Three Hands for Scorpio (17 page)

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Authors: Andre Norton

BOOK: Three Hands for Scorpio
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I WAS CONSTRAINED to call up a measure of Power, since we could not go blindfolded into this place. However, the force I summoned was not for slaying, and I kept it at the lowest use of energy I could. Thus, when we saw death lying at our feet a little later, we were able to avoid those poor remains, and when we won into the place of breaking, we made no misstep. Here our pace was like striving to walk against a heavy current, so often did we stagger, fighting for every step we won forward.
Fear, and, stronger still, rage—those emotions tore at us as if they would feed upon our bodies. We felt the quiver of our Wards, for those barriers had not been set to contend with such forces as this.
We saw another door to the chamber, and we headed towards it. I felt a greater impact of Power. Determined not to waste any of my own strength, I allowed the glory-glow I had summoned to die. However, there was illumination ahead—not the blue fire we knew but rather a yellowish glow such as might mark weak sunlight.
Thus we went on and came into another chamber. Within that room stood Tam, unmarked, appearing as we had seen her always when preparing to face some trial of strength or courage. Fronting her was Zolan, Climber close by his knee, and behind him a dais supporting two familiar benches. Only one was occupied by a clay figure, a statue with a round head.
Before we could Send, a message came—not from Tam, who held her jewel before her, and not from Zolan. It was alien, like a piece of writing from some foreign land, requiring all one's wits to make sense of it.
“Welcome to you, Lady Sabina, Lady Drucilla. As has the Lady Tamara, you have proven your Talent.”
“Did I not say”—Tam's Send came at once—“that we three are as one? Certainly if I won here, then they would come also. It is their turn now to hear what you would have of us.”
Again, that Send, which became clearer and clearer the longer we received it, gave the history of the Jar People (so we have come to call them, as their name for themselves was never told us). At the same time we understood what this Pharsali would have of us. As we compared it to what we already knew, it made sense.
We were offered escape from the Dismals, for, in spite of all Zolan had
reported, there
was
a way out. Then we would be in Gurlyon again. I did not use Send, rather open speech, to raise protest.
“When we reach the Upper Land, we shall be in a place which has been disputed many times over. However, we are weaponless, and clothing such as ours could bring trouble from any who sight us.” My jerkin and trousers did not seem strange to me here, but I could foresee how any rider coming upon us, whether Breaksword or a follower sworn to some reiver lord, would straightway take us into custody. Unless our newly strengthened Power could be a defense? But, long ago, we had sworn an unbreakable oath against using our Talent for that purpose. Sword, snaplock and the weapons of human time and place could be used, not those of the Power—except against Dark Ones.
Both Tam and Cilia assented to that Send aimed impartially at the two before us. Where could we possibly find what we must have: clothing and accoutrements that would arouse no unwanted interest?
“Those who descended to our world to reap and ravage”—again the alien Send, hot with the same intensity of emotion we had encountered in the chamber of destruction—“stayed for a space. They came laden, for they had been raiding above, and what they had taken still lies in their old camp. It may serve.”
I wondered. If it were true that we had been drawn to the Dismals by the will of Ball Head, then perhaps others had been similarly beckoned to this place. But why and how would Breakswords be summoned to plunder and destroy? If this Pharsali could read minds—and I was sure that she could, for as I framed the thought I had felt a discernible touch against my inward shield—then she was not going to give any answer to my suspicion.
So it remained that Zolan was to be sent into the Upper Lands under our guidance and care. Breakswords and Border raidings aside, that challenge should be trouble enough! I did not look forward to such a journey with complete confidence, either in the actions of the three of us, or his reaction to Gurlyon.
T
hose who had come seeking the “treasure” of the Dismals had not attempted to conceal the entrance they had discovered. Though when they had returned to that site, they had found no exit to use. Rotting rope lay in coils at the foot of the cliff, but how the Dismal-dwellers had betrayed the invaders could not be discerned.
Bones, a pile of rusted metal breastplates, and several dented steel bonnets lay with the tangled rope. These grisly trophies lay heaped about another object—a long, hook-ended stick of a nonhuman limb, which stood in their midst as if to mark a field of defeat. If one surveyed the scene more closely, the marks of attack by monsters were clearly visible.
We had no desire to put name to any of the slain Breakswords and for the present we avoided the battlefield. However, as one, we turned on Zolan. We had been promised a campsite for the plundering, but nothing lying here was of value to us.
Tam, however, suddenly left my side and made for the heap of gear on the ground, then swooped, as a hawk stoops on her prey, to arise with a sword in her hand. The blade was dulled but intact.
