The Warding of Witch World

15 Lormt, South, the Forgotten City

It was not such a large assemblage as had gathered at Es City months earlier, but what would be decided here might change a world forever.

Simon Tregarth and Jaelithe, Simon just home from a second sweep search in North Escore, Dahaun and Kyllan, the Sage Morfew, and, curiously flanked by Gull and Willow (as if they drew in now to make common cause), Lady Mereth. While Kaththea sat, she was not at rest, her body tense—she might have been one of the great cats about to bring down a skillfully tracked quarry. And Hilarion paced back and forth, turning swiftly as Nolar and Duratan came in.

“The alarm.” Simon Tregarth, rather than Gull, seemed for the moment in command.

Nolar moved forward until she stood behind the nearest empty stool, though she made no move to seat herself. With a cautious glance at the two witches, she launched speedily into her report. Dahaun’s long fingers locked before her, and after the manner of her ancient race her fair hair darkened to a somber black, her skin becoming nearly chalk white.

Hilarion’s pacing had come to an abrupt stop and he was watching Nolar as if he would shake the words out of her at a faster pace than she could utter them.

“Well?” Gull looked to the adept. “What mastership of Power can be pulled forth now? Kolder darkness lasted for years and nearly wrecked us. Do we await a second coming of such?”

She was fingering her jewel, and her eyes were narrow as she kept them on the adept. Of old there had been no meeting place for the Witches of Estcarp and any man who claimed Power. But Hilarion reached far back—even before the first beginning of their sisterhood.

“I came with certain information,” he returned abruptly. “We have sought afar, even before the first stones of this storage house of knowledge was laid. The gates which were our playthings—oh, yes, I played such games also until I was enwebbed by my own recklessness—were born of the curiosity of a single man: Arscro. And any reference to him and his dealings have been hunted, here, by the leave of your sisterhood”—he inclined his head in Gull’s direction—“among all the stores of legend and history your hold.

“What may lay elsewhere in this world—in Arvon, in the parts we now know nothing of, we cannot guess. But the gate plan was born from the mind of a single man, seized upon by his fellow adepts with great enthusiasm, dealt with, refined, sharpened as one edges a sword.”

“And what has this to do now with what we face?” Gull’s voice was sour and sharp.

“What can be born in one mind can be recaptured. We might have searched for a hundred seasons but for that which Sage Morfew brought us. Together with my own knowledge of the opening of gates, we have an answer of sorts. Whether it will be successful…” He shrugged. “There is this about the highest magic: Its results cannot be foreseen, only speculated upon—or tried in desperation.”

“Now we here face what has been learned by our southern band,” Simon’s deep tone cut in. Jaelithe’s hand lay on her knees, and his wider fist closed over it as one who would hold what he has past all dispute. “Time is against them. She who speaks for Gunnora—Destree n’Regnant—has stood against great evil in the past and we were also a part of that battle. She says that their witch is exhausted. And how many leagues of mountain and hostile land now lie between us? Even if we had before us the solution—the gate lock—how could we give it to those who need it most? And even if they received the spell, would it answer to them, so far removed from the place it was woven?”

Hilarion shook his head slowly. “Do you think that every one of your questions has not already been made plain—though it was not until this hour I knew how desperate the cause might be?”

For some reason Nolar’s attention was drawn away from the men confronting one another to Dahaun once more. The Lady of the Green Valley, she who had been one of those who held firm against the Dark for more years than Nolar could count—she was once more changing. The black hair was silvery as if time laced it through, her face was thin and drawn.

Kyllan must have noticed the change also, for he was on his feet, shoving back his stool, standing over her as if with his very presence he could keep some peril away.

She spoke, addressing Hilarion directly. The two of them might have stood alone in that room.

“You know what can be done.”

“What I could try.”

“And only you?” she asked.

“Only me—now. It might be a long search to find someone with talent enough, and then even longer to teach such.”

The withered, aged look seemed stamped upon her now—her usual many changes were lost in the past.

