Andre Norton - Three Against the Witch World

“They spoke plainly to me—to use the Power in a unification of all their selves meant an ending for some. Many would die, did die, burnt out by making of themselves vessels to hold the energy until it could be aimed and loosed. They had to have replacements and no longer would the choice be left to me. And now, with their ranks so depleted, neither will they allow me to go, if they can prevent it. Also—” Now she raised her eyes to look at us directly. “They will deal with you, the both of you, ruthlessly. They always secretly mistrusted and feared our father; I learned that when I was first among them. It is not natural, according to their belief, that a man should hold even a small portion of the Power. And they more than mistrusted our mother for the talent that she built with our father’s aid when by all rights she should have lost her witchship in lying with a man. This they considered an abomination, a thing against all nature. They know you have some gift. After this past night and day, they will be even more certain of that—with good cause to dislike what they have learned. No normal man could have entered the Place, and he certainly could not have won free of it again. Of course, their safeguards there were depleted, yet they were such as would have been death to any male fully of the Old Race. Thus—you are not to be trusted, you are a menace, to be removed!”

“Kaththea, who was the girl, the one in the garden?” Kemoc asked suddenly.

“Girl?”

“You and yet not you,” he answered. “I believed in her—would have taken her and gone. Kyllan would not let me. Why?” He turned now to me. “What was it that made you suspect her?”

“No more than a feeling at first. Then—she was like one made for a purpose. She fastened upon you, as if she wished to hold you—”

“She looked like me?” Kaththea asked.

“Very much, save she was too serene. She smiled always. She lacked”—and I knew I had hit upon the truth—“she lacked humanity.”

“A simulacrum! Then they did expect you, or some attempt to reach me! But it takes long and long to make one of those. I wonder which one of the novices it really was?”

“Shape changing?” Kemoc said.

“Yes. But more intricate, since she was designed to deceive such as you, who had mind contact—or did they know that much of us? Yes, they must have! Oh, that proves it—they must be very sure now that you are the enemy. And I wonder how much longer we have before they realize we are not in any trap, and so move after us?”

To that question we had no answer. But it left us with little peace of mind. The stream tinkled and burbled through the dark, and we could hear the sound of the hobbled Torgians at graze. And we set up watches turn and turn about.

The morning came and this one was clear and bright for Kemoc and me—though Kaththea admitted that the fog was heavy for her, and that she had a disturbing disorientation when we began our ride into the foothills. At last she begged us to tie her to her saddle and lead her mount as the overwhelming desire to turn back was growing so strong she feared she could not control it.

We, too, had a measure of unease. There was a distortion of sight at times which was like that we had experienced looking down into the valley of the Place. And the sensation of moving into some dark and unpleasant surprise was haunting, but not to the point that it had any effect upon our determination.

But we did as Kaththea asked and at intervals she struggled against the ties we put on her, once crying out that directly before us was sudden death in the form of a deep chasm—though that was not true. Finally she shut her eyes and had us lay a bandage over them, saying that once shut into her own mind in that fashion, she was better able to combat the waves of panic.

The faint trace of road had long since vanished. We went by the easiest riding we could pick through true wilderness. I had lived much among mountains, but the weirdly broken ways we now followed were strange to nature, and I thought I knew the reason. Just as the mountains of the south had been toppled and turned, so, too, had these heights.

It was evening of the second day since we had left the streamside when we reached the end of open ways. Before us now lay heights a determined man might climb on foot, but not on horseback. We faced that fact bleakly.

“Why do you stop?” Kaththea wanted to know.

“The way runs out; there is only climbing ahead.”

“Wait!” She leaned down from her saddle. “Loose my hands!”

There was such urgency in that that Kemoc hastened to obey. As if she could see in spite of the blindfold, her fingers moved surely out, touched his brows, slid down to the eyes he blinked shut. For a long moment she held them so before she spoke:

“Turn, face where we must go.”

With her touch still on his closed eyes, my brother moved his head slowly to the left, facing the cliff face.

“Yes, oh, yes! Thus I can see it!” There was excitement and relief in Kaththea’s voice. “This is the way we must go, then?”

But how could we? Kemoc and I could have done it, though I wondered about his maimed hand. But to take Kaththea bound and blindfolded—that was impossible.

“I do not think you need to take me so,” she answered my silent doubts. “Leave me thus for tonight, let me gather all my powers, and then, with the dawn—let us try. There will be an end to the block, of that I am sure.”

But her certainty was not mine. Perhaps with the dawn, instead of climbing, we would have to backtrack, to seek out another way up through the tortured debris of this ancient battlefield.

I COULD NOT sleep, though there was need for it in my body—to which my mind would not yield. Finally I slipped from my blanket and went to where Kemoc sat sentry.

“Nothing,” he answered my question before it was voiced. “Perhaps we are so far into the debatable land we need not fear pursuit.”

“I wish I knew at whose boundary we are,” I said. And my eyes were for the heights that we must dare tomorrow.

“Friend or enemy?” In the moonlight his hand moved so there was a glint of light from the grip of the dart gun lying unholstered on his knee.

“And that—” I gestured to the weapon. “We have but two extra belts of darts. Steel may have to serve us in the end.”

Kemoc flexed his hand and those stiff fingers did not curl with their fellows. “If you are thinking of this, brother, do not underrate me. I have learned other things besides the lore of Lormt. If a man determines enough he can change one hand for the other. Tomorrow I will belt on a blade for the left hand.”

“I have the feeling that what we win beyond will be sword-taken.”

“In that you may be very right. But better land sword-taken than what lies behind us now.”

I gazed about. The moon was bright, so bright it seemed uncannily so. We were in a valley between two ridges. And Kemoc had his post on a ledge a little more than a man’s height above the valley floor. Yet here our sight was restricted as to what lay above us, or farther down the cut of our back trail. And this blindness worried me.

“I want to see from up there,” I told him.

In the brightness of the moon I did not fear trouble, the slope being rough enough to afford good hand and toe holds. Once on the crest I looked to the west. We had been climbing all day as we worked our way through the foothills. The tree growth was sparse now and I had a clear sight. With the long seeing lenses from my service belt I searched our back trail.

They were distant, those pricks of light in the night. No effort had been taken to conceal them; rather they had been lit to let us know we were awaited. I counted some twenty fires and smiled wryly. So much did those who sent those waiting sentries respect the three of us. Judging by Borderer practices there must be well over a hundred men so encamped, waiting. How many of them were those with whom Kemoc and I had ridden?