Sorceress Of The Witch World

IX

My fingers closed about the wand, and then nearly did I drop it, for it was as if I had grasped a length of frosted metal, so cold it burnt the skin laid against it. Yet I did not release it—I could not—for at that moment it clung to me more than I grasped at it.

At the same instant Ayllia broke from my control. She threw herself forward, out of my reach before I could catch her again. As her feet touched the pavement she staggered and went down, falling on her hands and knees. Her weight upon those stones must have released some hidden spring, for a flash burst upward. As it had been in my dream, there stood the gate marked in fiery lines.

“No, Ayllia!” If she heard my shout it meant nothing to her ensorcelled mind. She scuttled forward, still on hands and knees like some tormented beast, and passed between the gateposts of that weird portal.

Though through it I could see the hall beyond, Ayllia vanished utterly once she went through the arch. Still clutching the wand, I leaped after her, determined that no more lives would be lost because of my lack of concern or courage.

There was a feeling of being rent apart, not altogether pain but rather a hideous disorientation because I passed through some space which a human body was never meant to penetrate. Then I was rolling over a firm surface, and I found myself moaning with the punishment I had taken in that brief instant of time or out of time.

I sat up dizzily. Though I was now silent there was still moaning and I looked around me groggily. Against a tall object looming high in the gloom lay a crumpled bundle which cried out. I crawled to Ayllia’s side, raised her head upon my arm. She lay with her eyes closed, but her body twitched and quivered. Now her head began to turn restlessly from side to side as I have seen in one who is deep in some burning fever. And all the while she uttered small sharp cries.

Pulling her closer to me, I looked back and up for the gate. To see—nothing!

I had oft-times heard of my father’s coming into Estcarp through such a portal, and on this side he had found two pillars set to mark the entrance on Tor Moors. When he and my mother had gone up against the stronghold of the Kolder, that gate, too, had been marked in both worlds. But it would seem that this entrance or exit differed, for I could see nothing but a stretch of open land.

It was day here, but clouds hung low and the light was dusky. Whereas snow and ice had clothed Escore on the other side of that vanished doorway, here the atmosphere was sultry and I coughed, my eyes tearing, for the air seemed filled with noxious puffs of invisible smoke.

There was no vegetation. The ground was as uniformly gray as the sky, a sand which looked as if it had never given root room to any healthy growing thing. In some places there were drifts of powdery stuff which looked like ash. This might be a land cleared in some great burning. I glanced at the pillar Ayllia had fallen against.

It was tall, taller than any man. But it was no seared tree trunk nor finger of stone, but rather metal, a girder or support, now pitted and scaly as if something in the acrid air was reducing it little by little to flakes of its former self. Had it once been set to mark the gate on this side? But it stood too far from where we had come through.

I settled Ayllia on the ground, her head pillowed on my pack. Then I got shakily to my feet and I saw something gleaming on the ground and staggered toward it. The wand lay there, so white against this drab sand that it was like a beam of light.

Stiffly I stopped to pick it up. The icy cold of it was gone—now it was like any other smooth rod. I tucked it carefully into the folds of my belt sash. Then I made a slow turn, viewing what lay about us, hoping for a clue to the gate.

The sand was heaped in ashy dunes, each so like the next that it would be very easy, I believed, to be lost among them. There was no marker except the pitted pillar. But when I faced that squarely and looked beyond, I saw another one some distance away, in a straight line with the first.

Ayllia stirred, pulling herself up. I went to her hurriedly. Once more her eyes were blank; she was lost in some inner wilderness where I could not reach her. She clawed her way to her feet, holding to the broken pillar for support. Then she faced about, in the same direction as that second column. Her head was up and back a little, turning slowly from side to side, almost like a hound questing for some familiar scent. Then she began to stagger on, in the direction of that next pillar.

I caught at her shoulder. She gave no sign she knew me, but she struggled, with a surprising return of strength, against my hold. Suddenly, when I least expected it, she swung around and struck out with a shrewdly aimed blow which sent me sprawling.

By the time I got to my feet again she was well ahead, her first staggering giving way to as firm a run as one could keep over this powdery footing. I scrambled after her, though I was loath to leave that spot without further exploration. I dared not believe that the gate was totally lost and we had no hope of return.

The second broken pillar stood near to a third and Ayllia was on her way to that. But it did not seem to me that she was being guided by them, at all, but rather that she once more was led by something within her mind, an unseen compulsion.

