Andre Norton - Three Against the Witch World

Were any drawn from my own small command? Freed from the necessity of southward patrols they could be used thus.

But we were not yet in a trap. I pivoted to study the cliff wall which now fronted us. As far as the glass advanced my own sight north and south there appeared no easier way up. And would those others, back there, remain at the line they had drawn, or come after us?

I dropped to Kemoc’s perch.

“So they are there. . . .”

Mind contact passed news swiftly.

“I make it at least a full field company, if we go by fire count. Maybe more.”

“It would seem there is a vow we shall be taken. But I doubt if they will sniff this far in after us.”

“I could sight no better climbing place.”

There was no need to put the rest of my worry into words: he shared it fully already. But now he gave me a short reply.

“Do not believe that she will not climb, Kyllan.”

“But if she does so blind?”

“Two of us, the saddle ropes, and mind contact which will give her sight? We may be slow, but we shall go. And you shall fuzz the back trail, Kyllan, even as it has just crossed your mind to do.”

I laughed. “Why do we bother with speech? You know my thoughts as I think them—”

He interrupted, his words sober: “Do I? Do you know mine?”

I considered. He was right, at least as far as I was concerned. I had contact, could communicate with him and with Kaththea, but it was a come and go matter and, as I knew, mostly when we were intent upon a mutual problem. Unless he willed it, Kemoc’s personal thoughts were not mine.

“Nor yours mine,” he replied promptly. “We may be one in will when necessary, but still we are three individuals with separate thoughts, separate needs, and perhaps separate fates also.”

“That is good!” I said without thinking.

“It could not be otherwise, or we would be as the non-men the Kolder used to do their labor and their fighting—those bodies who obeyed, though mind and spirit were dead. It is enough to open one surface of our thoughts to one another when we must, but for the rest—it is our own.”

“Tomorrow, if I blaze our trail up there and keep my mind open, can Kaththea see thus, even if she goes blinded?”

“So is my hope. But this is also the truth, brother, that such an open mind must be held so by will, and this will add to the strain of the climb. I do not think you can do this for long; we shall have to divide it between us. And”—again he flexed his scarred hand in the moonlight—”do not believe that in this either shall I be found wanting. Crooked and stiff as these fingers are, yet my bone and flesh have learned to obey me!”

That I did not doubt either. Kemoc got to his feet, holstering his gun, and I took his place so that he might rest. We had already agreed that Kaththea would not be one of this night’s sentries, since it was her task to wrestle with the block her witch training had set upon her.

As I watched, the very brilliance of the vale began to have its effect. There was a kind of dazzlement about the pallid light, akin to the subtle distortion we had noticed earlier, and I was so inwardly warned against any long study. There was that here which could evoke glamourie—the visionary state into which the half-learned in any magic could easily slip, to be lost in their own visions. And I wanted no such ensorcelment.

At length I dropped from Kemoc’s ledge and took to active sentry patrol, keeping on my feet, taking care not to look too long at any rock, bush or stretch of ground. Thus I came to where the Torgians browsed. They moved slowly, and a quick reading of their minds showed me a dulling of their kind of thought. Yet undue fatigue would not normally have brought them to such a state. Perhaps the same block which acted upon the Old Race held in small part for their animals also.

We could not take them with us. And still there was a way they could continue to serve us. It did not take me long to strip off their hobbles. Then I saddled them and set on bridle and bit, looping the reins about the saddle horns. As I worked they became more alert.

As I was about to set on them my last commands, there was a stir behind me. I turned, hand going to my gun. Kaththea was in the open, her hands tugging at the band she herself had fastened to blind her eyes after we had eaten our meal. At a last tug that gave way and she stared in my direction as a short-sighted person might peer.

“What—?” I began, then her hand came up in an impatient gesture.

“There is more which can be done to carry through your scheme, brother,” she said softly. “Horses should have riders.”

“Dummies? Yes, I had thought of that, but the materials for the making of such are lacking.”

“For materials there is not much needed to induce illusion.”

“But you have no Jewel of Power,” I protested. “How can you build one of the strong illusions?”

She was frowning a little. “It may well be that I cannot, but I shall not be sure until I try. Our mother surrendered her Jewel upon her marriage day, yet thereafter she accomplished much without it. Mayhap the Jewel is not quite as much the focus of the Power as the Wise Women will have us believe. Oh, I am very young in their learning as they count such things, but also am I certain that there has been no proper measurement of what can be wrought by wish, will and the Power. If one is content to use a tool then one shall never know what one can do without it. Now, here—” She plucked a curled, silvery leaf from a nearby bush. “Lay upon this some hairs from your head, Kyllan—and pluck them from the roots, for they must be living hairs. Also, moisten them with spittle from your mouth.”

Her tone summoned obedience. I took off my helm, and my forehead and throat, about which its mail veil had been wreathed, felt naked and chill in the night breeze. I plucked the hair she wished, and the separate threads curled about my fingers, for it had gone unclipped for some time. Then I spat upon the leaf and laid the hair therein, even as Kaththea was doing in another such improvised carrier.

She crossed to Kemoc and awakened him to do likewise. Then she held the three leaves on her palm and walked to the horses. With her right hand she rolled the first leaf and its strange burden into a spill, all the time her lips murmuring sounds I could not make into any real word. The spill she tucked between the knotted reins and the saddle horn, taking great care as to its wedging. And this she did also with the others. Then she stood aside and raised her hands to her mouth as half open fists. Through these trumpets of flesh and bone she sang, first in a low semi-whisper, then louder and louder. And the rhythm of those sounds became a part of me, until I felt them in the beat of my heart, the throb of my pulses. While the brilliance of the moonlight was a flashing glare, its light condensed to where we stood.

Kaththea’s song ended abruptly, on a broken note. “Now! Give your commands, brother—send them forth!”

The orders I set in the Torgians’ befogged brains sent them moving down the vale, away from us, in the direction of that fire line. And as they so left us I will always believe that I saw the misty forms in those saddles, a swirl of something to form three riders, nor did I wonder who those riders would seem to be.

“It would appear, sister, that the half has not been told concerning the powers of Witches,” Kemoc commented.

Kaththea swayed and caught at his arm, so that he gave her his support.

“Witchery has its prices.” She smiled upon us wanly. “But I believe that this has bought us time—more than just a night. And now we may rest in peace.”

We half-carried her between us to the blanket-branch bed we had earlier made her, and, as she lay with closed eyes, Kemoc looked to me. There was no need for a reading of minds between us—to attempt the mountain climb tomorrow was beyond the borders of reasonable risk. If those who tended those watchfires did not advance and Kaththea’s magic bought us more time, we need not push.