Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

With the coming of the sun there also appeared birds, strange in color, fearless as they hopped about the travelers in their resting places among the columns.

Firdun awoke at a touch on his shoulder and looked up at Guret.

“The scouts have returned, Lord. Those who left did not try to hide their trail but have gone swiftly, as if to reach their goal was more important than to beware of followers.”

“Which may mean they feel they have no reason to fear us.” Firdun yawned away the rest of his desire for sleep. Or else, he thought more glumly, they expected such a welcome where they went as would effectively dispose of any trackers.

He saw Ibycus now, standing by the pool curbing. Gathered around the mage were a flock of mixed birds. There were tall, stilt-legged waders, certainly meant to spend their days walking through pools, contrasting in size with small puffs of feather well able to fit in the palm of his own hand.

For the most part their coloring was in shades of rose, but there were a few pure white. And he saw one a startling and vivid blue green. That one perched boldly on the peak of Ibycus’s cap as if in charge of the company. Oddly enough, under the sun the pavement, the curbing of the pool, and the columns beside where Fir-dun had bedded down seemed to emit a rosy haze, almost if a setting sun had altered the blue of the sky. He wondered at the use of this place even as he donned his mail. Though he was aware of a very faint whisper of Power here, he was sure nothing could summon it again. What had given it energy was long since gone.

Then he started and a moment later laughed at himself. That he had seen a pard loop away between columns was not strange. Kethan must have also awakened and assumed his were shape. But he was padding steadily away from the company, and not turning north as if about to verify the trail of those others; it was as if he had another goal in view.

Thus Firdun also looked southward. They had faced two of the strange places of the Waste. By report and rumor there were infinitely more. Was Kethan under orders from Ibycus or now drawn to some discovery on his own?

No one mentioned his going as they gathered for their meal and Firdun was oddly disinclined to ask. Aylinn awakened late and did not join them, still gathering her talent strength, though the coming of the night should restore her.

He knew generally of moon power, of course, though none of the four women of the Gryphon followed that path. It was one of the oldest of the talents, but it was growing thin—he had heard that fewer and fewer were born with that trait.

It was true though the Mantle holds were each settled by those of the Old Race and there were healers and wise women, and even female sages and mages to be found, such Powers were not avidly sought and those who held them became in time estranged from their clans and after a fashion kinless, living only for the Power.

Yet in this girl out of Reeth he had sensed none of that withdrawal and certainly her ties, from what he had heard during their journeying, were as tightly kin bound to those of the Green Tower as he was to the Gryphon.

Elysha was more his idea of one of the Greater Talent; still, in some ways she in turn was bonded with Ibycus, whether that mage wished it or not.

On impulse he picked up one of the big leaves they had put to basket use and which still held a good number of berries, carrying it over to Aylinn.

She looked up, seemed a little startled, and then smiled.

“Greetings to you, my lord, and thanks for your thoughtfulness. It is true that one wakes always with hunger when the Power is evoked.”

“My name is Firdun.” Suddenly it was important to him that titles or honors be forgotten. After all, in this company they stood equal, each with his or her own duties.

Now she laughed, a giggle such as Hyana would give before accusing him of being pompous. She had crammed a goodly handful of berries into her mouth as if indeed her hunger had overridden all daintiness of manners. A small trickle of juice showed at the corner of her mouth and she licked that in.

“Firdun it shall be—even as with Aylinn. Are we all not kin in the Light?”

She made a small gesture and he squatted on his heels, Kioga style, to bring them closer together.

“I do not know your way of Power,” he began hesitatingly, not quite sure even yet why he had approached her so.

Again she laughed. “Strange would it be if you did. It is woman Power—like unto the teaching of Gunnora. Is not your sister Hyana one of the healing faith?”

“A healer, yes, but she learned much from the Lady Sylvya and she is—”

“Not of our blood or breed.” Aylinn nodded. “My mother heals and she is of witch blood from overseas. My father is were. Or so we believed for many years until Kethan came to us and we learned that evil had wrought at our united birthing—I being truly daughter to a hold lord and he son of those who had always fostered me. Now we are truly brother and sister. Still the talent arose in me when I was very young and my mother fostered it—sending me to Linard of the healers for learning. But their First Lady found that I was Moon-touched also and thus—” she had dropped the berry-stained leaf Elysha had shared with her and now made a small gesture, “I am what I am—and I am well content.”

Her eyes were full upon him, gray he had thought them in the daylight, yet with some of the moon glimmer in them. And they saw!

He wanted to twist away—not to face that weighing.

“You see yourself flawed.” She spoke plainly. “Flaws can be turned from ill to well if they are examined closely.”

He wanted to break that eye bondage, but he could not—and not because she held him in any encirclement as Elysha had done.

“I ward,” he said slowly, “because I threw away my chance to meld. There are those of the Gryphon and there is… me. Though I was but a child, I let in evil, and from that came great grief and my loss.”

“You are—” she was beginning, when suddenly her eyes went wide and no longer kept him captive. But her hand groped to catch his arm in a bruising hold. “Kethan!”

Though she spoke that name as hardly more than a whisper, it sounded like a shout. Firdun gained his feet, alert as he would have been to a Kioga battle horn, bringing her with him. For a moment or two she clung to him.

“Kethan!” she cried again.

If there had been some mind-send, Firdun had not caught it. But now Aylinn loosed her hold on him and, paying no attention to the gear scattered about, whistled. There came a clatter of hooves between the columns as the were mounts answered.

“What—” but he had no time to frame a question. Those about them were astir, but none close enough to catch her before she mounted the bare back of the mare and the beast whirled, the stallion keeping equal pace out and away to the south.

Ibycus pounded his staff on the pavement. “The young fool,” he snapped. “No, we cannot put that name to him, for what he follows is born of nature even if it be used by another.”

“Do we ride?” Guret could have been speaking either to Firdun or the mage. Behind him the camp was completely astir, packing with speed.

“There is no choice, even though it draws us farther from our trail,” was the mage’s answer.

But Firdun had already run to saddle his own mount. He took the time to arm himself, resenting each lost moment. Also he beckoned to Obred and ordered that the Kioga move out.

He had scouted enough with the tribesmen to be able to follow the trail which Aylinn had certainly made no attempt to conceal. Now already the columns were behind and he was watching those prints ground into the moss which were his guide.

That some danger had struck at the were, he had no doubt. He had no idea what talent the other could call upon in defense past his shapechanging. As a pard he could be prey for any hunter—even though this land seemed bare of any but the smallest game.