Andre Norton - Zarsthor's Bane

“Dwed!”

The cord snapped taut. There was a need to save—to draw—But no one could lay hand on this. For where there was no physical body, neither did a hand exist.

Within herself Brixia fumbled, strove to master this new sense this awareness she had not known any could have—which she did not understand.

“Dwed!” Again that call in the other’s voice—or thought.

Though the cord remained taut, there was no more movement in it. There must be a way! In the past Brixia had known times when she had driven her body to a point where flesh, bone, and blood had been exhausted close to death. Now—she must so drive this other part of her. This was like using a new tool or weapon, for which she had no training—only desperation and great need.

“Dwed!” That was her call this time. And it seemed as if the name itself wove about the cord, thickened and strengthened it. Out flowed the wave of another force, not hers. For a moment Brixia flinched from uniting with that. Then, knowing that only together might come victory, she surrendered.

Draw—draw back the cord, guide so Dwed’s return! Be not only an anchorage holding him still to life, but prepare for him a road of escape.

The cord—in her vivid mental picture that was beginning to change. Small leaves of green-gold as brilliant as precious metal broke forth along it. Now it was a vine—Grow, pull—this way was life!

Thought closed about the vine in a grip as tight as willing hands might have. Draw—

“Dwed!”

Leaf by leaf the vine was moving, coming back and back. Pull!

“Dwed!”

The vine was gone—the cold, the dark broke like a bubble shattered from within. She was in the light once more, back in time and place. Dwed lay still in Marbon’s arms. The boy’s face was very pale, the green light of the stone gave it an overcast like that of the touch of death.

“Dwed!” Marbon’s hand cupped the boy’s chin, raising his head.

There was a flutter of eyelashes. Dwed’s lips parted in a slow sigh. Slowly the eyelids lifted. But the eyes were blank, unfocused.

“Cold—” he whispered faintly. A shudder shook his limp body. “So very cold—”

Brixia’s hands shook as she still cupped the stone. On impulse, and because she felt she had hardly any strength left in her now to continue to hold it, she placed the Bane on Dwed’s breast, brought up his flaccid hands to rub between her own. His flesh was clammy and chill.

“Dwed—” Marbon called his name loudly as the boy’s eyes once more closed. “Do not leave us, Dwed!”

Again the boy sighed. His head turned a little on his lord’s arm so that his face was half hidden.

“Dwed!” the name was now a cry of fear.

“He sleeps—he has not gone.” Brixia fell back rather than moved away. “Truly he is with you again.”

With you, she thought. Not with us. What part had she now in their lives?

“Only by your grace and favor, Wise Woman.” Marbon settled the boy gently on the floor.

She had seen this man’s face vacant, enraged, absorbed by the obsession of his quest. But now he looked very different somehow. She could not read the meaning behind his eyes. She was too tired, too drained in mind and body.

“I—am—no—Wise-woman—” She spoke slowly cut of the overwhelming ache of that tiredness. Uta pressed against her, purring, rubbing her head along Brixia’s arm in one of her most meaningful caresses.

The girl half put out her hand for the Bane, but she never completed that action. Instead a wave of darkness arose and swept her away.

Flowers around her, she lay in a scented nest of blossoms. Others hung from the branches which curtained her around. She could see only the pearl white of their petals, the carved perfection of them. Among them wound vines brightly green. Brixia thought drowsily that the rustling she heard was the whisper of flower and vine together.

Louder grew that whispering—and with it a murmur like the sweet plucking of lute strings. The flowers, the vines, sang:

Only jingling rhymes—no polished songsmith’s lay.

The flowers swung to it, the vine leaves whispered and waved. Languidly Brixia closed her eyes, content to rest in this fragrant bed which was so far from labor, fear and pain. But through the song, the lute’s murmur, a voice called imperiously:

“Brixia!”

“Brixia!”

Once more she opened her eyes. This was not her place of peace and flowers. She lay under the open sky. Under her, as her hands moved aimlessly, at her sides, was the softness of grass cut and heaped to make a bed. She was not alone. To her right Lord Marbon sat cross-legged, to her left was Dwed still white faced. Uta arose from by her feet, stretched and yawned.

Brixia frowned. Certainly she had not been here—no, rather in that domed place of the lake city—when last she remembered.

“You—did you sing that song?” she asked slowly, looking once more to Marbon.

“No.” He shook his head. With his lips shaping such a smile she thought she could understand, seeing also that which dwelt in his eyes, softened his features, that tie which had led Dwed to follow and serve his stricken lord—even to the edge of death. If this man offered friendship it was a gift worth the taking.

“It was you who sang—in your sleep.” He told her. “Or did you really wander in another place, lady, where dreams are more real and this life but a dream? Though I find the promise in your song good. ‘Who holds the land under the day!’—who holds the land.” he repeated softly as if he found in that a promise.

“What land, lord?” Dwed cut in.

“That which the Bane once destroyed, which is now free again. Look, lady, and see how your song comes true!”

Before Brixia could move Marbon was at her side, his arm slipped beneath her shoulders. He lifted her with a gentle concern which she had forgotten one of her kind might ever show to another. She needed his strength for her support for she felt very weak, as one who arouses after a serious illness.

So resting against him she looked beyond. Uta pranced in a circle about the growing spear of a plant. Grass lay in a waving, lush crown of green about that spear, taller, richer in color than that growing elsewhere. And, half way up that spear of shining red-brown there was a bulge in the bark.

Brixia had never seen growth in action before. Even as she watched that swelling on the trunk cracked, opened to release a pod also red-brown, perhaps the size of her little finger. While before her eyes that shoot which had given birth to the pod grew visibly taller, thicker, put out two branches, and still grew.

The fresh grass spread out in ripples of vivid green on and on from the roots of the plant, shooting up to replace the duller blades which had been there. There were now smaller pods on the two branches. This—this was a tree—a tree growing the sum of years’ thickening, spreading, reaching, in only moments of their time!

“What—where—?” Brixia clutched at Marbon’s nearer hand.