Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

Her captor for the present drew her hand up to those wide-arching nostrils and sniffed. Out shot the tongue again and touched her sweat-coated skin. But Destree, sure of her Lady’s hand in this, did not try to loose herself.

The great head bowed and then her hand was borne still farther upward until the lips nuzzled her flesh as lightly as a floating petal might have drifted on it. Dropping its hold, Gruck stepped back. There was no question now in the girl’s mind that this weird stranger believed her a friend.

However, she doubted greatly that anyone else in the valley would see it except as a menace to be destroyed. Gunnora had sent her to ensure its safekeeping; if it meant trouble for her, then she must accept that. Had she not in her time been such an outcast that she had been spat after when she walked port streets, and judged beyond all protests Dark-shadowed?

“Gruck?” she said. It drew back from her a step or so. Against the dark pelt a wide golden belt glistened in the sun now bearing down upon them.

That did service as more than a simple strap, the girl saw. Thrust through attached loops were a medley of artifacts, two at least which bore a very strong resemblance to knives. A plump pouch rode against the middle of the belly.

The workmanship, she believed, even though she could not examine the belt and equipment closely, was certainly not that of any barbaric civilization but fashioned by a people well used to tools.

“Gruck?” If she could awaken some vocal response from the stranger, perhaps she could learn from whence it had come. Destree had never heard of any gate traveler who had returned to its world. However, her knowledge of such was very limited and, without proof, how could she just accept that this poor lost creature might not be sent back to its proper place? But first she must find where it had made its entry.

It held its head cocked a little to one side now, its measuring gaze still centered on her. Chief advanced past her to stand directly before it.

His up-bannered tail moved slowly, but there was no ridging of fur, nor laid-back ears, no hissing or snarling. The stranger suddenly stooped and one of those huge large-fingered hands caught up the cat. Destree started forward—remembering the dead sheep, the slaughtered hounds. Then she saw that Chief was cradled in both hands, being raised to exchange stares on the level with Gruck.

For what seemed a time out of time itself, so caught up was she in that confrontation, Destree watched. Deep in her mind she felt the stirring, not clear as when the Lady would speak, but rather a tantalizing, teasing flutter. She bent what powers she had to touch that communication, to share in what Gruck and Chief had found as a mutual meeting—but it was not within the grasp of her talent.

At length Chief gave a soft mew and the stranger set him carefully down. Now Destree was growing uneasy. Foss and the rest had been scattered by the pummel of that power out of nowhere, but perhaps not so frightened that their fear of this place would last long. They would be the more determined to turn on what they could see and understand, after a fashion: this alien monster. And she remembered Foss’s warning. For all her place as healer and Voice, she would not be able to put an end to a second hunting.

“Chief.” She summoned the cat and he came to her. Valiantly she began to build a mind-picture. Over the year and months she had been here, this had been a daily exercise, and one in which the cat seemed eager to indulge.

Now she built up, solidified, and sharpened in thought as well as she could the outline of a door, using the portal of the shrine as a pattern. Once she was satisfied with that, she put Gruck on the other side and brought the alien through. Three times she repeated that mental exercise. Chief had watched her unblinkingly, but now Gruck moved. Once more that mighty arm swung out and caught her wrist. Now the great head swung from side to side, the nostrils quivered as if searching for some scent.

It—he—she understood? Destree gave thanks to the Lady in quick thought. Gruck was already moving eastward, drawing her after him, and she did not struggle to free herself.

They kept to the higher reaches which walled the valley, wending a way among the trees which had escaped the fire of the past. At intervals all sense of purpose was taken out of her hands while Gruck and the cat had one of their periods of silent communication. It was as if the stranger depended on some sense of Chief’s for general direction.

They rounded the edge of one of the sloping mountain meadows. No sheep grazed here today and she was sure that all flocks were safely pent in paddocks below. Gruck seemed tireless and Destree was glad of the long tramps she had taken in the past to hunt certain herbs and flowers to the Lady’s need.

At last they rounded the bole of a huge tree, one of the forest giants which could awe men. Beyond, a thicket had been visibly torn apart, the wilting limbs of lower growth crushed and splintered. It might even have been the site of a scrimmage. Was it here that Gruck had killed the great hound?

But her furred guide now stopped to pull and hurl from their way the debris. And, within a few strides, the stranger stopped short. It turned once more to face her, flinging its arms in a gesture which engulfed the whole of this denuded clearing.

Cautiously Destree advanced. The thick underbrush must have been attacked by Gruck on his arrival here—her thoughts sorted that out. However, there were no standing pillars as she had learned from those of Estcarp and Escore usually marked such a site. Instead there was only a block of dull blue stone, its surface cut with a pattern which was so filled with earth and worn away that only her sight, trained to keenness by herb search, could distinguish it at all.

Gruck took a stride forward, hurling away a last tangle of uprooted brush, to take a firm stand upon that stone. Then those great eyes were filled with entreaty as they turned to Destree.

She pulled loose some of the splintered growth and went to her knees, her hands spread palms-down on the edge of the stone only inches away from those huge pawlike feet.

“Lady!” she made her plea. She was sure that if there was any way this alien could return to whence it had come surely the Lady in Her pity would allow it.

But there was nothing of the feel of Power here—nothing but the grit of soil and stone under her seeking hands. This could be any rock of the mountainside, never put to any other use. Perhaps—perhaps the transportation of Gruck had exhausted all the Power which it had once held. She knew that all the gates known worked erratically. Sometimes they slumbered for years. Sometimes they awoke, to the peril of this world—as when the Kolders marched with death—or to the despair of others from alien worlds who were jerked through and made prisoners, of sorts. Destree felt a piercing memory of one such prisoner and her fate. That one had sealed the gate, that it could harvest no more from the sea—there would be no more dead ships in that port now.

Destree crouched, staring down at the rock, her hands still flat on the lifeless stone. How could she explain to Gruck that there was no return?

Her present problem was one of communication. There was no way she could make clear to this alien what had happened. Such complicated explanations could not be shifted through Chief. She lacked the Power… The Power!

The only hope now was the shrine. If Gunnora chose to break the barrier between them, Destree had no doubt it would go down. But the shrine lay on the border of the valley—it was often visited. And, perhaps because of her interference, Foss and his fellow hunters might already be laying an ambush there. Or could they—where the Lady held Her beneficent rule? She could only hope that the shrine was safe for her purpose, for her need of what she might be able to learn there drew her like a hound’s leash about her throat.