the curtain of the Dark burst another ship and this one she also knew—for she had seen its likeness in the plaque which had drawn them here. It flashed forward though it carried no sails, like a thing with sentient life.

The Sulcar ships drew into line, sailing as close to each other as they dared. They were like a thread forced through the eye of a needle, and the black ship was fast upon their wakes.

There was a burst of light, so eye searing that Trusla cried out and all was darkness. She was in Simond’s arms and he was calling her name with concern. There were others around, but all she could do for the present was to cling to him and wait for her dimmed eyes to clear.

One of them came to kneel beside where Simond held her, eyeing her scarchingly.

“You have dreamed!”

Through even Simond’s calling her name those three words sounded clearly. And Trusla answered:

“I have—seen—” For certainly that had been no dream, such as one small talent wove.

Then there was another beside the Latt shaman, and with her coming was a glint of light which made the world about Trusla fully real again. She told them—of that flight of ships before the curtain of the everlasting Dark, of the black ship which had come to cut the waves of their wakes, and then of the light which had left her blinded so she had not seen any more of that flight.

“The gate,” Frost said. In her hold her jewel lost that spark of light which had fully aroused the girl. “And those who fled—surely they had Power of their own. What kind, Captain? What did your ancient kin use to defeat the Dark which would have followed?”

He shook his head. “Lady, some Power we have over storms and freaks of the sea. But none else which any of our blood could tell you. Could it not be that this destroying light came from that which pursued?”

“Yet you stand, Sulcar man, in a world you swear was never yours to begin with. No, I think that your far kin won free. Free and able to leave the warning which you carry now—the likeness of their enemy.”

“In the ice…” the Latt shaman was no longer looking at Trusla; rather, it was as if she stared inward. “I dreamed also—not of the past as did this one, but of what happens now and—”

She got no further, for out in that mud and steam there whipped up into the air a great lash and the heat of it reached them even as far as they were from the fount.

There was a second such and a third, driving them back against the wall of stone and ice. And each was closer. So they moved toward the north for the boiling spray which now seared the green growth in the direction from which they had come. At last they appeared trapped in a shallow break of the wall while back and forth across what had been a richly green land beat whips of steaming mud and water, the fumes of which set them coughing and fighting for good air to breathe.

Trusla saw a swing of light. Frost’s jewel, flaming like an earth-tied star, swung back and forth. Beside her the shaman was—in spite of coughing—chanting. The girl saw Inquit’s hand raise, in it one of the long feathers she must have pulled from the edging of her cloak. Three times she waved it and then let fly, and fly it did—out into that streaming mush of what had once been land.

It was not a bird—no, as it went it became more like a long-shafted dart, flung straight as a small hunting spear. Into a rain of blistering mud it winged.

The column, fed from some inferno below, broke as if the shaman had sliced it with a great sword. The light from Frost’s jewel caught another threading pillar, setting it awhirl inside a narrow space.

They knew this upheaval for what it was: no act of nature. Rather, the attack of something which was alien—alien enough perhaps not to realize that they had such protection or strengths. If it had not realized that, it accepted such knowledge quickly. No more geysers arose from the mud, though long streaks of stinking, steaming earth had withered the green which had first welcomed them.

Trusla choked rackingly and still held to Simond. But that oppressive feeling that they were being confronted by something entirely alien to all they knew had withdrawn now.

“Qwayster.” Joul had drawn his sword as if to use that in defense. “The breath of Qwayster!” Beside him Captain Stymir stood, a gray cast under the sea tan on his face. He was coughing, tears streaming from his blue eyes, a small red patch on one arm showing under a smoking hole burned in his tunic.

“Have you given us a true name, seaman?” Frost asked, her jewel still at ready, though no more fountains were rising. “Do we now face some adept known and named?”

It was the captain who was shaking his head. “Demon, Lady. Another out of ancient tales: a force which could be commanded by one of great Power—to use the earth itself as a weapon. Was it not so with you of Estcarp when you made the southern mountains turn to your will?”

“That took the Power of all the sisterhood,” she said slowly. “Do you tell us now, Captain, that our enemies may be legion?”

Inquit stopped smoothing the edge of her cloak as if she had been soothing it for the loss of the feather. “Not many but one. But very old. It has slept long and now it wakes. Did I not dream also? Yes, we are on the proper road, but that one has been astir for only a short time. It was the wild magic doubtless that called her forth.”

“ Her ?” Simond’s surprise was plain.

The shaman smiled. “One woman does not mistake the magic of another, young lordling. To touch talent to talent is to learn. Yes, what we are to race is no adept, but one as wily and perhaps as Dark-filled as any who fought in the Great War to blast our world long since. Only this one is not of our universe. She thinks, she seeks, she feels her way—she is wily as an old wasbear with cubs to defend, and as greedy as a direwolf pinched by winter hunger. She will watch—and I think perhaps continue to test as. But she is not going to waste any great Power until we face her in her own place, where she feels that she is strongest.”