Our host was only moments behind her. He had found a snaplock, but that was unusable, the damp having rendered it so. Hurling it to one side,
he pushed a little farther into the pile. Though he found another sword, it was also useless—the blade ended a short length beyond the hilt in a jagged break.
Though every inch of me sickened at the thought of such delving, I forced myself to hunt also. Cilla was the last to join us and she wore a mask of disgust.
In the end we freed three swords and four daggers, which were sound. Tam stood wielding the blade she had first discovered, her body following through the movements of practice. She was obviously caught by memories of Grosper and our life there.
I wanted to hurl back into the tangle of rope the dagger I held. It was a vile-looking weapon: both edges of the blade appeared deliberately serrated, to deliver the worst of wounds. The hilt was made of horn, and the knife had known so much use that this blade-holder was worn smooth, save for where a leather strip, now green with mold, wrapped it.
But such war-spoils were not what we had come to seek. I looked to where Zolan stood, awkwardly swinging another sword, his actions making it plain he had no training in the art of arms.
“This is no camp,” I stated sternly.
He had caught the point of the sword between two rocks so it twisted out of his grip, the clatter of its fall bringing attention also from Tam and Cilla. Seeming deaf to my complaint, he got the blade back in his hand before he looked up.
“Up there—” He pointed to the cliff with his upraised chin, keeping both hands upon his weapon, lest he lose it again. “There lies the way.” His head inclined to the left.
Directly before us the cliff wall was bare but, some paces away, it was cloaked in a heavy growth of vine. We could see, through gaps in the leaves here and there, that the anchoring stems indeed were thick. Yet the invaders had chosen to anchor their ropes about these growths, which in the end had somehow betrayed them.
I edged around the nearest vine and came to stand by the base of what might be a natural ladder. But I had no desire to try its strength—this lower land had shown too many perils for us to risk committing ourselves in overhaste to such a climb.
However, there was one among us who had no second thoughts about the matter. Climber, who had waited to one side as we plundered the battlefield,
near hurled himself past me, to spring some distance up from the ground. Half hidden by tattered leaves, he found firm foothold and proceeded upward, making good speed.
In only a short time, his red fur tunneled out of the upper reaches of the vines, and he found a grasp on the stone easily enough to pull himself over the edge of the cliff. He had not arrived out in the Upper World, though, but had merely come to a ledge. It was wide enough, so that he could pass out of sight, then, on turning, look down at us again.
A faint Send came from him, an urging for us to follow.
With a gagging distaste, I set the dagger in my belt, feeling that I had taken on a touch of evil, as I began to search for handholds in the leafcurtained vines.
My climb was both awkward and slow, however I found no looseness of vine or indwelling creature to fear. As Zolan's companion had done, I pulled myself over the ledge to lie panting for a moment while the beast's tongue flicked across my cheek.
The vine was shaking—someone had followed me. On hands and knees I crawled away and for the first time saw that this spot was closely akin to the one we had found earlier. The ledge was deeper than one might guess from below.
Not too far from me lay blackened stone bearing signs of past fires, and piled against the cliff were bags and bundles. This must be the camp we sought.
I made no move to investigate by myself but, a moment later, Tam was with me. After her came Zolan, and last of all Cilla. I was trying to understand how and why the Breakswords had chosen this site.
IT WAS GOOD to stand armed properly once more. The hilt of the blade I had found was firm in my hand as I breathed deeply. I had not realized how the lack of customary weapons would be so frustrating. Zolan had never known such skill. That would be another problem we must solve, but it could wait.
Almost as one, the three of us turned to the gear piled along the cliff. Never knowing what we might be forced to handle in the future, we did
not slash the ropes that held the bundles and bags, but worked patiently at the knots to free the contents.
Indeed the Breakswords had made a profitable raid! They certainly had not plundered a mere tower hold—they must instead have taken some helpless merchant. The prize was sober clothing and, though the garments were of dull shades and plain of adornment, the stuff was honest wool and recently woven. Such would not betray us to any we would meet.
“New made,” Cilla commented as she stroked the folds of a sturdy gray cloak.
“Merchant's trade goods,” I returned firmly. “Fortune has dealt well with us! A chapman can travel in a small party without attracting too much attention, so we might well pass with little notice.”
Bina shook her head. “But without mounts and pack ponies, are we to drag our wealth along the ground?”
