Andre Norton - Warlock of the Witch World

“The hero,” he called. “Too little, too late, warrior from over-mountain!”

He made a gesture and suddenly the sword slipped from my grip. Nor could I make that misshapen paw grasp it again.

“And now harmless—” he laughed. He stood there, laughing with the rest of that company of the Shadow gathering behind him, watching me with their eyes or whatever organs served them for sight. These might not be of the Great Ones of evil, but they did now strive to reach such heights. I think even the Witches of Estcarp would not have willingly matched strength with them.

“You have found one talisman.” Dinzil glanced to the sword. “If you had only known how to use it, you would have done better, my young friend. Now—”

What he meant for me I do not know. But that it was wholly of the dark I understood. Even death does not close some doors. But there was a slide of earth and small stones as Orsya came down in my wake. She held her right hand against her breast, and in it, point out, was the unicorn horn.

Whether by some magic of her own she mystified Dinzil for the necessary moment or two, I do not know. But she was beside me and he still stood there. Then she plunged the point of the horn into her other hand so the blood welled up about it. As that flowed she reached out and caught my now useless paw, smearing it with the scarlet fluid. There was a tingle of returning life. I saw that foul toad flesh slough away and out of it emerge my fingers. Then I threw myself to the left and reached the sword.

The enemy was moving, not with weapons, but with their knowledge. As one might use a blacksmith’s sledge to crush an ant, they were turning on me, on us, the weight of what they had been about to send against the Valley. To meet this I had nothing left but my weapon of despair.

I stumbled to my feet, sweeping Orsya behind me with my sister’s body. This was indeed the last throw of fate. The sword I held up, not in a position of defense, but as one saluting an overlord. And I spoke the words . . .

It had been sunset when we had come upon that gathering of attackers. Twilight had crept in as a part of their indrawing of dark force. Now it was instant day, with so brilliant a flash that I was blinded. I felt some of the substance of that light strike the sword blade, run through it and me—then out again. I was deaf; I was blind. Yet I heard the answer—and I saw. . . .

No, I can summon no words to describe what I saw, or think I saw, then. There had been many kinds of power loosed in Escore during the ancient struggles, and keys to some long forgot. Just as Dinzil had striven to find one of those keys, so had I, by chance and desperation, found another.

I was a channel for the power which answered my summons, and it used me. I was not a man, nor human, but a door through which it came into our space and time.

What it did there neither did I see. But it was gone as suddenly as it had come. I lay helpless against the earth while the heavens were filled with a storm such as I had never seen, and only lightning flashes broke the dark. I could not move. It was as if all the life which had been mine to command was now exhausted. I breathed, I could see the lightning, feel the lash of icy rain over me: that was all.

Sometimes I lapsed from consciousness, then I roused again. Weakly my thoughts moved as my body could not.

After what seemed a long time, I called:

“Orsya?”

At first there was no answer, but I persisted, and that became the one tie which held me to the world about me. I felt that if I ceased to call I would slip away into some nothingness and never come forth again.

“Orsya?”

“Kemoc—”

My name in her thoughts! It acted upon me as water upon a man dying of thirst. I struggled to rise and found that I could move a little, though I lay partly covered by a mass of earth and small stones. My numbed body began to feel pain.

“Orsya, where are you?”

“Here—”

I crawled—hardly rising from my belly, I crawled. Then my searching hand touched flesh and in turn was gripped eagerly by her webbed fingers. We drew together while about us the rain poured less heavily. The lightning ceased to beat along the ridges. Gradually the storm died, while we lay together, not speaking, content that both had survived.

Morning came. We were on the ledge where Dinzil had tried to bring power to move the world. There had been a slide down the mountain, half entrapping us. But the enemy I did no longer see.

“Kaththea!” Memory returned to sear me.

“There—” Already Orsya crawled to a body half hidden in a pile of earth. The green scarf was still twisted about my sister’s head. I put out my hand to touch it. Then looked at the fingers Orsya had given back to me. Furiously I began to dig free Kaththea’s body with those fingers.

When she lay straight upon the ledge, I set her paw hands upon her breast. Perhaps I could hide those so none would ever know why and what she had become. But, under my hand I felt a faint beating—she was not dead!

“Orsya”—I turned to my companion—“you—you gave me back my hands. Can I give Kaththea back hers, and her face?”

She moved away from me, looking about as if she searched for something among the debris. “The horn—” Tears gathered in her eyes, ran down her slightly hollowed cheeks. “It is gone.”

But I had seen something else—a glint of metal. Now I dug there, though my nails broke. Once more my hand was able to close about the hilt of the talisman sword. I jerked it free. But of the blade there remained now but a single small shard and that was not golden but black and dull. I tried it on the ball of my thumb. It was sharp enough and it was all I had.

I went back to Kaththea and tore off that much-faded scarf, looked down at the monster head. Then I did as Orsya had done before me, I cut my flesh with that broken sword and allowed the blood to drip, first upon the head, and then upon the paws. As it had for me, but more slowly, the change came. The red skin and flesh melted; my sister’s own face, her slender hands, were free of their horrible disguise. I gathered her into my arms and I wept—until she stirred in my hold and her eyes slowly opened. There was no recognition in them, only puzzlement. When I tried to reach her by mind call, I met first amazement and then terror. She fought to free herself from my hold as if I were some nightmare thing.

Orsya caught her hands, held them firmly but gently. “It is well, sister. We are your friends.”

Kaththea clung to her, but still looked doubtfully at me.

The Krogan girl came to me a little later where I stood looking down at the havoc the storm had wrought. There were bodies in that wrack, but no man nor creature moved under the rising sun of a fine day.

“How is it with her?” I asked.

“Well, as to her body. But—Kemoc—she has forgotten who and what she was. What power she had is now gone from her!”

“For all time?” I could not imagine Kaththea so drained.

“That I cannot tell. She is as she might have been had she never been born a Witch—a maid, sweet of temper, gentle, and now very much in need of your strength and aid. But do not try to recall to her the past.”

So it was that while Orsya and I brought Kaththea back to the Valley, we did not bring back the Kaththea who had been. And if she will ever be that again, no man nor witch can say. But the forces of the Shadow suffered a second defeat, and for a space we could ride Escore more boldly, though the darkness was far from cleansed. And our tale of three was not yet ended.