Andre Norton - Year of the Unicorn

“Witch.” the Captain stood straddle-legged before me. “Where did they go the Were Riders?”

“On.”

“And they left you because they found you out for what you are?”

“Yes.”

That might or might not be true, but I thought he guessed rightly.

“Therefore their magic was greater than yours—”

“I cannot judge their power.”

He thought on that, and I do not think he relished his thoughts.

“What awaits ahead?”

Again I gave him the truth. “Now—nothing.”

“Did they become thin air and float away?” Smarkle twitched the cord about my ankles in a cruel pull. “The same you will not, witch wench!”

“They passed a barrier, it closed behind them.”

The Captain glanced up at the sun, now almost gone from this shadowed valley, and then at the choked passage ahead. He did not appear to like its looks, but he was a seasoned warrior and prepared to make sure of his ground. At a gesture from him two of the archers laid aside their bows, drew swords, and worked their way up the piles of slide debris.

To one side lay the fur rug which had been left with me. Smarkle advanced a hand to it, and then lifted it higher with the toe of his boot, scudding across the frozen ground.

“Stupid fool!” The Captain turned on him. “That is a shape changer’s hide. Would you touch it?”

Smarkle shivered, his leering grin gone. He grabbed a branch from those laid ready for the fire and lifted the finely dressed hide, thrusting it yet farther away. A rug—they so feared a fur rug? But these men must have faced the fur of the Riders in their battle guise, to them it was indeed an animal’s pelt.

My bag of simples—I could see the end of its carrying strap lying in the shadow of a rock. Doubtless they would deal the same with that should they find it, mistrusting the “magic” it might contain. Were I free and had it in my hands, then I might indeed work “magic”—

But they did not sight it, not yet. And now the Captain came back to his interrogation of me.

“Where did they go? What lies behind this barrier?”

“I do not know—save that they sought another land—” The Captain snapped up the eye piece of his helm, took off the head covering. His hair was very fair—not the warm yellow, or light red-brown of a Dalesman—but rather almost white, as if he were an old man—yet that he was not. He had a sharp and jutting nose, not unlike an eagle’s beak (an eagle’s beak...would I ever now look for such signs on a man’s face?) and high cheekbones set wide apart—though his eyes were small and narrow lidded so that he appeared to ever squint.

He ran his hand from one temple back up his head. There were marks of fatigue on his face, and that kind of tautness shown by a man driven to the edge of endurance, perhaps beyond. He sat down on a stone, no longer looking at me, but staring into the fire. Moments later the scouts returned. “Well?”

“Much fallen rock and then just cliff—they could not have gone that way.”

“They came in here.” the other scout said, a thin, unsteadiness in his voice. “They could not have doubled back past us. They came in here—but now they are gone!”

The Captain’s gaze swung once more to me. “How?” his voice rasped that one word demand.

“To each his own sorcery. They asked a gate to open—it did.”

It had opened for them—not me. But that would not stop me, any more than this remnant of broken, fleeing men would stop me. Somewhere beyond that wall was a part of me. It would draw me on, guide me, and I would be whole once again!

“She—she can get us by—” Thacmor nodded at me. “The witches—they say wind and wave, earth and sky, obey them.”

“One witch alone, who could not use her power before?” The Captain shook his head. “Do you think she would have been here, waiting for us, had she been able to break their spells? No, the hunt’s lost now—”

Smarkle licked his lips, the others shifted uneasily.

“What do we do now, Captain?”

He shrugged. “We eat, we—” He paused to grin at me, “amuse ourselves. On the morrow we lay plans again.”

Some one of them laughed. Another slapped his near companion on the shoulder. They were pushing aside tomorrow, living for the hour as was customary with fighting men whose lives were long forfeit. I glanced at the meat by the fire. It would soon be done, then they would eat and then—after—

If I only had the knowledge. There was that in me, I was sure, which might act as shield and sword at this hour could I release it. Will—I had always thought of it as power of will. Will-power—Could I channel will to make of it a weapon?

The simple bag, my desperate thoughts kept coming back to that. They had scooped up snow, dumped it by the fistful into a small pot now shoved close to the flames. A few drops from a certain small bottle into that and—

But I was as far from achieving that as I was from finding the vanished gate. What I did not know was so much more than what I did.

They ate and the smell of the roasting meat, as they tore it with teeth or sawed chunks off with the belt knives, aroused the hunger the cordial had allayed. They offered me none and I knew their purpose. Whatever use they planned to make of me this night, I would not go hence with them in the morning. Why should they wish to burden their troop with a woman who was also a feared witch?

The simple bag. I tried to keep my eyes from it, lest one of them followed my gaze and find it. But when I stole another look I saw, doubtless by some trick of firelight, it was now in the open, could be sighted by any who turned his head. In the open—but how? It had been between two rocks—those two—and now it was inches away!

That shook me—so simple a thing among all the greater. However it is such that tugs at reason when greater shocks will not. The bag had lain there, now it was by so much the nearer to me. As if my desire and will had lent it legs on which to answer my unvoiced summoning. Legs—will? Almost I dared not believe—but I had to.

The flap-cover of the bag—it was fastened so and so. Not daring to look I stared into the flames of my captors’ fire and concentrated on building a picture in my mind of that latching. So easy to finger, but for the mind—ah, that was different. How many times can one accurately and minutely describe some well-known possession we handle a hundred times a day? It is so familiar to us that the eye takes no record of its details. To try to recall without looking at it now becomes strange and alien.

Thus and thus—rod into metal loop, turned down—so! I had it correctly pictured, or hoped that I had. Now—to reverse that locking—turn up—slide out—Dared I look to the bag once more to see if it had obeyed my will? Better not—though not to know—

Now—within—how were ranked those contents? I put myself back in the night filled room of Dame Alousan, the cupboards I had opened, drawers which had yielded to my pull. In what order had I filled those pockets and loops? So deeply did I search memory that the fire and the scene before me blurred. I dared not think on how much time I might have left, as one by one I used memory as a pointer as to what lay now in the shadows. The fifth pocket—it was the fifth pocket! If memory had not foresaken me utterly when I needed it most.

Slender tube, not of glass, but of tone, hollowed and then capped with a Stopper of black stone. Out-tube! Greatly daring I dropped my head forward on my knee, face turned to the darkness. They might well believe me sunk in despair, but now I could see what I wrought, or tried to do—

The tube—out! Movement under the flap of the bag. I do not think it was until that moment, in spite of hope, I dared to believe that I was accomplishing anything. And the sight of my small success almost defeated my efforts by surprise. Again my will steadied, I saw the bone tube work from beneath the leather cover, lay open to sight on the ground.