“Then there is only one way!” She stood and seemed not to see Kyllan’s hand come out to her, rather advanced within touching distance of Hilarion.

Now the adept’s expression changed in turn. There was a wrinkle of pain between his eyes.

“Who? The Witch Child could not mesh in that fashion. Nor do I believe that Gunnora’s Voice can be so unloosed from her Mistress. There is Romar of the Old Race… he is talented.” Hilarion shook his head slowly. “One of the Falconers? Their mind patterns differ. The Borderers—

She spoke only one word in answer. “Keris.”

“Your son!”

“Think closely, Hilarion. He is partly of the Old Race, partly of an off-world blood—and bred in Escore. Also, he is without any talent to rise and perhaps forbid exchange.”

“You know what may come of such meddling with life patterns?” Hilarion demanded.

Slowly the aging look was fading away again from Dahaun. “Those of our blood are birth-sworn against the Dark. He has fought evil since he could crack a flame lash, hold a sword.”

“The choice—” began Hilarion.

Jaelithe nodded, understanding the point he was beginning to make. “The choice must be his, and he must also know that the price may be heavy.”

Kyllan had moved forward and now Simon in turn had arisen, his face set grimly.

“What is this Power you would work?” Kyllan demanded first.

“The knowledge needed for the closing of this blood gate lies here.” Hilarion touched his own forehead. “Nor can it now be used by any except me. Later it may be otherwise, but this is a matter of racing time in the south. There is no possible way of my reaching this lost city in my person. Thus…” he hesitated and then went on, “I must have a body, a mind, ready for me to enter there. If Keris consents, he will serve even as I would could I stand there.”

“And the price?” Kyllan had edged up beside Dahaun. Though he had learned long since to control his emotions in most situations, there was now a frown and a stillness about his face which equaled that of Simon.

“The price is this.” To Molar’s surprise it was the witch Gull who cut into this confrontation. “When this adept withdraws his persona from the boy—what may be left is mindless husk, with no hope of restoration. He has no talent to anchor him.”

“No!” Nolar could not stifle that cry. Keris—she remembered the boy who had been so excited over the prospects of the scouting trips, so exultant when he knew he would be one of the seekers. Like her ruined face, he had carried an inner scar—of being a halfling with no talent. Yet it had not soured him.

Somehow Simons face looked as gray as Dahaun’s had been a little earlier. Kyllan slammed a clenched fist into the palm of his other hand; his eyes blazed.

They heard through that tense silence the squeak of Lady Mereth’s chalk. She turned over her slate and held it high so they could read the large bold letters she had written.

“To each a choice. Do not lessen him by not offering.”

But from the corner of her eye flowed a tear.

Simon put out his hand almost as if he sought some support and he received it speedily as Jaelithe moved to him.

“He is a Tregarth. There is that in him which would not thank you for denying him at least the choice,” she said.

“How do we do this?” Sage Morfew spoke up in his soft voice for the first time. “If you contact Keris and make clear to him what has to be done, it must be soon.”

Dahaun’s hair was now the brown of sere autumn leaves and only her eyes seemed alive in her face.

“He is blood of our blood.” Without looking, she caught at Kyllan’s hand. “We shall seek. Then—it must be done at once!”

It was of course a dream—yet so real. Keris lay in his own bed with, around him, the flowered vine walls of the Valley house which had always been his true home. Over his head the brilliant thatching of feathers rustled a little under a breeze. He felt utterly content, one with all around him, as had happened only a few times in his life. The feeling had once led him to believe that he was on the very edge of discovering that after all he carried buried talent.

There was movement and he turned his head a little to see his mother and father seated on mats, watching him broodingly. Perhaps he had been ill.

“Keris.” His mother’s hand did not quite touch his forehead. “Remember.”

How had he come here? This was the Valley of Green Silences, not the strange city. But she allowed him no time for questioning.

“You and your comrades need our aid. There is so little time. You must make a choice, my son.”

Now Kyllan smiled at him, but there was something awry in that smile, as if it were very forced.

