Andre Norton - Zarsthor's Bane

Open!

An order—delivered by whom—or what? The thing Marbon had summoned? If so she was indeed in danger. Brixia still kept her eyes tightly closed, tried to do the same for her mind. As the mist had made a prisoner of Dwed, so did the will she sensed strive to enmesh her—not in body but in mind.

“By what I hold,” Brixia cried aloud, “let me stand fast!”

Box and flower—

Her hands moved, bringing together the two objects she held. She could not be sure whether she acted by the commands of the Light, or the Dark. But it was done. And at the same moment she opened her eyes.

There was—

She was not in the mist curtained room of the pillar, rather she stood before the high seat in the feast hall of a keep. There were torches blazing high in the rings fastened to the stone of the walls. A cloth woven of many colors, each hue fading or deepening into the next, lay down the center of the board. And on that cloth were drinking horns of gleaming crystal, of the righ green of malachite, the warm red-brown of camelian, such a display as only the greatest of the dale lords might hope to equal.

Before each place was a platter of silver. And there were many dishes and bowls set out—some bearing patterned edges, or set with the wink of gems.

At first Brixia thought that she stood in a deserted hall and then she discovered that there was indeed a company there, but those who sat to feast were but the faintest of shadows, mere wisps so tenuous that she could not be sure which was man and which woman. It was as if that which was inert could be clearly seen, but life to her eyes was that of those shades which some dalespeople said clung to old, ill-omened places and were inimical to the living out of jealousy and despair at their own unhappy state.

Brixia cried out. She swayed, fought to move from where she stood directly before the high seat where he or she who ruled this shadow company might mark her presence in a moment. But she could not flee, no, she was fast held to face what might come.

A black flash—if light could be dark instead of white, slashed between her and the high seat, as a sword might swing to set a barrier of moving steel. Crooked and controlled, a will which was not wholly evil, yet carried with it the stigmata of the dark, was like a blow as it strove to seize upon her. It flailed at her like a harshly laid on lash. And now it seemed that the ghost shape in the high seat did indeed turn upon her visible eyes of red flame.

The shadow deepened even as Marbon’s features had appeared to move and change, grew to be more substance. It seemed to the girl that what crouched now in that high backed chair was no noble lord such as might rule this hall. Rather that which leered at her with those flame eyes, which might have been wrought from the coals of hell itself, was an outlaw, foul, the very worst of the brutes she had in the past fled, or hidden from, knowing well what would happen to her were she to fall into their hands.

Gone!

Crouched on the high seat now was a toad thing from the Waste—obscenely bloated, its toothed jaws agape, its clawed paws outstretched. A giant among its kind, fully as large and menacing as the outlaw shape it had replaced. It gabbled in distorted speech:

“Bane—the Bane!”

Box and flower—

Brixia came aware that she was pressing both of these with bruising force against her breast. Box and flower—

The toad thing winked out. Now it was the bird-woman. Her cruel bill clicked, she held high her arm wings, the talons crooked, and it would seem she was on the very point of hurling herself into the air, launching an attack on Brixia.

Illusions? The girl could not be sure. For as each appeared it was as solid, seemingly as substantial as the seat in which it sat or squatted. Box and flower—

Now—now it was Dwed! Still enwrapped in the mist he lay limply rather than sat in the high seat. All was hidden save a portion of his face. He raised his head weakly, looked at her with eyes which were dulled with horror and yet held in them a desperate plea:

“Bane—” The single word was a tortured whisper which echoed hollowly all through that hall.

Then—he was gone. In his place Uta—Uta firmly visible but in the grip of a monster shadow thing, twisting, fighting vainly to free herself ever as the misshapen paws netted tight about her furred throat to squeeze all life from her.

“Bane!” the cat squawked.

As had the others Uta vanished. For a long moment the high seat seemed empty. Then—no more shadow—here was a man as visible and as real as Marbon had been when he fronted her in the bubble room.

He wore mail, not the silken robe of a feaster, and a helmet overshadowed his face.

“Marbon!” Brixia near spoke that name aloud and then she saw that this was not the stricken Lord of Eggarsdale, though there was surely some close kin line linking them one to the other. But on this man’s face a harsh and arrogant pride had set an unbreakable seal. And there was a twist about his lips as if he bit upon something sour and unpalatable which poisoned any pleasure of this feasting.

Like their lord the others ranged there became the clearer. Nor were they all, Brixia realized with a shiver, of the human kind. There was a lady robed in the green of new spring leaves who sat upon the right hand of the lord. But her flowing hair was as delicately and freshly green as the gown which she wore, and her face, beautiful as it was, was not that of a human woman. On the other seat, to the lord’s left, a cat’s head arose not so far above the level of the table. In color it might have been Uta but Brixia believed, could she see it better, this strange feline would have been half again as large.

There were others—a young man wearing a helm on which the crest was a rearing horse, and whose face had an unhuman cast—not as pronounced as that of the green woman, but unmistakable. There was another woman plainly robed in cloth the color of steel, girdled with metal plates each of which was centered by a milk-white gem. Her hair, as white as those gems, was braided about her head so that it itself formed a crown of presence. And her calm face held strength and assurance. Yet there was about her some of the feeling that she was apart from this company, an onlooker at what might pass here, and yet not a partaker in any action. On her breast rested an intricately fashioned pendant of the same white stones. And Brixia felt that served its owner for as powerful a weapon as any war blade.

At the far end of the table, where the other feasters appeared to have withdrawn a little to give them room (as if they were not entirely welcome), were two others. Brixia, seeing them clearly, caught her breath.

That grotesque and attenuated creature who had been served by birds—This was not quite her double. The half female figure was more rounded, closer to that of a woman, though unclothed save for the feathers. Also the avian creature wore a gemmed belt. While more jewels sparked from a wide collar-like necklace. But that she was of the same breed as the Waste creature there could be no doubt.

Next to her squatted one of the Toads—save there was a closer, near blasphemous link between this monstrosity and—a man? Brixia loathed the thought, yet she could not escape it as her gaze, in spite of all her efforts, were drawn to the creature.

Its eyes glittered with malice and she could guess that, though it appeared to be here in acceptance if not in friendship, it liked its present company no more than the company welcomed it.

It would seem that Brixia’s own presence aroused no interest in the feasters. Not one pair of eyes sought her out in surprise, nor even appeared to rest on her long enough to recognize that she was not truly of them. What purpose had brought her here she did not understand. Then—