We passed six of those columns, all as eroded and eaten as the first, before we came out of the place of sand dunes and into another type of country. Here there was a withered growth of grass-like vegetation, in sickly patches, more yellow than green. The line of pillars continued in a straight march across this landscape, but now they were taller and seemed less eaten—until we came to two which were congealed and melted into blobs of stumps. Around these were growths of the first vigorous vegetation I had seen, unpleasant looking stuff with a purple tinge, fine filaments of dusky red fluttering from the leaf tips, as if questing for life to devour. I had no desire to examine it closely.

Beyond the melted columns lay a road. Unlike the pillars, this showed no signs of wear: it might have been laid down within the year. Its surface was sleek and slick looking and of a dead black. Ayllia came to the edge of that and stood swaying a little, though she did not look down at what might be a treacherous footing, but still stared ahead.

At last I caught up with her. And, from behind, I grasped her shoulder, held her. But she did not try to attack me this time. I did not like the look of that road, nor did I want to step on it. And I was hesitating as to what to do next when I heard the sound. It was a rushing as if something approached at great speed. I set my weight against Ayllia, bearing her with me down against the gritty ground, hoping our dull-colored garments would be one with the gray-brown soil.

It came along the road at such a speed as to leave me unsure of the nature of what had passed. Certainly not an animal of any kind. I had an impression of a cylinder, perhaps of metal, which did not even rest on the surface over which it skimmed, but perhaps the length of my arm above. It followed the roadway at a great speed, leaving a rush of air to cover us with dust as it vanished in the distance.

I wondered if we had been sighted. If we had, those controlling the thing had not bothered to stop. Perhaps they could not in this place. The speed with which they had swished by would not answer to a sudden halt.

But what manner of thing was it which would race so, not touching the ground, yet manifestly traveling by the roadway? The Kolder had lived with machines to do their work. Had we broken into the Kolder world, even as my mother and father had once done? If so we were in great peril, for the Kolder gave their captives to a living death such as no one could imagine without skirting madness.

I had in my pack very little food. And I carried no water, for I had intended to travel where snow and river could have satisfied my thirst at will. Here the acrid atmosphere and the dry blowing of the wind had awakened a thirst to parch my mouth, as if I had tried to swallow handfuls of the ashes about me.

We must have water, and food, to keep life in our bodies. From the look of the land so far we could not expect to find either—which meant we must risk the worst and travel along this road, perhaps in the same direction as the rushing thing.

I put my hand to Ayllia, but she had already turned in that direction, her eyes still staring blankly. Now she began to march along the edge of the road, while for want of a better guide I followed.

We saw it from far off. I had looked upon the towers of Es City, upon the citadel of the unknown eastern cape, and both had I thought major works of man’s hand. But this was such as I could not look upon and believe that man alone had wrought. The towers, if true towers they were, arose up and up to tangle with the gray clouds of the sky. And they were all towers, with little bulk of building below to support them. From tower to tower there was a lacing of strung ways, as if their makers put roads high in the sky. And all this was of the same dun color as the ground. They might have been growths out of the ashy soil by some fantastic cultivation. Yet they had the sheen of metal.

The fluid looking road we followed fed directly into the foot of the nearest tower. Now we could see other such roads spreading out from the city, running from other towers. I have watched the webs of the zizt spiders with their thickly woven center portions, their many radiating threads of anchorage. And the thought came to me that if one were able to soar elsewhere overhead and look down on this complex, it would seem from that angle to be a zizt web—which was not a promising thought, for the zizt spiders are such hunters as it is well to avoid.

I ran my tongue over lips which were parched and cracked, and saw that Ayllia was in no better state. She had begun to moan again, even as she had when she first came through the gate. Somewhere there was water and it looked like we would have to enter that web of metal to find it.

There was another warning rushing sound and once more I pulled my companion to the ground. A carrier swept by, not on the road we had followed; but some distance away. And, as I levered myself up when it was safely past, I saw something else, a dark spot in the sky, growing larger at every beat of my thundering heart.

It could not be a bird. But what of my father’s stories of the past? In his world men had built machines, even as did the Kolder, and in such they rode the sky, setting the winds to their commands. Had we—could this be my father’s world? Yet such a city—he had never spoken of that, nor of a land reduced to cinders and sand.

The sky thing grew and grew. Then it halted its flight to hover over a space between two of the towers. I saw a platform there, more steady than the lacy ways which provided passage between height and height. With caution the sky thing settled on that platform.

It was too far away for me to see if men came out of it to enter any of the four towers at the corners of the landing space. But it was so strange as to make me a little afraid.

