Andre Norton - Zarsthor's Bane

She no longer stood helplessly fixed before the high seat. After a moment of startlement she realized that she now, by some feat of power (or the will of that which had sent her here) appeared to hang in the air above the feasters, in a manner which enlarged her view of the whole hall and those in it.

The high chair of the lord faced, as was still the dales custom in any keep of pretension, the great double outer door of the hall itself. Now, with a crash which brought instant silence to the mumurs which Brixia had been able to hear only as a faint sighing of sound, that portal not only burst open, but the two leaves were sent flying back to slam against the wall. It was as if a thunder clap had been wrested out of some summer storm to resound through the hall.

Within the cavernous opening of the door (for that portal might well have admitted without difficulty near a full company of fighting men in marching order) there stood a single man. As the lord of the hall he was not dressed for feasting, but also wore mail and a helmet. While thrown back on his shoulders was a cloak lying in folds as if he had tossed it so impatiently to free his arms for some meeting of swords.

Yet the blade which he wore was still in its scabbard and he held no weapon. No weapon save the hate which was naked in his face. And Brixia who had near called “Marbon” upon her first sighting of the hall lord, was now almost convinced that she would make no mistake in giving that name in truth to this newcomer.

He did not advance at once into the hall but waited, as if he must have some invitaton, or at least recognition, from the man in the high seat. While he so stood quietly, surveying the company at large, there was an ingathering of followers behind him.

It was if he were a man standing amid a company of children. For these who stepped forward to flank him, massed in place at his back, were of the size to make him seem a giant. Yet they had the seeming, not of the children whose size they aped, rather of being well matured and perhaps even of some unusual age.

They did not have the stocky bodies of dwarves, but were slender and well shaped. Only their small hands, their finely featured faces, were uncovered. For the rest they wore a mail which had the pearling of the interior of a shell, made in small plates which overlapped. While their helmets were unmistakably either giant shells, or else faithfully fashioned in that pattern.

“Greeting, kinsman—”

It was the lord of the hall who broke the uneasy silence that had fallen upon the echoing of the door crash. He was smiling a little, but it was an unpleasant smile with a gloating in the curve of his lips.

The man at the door met him eye to eye. He wore no smile, rather there was that in faint lines about his nostrils and his lips which said that only with great effort did he hold his emotions under tight rein. Nor did he come any farther into the hall.

“You did not signify that you intended to honor us with your presence,” continued the lord. “But there is always room for a kinsman in Kathal—”

“Such room as is in An-Yak?” for the first time the newcomer spoke. His voice was low but Brixia had an odd sense that she could feel within herself the strain he was under to keep his rage in bonds.

“A strange question, kinsman. What may you mean by it? Have you and your water people then some trouble lying upon you?”

The man at the door laughed. “A proper question, Eldor! Trouble you ask? And why must you ask that? Surely with your eyes and ears, your readers of the wind, and listeners to the grass, the birds, all else able to bear rumor or report the truth, you already know what has happened.”

The lord shook his head. “You credit me with many powers, Lord Zarsthor. Had I but a fraction of such I need question no man—”

“Then why do so?” snapped Zarsthor. “Trouble—yes, we know trouble. It is the kind which comes from ill wishing, from the meddling with forces which darken a man to touch upon. I have not such great reach as you can muster, Eldor, still have I heard of certain Callings, of bargains, and trysts, and stirrings in strange place. They speak to me of a Bane—”

Another silence fell as he said that last word—such a silence as was more potent than a battle cry shouted aloud. There was not even a stir among the company. They might have been frozen, each one, into instant and lasting immobility.

It was the woman of the white gems who broke that silence.

“You speak in anger, Lord Zarsthor—a hasty speech cannot be recalled for even one word.”

For the first time his eyes flickered away from Eldor, touched upon the woman, and were instantly back upon the lord, as if he needed to keep him ever in sight for a very necessary reason of his own. He spoke respectfully but he did not look at her again as he so answered:

“Your grace, I am angry, yes. But a man can be angered by truth and so armored against injustice, and creeping evil. My friends have also certain powers. There has been a Bane laid upon me, upon An-Yak—I am willing to swear this on oath at your very altar, under the fullness of your moon!”

Now the woman turned her head and looked directly at Eldor.

“It has been said that there is a Bane raised against a lord and his land. To this there must be an answer—”

Elder’s smile grew wider. “Do not trouble yourself, your grace. Is it not true that what lies between kinsman and kinsman are private things, resting alone on them?”

Now it was the youth wearing the horse-topped helm who broke in. Under the shadow of his elaborate helmet his dark brows drew close in a deep frown.

“Between kin and kin no one but a sworn liegeman may raise his voice, such is in truth the custom, Lord Eldor. But a Bane is not such a light thing as to be used without due consideration. I have been asking myself since we gathered here why certain ones have been honored among us for the first time.” He nodded and that inclination of his head clearly indicated both the toad creature and the avian woman at the other end of the table.

Now there was a low murmur, which seemed to Brixia to be mainly one of assent, spreading from one to the next among the other guests. Yet neither the bird-woman nor the Toad—if their features could indeed register any real emotion—seemed to show either surprise or irritation at being so singled out.

The green haired lady’s voice, as light and delicate as a breeze rustling among river reeds, followed fast upon that spreading murmur:

“Lord Eldor, unmeet as it is for guests to make such comments, yet so is this land now arrayed, one power fronting against the next, that it might be wise for you to forget the lack of proper courtesy and answer—”

“Well do you say, Lady Lalana, it is not courtesy to question the arrangements of your host at a feasting. But since this is now a matter of openness in our company—why, I do not stand under any shadow with a need for hiding what I have done, or will do.” His confidence was high with arrogance at that moment.

“It is true that there is a separation among us of Arvon and this grows the wider—mainly because no one raises a voice to ask why does this happen? We are not of one blood or one kind, yet for long we have managed to dwell peaceably side by side—”

The woman of the white gems arose. Her calm face was in a manner, Brixia sensed, a rebuke to the speaker. Her hand came up breast high between them and her fingers moved in a gesture which the watching girl was not able to follow. But what was a marvel was that those movements left drawn on the air itself a symbol as if white fire, not springing from any tangible source, blazed there.

For a moment out of time that symbol stayed white—as pure as the light of the full summer moon. Then it began to shade as if blood itself seeped in from an unknown space to taint and corrupt it. From a flushing of pink it turned ever darker, though still its outlines remained intact and sharp to the eye.