Lost Lands of Witch World (23 page)

And, in the strange manner of dreaming when many things may be mingled, I was sure that the threats which had been with me since my birth did not hold here, but that once more our people were strong, able, unbeset by those who would drag them and their whole civilization down into the dust of ending.

But with me also was a shadowy memory of a great trial and war which lay behind, and which we had survived through struggle and many defeats, to this final victory. And that dark war had been worth all it had cost, for what we had come to hold.

Then I awoke, and lay blinking at dusky shadows over my head. Yet I carried with me something from that dream, an idea which held the improbability of most dream action, yet which was very real to me, as if in my sleep some geas past my avoiding had been laid on me. As perhaps it had, for in this land were there not forces at work past our divining? I was sure in that hour as to what I
must do—as if it were all action past; already laid out in words on some scroll of history.

Kemoc still lay on the neighboring couch, his face clear and untroubled in his sleep. For a moment I envied him, for it seemed that he was under no compulsion such as now moved me. I did not wake him, but dressed in the fresh clothing my host or hostess had left, and went past the screen, into the main hall.

Four of the lizards sat about a flat stone, their slender claws moving about tiny carved objects, no doubt playing a game. Their heads all turned at my coming and they favored me with those unwinking stares of their kind. And two others also looked at me. I raised my hand in a small salute of greeting to her who sat cross-legged on a wide cushion, a cup by her hand on a low table.

“Kyllan of the House of Tregarth, out of Estcarp.” She made that both formal greeting and introduction. “Ethutur of the Green Silences.”

He who was with her got lightly to his feet. He was as tall as I, his dark eyes meeting mine on a level. He wore the jerkin and breeches like mine, but, as with Dahaun, he had gemmed wristlets and belt in addition. His horns were longer, more in evidence, than those of the guards who had ridden with us from the menhir ring, but save for those he might have been any man of the Old Race. As to his age, I could make no guess. For he might have had a few more years than I counted, but meeting his eyes and what lay behind them, that I doubted. Here was one who had all the unobtrusive authority of he who has commanded men—or forces—for years, who had made decisions and ordered them, or carried them out for himself, abiding by the result without complaint or excuse. This was a leader such as I had known in Koris of the Axe, or my father, little as I could remember of Simon Tregarth.

His eyes measured me in return. But I had stood for appraisement before, and this was not as important to me as that which had carried over from my dream.

Then his hands came out, palm up. Without knowing the why of that gesture, mine moved to them, palm down, our flesh so meeting. Between us passed something else, not as strong a contact as I had with Kemoc and Kaththea, but some of the union. And in that I knew he accepted me—to a point.

Dahaun gazed from one to the other of us; then she smiled. Whether that was in relief as to how our meeting had gone, I could not tell, but she motioned me to another cushion, and poured golden liquid from a flagon into a cup for me.

“Kaththea?” I asked before I drank.

“She sleeps. She will need rest, for more than her body is tired. She tells me that she did not accept the oath of the Witches, but certainly she cannot be less than they. She has the Right, the Will, and the Strength to be a Doer rather than a Seeker.”

“If she uses it rightly,” Ethutur said, speaking for the first time.

I gave him a level glance across the rim of my goblet. “She has never used it wrongly.”

Then he, too, smiled, and the lighting of his general somberness made him indeed a youth and not a war leader of too many strained years. “Never as you fear I meant,” he agreed. “But this is not your land—the currents here are very swift and deep, and can be disastrous. Your sister will be the first to admit, when she knows it all, that a new kind of discipline must be exercised. However . . . ” He paused, and then smiled again. “You do not really realize what your coming means to us, do you? We have walked a very narrow path between utter dark on one hand, and chaos on the other. Now forces are loosed to nudge us into peril. Chance may dictate that such a move will bring us through to new beginnings—or it may be the end of us. We have been weighing one fortune against another this day, Kyllan. Here in this valley we have our safety, hardwon, nursed through centuries. We have our allies—none to be despised—but we are few in number. Perhaps the enemy is also limited, but those who now serve them as hands and feet muster the greater.”

