Andre Norton: The Key of the Keplian

The girl raised eyebrows. “What has that to do with me?”

“Your looks,” the old man said bluntly. “You may be no witch, you say you have no power, but you look like one of the race. Gray eyes, black hair.” He ticked the points off on his fingers. “Your cheekbones are high and your chin more pointed than blunt. You are slender, as we tend to be.” He nodded. “I know you are not of our blood, but from the outside and to one who may have only heard a description, you appear to be of Estcarp. Be very wary. Karsten blames the witches for what happened to their land.”

Eleeri snorted. “Oh,” she said sarcastically. “It was their duke who went crazy and ordered a massacre. As far as I can see, all the witches did was defend their land and their people.”

Her friend sighed. “I know that. But after the turning of the Mountains, I think few were left in this land who were sane. The army died almost to a man in that turning. Women bereaved do not reason, they simply hate. With most of the leaders dead and our duke slain, those left turned often to violence to settle their needs. Those who escaped turned to kill in reply. It became a cycle from which Karsten has never broken.”

“Tell me more of the Horning. Why would a ruler murder his own people?” Eleeri questioned.

The old man sighed. “It’s a long story, but I will tell you what I can briefly,” he said. “Karsten has always been a divided land in some ways. It was my people, the Witch People of Estcarp, who held a portion of it for long years before others came. But we are slow to breed, with long lives.”

“Is one the reason for the other?”

“No. It is the witch gift. The women who have it leave home and family as small children. The witches school them to the use of power.”

“Are power and gift the same, then?”

“No, my dear, but one is born from the other. The gift you have. That is the ability, the talent. But power is gathered to it over long years of work and learning. Power exists in many things also and may be tapped by one who has the gift. It is like to, say, your gift to handle horses. If you had never used it, the gift would still be there, dormant. But each time you used it, learned what you could do, it grew.”

Eleeri reflected. That made sense to her. She returned to the Horning. What had divided the people?

“Our people settled here in Karsten. The capital, Kars, grew on an excellent port where the Sulcar come. They are a race of sailors. Their women and children travel with them on all but the dangerous trips which explore unknown lands. Then others came. They took much of the land we had not used. For very many generations we lived side by side in peace.”

“But what changed it?”

Cynan sighed softly. “Nothing stays the same forever. I think perhaps there were some who had always been jealous of the witch gift. When the Kolder came, they used power of another kind to turn the duke against us. Their power could not break us; because of our touch of the gift, our people could stand against it. To rule Karsten and the other lands they coveted, they must be rid of all with our gift. Thus they set the duke to run mad. We were thrice horned as outlaws. The hands of all were against us and no matter what might be done to us, there was to be no accounting.”

Eleeri shivered. With license like that she could well imagine some of what would have been done. Cynan touched her shoulder in understanding. “It was all a long time ago. Other things came of it all. Some were good to balance evil.”

She looked her question.

“If some of Karsten feared and resented us, others were our friends. In the days when we died for being what we were, some of Karsten stood beside us. They hid us, risked their lives and all they had to keep us safe and smuggle us away over-mountain to Estcarp. None of us forget that not all were greedy for what we had.

“Nor was that all.” He smiled gently at her. “You are not the first to enter these lands through a gate. Long before you came Simon Tregarth. He wed a woman of the gift and much power.”

“But I thought the witches had to stay virgin.”

“So they do; that is why our people grow less. It is also why the witches cast out Simon’s wife from their midst. Yet, perhaps because Simon was not of our race, his wife retained her gift.”

Eleeri flung back her head, laughing. “I bet that annoyed them.”

“It did in truth. Still Simon wed Jaelithe his witch lady. Then came an event almost unheard of among us. At one birth she bore three children, two boys and a girl.”

“Triplets!”

“Just so. But all of that is a long story, too. Suffice it to say the girl had the gift. The witches had her away to their place of learning, but her brothers rescued her. They fled to the mountains. There to the east there is a very ancient land over-mountain, Escore. There even now they live and fight against evil.”

“What evil?”

The old man sighed. “Am I to tell you the whole history of all the lands? Generations ago, Escore was our land, in part. We shared it with many creatures, and other races, too. But adepts rose. They learned great power, and with it came evil. Some turned to the darkness to aid them. Others battled them to save the land and those who inhabited it. Still others chose to withdraw, either through gates they created or into their own strongholds. Eventually my people fled Escore. There were others who chose to remain.”

His mind wandered back. Both to the tales of his boyhood and those later stories he had heard. “There was another race. Like us but tied more strongly to the land. They chose to stay. They are led by the Lady of the Green Silences: Duhaun, Morquant, and other names she uses in the old tales. She is one of great gifts and power. Now she or one of her line rules the Valley of the Green Silences, where good strives always against the evil many adepts unleashed.”

“You said other creatures and races? Do you mean that there’s more than one? What are they like?” Eleeri was leaning forward in her interest.

“There are Gray Ones, or so the word comes. They are not men but have affinities with wolves. They fight with teeth and talons, not swords, nonetheless they are formidable fighters and intelligent to some extent.”

“Who else?”

“Keplians and Renthans. The Renthans are both beautiful and intelligent. Often they act as mounts for those of the valley. They fight always for the Light.” He sighed. “I know little of the other, the Keplians. They look like black horses in many ways. They may come to one who has lost his mount, appearing tame to the eyes. But if you mount, then they bear you away to be devoured by evil. The adepts who turned to darkness often used them as mounts. It is said that despite their beauty, the only good Keplian is a dead Keplian.”

“But what about Karsten here?” Eleeri queried. “As I came toward this place, I found keep after keep which had been destroyed. None of that was old. I’d say most of it had been done within the past year.”

“When it looked as if we’d lose, the witches turned the mountains,” Cynan said slowly. “They used the power to wring them out into new shapes. The current duke and all his army were within the mountain trails. I suspect very few could have escaped. After that, others tried to become duke. Each time they must fight against those who reject them. For more than thirty years now the people of this land have looted and been looted in their turn. Here and there men have gathered families and sufficient fighters to make some sort of peace in their lands. But those places are few. Even Kars is lawless, so I hear.”

Eleeri was bewildered. “How can people live like that? The land will end up with no one, surely.”