Three Hands for Scorpio (32 page)

Authors: Andre Norton

BOOK: Three Hands for Scorpio

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IN ALL OUR years of life, in any experience of knowledge gained, Talent shared, or testing endured, never had we encountered such a trial for body and soul as this. Cradling the gem in my two hands, Bina moving shoulder to shoulder with me, I hastened toward the stairs.

The last of the Dark things was being dispersed by the Wild Ones, and now those conquerors, too, were winking out of sight. The Green Folk could have been only images wrought by our own need and fear. Mother, Duty, and the Northern adept still stood together, but they seemed unharmed and we were not concerned for them. Cilla lay facedown, unmoving, on the palace steps, Climber limp beside her. Zolan knelt by Maclan, who appeared pale and drawn as if he had passed through some deadly illness.

Without rising to his feet, the man from the Dismals turned and mind-spoke. His Send was plain, but it held no heat of victory.

“Tharnâisâgone.” The words were spaced well apart, spoken through nearly overwhelming fatigue.

We reached Cilla at the same time he slipped down to the step where she lay. Bina, her healer's instincts taking over, had already lifted our sister's head. No recognition showed in her open eyes.

I was shoved aside; Mother had come, as had Duty.

Together they eased Cilia over onto her back. With a frown, Mother shook her head at Zolan, warning him to remain in place, but neither she nor the Wisewife paid him any further heed.

Instead, Mother appeared to speak, and anger flared in her voice as she spoke.

“Breakâ
break link
, I order you! You have achieved what you would do, Woman of the Jarsânow release my daughter!”

She drew Cilla's head against her breast, and I saw tears begin to gather in my sister's open eyes, then trickle down. Bina's hand fell upon my shoulderâaroseâthe gem was cool against my forehead. My whole body was taken by a shudder so powerful it shook Mother as well.

“It is finished,” I said slowly in a whisper to be heard because a vast silence enclosed us.

And so it was.

An Endingâ?

Tamara

T
he combined forces led by the Lord Warden and the highest-ranking chiefs of the assembled clans arrived together, having fought a skirmish with the remnants of the rebellion. The king was under surveillance, for Fergal's story had had an effect not only on his own clan leader but several others, all of high standing. Nor was it forgotten that Arvor had welcomed and supported Chosen Forfind in the beginning.

Our own party had made its way from the now-loathsome square into the palace and sought an inner room. We did not carefully note its location, nor do I remember much of that search for shelter, for we were all drooping and eager only to discover places on a carpeted floor. There sleep that was close to a swoon overtook us.

Sabina

NO DREAMS CAME to trouble me. When I became aware of low voices again, though not words, I stretched out a little to ease an aching leg. I sensed warmth and a weight there, then I felt a damp tongue rasp over
my arm, further arousing me. Opening my eyes, I saw lamplightâand looked upon Climber resting against me, his eyes regarding me strangely.

Emptiness was what I felt the most. Uneasiness arose as I put name to the feeling. What had passed awayâor, worse, had been wrung out of me in time just past?

As I had done in the past when I awakened from some disturbing dream, I turned to the oldest and surest companionship I knew.

“Tam? Cilla?”
At least there was no difficulty in my Send.

“Bina!”
A unison cry; I had reached them both. The root of my fear was stricken, then died completely. The Talent remained to us! Once more our world shrank, tightened to hold only us three. We moved to cling together. So assured, we at last attended to what lay about us.

The room we had come into was a large chamber in which great lamps hung at intervals along the wall. At the far end of its expanse stood a dais and, on it, the Throne of the North.

Below that raised platform an argument was in progress. To one side we saw Zolan, and across from him Arvor. A little apart stood a number of the clan lordsâamong them Starkadder and others whose badges stated that their families had been involved in the past in the making of kings.

Drucilla

I WATCHED ZOLAN closely. The strangeness I had earlier sensed in him was stronger. He wasâwhat? Not of humankind; perhaps not as far removed as the great spiders of the Dismals were from those lesser spinners who wove their traps in our world, yet no true kin to us. Now he glanced toward the clan lords. Fergal started forward, but Zolan shook his head.