Kolder lore, their machines and the men they made into machines to do their will, had so long been evil tales that we of Estcarp were tuned to an instant loathing for all their works. And so this place had the stench of vileness which was not like the evil of Escore which I could understand, since that came from the wrongful twisted way of life I followed, while this was wholly alien to all I stood for.

Yet we must have food and water or die. And there is always this: one does not willingly choose death when there is even a small chance of grasping life. Thus we stood and looked upon that fantastic city, or rather I looked, and Ayllia stared as if she saw nothing.

At ground level the only entrances to the nearer towers seemed to be those tunnels fed by the roads. In fact, there were no breaks in the walls until the first of the airy ways and those were higher than the highest spires I had known in Es City. No windows at all.

Therefore if we would enter we must do it by road. And I shrank from putting foot to that slick surface. Yet how long would my strength, or Ayllia’s, hold without supplies? To delay was to weaken ourselves at a time when we must harbor all the energy we could summon for survival.

It was growing darker and I thought that it was not a coming storm but night which brought that dusk. Perhaps the dark would be our friend. I could see no lights aloft. But, even as I watched, there was a sudden outburst of sparkling radiance to outline each of the inter-tower ways, glistening like dew on a spider web.

There was a duller glow outlining the cave holes into which the roads fed. And light in there could be more unfriend than aid. But I thought we had no choice, and what small advantage might lie with us grew the less with every passing moment.

So I took Ayllia’s arm. She no longer led the way, but she did not hang back nor dispute with me when I pushed ahead, still beside the road, the glow of the entrance before us.

As we drew closer I saw, with some small relief, that the opening was wider than the span of the road so that there was a narrow walkway beside it and we need not get down on its surface. But was that wide enough to save us should one of those carriers make entrance when we were attempting the same? The wind of their passing had twice proved forceful; in the confined space of the tunnel it might be fatal.

I halted at the mouth of that opening and listened. There was certainly no warning of such a coming, and we could not hesitate here for long. Best get inside and seek out a side way off the course of the road.

The surface under our feet as we passed into the base of the tower was, I believe, some sort of metal overlaid with a slightly elastic spongy stuff so that it gave with every step. We were in a tunnel as I had expected, and I hurried Ayllia along that narrow walk, hoping for a break in the wall beside us, some door opening from the tube.

We found such an opening, marked by a very dim light burning above it, and below that light a symbol foreign to me. The passage beyond was as narrow as a slit, leading off at a right angle. Once into it I breathed a little freer, relaxing my need to listen for destruction rushing from behind.

So relaxed, I sensed that other feeling in this place. The air was not as sultry as it had been outside, but it was still unpleasant to breathe, and now it carried odors which I could not identify, but which made me sneeze and cough.

At lengthy intervals along the wall were other patches of light; but so dim were they that the spaces between them were pockets of dark. We were midway in the second of those when I realized we had found this side burrow just in time. For there was a mighty roaring from behind and the walls and floor quivered. One of the carriers must have entered the tunnel. There were blasts of air so fume-filled that we strangled in our coughing fight for breathable air. Tears streamed from our eyes until I was blinded, I only staggered along instinctively, still pulling at my companion, trying to escape that pollution.

When we reached the haven of the next light I leaned against the wall, trying to wipe my eyes, regain my breath.

And so I saw that the footing under our boots was drifted with a feathery deposit, as soft as the ashes of the outer world, but black. Along the way we had come we had left a well-marked trail. But ahead there were only untroubled drifts. By such signs no one had passed this way for some time—perhaps for years. And that thought was heartening, but it did not bring us any closer to what we must have to sustain us.

The narrow passage ended in a round space which seemed like the bottom of a well. I could put my head far back on my shoulders and look up and up into eye straining distance, as if this well space extended from here to the far-off crown of the tower. There were openings along it at intervals, as if it bisected various floors. Some of these were dim of light, others shown brilliantly. There was no ladder, though, no sign of any steps which would lead to even the lowest of these openings. We had no choice, I decided, but to retreat to the dangerous tunnel and try along it for a second possible escape route.

Ayllia stepped forward suddenly, jerking me with her. I threw out my hand to retain my balance, my palm slapping hard against the wall.

There was an answer to that unplanned action. We were no longer standing on our two feet at the bottom; instead we were rising, our bodies soaring as if we had sprouted wings. I think I cried out. I know my hand went to the wand at my belt. Then I clawed at the smooth side of the space through which we rose, striving to win some hold to stop our going. My nails scraped and broke, but they did not even slow that ascent.

