Andre Norton - Warlock of the Witch World

When we came into the open again it was to front an outcrop of rock which perhaps once had been natural. But since it had been wrought upon by master carvers. Monsters with eyes of shell or dull gems leered and menaced. Some were more amusing than threatening with their grotesque grins. Two such guarded a flat shelf which served the Krogan chief for a chair-of-state.

He did not rise to greet us, and across his knees lay a spear staff similar to those his guards carried. His hand rested ready upon it and he did not reverse the point as we came to face him.

Ethutur drove the warn-sword point down into the soft sand earth, dropping his hand from its hilt when it stood firmly upright.

“Orias!” he said.

The Krogan leader was much like the two who had brought us here, except that a dark seam of some old scar ran along the side of his face from temple to jaw on the left, drawing down a little on the eye corner, so the lid remained almost closed.

“I see you, Ethutur. Why do I see you?” His voice was thin and, in my ears, toneless.

“Because of this—” Ethutur’s fingers just touched the hilt of the warn-sword. “We would talk.”

“Of a carrying of spears, and a beating of drums, and a killing,” the Krogan interrupted him. “Stirred up by outlanders . . .” Now he turned his head so that he surveyed me squarely with his good eye. “They have awakened that which slept, these outlanders. Why do you take up their cause, Ethutur? Have you not past hard-won victories to nurse for your kind?”

“Victories won long ago do not mean that a man may hang his weapons to rust in the roof tree and never have need to draw them again,” returned Ethutur levelly. “There are forces astir—no matter how awakened. The day draws near when men must hear the beating of the drums whether or no they would thrust fingers in their ears against such summoning. The men of the Heights, the Vrong, the Renthan, the Flamman, we of the Green Silences, those from overmountain, drink brother-drink now and close ranks. For in union we have a chance. While such begins to stir as promises no safety in sky, on land—” he paused and then added, “—or in water!”

“No one picks up the warn-sword in haste.” I thought Orias used words to cloak thoughts. I did not try mind touch; it promised danger. The Krogan continued, “Nor does one man’s answer cover that for all the water folk. We take counsel. You are free to remain on the visitor’s isle.”

Ethutur bowed his head. But he did not touch the sword, leaving it point-planted where it was. Back they took us through the plume wood and into the boat, drawing us to another island. Here was vegetation, but that of normal growth. There was a paved space of rock slabs and a hollow for a fire, with a pile of drift nearby. Ethutur and I brought out our supplies and ate. Afterward I wandered back to the shore and stared across at that silvery island. But the haze which might be born of some wizardry blurred its details. I believed I saw Krogan come out of the lake and return into it. But no one came near our island, or, if they did, we were not aware of it.

Ethutur would make no guess as to how Orias’ council would decide. Several times he remarked that the Krogan were a law unto themselves, and, as Dinzil had warned, could not be influenced by outsiders. When he mentioned Dinzil my forebodings, which I had managed to push into the back of my mind, awoke. Deliberately I set about learning what I could concerning the war leader from the Heights.

He was of the Old Race, truly human as far as the Green People knew. His reputation in the field was firmly established. It seemed that he controlled powers of his own, having had for tutor in his childhood one of the few remaining wonder workers who had set a limit on his own studies and used what he learned for the preservation of the small portion of Escore into which he had fled. So high was Dinzil in Ethutur’s respect that I did not venture to mention my own doubts; for what was feeling against such proofs?

There came no signal from the other isle. We ate again and rolled in our blankets for sleep. But with sleep there came to me such a dream of evil as brought me sitting up, cold and shivering, wet drops running down my cheeks to drip from my chin. I had had such a dream before Kaththea had been rift from us—so had I awakened then, unable to remember what I had dreamed, yet knowing it to be evil indeed.

I could not sleep again, nor could I disturb Ethutur with my restlessness. What I wanted most of all was to leave this island, strike out for the Valley to see for myself that no ill had chanced to those two who were the other parts of me. Greatly daring, I stole away from the campsite and went down to the shore, facing as I hoped in the direction of the Valley—though in this place I could not truly be sure of north, south, east or west.

Then I put my head in my hands, and I sent forth the call. For I must know. When there was no answer, I put to the full strength of my will and sent again.

Faint, very faint, came the answer. Kaththea . . . alarmed for me. Quickly I let her know that the danger was not mine, but that I feared for her or Kyllan. Then she replied that all was safe, that it must be some evil in the land between us. But she urged to cut the bond, lest it be seized upon by an ill force and used to seek me out. So sharp was she I did as she bade. But I was not satisfied; it was as if, though she reported all aright, it would not be so for long.

“Who are you, to call upon the spirit of another?”

I was so startled by that query out of the night that my sword flashed in the moonlight even as I turned. Then I dropped it, point to the ground, and watched her come into the open, her webbed feet noiseless on the sand. The waters of the lake had made her garment like unto a second skin, and she seemed very small and frail, her pallor a part of the moonlight. She brushed back wet strands of hair and tightened the shell band which held it out of her eyes.

“Why do you call?” As Orias’, her voice lacked timbre, was soft and monotonous.

Though I am not one who naturally tells all to strangers, yet at that moment I spoke the truth.

“I dreamed evilly, as I have beforetimes in warning. I sought those I had reason to be concerned about, my sister and brother.”

“I am Orsya, and you?” She did not comment upon my words; it was as if she needed at once some identification.

“Kemoc—Kemoc Tregarth out of Estcarp,” I told her.

“Kemoc,” she repeated. “Ah, yes, you are one of the outlanders who have come to make trouble . . .”

“We did not come to make it,” I corrected her. Somehow it was necessary to assure her of that. “We were fleeing trouble of our own, and we came over the mountains, not knowing what lay here. We meant no more than to find a refuge.”

“Yet you have wrought disturbances.” She picked up a pebble and tossed it into the lake. It splashed and ripples sped across the surface. “You have done things which could awake old evils. You would draw in the Krogan.”

“Not I alone,” I protested. “We shall stand together, all of us!”

“I do not think that Orias and the others will agree. No.” She shook her head. Her hair, which seemed to dry very quickly in the open air, fanned out in a silver net about her. “You have had your journey here for naught, outlander.”

Then she took a step, a leap, and the water closed about her.

But she had the right of it. When we were ferried back to the plumed island in the morning the warn-sword was as Ethutur had planted it, untouched, bearing no added cords of agreement. Nor was Orias there. We faced an empty throne and the feeling that it was better for us to be gone from territory where we were not wanted.