Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

Now the soft wind vanished, and, as if in reproof of her inner demand, she seemed to be swept along so fast that she was rendered breathless. Find! To that she held firmly.

That which served Destree now for eyes saw light, more brilliant than she had known since she had left the Shrine—for on a table stood two lamps, both turned as high as possible, and on shelves others.

She knew at once where her petition had brought her: This was the workroom of an herbalist, a healer. And she who labored here sat by the lit table, a script so ancient it had been engraved on copper beneath one hand while with the fingers of the other she was tracing out the inscription word by word, whispering as she went.

Suddenly she looked up, staring at where Destree might be if she were indeed present in body. Her eyes were wide, and she stared as one who found belief difficult.

“You—you are a messenger,” she said, rising quickly from the stool on which she had been seated. “Yet you seek no witch.”

“I am of the Lady’s chosen,” Destree thought in return.

Nolar drew her hand down her stained cheek—perhaps the return of some very old gesture she had once used in an attempt to hide that marking.

“The Three in One, Guardian of all life, be ever with us.” she spoke the words of recognition. “How may I serve Her from whom you have come?”

“Our witch is overborne by what she has discovered. Thus I carry what must be known.” Swiftly—she had no idea how long her strength of trance could hold—she described to her listener their new discovery by Mouse, and the need laid upon them. “If you have discovered a ward,” she concluded, “it is needed at all cost now. We fear that worse than the Kolders may be upon us. I…”

She faltered; the trance was fading, she had never tried her talent so deeply before. “Help—aid—” she got out those last two words.

Then once more the darkness and the wind which had carried her closed in.

Nolar stood but for a moment—awe still touched her. Then she went swiftly to a shelf on which stood a small gong. Swiftly she struck the metal and the ringing tone of it not only filled the room but, as she knew it would, reached out into corridors and rooms beyond.

“Nolar!” came a voice she knew well. She knew he would be the first to answer. It was always so—when she needed him, he was there. The marshal was not in war gear, but still he went sword-belted, and all knew that with that well-used blade he could give good account of himself. But against an army with strange and overpowering weapons, turned so toward the Dark that they might open a blood gate? He already had his arm around her.

“We gather in council. However, we are stronger: Hilarion has returned. So already all are summoned.”

“To the south,” she said in a small whisper. “Oh, Duratan—so far away!”

It was not such a large assemblage as had gathered at Es City months earlier, but what would be decided here might change a world forever.

Simon Tregarth and Jaelithe, Simon just home from a second sweep search in North Escore, Dahaun and Kyllan, the Sage Morfew, and, curiously flanked by Gull and Willow (as if they drew in now to make common cause), Lady Mereth. While Kaththea sat, she was not at rest, her body tense—she might have been one of the great cats about to bring down a skillfully tracked quarry. And Hilarion paced back and forth, turning swiftly as Nolar and Duratan came in.

“The alarm.” Simon Tregarth, rather than Gull, seemed for the moment in command.

Nolar moved forward until she stood behind the nearest empty stool, though she made no move to seat herself. With a cautious glance at the two witches, she launched speedily into her report. Dahaun’s long fingers locked before her, and after the manner of her ancient race her fair hair darkened to a somber black, her skin becoming nearly chalk white.

Hilarion’s pacing had come to an abrupt stop and he was watching Nolar as if he would shake the words out of her at a faster pace than she could utter them.

“Well?” Gull looked to the adept. “What mastership of Power can be pulled forth now? Kolder darkness lasted for years and nearly wrecked us. Do we await a second coming of such?”

She was fingering her jewel, and her eyes were narrow as she kept them on the adept. Of old there had been no meeting place for the Witches of Estcarp and any man who claimed Power. But Hilarion reached far back—even before the first beginning of their sisterhood.

“I came with certain information,” he returned abruptly. “We have sought afar, even before the first stones of this storage house of knowledge was laid. The gates which were our playthings—oh, yes, I played such games also until I was enwebbed by my own recklessness—were born of the curiosity of a single man: Arscro. And any reference to him and his dealings have been hunted, here, by the leave of your sisterhood”—he inclined his head in Gull’s direction—“among all the stores of legend and history your hold.

“What may lay elsewhere in this world—in Arvon, in the parts we now know nothing of, we cannot guess. But the gate plan was born from the mind of a single man, seized upon by his fellow adepts with great enthusiasm, dealt with, refined, sharpened as one edges a sword.”

“And what has this to do now with what we face?” Gull’s voice was sour and sharp.

“What can be born in one mind can be recaptured. We might have searched for a hundred seasons but for that which Sage Morfew brought us. Together with my own knowledge of the opening of gates, we have an answer of sorts. Whether it will be successful…” He shrugged. “There is this about the highest magic: Its results cannot be foreseen, only speculated upon—or tried in desperation.”

“Now we here face what has been learned by our southern band,” Simon’s deep tone cut in. Jaelithe’s hand lay on her knees, and his wider fist closed over it as one who would hold what he has past all dispute. “Time is against them. She who speaks for Gunnora—Destree n’Regnant—has stood against great evil in the past and we were also a part of that battle. She says that their witch is exhausted. And how many leagues of mountain and hostile land now lie between us? Even if we had before us the solution—the gate lock—how could we give it to those who need it most? And even if they received the spell, would it answer to them, so far removed from the place it was woven?”

Hilarion shook his head slowly. “Do you think that every one of your questions has not already been made plain—though it was not until this hour I knew how desperate the cause might be?”

For some reason Nolar’s attention was drawn away from the men confronting one another to Dahaun once more. The Lady of the Green Valley, she who had been one of those who held firm against the Dark for more years than Nolar could count—she was once more changing. The black hair was silvery as if time laced it through, her face was thin and drawn.

Kyllan must have noticed the change also, for he was on his feet, shoving back his stool, standing over her as if with his very presence he could keep some peril away.

She spoke, addressing Hilarion directly. The two of them might have stood alone in that room.

“You know what can be done.”

“What I could try.”

“And only you?” she asked.

“Only me—now. It might be a long search to find someone with talent enough, and then even longer to teach such.”

The withered, aged look seemed stamped upon her now—her usual many changes were lost in the past.

“Then there is only one way!” She stood and seemed not to see Kyllan’s hand come out to her, rather advanced within touching distance of Hilarion.