“And what if your numbers were increased?”

He took up his cup from the table. “In what manner, friend? I tell you this, we do not recruit from other levels of existence! That was the root of all our present evils.”

“No. What if your recruits be men of the Old Race—already seasoned warriors—what then?”

Dahaun moved a little on her cushion. “Men can be swayed by the Powers here—and what men do you speak of? All dwelling in Escore made their choice long ago. The handful who chose to stand with us are already one, our blood long since mingled so there is no pure Old Race to be found.”

“Except in the west.”

Now I had their full attention, though their faces were impassive, their thoughts well hidden from me. Was I indeed bewitched that a dream could possess me after this fashion? Or had I been granted a small bit of foreknowledge as a promise—and bait?

“The west is closed.”

“Yet we three came that way.”

“You are not of the fullblood either! Paths not closed to you might be closed to others.”

“With a guide to whom such paths were open a party could win in.”

“Why?” The one word from Ethutur was a bleak question.

“Listen—perhaps you do not know how it is there. We, too, have walked a narrow path such as yours . . . ” Swiftly I told them of the twilight of Estcarp and what it would mean to all those who shared my blood.

“No!” Ethutur brought down his fist with such force on the top of the table that the goblets jumped. “We want no more Witches here! Magic will open doors to magic. We might as well cut our own throats and be done with it!”

“Who spoke of Witches?” I asked. “I would not seek out the Wise Ones—my
life would be forfeit if I did so. But those who carry shields in Estcarp's service are not always one in thought with the Council. Why should they be, in their hearts, when the Witches close so many doors?” And once again I laid facts before them. That marriages were few since women with the Power did not easily lay aside their gift, and births even fewer. That many men went without woman or homeplace for all of their lives, and that this was not a thing which made for contentment.

“But if there is a war, they will have assigned their loyalty and you could not find followers,” Ethutur objected. “Or those you could find would not be men to whom you could trust your unarmed back—”

“Now there may be an end to war—for a time. Such a blow as was dealt to Karsten in the mountains would also prove a shock to Alizon. I will not know unless I go to see.”

“Why?” This time the question was Dahaun's, and I made frank answer.

“I do not know why I must do this, but that I am under geas of that I am sure. There is no turning for me from this road—”

“Geas!” She rose and came to kneel before me, her hands tight upon my shoulders as if she would hold me past all escape. Her eyes probed into mine, a kind of searching deeper than that Ethutur had used, deeper than I had thought possible. Then she sat back on her heels, loosing her grasp.

Turning her head she spoke to Ethutur. “He is right. He is under geas.”

“How? This is clear land!” Ethutur was on his feet, staring about him as one who seeks an enemy.

“The land is clear; there has been no troubling. Therefore it must be a sending. . . . ”

“From whence?”

“Who knows what happens when a balance swings? That this has happened we cannot question. But—to bear the burden of a geas is not easy, Kyllan of the House of Tregarth out of Estcarp.”

“I did not believe that it would be so, lady,” I replied.

W
e might be riding across a deserted land, we who had been harried and hunted before. No sign of that frightening crew that had besieged us in the menhir-guarded refuge showed; even their tracks had vanished from the soil. Yet I sensed our going was noted, assessed, perhaps wondered over, and this was only a short lull with very false peace.

Ethutur's men rode at my back, and, beside me, against my wishes, Dahaun who had taken no discouraging from that journey. Before us were the western mountains and the gateway between the lands.

We did not talk much—a few surface words now and then as she pointed out some landmark, either as a guide or a thing to beware in crossing the country, with always an unspoken assurance that I would return to have need of such information. But as I rode my own confidence was not as great. I was a man under compulsion—the way of it I did not understand. Because I would not have Kemoc and Kaththea join their fates to mine in this perilous business I had ridden while they still lay in healing slumber.