I laughed. “Bina, you have ever been the practical one! Yes, animals we must have—”
There came a sharp hissing sound from above. Glancing up, we saw that Climber had reached the top of the outer cliff. We looked to Zolan for interpretation. He laid his sword carefully on the ledge and, giving us no explanation, set himself to another laborious climb. If he had possessed the clawed feet of his beast, he might have made a faster job of the journey. We watched him go at a creep, testing and retesting each hold before trusting to it.
Until we knew more, we had no desire to follow. However, we set aside exploration of the packs but rather sat with our heads at a painful angle to watch him. I caught up a handful of grit that some past wind had deposited in a place between two packs and began to rub it along the spotted blade.
I had not known how deeply I had missed weapons until I once more held a sword hilt in my hand. Yes—I had drawn upon the Power, yet I had always been aware that true control of that was a chancy thing. Steel, though, was a tool I could be sure of.
But I nearly dropped the weapon when I was hailed by a Send I knew by now, only that alien shading did not accompany it.
“Up!” Zolan made an order of that.
We were in no way in a hurry to obey but lingered to roll the plunder back into the covering that had protected it.
“
Up!
” A shade of anger darkened the message.
Zolan had always curbed any emotion he might feel, except when Climber had been injured, but not this time. Was he threatened by some danger?
The cat-creature had swung into sight again and was descending with the same skill that he had used to go aloft. We had moved to cliffside and I, for one, was trying to make out handholds. However, our red-coated fellow traveler did not even look at us. Determinedly he made for the booty, set his needle-tipped teeth in a rope end, then leaped back and began to climb again, trailing the rope behind. Once more he disappeared over the rock edge above and was gone.
The rope flapped against the stone wall behind him, gave a short tug upward and settled again.
“Rope!” The message of the Send was no longer
“up,”
but it was easy enough to understand. We need not fear trusting ourselves to those shallow, sometimes only fingertip holds Climber and Zolan had used—we would also have this support.
The thick cord was still twitching, and I guessed that Zolan was making fast the other end as swiftly as he could. I looked to Bina and Cilla, made my sword tight as possible without proper sheath, and reached for the rope that at last had stopped swinging.
As I climbed, I marveled that Zolan had made his ascent without a rope. I considered that I was well trained in the martial arts and that I subdued once and for all the uneasiness with heights that I had fought desperately when younger, yet I had the feeling that some force in this place, albeit one weak enough to be withstood, had pressed against me all the way. A neardissipated Warding? I fought down that first flicker of fear and, with my hands on the rope and the toes of my boots searching for chinks in the wall, I continued.
From above a hand reached down. Steely as a chain it closed about my wrist and, in a breath or two, I was drawn painfully over a rocky edge, feeling my clothing tear.
Now two hands were set on my shoulders, lifting the forepart of my body to drag me along. My sight had blurred, and I felt suddenly so weak that I lay flat where I had been dropped, able only to shift my head to one side, so that I did not rest facedown.
I could do no more than lie there panting. A short while later I heard
sounds behind me, surely announcing the arrival of one of my sisters. I tried a mind-message and met only confusion.
Weaker and weaker I grew. I attempted to draw on Power, however, not only did nothing answer but clouding of mind now joined diminished sight. Even as I had been thrust here, so another compulsion arose—one that strove to push me backward. Yet I would not yield until darkness fell, perhaps to enclose me forever.
THE ROPE AND the rock that faced me I could no longer resist, nor did I really wish to. Tam had gone and then Bina. The rope pulled taut, and I judged that an order to be followed.
As I fought my way upward I realized I was meeting opposition from without—a challenge set not against the body but rather the Talent. It was surely a Ward and, though nowhere near as strong as those we had found elsewhere in the Dismals, it still tried to repel me, so that I had to put forth twice the effort I might have used. I began to mutter my desire for aid.
Several days had elapsed between our meeting with the Jugged One and the making of this climb. I did not think that Pharsali intended us to shrink from what we did now. Perhaps Wards grew weaker with the passage of time, and this might be old by human reckoning, nonetheless a force so used might have been partly the reason for the carnage to be seen on the floor of the world below.
It grew necessary for me to pause longer and longer in my search for toeholds as I proceded. Without the rope I could not have done it at all. However, I was aware of what lay about me when Zolan reached to draw me onto level ground. The air was much cooler and I was shivering, regretting that good cloak I had left behind; but with his help, I was able to totter over and drop down beside my sisters.
Tam had managed to lever herself up straight-armed, though she was blinking oddly and showed no sign of recognizing me. Bina was twisting back and forth as if to bring herself also into sitting position.
Having made sure of us, Zolan stood a little away on a plateau that stretched for what might be leagues beyond toward distant mountains.