“Hilarion,” Dahaun continued, “has found what may be the warding, but only he can use it. There is only one way he can bring it to the blood gate before evil breaks upon us. Since he cannot travel the leagues between, he must have a body for wearing.”

Keris knew the chill of fear. “For every use of power so great”—perhaps he was not really speaking, merely thinking that—“there is a price. What one is laid on this?”

“It can be done only by your free choice, my son. If you willingly consent to be the tool for Hilarion’s use… it may be that—She bit at her lip.

His father’s hands were on his arms belt as if he had heard a signal to battle. “It may be that when Hilarion must withdraw again—

“I shall die.” Keris brought that out quietly.

“That which is you may be gone. Your body—it may remain for a while.”

Keris closed his eyes for a long moment. The fear was waging in him now. What his father had said was worse than any sentence of death.

“The choice is yours!” Kyllan’s voice hurt like the thrust of steel into flesh.

Keris looked to his father and then to his mother. Halfling of mixed blood, but it would seem that there was some worth in him if…

“I am Tregarth.” He repeated the three words as he had so often thought them over the years. “I serve where I am best used. If I perish in the service of the Light, what greater end can be mine? Tell Hilarion… his body lies in wait. And the time is very short.”

There was a flicker, a dancing of color about him. He shivered. What—what had he promised? But perhaps from the first this had been the weaving of his life pattern, that he might have been born talentless for this very choice. He fought his fear fiercely. How long would he remain himself? When would Hilarion come to take that which was particularly his?

He could see light now, pale, coming from that open doorway in the ruined hall. And he heard a piteous moaning—no, not from him, thank the Great Old Ones. There was movement about him, yet he knew that he must remain in just this place—remain and wait.

Now he was a small pale thing fleeing along a stretch of shadow gray road until he crouched against a wall past which he could not drag himself. His pursuer came.

A flash of light was so great that it blinded the travelers for a moment, used as they were to the dusky interior of the ruins. Mouse sat straight up in her bedroll. She did not touch her jewel, but it was flaming as brightly as if she had called up its power. Destree felt the heat of her own amulet. There was such Power here now that one could sense it to the very bones, taste it.

When she managed to see clearly again, Keris stood, looking beyond all of them to the entrance. Keris… ? No! When she stared too intently at him, his body seemed to waver, to be doubled in an odd way.

“Hilarion!” Mouse was on her feet.

He who had been Keris looked to her. “There is that to be done and the doing lies… now!”

Paying no more attention to any of them, he started straight for the door, but Liara had caught at Mouse, taking such a grip on her worn robe that she held the witch captive.

“What has happened?” the Alizondern girl demanded. And there were rising murmurs from the rest of them, though some had stepped aside to clear the door.

“Hilarion has come! The ward—he must have the ward!”

“Keris?” There was denial in Lord Romar’s cry.

Mouse answered him. “It was his choice. Thus he will serve.”

They were all on their feet now, following Keris out into the light of a new day, but Liara now appealed to Destree. “I don’t understand.”

“Keris has opened the gate which is himself, given full entrance to Hilarion.” Destree held to her amulet helplessly. This was of her doing…

“That—” Liara pointed, “that is now your great mage? Then where is Keris?”

Destree shook her head slowly. “Perhaps we shall never know.”

She heard a stifled protest from Liara, but her attention was all for the one who led them—though he might no longer be aware that he had any company at all. His head was bare of helm and mail hood; his hands swung loosely by his sides but not near any weapons. The morning wind lifted a lock of his dark hair and then fell away as if even the breeze could no longer touch him.

So they went into the city. Those who bore arms had them, and out from among the towers came the Keplians and Jasta, but the Renthan did not as usual seek out Keris.

Destree heard the mutter of voices about her, but she did not try to sort out any words. They went now to such a rising of Power as she could not imagine—though perhaps Mouse had an inkling of what could come.

The ancient streets flowed by them like water. And Keris looked to neither side, but turned this way and that as if he had come this way many times before.

