Andre Norton: Sorceress Of The Witch World

We spent the rest of the day and the next night in our hiding place. With the coming of the second dawn there was light and no clouds. The Vrang took wing, to soar high, coming back with news that the storm was gone and all was clear. So we broke our fast and went on.

There were no more stairways. We climbed and crept, up cliffs, along ledges. And all the time Valmund studied the heights above us with such intent survey that his uneasiness spread to us, or at least to me, though I could not be sure what he feared, unless it was an avalanche.

At midday we found a place on a wider ledge than we had heretofore traversed, and crouched there to eat and drink. Valmund reported that we were now within a short distance of the pass and that perhaps two hours would see us through the worst of the journey ahead and on the down slope, where once more we could angle east. So it was with some relaxation that we munched our blocks of journey bread and sipped from flasks filled with the Valley brew.

We had crossed the pass well within the time Valmund had set and were on a downward trail which did not seem so bad compared to the way we had come, when our mountaineer leader called a halt. He tested the rope ties and signaled he must reset them. So we waited while he shucked his pack to begin that precaution. It was then that the danger he had foreseen struck.

I was only aware of a roaring. Instinctively I jerked back, trying to flee—what I knew not. Then I was swept away, buried, and knew nothing at all.

It was very dark and cold and a weight lay on and about me. I could not move my arms nor legs as I tried to reach out in a half-conscious fight against that punishing burden. Only my head, neck and half of one shoulder were free and I lay face up. But all was dark. What had happened? One moment we had been standing on the mountainside a little below the pass, the next, so had time passed for me, I was caught here. My dazed mind could not fit that together.

I tried again to move the arm of the free shoulder and found with great effort I could do so. Then with my mittened hand I explored the space about my head. My half numbed fingers struck painfully against a solid surface I thought was rock, slipped over that. I could not see in this gloom, only feel, and touch told me so little—that I now lay buried in snow save for my hand, shoulder, arm, head resting within a pocket of rock. That chance alone had saved me from being smothered by the weight which imprisoned the rest of me. I could not accept that imprisonment, and began, in a frenzy of awaking fear, to push at the snow with my free hand. The handfuls I scooped up flew back in my face, bringing me to understand I might thus bring upon myself the very fate from which the rock pocket had saved me.

So I began to work more slowly, striving to push away the burden over me, only to discover I was too well buried; I could make no impression on that weight.

At last, exhausted, sweating, I lay panting, and for the first time tried to discipline the fear which had set me to such useless labor. There must have been an avalanche, sweeping us downslope with it, burying us—me. The others could be digging now to find me! Or they might all be . . . Resolutely I tried to blank out that thought. I dared not believe that a chance rock pocket had saved me alone. I must think the others lived.

More bitterly than I ever had since I had fallen in that last struggle at Dinzil’s side I regretted my lost communication with my brothers. With my magic that had been rift from me also, my punishment for being drawn into the underfolds of the Shadow. Perhaps . . . I shut my eyes against the dark in which my head lay, tried to rule my mind as once I had, to seek Kyllan and Kemoc—to be one with my brothers as had been our blessing.

It was as if I faced some roll of manuscript on which I could see words, clearly writ, but in a language I could not read, though I knew that reading might mean life or death for me. Life or death—suppose Kyllan, Kemoc, the rest of our company had survived; suppose that it would be better for them now if they did not find me . . . Only there is that stubborn spark of life in us which will not allow one to tamely surrender being. I had thought I might throw myself into nothingness in their service if the need arose. Now I wondered if I could have done that. I tried to concentrate only on my brothers, on the need that I now speak with them mind to mind. Kemoc—if I had to narrow that beaming to one, I would select Kemoc, for always had he been the closer. In my mind I pictured Kemoc’s dear face, aimed every scrap of energy toward touching him—to no avail.

A cold which was not from the snow imprisoning me spread through my body. Kemoc—it might be that I tried to reach one already gone! Kyllan then, and my elder brother’s face became my picture, his mind that I sought, again to reach nothing.

It was the failure of my power, I told myself, not that they were dead! I would prove that—I had to prove it!—so I thought of Valmund with what I hoped was the same intensity, and then of Raknar. Nothing.

The Vrang! Surely the Vrang had not been included in our disaster! For the first time a small spark of hope flashed in me. Why had I not tried the Vrang? But that creature had a different form of brain channel: could I succeed with him where I had failed with men? I began to seek the Vrang as I had the others.

There was the picture in my mind of the red head swinging above the gray-blue feathered body. Then—I had touched! I had found a thought band which was not that of a man! The Vrang—it must be the Vrang! I cried aloud then and the sound of my own voice in that small pocket was deafening.

Vrang!

But I could not hold that band long enough to aim a definite message along it. It wavered in and out so I could only touch it now and then. Only it was growing stronger, of that I was sure. The Vrang must be seeking us somewhere near, and I doubled my efforts to send an intelligible message. The wavering of that communication band was first irking, and then raised the beginning of panic in me. Surely when I touched that intelligent creature would try to pinpoint me in turn. Yet as far as I could sense it did not. Was the consciousness of that touch mine only, so that the Vrang could not be guided to where I lay?

And how much longer could I fight to hold my small sense of communication? I was gasping. For the first time I became aware that it was difficult to breathe. Had I pulled too much snow back on me when I made those first ill-directed attempts to free myself? Or was it that this pocket of rock held only a limited supply of air and that was becoming exhausted?

Vrang! The picture in my mind slipped away. Another took its place. And I was so startled at the single glimpse of a creature I did not expect that I lost contact.

No lizard-bird. No, this was furred, long of muzzle, pricked of ear, white or gray, like the snow about me, but with amber eyes narrowed into slits. The Gray Ones—a wolf-man! I had brought upon me a worse fate than being smothered by snow. Far better to gasp out my life in this pocket than be broken loose by the thing or things now questing for me.

I willed myself into a kind of mind sleep, trying with all my strength of will to be nothing, not to think, not to call—to hide to my death from discovery. And so well did I succeed, or else so bad had become the air about me, that I did lapse into a dark I welcomed.

But I was not to end so. I felt air blow upon my face. My body, playing me traitor, responded. But I would not open my eyes. If they had dug me free there was a small chance they might believe they had brought into the day a dead body and leave me. So small a chance, but it was all I had left to me now with my power gone and no weapons.

Then my ears rang as a baying began from far too close.