Andre Norton - Witch World

Aldis smiled. “Ah, but if you have the power you claim. Wise Woman, then you can blast as well as aid and I shall be easy meat for you. Tell me what I must do and be quick; I can trust those two outside only because I hold both their lives with my tongue. But there are other eyes and tongues in this city!”

“Give me your hand.” The woman from Estcarp picked up the tiny bowl of meal. As Aldis extended her beringed hand, the other stabbed it with a needle drawn from her clothing, letting a drop or two of blood fall into the bowl. She added more moisture from the bottle, mixing it into a batter. And coaxed the charcoal in the tiny stove to a blaze.

“Sit down.” She pointed to the stool. When the other was seated, she slapped the board across her knees, putting the stove upon it.

“Think on the one you want, keep him only in your mind, lady.”

The batter of that cake was spread out above that handful of fire and the woman from Estcarp began to sing. Strangely enough that something which had so alerted Simon moments earlier, which had thickened and curdled about them in that second when she had traced the fiery sign in the air, was now ebbing from the room.

But in its way her singing wove a spell of its own, changing thought images, evoking another kind of response. Simon, realizing it for what it was, for what it could do, after an incredulous second or two, bit hard upon his lower lip. This — coming from the woman he thought he was beginning to know. Fit magic for Aldis and her like; for the cool cleanliness of Estcarp, no! And it was beginning to work upon him also. Simon screwed his fingers into his ears to close out that sultry heat which seeped from words in the air to the racing blood in his own body.

He took away that defense only when he saw the witch’s lips ceased to move. Aldis’ face was a delicate pink, her parted lips moist, her eyes fixed before her unseeingly, until the witch lifted from her knees the board and brazier. The woman from Estcarp took up the cake, crumbled it into a square of white cloth and held it out to her client.

“A pinch of this added to his food or drink.” The life had gone from the witch’s voice; she spoke as one drugged with fatigue.

Aldis whipped the package from her, thrust it into the breast of her gown. “Be sure I shall use it rightly!” She caught up her cloak, already on her way to the door. “I shall let you know how I fare.”

“I shall know, lady, I shall know.”

Aldis was gone and the witch stood, one hand on the back of the chair as if she needed its support. Her expression was one of weary distaste with a faint trace of shame, as if she had used ill means to gain a good end.

Koris’ hands moved in steady rhythm, polishing the ax blade with slow strokes of a silken cloth. He had reclaimed his treasure the minute he returned, and now, perched on a window ledge, with it resting upon his knees, he talked.

“… he burst in as if the Kolder were breathing upon his back and blurted it out to the sergeant who spewed up half the wine I had paid for and was like to choke loose his guts, while this fellow pawed at him and yammered about it. I’d stake a week’s looting of Kars that there is a kernel of truth in it somewhere, though the story’s a muddle.”

Simon was watching the other two in that room. He did not expect the witch to reveal either surprise or the fact that she might already have heard such a tale. However, the youngster she had produced out of nowhere might be less well schooled, and his attitude proved Simon right. Briant was too well controlled. One better trained in the game of concealment would have displayed surprise.

“I take it,” Simon cut through the Captain’s report, “that such a story is not a muddle to you, lady.” The wariness which had become a part of his relationship with her since that scene with Aldis hours earlier was the shield he raised against her. She might sense its presence, but she made no effort to break through it.

“Hunold is truly dead,” her words were flat. “And he died in Verlaine. Also is the Lady Loyse gone from the earth. That much did your man have true, Captain,” she spoke to Koris rather than to Simon. “That both these happenings were the result of an Estcarp raid is, of course, nonsense.”

“That I knew, lady. It is not our manner of fighting. But is this story a cover for something else? We have asked no questions of you, but did the remainder of the Guards come ashore on the Verlaine reefs?”

She shook her head. “To the extent of my knowledge, Captain, you and those who were saved with you are the only survivors out of Sulcarkeep.”

“Yet a report such as this will spread and be an excuse for an attack on Estcarp.” Koris was frowning now. “Hunold stood high in Yvian’s favor. I do not think the Duke will take his death calmly, especially if some mystery surrounds it.”

“Fulk!” The name exploded out of Briant as if it were a dart shot from his side arm. “This is Fulk’s way out!” His pale face had expression enough now. “But he would have to deal with Siric and Lord Duarte, too! I think that Fulk has been very busy. That shieldman had so many details of a raid that he must have been acquainted with a direct report.”

“A messenger from the sea just landed. I heard him babble that much,” Koris supplied.

“From the sea!” The witch was on her feet, her scarlet and gold draperies stirring about her. “Fulk of Verlaine cannot be termed in any way a simpleton, but there is a swiftness of move here, a taking advantage of every chance happening which smacks of something more than just Fulk’s desire to protect himself against Yvian’s vengeance!”

There was a stormy darkness in her eyes as she regarded all three of them coldly. She might almost have been numbering them among hostile elements.

“This I do not like. Oh, some tale from Verlaine might have been expected; Fulk needed a story to throw into Yvian’s teeth lest the stones of his towers be rained down about his own ears. And he is perfectly capable of spitting both Siric and Durate to give added credence and cover his tracks. But the moves come too swiftly, too well fitting into a pattern! I would have sworn—”

She strode up and down the chamber, her scarlet skirts swirling about her. “We are mistresses of illusion, but I will take oath before the Power of Estcarp that that storm was no illusion! Unless the Kolder have mastered the forces of nature—” Now she stood very still, and her hands flew to her mouth as if to trap words already spoken. “If the Kolder have mastered—” her voice came as a whisper. “I cannot believe that we have been moved hither and yon at their bidding! That I dare not believe! Yet—” She whirled about and came directly to Simon.

“Briant I know, and what he does and why, all that I know. And Koris I know, and what drives him and why. But you — man out of the mists of Tor, I do not know. If you are more than you seem, then perhaps we have brought our own doom upon us.”

Koris stopped polishing the ax blade. The cloth fell to the floor as his hands closed about the haft.”He was accepted by the Guardian,” he said neutrally, but his attention centered upon Simon with the impersonal appraisal of a duelist moving forward to meet a challenge.

“Yes!” The woman from Estcarp agreed to that. “And it is impossible that what Kolder holds to its core cannot be uncovered by our methods. They could cloak it, but the very blankness of that cloak would make it suspect! There is one test yet.” She plucked at the throat fastening of her robe and drew forth the dull jewel she had worn out of Estcarp. For a long moment she held it in her hands, gazing down into its heart, and then she slipped the chain from about her neck and held it out to Simon. “Take it!” she ordered.