Then they came into that field. Gruck had somehow made his way close behind Keris as a shield mate might stand.

His handiwork still lived; there was no sign that the vines there had withered. The thorns did not droop and the sinister flowers were red and yellow saucers. There had certainly been no breakthrough from that darker world.

Now Keris’s body seemed even more misty, as if there was a struggle to keep it in form and steady. He—it—stood at the midpoint between those pillars, with the others, humans and beasts, in a semicircle behind him. Only Gruck kept his place closer to the adept.

There came sound, a thunder of it. Gruck’s paw-hand was on Keris’s shoulder and he jerked him farther back. Destree clapped one hand to her nose and she saw Mouse, white and sick, clinging to Liara, with the Lady Eleeri, arrow to bow cord, edging on to protect them. Blood—the stench of blood heightened by evil—

There came a crash from that barrier Gruck had set. Through the mass of vegetation thrust the broad nose of one of those carriers Mouse had seen in her vision. It tore through the vines but then slewed around and headed to the left, apparently out of control.

However, it was only the first of its kind to pierce the barrier. Those waiting had to scatter in a hurry, for it was plain that these metal crawlers no longer possessed any directing hand.

In one Destree saw a body lolling forward, skimming the pavement next to her. Another carrier nosed through the wide hole the first had opened for it. Eleeri’s arrow sang a death note and a man half arose within and toppled over the side, to be impaled on one of those thorns not quite broken from its vine.

There was a jerk and the carrier swayed back and forth. It might be striving to return, but the Power of the gate refused retreat.

Keris moved. He reached for no weapon. Instead his voice arose until it seemed echoed back from the very sky over their heads.

“We are of this earth. What is wrought here was born of that earth.”

He held out both hands, palms flat, and on those appeared balls of violet flame which flared as high as if they fed greedily upon the flesh which supported them.

“Arscro!” His ringing call made of that ancient name a battle cry. “Because there is always the balance—let now that balance right it-self.”

Then those behind him cowered away in spite of themselves, for he was summoning—summoning by names the most Ancient of Ones. And with each name the violet fire blasted higher.

The carrier had trundled through the wreckage at the gate and now stopped. But no one emerged from it. Nor did any other threatening blunt nose of metal show in its wake.

“Rammona, Lethe, Neave, Gunnora—Mothers of earth, Creators of all living things.” His voice was as high and as steady as when he had begun, but it seemed to Destree that that wavering of body was growing stronger.

“This is no door for us. By the mercy you hold in Power—make it naught!”

That last cry seemed to ring in the air. The fire he held in his hands flamed away from his body, struck full upon the pillars and all which was between them.

Now the pillars in turn became torches and the violet deepened to the purple Mouse at least recognized as the epitome of Power—perhaps its like never unleashed before.

High blazed that fire and there was no heat from it. However, that blood stench was gone. The pillars were dwindling, leaving not even ash behind.

With their passing went the remains of Gruck’s barrier and the carrier which had been frozen there in passage. The other machines which had preceded it had smashed into the rubble of ruins, the windowless towers.

There was a great gust of wind. They had to hold to each other not to be taken off their feet. Then—the plain was bare and under them even that seamless pavement was beginning to crack and erode.

Keris’s hands no longer held the fire; they hung limply at his side. Gruck moved with that agile speed he could show when he must, and caught the Escorian as he stumbled.

That curious wavering outline of his body ceased. He was solidly himself again. Or… was he? Healers instinct brought Destree running. Gruck had caught up the young man’s body as if it were not of any weight and carried it back to one of the stands of meadow grass, settling there as if in a nest waiting for Destree’s aid.

He was not dead, that much her quick check of pulse assured her. But that pulse was slow and uncertain. It was evident that Hilarion was gone and they could only hope that the price of power would not be nothingness.

Gruck put his hands on either side of Keris’s head and his own eyes closed. Destree sensed he was seeking life, striving to find where it now lay and bring it forth.