I could not see what had caught his attention, but he suddenly began to stride away from where we were clustered.
We watched as our guide continued to grow smaller before our eyes. By the sun, the time must have been well past the midpoint of the day. This place held no cave or other shelter, and the wind freshened to roughen our skin; however, no one suggested returning down that rigorous climb to raid the loot on the ledge-camp for other clothing.
Tam got to her feet and Climber raised his head from his paws. She made no move to push past him but shuffled instead to the rope, which lay slack across the mixture of rock and sun-baked earth. She stooped, caught at the cord, and tugged. The far end did not come free; it appeared to be securely anchored.
As if she were too tired to return the few steps to us, she sat down there. The front of both her jerkin and her leggings were scraped, and small tears showed in the fabric, yet she made no effort to examine them. Zolan was no longer in sight. We might attempt to follow, save that none of us three had the strength for such action.
Bina did not get to her feet, but she moved to face us at the rim of the Dismals. She was frowning.
“The other side—” She spoke as if assuring herself of the accuracy of a memory. “Maclan dropped us from the other side. Must we get all the way around the Dismals?”
I found that possibility too overwhelming to answer at once. She was right, our enemies' approach had been from the east, not the west. But such concerns did not seem to matter anymore; I, for one, could stir for no action whatever. The thought of having to tramp forward for an unknown number of leagues, guided by the dizzying edge of the canyon rim, was too exhausting a prospect for me to consider at present.
That Ward, for force-barrier it must have been, still possessed enough power to limit us. I was cold, hungry, and thirsty. The answers for all of those wants lay below. Perhaps this was not the route Pharsali had promised us. We were out of the Dismals, yes, but were still almost as helpless as we had been when we were sent there. Zolan had gone off. If he had spoken the truth, he was as ignorant of the land that stretched about us as we had been of his world.
Tam looked out over the country where our host had disappeared. Once more she grasped the rope and gave a sharp tug; this time, though, it did
not come free here where its end was twined around two large stones pushed together.
“We cannot go down again,” I protested. “The Ward is not exhausted but we are.”
Bina nodded. “That is so.”
Tam turned to face us squarely. “Now we ought not to attempt it, no, yet it must be done. Without supplies and warmer clothing it is useless to—”
She stopped nearly in midword. We felt it, too—a pull, a compulsion. Oddly, it brought no fear but rather a sensation of expectation totally free of any emotion but a feeling of goodwill.
We moved together, though none of us rose to our feet. Now we were crouched shoulder to shoulder, hand clasping hand, and waiting—
This was unlike anything I had felt—
we
had felt—before. I tried to sift the feeling, believing it could not be intended for me. It radiated warmth, not for the body but the mind. Someone—or thing—wished me well but also desired my presence. I looked at Bina and to Cilla. They were watching the land, whose openness was broken only by clumps of trees here and there.
Climber was on his feet again, his head up. He gave a cry that was neither yelp nor purr, yet no challenge.
“Zolan!”
I was sure I was right. Then I saw distant movement. We sat, still handlinked, waiting. Out among the sparse stands of trees, the sprouting grass of late spring, shadows began to move. No, not shadows—solid forms, and they were coming at such a good pace that they grew quickly before our eyes.
“Horses!” I cried aloud.
At the front of the small herd there was a mounted figure. Zolan, it must be the man from the Dismals, but how—?
That compulsion now centered upon the rider and the animals which followed him. The mounts looked unlike the horses I had ridden; then I understood. Though there were indeed three or four taller animals among them, Zolan was astride the bare back of one of several small, tough ponies, such as had been known and cherished centuries long in Gurlyon for their versatility.
In a moment they were level with us. Zolan slipped from his seat, turning to draw one hand down the nose of his mount before he faced us.
Though none of them appeared tired, neither did any stray, but remained in an uncertain half-circle.
Zolan still did not address us. Instead he looked to Climber, and I felt the brush of that alien Send. The red-coated beast walked toward the man slowly. Some of the ponies snorted and backed a little, but not one bolted. Climber reached the horse Zolan still kept hold of by the ragged mane, matted with leaf fragments and a twist of vine.
Talents—! This was true Talent, but it was not one we shared. I had heard of horsetalkers, men who could walk out to even a nervous stallion or battle destrier and, within moments, establish bond. Perhaps that was how, originally, a fierce hunter such as Climber had become his companion.
I was on my feet now, walking toward him. This pocket-sized herd was not from any proud stable—the closer I drew, the more visible that fact became. They were of the wild, untended by any currycomb, perhaps never having felt the weight of a saddle.

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