Andre Norton: Songsmith

“No, not for me,” Eydryth said, forcing her eyes to continue meeting the witch’s uncompromising stare. “It is for someone else in my family.”

“And you have come from far away, haven’t you?” The woman rose to her feet, paced deliberately across the flagged floor to front the bard directly. She lacked half a head of Eydryth’s height, but the aura of command surrounding her more than made up for the physical difference. “There is the smell of sea about you, and your boots have seen much walking. Are there no healers in your own province?”

“We have our Wise Women, true enough,” Eydryth admitted. “But none so far have been able to help, for this illness is of the mind and spirit, not the body.”

The witch’s head moved in a tiny shake. “Not good, song-smith. Few indeed are the healers who can treat such. Who is so afflicted, and how did it happen?”

Eydryth took a deep breath as memory seared her. “It happened six years ago, when I was little more than a child. We were on a… quest… when we came across a place of the old Power. It was said to be a kind of oracle that could allow one to farsee the object of one’s greatest desire. But when Jervon peered through it, it struck him down. Since then he has been as a small child, one who eats when fed, follows when led around—”

“ He ?” The witch’s eyes held a faint, angry spark. “Do you mean to tell me a man sought to use a source of the Power? You seek my help for one who meddled in things those of his sex cannot hope to comprehend?”

“For my father, Jervon, yes,” Eydryth stammered, wondering how she’d erred. “I was told you had ways of healing—”

She broke off as the witch’s hand snaked up to grab her chin and turn it from side to side, consideringly. “Your eyes…” the woman muttered to herself, “blue… and the jaw is wider… but still, the color of hair, the chin—” She glared up at the younger woman. “You are a child of the Old Race—in part. Yet your mother surely betrayed her calling by choosing to marry, when we needed every bit of Power we could summon! Do you think I would help a man who lay with one of my sisters, thus depriving her of her witchhood?”

But she didn’t lose her Power! She wasn’t even born in Estcarp ! Eydryth silently protested. The undisguised hatred in the witch’s eyes unnerved her; she knew that the women of Power deemed union with the males of their race as but a poor second to the holding of that Power, but nothing had prepared her for this irrational anger and hatred.

The woman’s strong, short fingers tightened on the song-smith’s chin. “And what about you?” she murmured, in a lower voice. “Did you escape the testing given all girl children? Do you hold the Power? If you do, we shall see—” Breaking off with a hiss, she held the cloudy jewel she wore up before the bewildered minstrel’s face. “Touch it!” she commanded.

Will clashed with will as Eydryth tried to step back, away from those pale grey eyes glittering with a light that was not wholly rational. “No!”

“ Touch it !”

Compelled, the younger woman blindly reached out a hesitant fingertip, felt it brush the witch’s hand, then the cool slickness of the jewel’s crystal. The witch broke their eye-hold, glancing down, and Eydryth watched the eagerness slowly fade from her expression. “Nothing…” the woman murmured, her eyes fixed once more on the minstrel’s face. “Nothing, the jewel remains dead. But I was so sure…”

Perversely angered by yet another demonstration of her lack of Power, Eydryth glanced down at the jewel as she pulled her hand away and stared, suddenly arrested. Had she seen a tiny spark flicker deep within the heart of the cloudy gem? You’re imagining it , she thought angrily. Be grateful this time that you have no Power — otherwise, this half-crazed woman might well try to hold you here !

The songsmith stepped back, away from the witch. “So you cannot help me,” she said. “Or will not—which is it, Lady?”

The grey-clad, bowed shoulders shrugged; the woman’s voice was naught but the thinnest thread of sound. “Once, perhaps, before the Turning… I do not know. But now…” The witch shook her head, putting out a hand to grip the carven back of the chair as though she might fall without the support. She made a gesture of dismissal. “Go now, song-smith…”

“If you cannot help me, do you know of any who can?” Eydryth demanded, feeling the hope that had sustained her for the past months draining away, leaching the life and color from the entire world. “I must find someone to heal him, I must ! You see, the fault for his illness lies with me… We were searching for my mother, whom he loved more than…” Sobs choked her then, and she turned away, shamed that the witch had seen her so undone.

But the woman no longer seemed aware of her presence at all. Stumbling, shoulders sagging, Eydryth blindly followed the young witch out of the room.

They threaded the dim corridors, their feet whispering against the stone flags. Slowly, the songsmith regained her control, blinking back the tears that had threatened… but her pack seemed doubly heavy, and the harp within its case made a sad, muted sound as it brushed the wall. What shall I do ? Eydryth wondered numbly. Where can I go ? The thought of returning home to Kar Garudwyn empty-handed was intolerable, yet her mind envisioned as an alternate naught but years of hollow wandering in alien lands.

She rounded the last corner before the entrance portal, only to nearly trip over the girl who had been guiding her. “Quietly!” the witch whispered, glancing fearfully around. “In here, we needs must talk.”

A chill hand came out of the silver-grey robe to grab Eydryth’s sleeve, drawing her into a darkened room. After a moment, the songsmith made out dusty barrels and boxes surrounding them. Some kind of a storeroom .

The minstrel watched as the young witch peered carefully out of the entrance, making sure they had gone unobserved. Then the girl shut the door and touched finger to a candle she produced from the sleeve of her robe. A spark flared; then the taper was alight. In the flickering dimness, they stared at each other.

“What’s to do?” Eydryth began, only to have the girl lay finger to her lips in a signal for whispers.

“Quiet!” the witch cautioned. “Listen a moment. I know of a place where you may find help in your quest, songsmith.”

Eydryth stared down into the witch’s face, scarcely daring to believe that here might be one who could actually guide her in finding what she sought. “Where?” she demanded, finally. “Where can I find help for one who has been mind-blasted by ancient Power?”

“There is a place of learning,” the girl said. “Old… perhaps older than Es Citadel itself. There are ancient records there, and some of them deal with healing. I have heard of legends that speak of healing stones, and a red mud that conquers even the gravest of injuries. Perhaps you can find the location of such cures in those records.”

“Where?” The songsmith’s question came with sharp impatience. “Where lies this stone? Where rests this mud?”

“I know not. Escore, perhaps… Much that we thought legend only has been proven real since the Tregarths discovered that ancient land from which the Old Race once fled, if the tales be true. At this place of ancient learning, you may well find answers.”

“I am no scholar,” Eydryth murmured doubtfully.

“But the ones who live there are, and they will aid you; they have little else to do. There is a chance you may find a mention of a cure written there, on some tattered scroll.”