Andre Norton - Amber out of Quayth

Ysmay had to use both hands to draw open the outer door. The quickest way to the angled tower was straight across the courtyard. But she had no mind to reveal her going to any at some window.

Instead she slipped along the wall, her cloak and skirt dragging in the drifted snow until she reached the door to Hylle’s stronghold. The hand she raised to its latch was the one above the serpent.

There was no lock. The door swung easily, perhaps too easily, to her pull.

A room of sharp angles was but dimly lighted.

Ysmay gasped, for facing her was a cloaked figure. Then she raised her serpent-girdled arm, and that other copied her gesture. She realized she fronted a mirror.

But for the mirror and two lamps high in wall niches, there was nothing—save smell. Her nose tingled at the war of strange odors here. Some might have been pleasing, but they were nigh overcome by acrid whiffs she could not identify.

She turned slowly, peering into those dusky angles. By her survey she discovered what could not be seen from the courtyard, that this tower had been erected in the form of a five-pointed star. She had a vague recollection of ancient lore concerning such a star.

However it was not this bare, shadowed room she sought. Seeing a stairway within one of the angles, she ascended. The steps were worn in depressions, as if from long use. In fact the whole interior of this tower carried the weight of years in its stones, as if a toll of centuries had settled upon it.

Thus Ysmay came into a chamber crowded with such a wealth of things as she could not sort into any understandable array. There were tables filled with curls of metal piping, with retorts, with bottles and flagons—some of which she recognized as akin to those used in herb distilling. And there were things she could not name at all.

She feared to touch anything. For that mingling of odors was very great, almost overpowering, bringing more than a hint of danger. Ysmay rubbed her fingers across the serpent.

For some reason it was lighter here, enough to show still another stair. Ysmay took care in crossing to it, threading a way by those littered tables, holding tight her cloak lest she brush something from one of them.

So she came up to the room of her vision. Here were the pillars forming first an outer star, and then an inner. Against the far wall were two tables. At the point of each star row were candlesticks as high as her own shoulder. In each burned a candle wrist thick. The flames were not honest red-gold, but bluish, making her own flesh look unhealthy and diseased.

Her hand went forth of its own accord. Someone might have held a chain fastened to her wrist, jerked it without warning, to draw her. She walked between two of the outer pillars, coming so to the center.

Before her was the woman of her vision, and the man who was Hylle, yet not Hylle. Imprisoned though they were, their eyes lived, fastened avidly on her as if they strove to cry aloud what must be done. Yet if they had had the power to bring her here, that power was limited, for no message reached her.

But she could not doubt what they wanted—their freedom. Could people be so encased and yet live? This was magic such as she had met only in old legends.

“What must I do?” she begged them. She touched the surface of the pillar which encased the woman.

To her fingers it was solid. Broken? Cut? Amber was a soft material, easily worked. A knife might chip away its substance.

Ysmay drew her belt knife, used the point in a hacking blow, only to have good steel rebound as if she had struck at a stone. The force jarred her arm. Not even a scratch was left on the surface of the pillar.

That there was a way to free them she did not doubt, but it must lie in magic. She stepped away and turned slowly around, surveying the whole group of pillars set star within star. The blue light made even more fantastic the grotesque heads and bodies. But she forced herself to a full inspection.

Those of the outer star were not human, but a mixture of weird forms. The second star held more humanoid figures, half of them small, squat, wearing tunics like men.

Their bodies were thick, wide of shoulder, arms long, out of proportion. From their fingers and toes protruded long curved claws, closer to the talons of some bird or animal than to a human nail. Their faces—these surely had kinship with Ninque’s people.

Nails, squat shapes—Ysmay fitted what she saw to make a thought which brought a shiver to her. The hooded men with their gloves—Hylle’s followers who kept, or were kept, apart from the Dales-people. Was this their real appearance? But why were these few pillar-bound?

It was a relief to look back to the wholly human forms of the man and woman. Once more their eyes burned, besought—If she could only understand what she could do—must do!

Those eyes were closing! There was a shade of intense concentration on their faces. Impulsively Ysmay raised her hand, shook back her sleeve so that the serpent was free. Because once before she had looked into its eyes with strange results, she did so again.

Larger—larger—now she stared at a single yellow globe, clean, free from the blue taint of the others. This time no window formed through which she viewed another place. Rather there was a whispering voice. Because she sensed that what it would tell her was of utmost importance, she strained to catch words, to make coherence of the sound. But there was no intelligible message. And at last the whisper died away.

She swayed. Her back and her feet ached, as did her head. She might not only have stood in that position for a length of time, but she felt as if she had concentrated on some mental exercise too hard for her. Ysmay sighed and let her stiff arm fall to her side.

The eyes of those in the pillars were open, but they were dull, dimmed. No longer was there that spark of vigorous demand. Whatever they had tried had failed.

Still she could not leave them. The knife had failed, and communication. With some vague hope of finding assistance, she made her way among the pillars to those tables she had sighted at her entrance.

They did not bear such utensils as she had seen below. But still—at least on one table—she did not like what she saw.

On it stood a cup. The foot was amber, dark, cracked, worn and warped. Its bowl was of a gray-white material. The interior was stained. Beside it, naked point to the stars, was a knife, its hilt the gray of the bowl, its blade—Ysmay jerked away, for along the blade crawled and writhed lines of red, as if runes of some forbidden knowledge formed, vanished, ran again.

There was a book, laid open at midpoint. Its pages were yellowed, wrinkled, inscribed with heavy black lines of writing unlike any she had seen before. There was one ornamented capital on each page, but not wreathed by flowers like those in old chronicles. No, here were two small scenes which brought a flush of shame to her face as she looked upon them, so vile were they, yet so ably done that they lingered hatefully in the mind.

Here also was an upright frame in which hung a bell of discolored metal, and beside it the mallet which would make it sound. Last of all was a candle-holder so wrought that once more she flushed. The candle it held was misshapen, beginning as one thick piece and then subdividing into five thinner portions of unequal length.

Evil hung so strongly here Ysmay could believe it visible as a black cloud. She backed away, thus coming to the second board. What lay there was different—irregular lumps of amber new taken from bedding. She thought she could even recognize those which had been passed from hand to hand at Uppsdale. There were few enough of them, very small showing compared with the wealth in those pillars.