We floated past the first opening, which must mark the level immediately above the one we had entered. This was one of the dimmer lighted and I saw there was space on either side, as if this hole bisected a passage somewhat wider than the entrance into this trap.

I began to move my feet, kick out a little, and so I discovered that I could so push myself toward the side of the well. I must now make an effort at the next level to pull out, taking Ayllia with me. And to that I bent all my energies. We finally won free of the well, somehow pulling into another passage on the opposite side from where we had entered.

This was much better lighted and there was sound—or was it vibration?—which seemed to come, not from any one direction, but from the floor on which we lay, or out of the walls about us. There was still a spongy coating on the floor, but no longer any drifts of sooty ash. We could have come into a portion which was in use. And that must make us more wary in our going.

I was conscious that Ayllia was sitting up, staring from me to the walls about us, then back to me again. That fixed look which had masked her for so long was gone and she shivered, her hands going to cover her eyes.

“The Paths of Balemat,” she whispered hoarsely.

“Not so!” I put out my hand, not to lead her this time, but rather to give her what comfort might lie in human touch. “We live; we are not dead.” For she had spoken then of their primitive belief in an evil spirit who waited beyond the final curtain for those whose rites were not properly carried out.

“I remember—” She still did not take away the fingers she used to blind herself. “But this is surely Balemat’s land and we walk in his house. No place else could be so.”

I could almost agree with her. But I had one argument which I thought would persuade her she had not joined the dead.

“Do you hunger, thirst? Would the dead do so?”

She dropped her hands. Her expression was one of sullen hopelessness. “Who can say? Who has ever returned to say this is this, that is that, behind the curtain? If not the House of Balemat, then where are we, witch woman?”

“In another world sure enough, but not that of the dead. We found an adept’s gate and were drawn through it into one of the other worlds—”

She shook her head. “I know nothing of your magic, witch woman, save that it has ill served me and mine. And would seem to continue to do so. But it is true that I hunger and thirst. And if there is food or drink to be discovered I would like to find it.”

“As would I. But we must go with care. I do not know who or what lives here. I only know it is a place of much strangeness and so must be scouted as we would a raiders’ camp.”

I opened my pack and brought out the remains of the food I had carried and we managed to choke some mouthfuls of it until our thirst proved too strong for us to swallow more. That little meal did give us a lift of energy.

As we went on we discovered that this hall was broken by the outlines of what must be doors. But all were without latches or ways of opening them. And though I was finally emboldened to push at one or two, they did not yield to pressure. So we finally came to the end of that way, which was a balcony open on the night. From it swung one of the skyways connecting the tower with the next farther in toward the heart of the city. And, looking at that narrow footway, which seemed to be the most fragile of paths, I knew I could not cross it. Ayllia covered her eyes and pushed back into the corridor.

“I cannot!” she cried.

“Nor can I.” But what else could we do? Trust again to the well and its upward pull to waft us to yet another corridor aloft where we might fare no better?

I asked her then what she remembered of our coming this far. And she replied with most of it, but said that it was all to her as a dream of which she was a spectator, not a part—save that earlier she had been moving by a drawing which ceased when we came to the road.

We started back toward the well, having no hope but to trust to it again. But before we reached that end of the hall there was a small snap of sound which sent us both into what very poor cover this way offered, flattening ourselves against the wall, standing very still.

One of those doors which had been so tightly shut opened and a figure stepped out. Stepped? No, it did not step; it rolled, or rather hovered above the floor even as the carrier had on the road. And that figure—

I have seen many mutants and monsters. Escore is plentifully inhabited by creatures who are the end results of long ago experimentation by the adepts. There are the Krogan, who are water men, born to live within that liquid at ease, and there are the Flannan, who have wings, the Gray Ones, who are an evil mixture of beast and man, and many others. But this—this was somehow worse than anything I had seen or heard described.

It was as if one had begun to make a machine which was also a man, metal and flesh grafted together. The lower half was an oval of metal, having no legs, though folded up against that ovoid shape were jointed appendages which ended in claws, now closed together as one might close fingers into a fist.

There were similar limbs on the narrower upper section of the body, but above that was a human, or seemingly human, head, though there was no hair, only a metal capping ending in a point. And behind that ball-with-a-head came another mixture of man-machine, though this one walked on two legs, and had human arms. But the chest and the body were all metal, and the head again ended in a metal point.

Neither of the things looked in our direction, but one floated, one walked, toward the well; there they simply stepped or rolled out into the empty space and were borne upward, past the roof of this level and out of our sight.