Andre Norton - The Key of the Keplian

“I suspect trouble comes. Best we leave.”

The mare nodded, then stiffened as the gust of changing wind came to her nose. Her eyes met Eleeri’s in deepening surprise. The pack still followed. Eleeri led them to the river. Let the evil ones stick their noses into all that running water. It might cool their brains. The river ran higher than expected, so that the girl was becoming worried. It would be dangerous to cross, it must have rained higher in the mountains last night.

Moving with decision, she swung the hunt upriver, heading now for the stream that fed the lake. That, too, was high, and the crossing was difficult. They paused to rest on the other side as the pack snapped and snarled in frustration.

“Better keep going, kin-sister. I have a nasty feeling that if we stay in plain sight, it may impel that lot to do something stupid.”

The mare shrugged. *If they try to cross, they die.*

“And if it dawns on them this stream has an end?”

Tharna looked startled. It would be well out of the territory, but there was actually nothing to prevent the pack from circling the lake to continue the hunt.

*It is far—many days, even for them.*

“True, but if they are driven, they might not care about that. There is food to be hunted and when they round the lake there are also humans.”

The mare nodded silently. Humans unaware of approaching danger. As they talked, they had moved away from the stream, hooves clicked dully on the rocky trail. They traveled several hours in silence, each recalling the events of the day. There was little doubt that something stirred in the land once more. Tharna was apprehensive; her kin-sister would insist on poking her nose into it, whatever it was. She would that Eleeri was better armed. Not with her bow only, but with the gift and powers. They walked slowly, so she had time to decide. A flick of her mind alerted the girl that there was something the mare wished her to consider.

Eleeri listened. The golden mist at the canyon end had almost ceased to interest her. It was forbidden to enter; nothing answered calls from without. Her pendant warned her away from it and even her own common sense advised caution there. There had been so many other adventures and paths to follow, the mist had been relegated to the back of her mind. Now she protested.

“We are still refused entry.”

*How long is it since you tried?*

That was a point. Eleeri thought back. Months, many months. It must have been—she counted on her fingers—why, it had been early last summer. Well, she could try again. It would do no harm as long as she was polite. At least she hoped it wouldn’t.

She did try, to receive the clear impression of a barred door. Whatever was within the mist wasn’t welcoming her in today. She walked away slowly. Would it ever allow her in? Was there something she was supposed to be doing to pay for the privilege? She chuckled. She didn’t want to get in that much anyhow; it was just curiosity.

Farther down the canyon, Tharna waited. She noted the return and the deliberately casual air. It seemed the gate was still barred to them and her kin-sister wasn’t of a mind to try again in a hurry. Tharna said nothing but returned to grazing.

Eleeri noticed both the attention, then the studied disinterest. It pricked her so that she turned on her heel and returned to the mist. There she stood formulating what she would say. The Gray Ones’ unusual behavior, the sense that something was wrong in the lower lands. The feeling of an approaching storm, not of wind and sky but of power and danger. She fixed the feelings in her mind, then did what she felt was the equivalent of knocking on the mist’s door.

In a burst she sent her message. Attention sharpened on her. She felt a sudden exhilaration. That had interested it.

Query?

She sent again her surprise at the way the wolfmen had followed them so tenaciously. This time she included all events, mental pictures of the terrain. The way they had been hounded right to the very edge of running water. The way she and Tharna had felt they should move away even that after crossing—as if the desperation of the pack to reach them was communicated. The sudden fear that the Gray Ones might decide to circle the lake, move into territory they did not know. Endanger the humans there who were friends.

She had the impression then of having her mind winnowed. The rifler was interested in the Keplian mare. They were friends? Yes, they were, and was there anything wrong with that? was Eleeri’s sharp response.

In return she received a burst of amusement. On the contrary. The mist or whatever dwelt within was pleased. Eleeri blinked, sending her own query in turn: Why ? Now there was a sense of duality touching her, not one thing communicating, but two. Male and female. She received the impression they were human in some way, more than human in others. Adepts, then? she queried. In reply the touch vanished. The image of the barred door returned and she found herself backing slowly away again as the mist writhed and coiled.

She retired hastily to share the experience with Tharna. They stared at each other when she had finished. Wordlessly the mare began to graze again. She liked to consider things, to chew over thoughts as she did grass. Eleeri was not so eager to think about all this. In several ways she wasn’t even sure she had liked the way her mind had been invaded. She had suffered no injury, but they could at least have asked, she thought resentfully. She didn’t even belong in this world.

That brought her up short in her mind. Didn’t she? This world had allowed her to be herself; it had given her a home, a roof and friends. Here she rode as a warrior as she could never have done in the world she had escaped.

It had been an escape. She had run here. Entered willingly along the road of the gone-before ones. For a single moment she felt a terrible longing for Far Traveler and their home. But her great-grandfather was gone, their small home no longer hers. Even if she could go back, nothing would ever be the same. Tharna and Hylan could not travel with her; in her world they would be treated ill. She fingered her knife. She could not ride as a warrior there. That thought alone could sway her powerfully.

Life was hard in this land she had chosen. She must fight to survive, to eat. For food and trade she must hunt, and all she owned was from the work of her own hands. She drew in a deep breath of the spring-scented air. Then she marched into her keep. It was hers, hers by right of finding, by use. The decision had been made. For all this time in many ways she had been living as if her sojourn here were only temporary. Now she knew in a burst of wild gladness it was her home, her keep, her land. No one was going to take anything away from her without having a fight on their hands. And that, she added with mental ferocity, included any Gray Ones or their masters.

She swept inside to begin turning out winter-musty furs. Bedding she hauled to the stream and washed in the stone basins designed for that purpose. She looked properly at the basins for the first time. Clever: whoever had dwelt here hadn’t intended to live without amenities. She trotted back inside to add her own clothing to the pile.

She left the grass spread with her work, as she returned to her keep. For too long she had used only the great hall. On very cold or wet nights many of the Keplians would join her there. She had never bothered to search the upper rooms.

She snorted. That had been the faint remembrances of Far Traveler’s tales. Of how it was not well to accept a roof where the owners had died. She didn’t know that the owners had died here. It could have been far away. They could even be those who lived behind the mist, and hence not dead at all. She tramped up the narrow stone stairs. You could tell this place had been built by those expecting a war. The stairs had no rail and twisted in a way that allowed a defender free sword-arm.