However, it was as if Keris slept—no, not exactly slept, but that what made him what he was had withdrawn… past return? She refused to accept that.

Mouse knelt at his other side. Tears ran down her thin cheeks as she said: “Sister, long ago those of my kind severed their Power from that which the adepts knew and used. I—I can do nothing.” And she was openly sobbing now while her jewel hung dull and lifeless.

Destree remembered those names Hilarion had called upon: Neave, who held always the way of truth; Lethe, who guarded the gate of birth life; Gunnora—her own dear Lady. She need not call upon Them by voice, They knew what lay in her heart.

Fearing nothing any longer—for those who had manned the carriers were dead and their blood gate was no more—the travelers trailed back out of the lower city, Keris in Gruck’s hold.

What had happened here had wrung the strength from all of them. Even the Keplians walked, their heads hanging as if they had run a full day’s journey. Destree, Mouse, and the rest left with Keris, moving camp, having little wish to hide among the dank-walled ruins any longer.

Liara crouched at Keris’s feet. “I heard Lord Romar say that his body may live—but his spirit is gone.”

She twisted her hands together. “All people have their heroes. My House of Krevanel have added to the roll in Alizon. But to risk the spirit… I do not understand—there is so much I do not understand. I only know I must learn!”

Mouse smiled sadly. “We learn all our lives long. If we do not, then we are not what we were born to be. Keris believed that he was less because he had no talent. Yet a talented one could not have embodied Hilarion. Sister,” she said to Destree, “what hope is there?”

“I do not know, for never have I seen this before—though I have heard of it. We can only hope that he will awake.”

Yet, though they took turns at his side, he did not. At dusk Mouse drew well apart, so that the effects of the adept’s Power discharge would not weaken her call, and reached Gull with her message.

“This Tregarth?” Gull asked last of all.

“We do not know—he seems asleep.”

Gull made no comment. The old distrust of male talent still might hold with some of the sisters. But surely the time for such aversion was gone. They had moved mountains to save their country, but here a man might have done even more.

Dawn was paling the sky. Destree set aside the small spouted cup from which she had dribbled her most potent restorant into Keris’s mouth just moments earlier. The potion would keep the body living, but it could not recall the spirit which had left it. The dawn wind brought the scent of the not-so-distant sea.

She had heard the message from Lormt: they were to return; their quest was finished. Already the found gates were being closed and warded. Their own had been the worst because of the blood price.

She was aware of movement near her. Jasta came up to stand beside the unconscious man.

*There is still a spark.*

Destree turned upon the Renthan swiftly. “How can such be reached?”

*Who gives life, Voice? Who would save a valiant one who gave to her earth?*

“Then”—her hand was already on her healer’s pack—“I shall seek.”

This would be a different kind of seeking than when she had found Nolar, for it was not a seeking in place or time, but beyond them both. She spoke to Mouse, and to Eleeri, but she was surprised when the mare Theela joined them, and then Gruck without a word.

There was a potion to be drunk, then she stretched beside Keris’s motionless body. Into her began to flow what they could give her—strength.

There was darkness and she knew that she followed someone who had earlier fled this way. Waves of fear beat at her, as might the dashing waves of the sea. She held tightly to the picture of Keris—not as she had seen him last stretched seemingly lifeless on the ground, but in his full vigor of body and mind.

Down that black road she sped, feeling that in her which was eating at her strength. Then she saw that wisp of a grayish thing which clung desperately to an imprisoning wall.

Only a wisp of a thing—no, that she did not believe. Destree set herself to infusing into it to that other—that one in her memory. There—and there—and there! She called for strength—it came—held—while she built that body, made it whole and no wisp of shadow.

“Keris!” she summoned.

Then she opened her eyes upon the sun and those about her, so united in a friendship bond that it could never be broken. Now she turned her head.

His eyelids arose slowly. There was wonder in his face. Not the face of an idiot—by the grace of the Lady, this was again a man.

“Keris!” Her voice was loud in her joy.

He smiled. “You need not deafen a man, Lady—I am right here.”