“You know the truth, but once more I shall tell you: I am not of your kind. This shell”âhe drew his hands down his bodyâ“is merely what I wear that I might serve those who are left of our people. Years agone, a young male child whom some of your folk would have forced to their own service was banished to the Dismals to shift the balance of power in favor of one clan. He had been used so hardlyâthink well on this, my lordsâthat he no longer thoughtâhe only feared. He sickenedâ”

Climber trotted forward, then stood up on his hind legs and nudged
Zolan with his muzzle. The man who was from, and of, the Dismals stroked his head. Then he continued. “This very one, this hero of great courage, has chosen to live in a beast's skin that he might serve his lady. He found the boy, brought him to Pharsali. She knew the child was dying. In her sorrow and her love, she was moved to violate an ancient taboo, and into his bodyâthe form of the youth you knew as Gerritâshe sent the spirit of her own son.

“I am not of your blood. The lady sent me to deal with the one who would have made of your land a place of Always Dark, who slew and slew, and dyed your ways in blood. With the aid of those of an Old Learning, I have done as she has sworn me to doâTharn is dead. The task is yours to cleanse the stains he has left.

“I say to you that I go now to my own place.”

Tamara

HE DELIVERED THAT message with conviction, and he spoke with the force of truth.

Now a stir began among the Gurlys, and one of the clansmen raised a voice, but not in denial. Arthter had silently gone forward. Now he faced the company.

“Starkadder, Raghnell, Merven, Drafford, Wallingsor, Quain.” The adept addressed the chiefs who stood before him, though from his lips the roll call of names had the sound, and force, of an incantation. “You know me and the truth I am sworn to speak, so hear me now and cast any doubt from your minds. This Evil was not of our world, and it has been dispatched to the judgment of its gods. Which of you can now stand forth and say that Zolan shall not return to those of his kin? Raise your voice, if you willâ”

Utter silence.

“It is well!” His voice was that of a Speaker of Laws passing a decree.

Not only did Arthter smooth the way back to the Dismals for Zolan by this intercession, he also chose to ride with him. And our companion welcomed him, speaking (we suspected) not only for himself but also by the favor of the Lady of the Jars.

When Zolan was preparing to ride out later, I went to him with the gem
out of the ruins and offered it to him, saying: “This is of your heritage, not mine. Let it return to its own land and people.”

But not only did he refuse to take the stone, he gave meâno, us threeâanother gift of perhaps greater value.

“Lady Tamara, this jewel was freely given to you by our Old Ones. Keep it always, and may it serve you well again.” He closed my hand around the talisman, which glowed warmly in response to the double touch. Gazing at my fingers, seemingly lit with the hidden fire they held, he then said: “This gem seems a fitting emblem of the Power you wieldâyou, and the two who share your mighty birth-bond. Indeed, so greatly have the three of you wrought in this war that the hero-singers will remember you three long after the flesh now alive, and”âhis tone grew momentarily quieterâ“the clay of the jars that holds my people has returned to the dust.

“However”ânow Zolan's voice rose until it rang like a war-trumpet through the hall of the kingsâ“I doubt not that, in the meanwhile, the battle-cry of
Three Hands for Scorpio!
will summon many to the banner of the Light.”

Then he was gone, back to his own place as we must return to ours; and whether he spoke in the spirit of true prophecy in that hour of parting was left ours to determine.

THUS WE SAW an end to this dark venture. When we had arrived back in Grosper, we found a message from Her Gracious Majesty summoning us to court that she might learn from us the whole of what happened.

Now we put an end to our tale.

Tamara of Verset
Sabina of Verset
Drucilla of Verset

[Small sheet of parchment found in the records of Alsonia]

I, Drucilla of Verset, need to make certain the following information survives. Her Majesty, it seems, would have us back in Alsonia for another reason. She wishes to ensure that the Talent will, for centuries ahead, make safe her kingdom and has, to further its perpetuation,
selected certain husbands for us. She had already sent Ison to join our forces for this reason, as though he were the soup course that heralds a full feast! But no one can choose a mate for another, and, if we are too straitly constrained, we know a land to the north that has long provided a haven for renegades and adventurers and may welcome usâthat place of wonders, the Dismals.

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