That night we camped among the trees which were not as fine or tall as those of the Green Valley, but were of the same species, thus friendly to those with me. This time I did not dream—or at least not to remember—yet with my morning waking the need for going was more deeply rooted, spurring me to speed. Dahaun rode on my right and this time she sang, soft and low, and now and then she was answered, by the green birds, or by Flannan in bird form.

She looked at me from the corners of her eyes and then smiled.

“We have our scouts also, man of war. And, even though they know their duty well, it sometimes goes even better if they are alerted. Tell me, Kyllan, what chances have you on this man quest of yours?”

I shrugged. “If matters rest as they did when I fled Estcarp, very few. But with an end made to any Karsten invasion, perhaps that has changed.”

“You have those who will come to your horn—your own shield men?”

I was forced to shake my head. “I have no shields pledged to me as overlord, no. But the Borderers among whom I served are landless and homeless. Years ago they were thrice horned as outlaws in Karsten and escaped with only their lives and the bare steel in their hands. Odd, when we came hither we spoke of that—that it would be a land won by swords.”

“By more than swords,” she corrected me. “However, these landless warriors might well be reckless enough to follow such a quest. In the final saying most of us seek a place to set roots and raise house trees. Here they will pay sword weight instead of tribute. Yet—our seeking is based on guesses, Kyllan, and guesses are light things.”

I would not look at her now. I had no dispute for what she said, and the closer we drew to a time of parting the more I rebelled against the invisible purpose which had been laid upon me. Why me? I had no power to command respect, no gift of words such as Kemoc could summon upon occasion. My position as eldest son of Tregarth was nothing to draw any support to my shield. Nor had I made a war name to gather any followers. So—why must I be driven back to a fruitless task?

“To break a geas . . . ” Had she been reading my mind? For a second I resented, was ashamed of, what she might have picked from my thought.

“To break a geas, that is courting complete disaster.”

“I know!” I interrupted her roughly. “And it can recoil on more than he who breaks it. I ride to the mountains, not from them, lady.”

“But not in any helpful spirit.” Her tone was a little cold. “Right thinking can draw good fortune, and the reverse is also true. Not that I believe you have any easy path. Nor do I understand why . . . ” Her voice trailed into silence. When she spoke again her words were pitched lower, hurried. “I do not know what force can aid beyond the mountains. You leave those here who have reason to wish you well, would will what they can in your behalf. If you fall into danger—think on that, and on them. I can promise you nothing, for this is an untried, unmarked wilderness. But what can be done in your behalf, that I promise will be! And with your sister and brother—who knows indeed!”

She began to talk then of little things which were far apart from my purpose, things which opened for me small sunny vistas of her life as it had been before we came to break the uneasy peace of Escore. It was as if she took me by the hand and welcomed me into the great hall of her life, showing me most of its private rooms and treasures. And that was a gift beyond price, as I knew even as I accepted it, for now she was not the awesome controller of strange powers, but instead, a girl as my sister had been before the Wise Ones rift her from us and strove to remodel her into their own pattern.

Then in turn Dahaun coaxed memories from me. I told her of Etsford and our life there, more of that than of the hard years which followed when we rode mailed and armed about the grim business of war. And the sweet of those memories, even though it carried always a hint of bitter, relaxed me.

“Ah, Kyllan of the House of Tregarth,” she said, “I think we two understand each other a little better. And that is to your liking, is it not?”

I felt the warmth of blood-flush rising up throat and cheek. “I cannot hide all thoughts, lady—”

“Is there a need to?” Her question was sober enough, yet under that soberness lurked amusement. “Has there been any need to since first we looked, really looked upon one another?”

She was not bold; it was fact she stated. Then there roused in me such fire that I clenched fists, fought myself, lest I reach for her in the instant, the need to have her in my arms nearly breaking all control. But that would be the false step, the wrong path for both of us. How did I reckon that? It was like the geas, knowledge out of nowhere yet not to be denied. And the hatred of my task grew with that constraint so holding me now.