Andre Norton - Web of the Witch World

Seven, now eight mealtimes. Simon counted them off. But that gave him no reasonable idea of the number of hours or days he had been here under the unchanging glow of the walls. They could be feeding him twice daily, or even once; he could not be sure. This was a period of waiting, and to any man who had depended most of his life upon the stimulation of action, waiting was a harsh ordeal. Only once before had it been so—during a year in jail. Waiting then, warped by the bitterness of knowing that he had been duped into taking punishment for those he hated, he had spent that time striving to work out schemes for repayment.

Now he was facing a blind future without even a good knowledge of the nature of the enemy. All he had was that mental picture from the past of the Kolder leader dying in Gorm, a narrow valley down which strange vehicles dashed while those in them fired back at pursuers. There had been another world for the Kolders and something had gone wrong there.

Somehow they had discovered a “gate” and come through—into this time and place, where the civilization of the Estcarpian Old Race was on the wane, a slow slip into the age-old dust which already rose about Es and the villages and cities of their kind. Along the coast—in Alizon and Karsten—a more barbaric upswing was rooted, newer nations, elbowing aside the Old Race, yet so much in awe of their legendary witches that they dared not quite challenge them—not until the Kolder began to meddle.

And if Kolder was not uprooted, Alizon and Karsten would go the way of Gorm: ingested into the horror of the possessed. Yet Kolder played upon this older enmity and fear to make their future victims their present allies.

The nature of Kolder. Simon began to concentrate upon that. Their native civilization was a mechanical, science-based one—that fact had been amply proven by what they had found in Gorm. The Estcarpian command had always believed that the Kolder themselves must be few in number, that it was necessary for them to have the possessed captives in order to keep their forces in the field. And now that Gorm was gone and Yle evacuated—

Yle evacuated! Simon’s eyes came open, he stared at the ceiling of the cabin. How had he known that? Why was he so very sure that the Kolder’s only stronghold on the coast was now an empty shell? Yet certain he was.

Were the Kolder now drawing in all their forces to protect their base? Kolder manpower—there had been five left dead in Gorm, the majority in their own apartments—not killed by any sword or dart, but as if they had willed their own dying—or some animating spark, common to all, had failed. But five! Could the death of only five so weaken the Kolder cadre that they would have to pull in all their garrisons?

Hundreds of the possessed had died in Gorm. And then there were their agents in Karsten—Fulk—and the others such as Aldis who were still alive and about their business. Not true Kolder, but natives who had come to serve the enemy—not as mindless possessed, but with wit and awareness. Not one of the Old Race could be so bent to Kolder use; that was why the Old Race must go!

Again Simon wondered at whence that emphatic assertion had come. They had known that the Kolder wanted no Old Race captives for their ranks of possessed. They had suspected that this was the reason, but now it was as clear in his mind as if he had had it from Kolder lips.

Heard it? Did the Kolder have their form of communication such as that he now held with Jaelithe and Loyse? That thought shook him. Quickly Simon sent a warning to she who followed and caught her unease in return.

“We are sure of the course now,” she told him.

“Break. Do not send again unless there is great need.”

“Great need . . .” That echoed in his mind, and then Simon became aware that the vibration which had been so steady in the walls about him was muted, humming down scale as if the speed they had maintained was being cut. Had they reached their port?

Simon sat up on the bunk, faced the door. Would they lock him with the same stiff control which had kept him prisoner before? He had no weapons, though some skill in unarmed combat. But he hardly thought that the Kolder would try a scuffle man to man.

He was right, even as the door to the cabin opened, the freeze was on him. He could move—by another’s will—and he did, out into the narrow corridor.

Men there, two of them. But looking into their eyes Simon controlled a shudder only because he could not move save on order. These were possessed, the dead-alive of the Kolder labor horde. One was Sulcar by his fair head, his height; the other of the same yellow-brown skinned race as the officer who had brought Simon on board.

They did not touch him, merely waited, their soulless gaze on him. One turned and started along the passage, the other flattened back against the wall to allow Simon by, and then fell in behind him. Thus, between the two, he climbed the ladder, came out on the surface of the submarine.

Above was an arch of rock. The water lapped sullenly against a waiting quay and Simon saw here a likeness to the hidden port beneath Sippar, evidently a familiar pattern for the enemy. Still moved by remote control he walked ashore on the narrow gangway. There was activity there. Gangs of almost-naked possessed shifted boxes, cleared spaces. They worked steadily, as if each man knew just what was to be done, and the quickest way of doing it.

No voices raised, no talk among the work gang. Simon stalked stiffly behind his guide, the Sulcar bringing up the rear, and no one looked at them. The quay was long and two other subs nosed against it. Being unloaded, Simon noted. Signs of withdrawal from other posts?

Before them were two exits, a tunnel and a flight of stairs to the left. His guide took that way. Five steps and then a waiting cubby. Once they were inside the door closed and they arose in an elevator such as had been in Sippar.

The ride was not long, the door slid open upon a corridor. Sleek gray walls with a metallic luster to their surfaces, outlines of doors, all closed. They passed six, three to a side, before they came to the end of the hall and a door which was open.

Simon had been in the heart center of Sippar and he half expected to see here again the seated Kolder, the capped master at a cross table, all the controls those men had run to hold their defenses tight.

But this was a much smaller room than that. Light, a harsh burst of it, came from bars set in the ceiling in a complicated geometric pattern Simon had no desire to examine closely. The floor had no discernible carpeting, yet it yielded to cushion their steps. There were three chairs, curved back and seat in one piece. And in the center one a true Kolder.

Simon’s guards had not entered with him, but that compulsion which had brought him out of the submarine now marched him forward a step or two to face the Kolder officer. The alien’s smock-like over garment was the same gray as the chair in which he sat, as the walls and the flooring. Only his skin, pallid, bleached to a paper white, broke that general monotone of color. Most of his head was covered by a skullcap, and as far as Simon could see, he had no hair.

“You are here at last.” The mumble of an alien tongue and yet Simon somehow understood the words. Their meaning surprised him a little, one could almost believe that they were not captor and prisoner but two who had some bargain in prospect and needed only to come to a final agreement. Caution kept Simon silent—the Kolder must reveal his game first.

“Did Thurhu send you?” The Kolder continued to study Simon and now the other thought that there was a spark of doubt in that question. “But you are not an outer one!” The doubt flared into hostility. “Who are you?”

“Simon Tregarth.”