The Warding of Witch World

35 End of the World, North

It was not a good day as they maneuvered into the pocket harbor of the farthest known northern Sulcar port. But in spite of the drizzle of rain soaking her cloak, Trusla had kept to the deck. On either side there were cliffs, tall and black, save for here and there where streamers of some kind of sea growth oozed down the forbidding stone. Before them was the single entrance to the open land beyond.

But there were no buildings that Trusla could distinguish. There were no age-old towers and walls, nor the bustling newness of Korinth. There was one long wharf, wet with overslapping waves, and beyond that, what seemed to be a wild-handed scattering of rounded humps.

The trade flag snapped from the Wave Cleavers main mast and a similar streamer of faded cloth had half wrapped itself around a pole ashore. Also there were those waiting on the wharf, beginning to shout greetings and questions even before any on the ship were within hearing distance.

The welcomers were an oddly mixed lot. Sulcars towered over others who were not too far from the Latts in size and coloring, though their clothing was less of fur, seeming to be hides far more closely fitted to their bodies. Their hair was long and drawn up in stiff, thick knots held so by carven circlets. As far as Trusla could see, there was no distinction between man and woman in the style of clothing. However, the colors, in contrast to the somberness of the lands about them, were vivid—for those hide shirts and breeches were dyed in brilliant shades and wide whirls of patterns.

“First ship!” One of the Sulcars had made a funnel of his hands and shouted up to them as they eased into anchorage at the wharf. “First ship luck!”

Behind him two more Sulcars were carrying out a barrel, balancing it between them and now knocking into one end of it a spigot while two laughing women dropped by it a basket of drinking horns.

That the first ship of the season was a great occasion the passengers on the Wave Cleaver were quick to understand. A drummer and two flutists appeared farther down the wharf and started to underlay the shouting with music of a sort, and it was like a feast day in the south.

Some time later, Trusla was coughing from a sip of a cup one of the women had offered her, clinging to Simond lest they be separated and whirled away into an impromptu dance which had begun down wharf. They were joined by Frost and Inquit, Odanki like a bodyguard behind her, Kankil clinging, slightly wild-eyed, to the shaman.

So Trusla was introduced to a third kind of city and one which was so different that at first she was secretly a little dubious about entering the door a grinning Sulcar had pulled open for her. It was before this mound that the trade flag had been raised and manifestly it must be the main building of End of the World.

It was necessary to go down a short flight of steps, each consisting of a worn rock set in the earth in order to reach the doorway which their host kept waving them toward. This was more a burrow than a house. Set well down in the earth, more than a Sulcar’s-height deep, the floor was a patchwork of stones fit together with skill. More stones paneled the wall of the first room into which they had come. But covering those for the most part were hides, painted as brightly as the clothing the owners wore.

Across one end of the room, farthest from the main door, was a raised ledge. This was heaped with cushions which looked as plump as if no weight had ever rested on them.

Above their heads were great curved pieces of bone, which must have been carefully matched for length, as they met in the center. Between these stretched tightly more hide, probably several thicknesses of it. Trusla, remembering what she had seen outside, believed the builders covered this foundation with layers of earth and sod, perhaps with some packing from the sticky seaweed.

There were, she was to discover, four rooms in all. The one in which they were now received was in the nature of the official hall. Behind it were two other chambers divided by high curtains, and, beyond them, a cooking place which extended out with a lower roof from the main dwelling.

The exuberant heartiness of the man who had welcomed them vanished when he waved them to seats among the cushions, which Trusla discovered were remarkably soft. He made them known to two women already waiting there. One was his wife and the other, whose strictest attention had been for Frost and Inquit, was a contrast to the other women they had seen. Her garment reached nearly to her ankles and was patterned only in white. A wide buckle of strips of bone was bound around her waist and she also had a kind of frontlet running from the neckline of her garment down to that girdle. This was patterned with a mixture of bone heads and stones of green and blue. A band of the same type of work drew her long hair into a fastening behind her neck.

Different from the aged wisewoman they had seen at Korinth, this woman was young, or at least wore an appearance of youth to match Frost’s. She had no drum, nor any attendant drummer, but she did hold a staff also of bone yellowed by time and carved with both runes and suggestions of weird creatures which might have been seaborn.

“This be our Watcher—the Lady Svan.” Lady Svan inclined her head but still held her gaze on the other two women of Power in the room, Frost and Inquit. “And my House Lady, Gagna.” Again a bowed head but there was lively curiosity to be read on the features of his wife.

It was Frost who made first answer. “To this house good fortune such as the Light sends. I am called Frost and am of the Sisterhood of Estcarp of the south.” She looked to Inquit, and the Latt shaman, brave in her feathered robe, holding and stroking Kankil, said in turn:

“For the blood kin of the Latts I have been Power-chosen to deliver the great Call when that is needed. My public name is Inquit, and this little one be my dream anchor.”

“These be the Lady Trusla and Lord Simond out of Es,” Captain Stymir said with proper courtesy.

“Out of Es,” repeated the Lady Svan. “Far have you come, yet not for trading. Captain”—she spoke sharply now, as if she found this company not greatly to her liking—“twice have the runes been read and the answer always lies on the Dark side. What danger follows on your heels? If you run hither for shelter, then know that that we cannot grant.”

“Cannot”—Frost’s voice was very soft and yet it held a core of ice—“or will not, Watcher? We do not flee, we seek, and that seeking may mean life or death for all which lies upon this earth.”

“As already evil has struck,” the captain interjected when Svan did not reply at once. “The Flying Crossbeak has fallen to the Dark.” Swiftly he told the main points of Audha’s story.

“Bergs that herd ships!” the trade master burst out. “That is against all nature.”

“Nature can be commanded by Power,” returned Frost.

“Truth,” agreed Svan. It was plain that her distrust of them was growing. “Did not your sisters cause the mountains to dance at your bidding not so long ago? What danger do you hunt here? This is a near barren land; we cling to the edge of it because we have learned how to make our compromises with nature. Let that balance be overset and indeed our lives shall cease to be.”

“How do you know that already the Dark does not lumber toward you like a wounded great boar who will have its vengeance?” Inquit was eyeing the Watcher almost as coldly as the other was viewing the whole of their party. “You have cast runes, you say, and what led you to that, Watcher?” She leaned forward a little. “Did you also dream?”

Svan flushed. “You speak boldly of hidden things,” she snapped.

“I speak so because it is a time for boldness, Woman of Power. We do not deal now with the fate of a single town, or even that of a single kin tribe. It is forbidden by Arska for His Voice to leave His people, yet I stand here under His orders. And this witch out of Es travels not for any pleasure. Listen to what may come upon us. Something perhaps worse than icebergs which herd ships into the waiting caldrons of maneaters.”

Oddly enough, it was not to Captain Stymir she gestured, but to Simond.

And he told of their quest starkly with no such embellishments as a bard would use. First of the loss of the Magestone and the wide rip of wild Power which answered that, and then of their concern about other gates which might be so unlocked—ready to open to the demand perhaps of new horrors from without.

He spoke of those who searched in Estcarp and Escore, and the party which was heading even farther south to lands unknown. Of the message alert sent to Arvon and what those who received it also decided upon. He told of the falling of Lormt’s fourth tower, of the strange storerooms that collapse had uncovered and of how all the sages of learning struggled there to find answers to what those of action might meet.

A serving lad came with ship’s lanterns to set around as the light began to fail, and twice the Trade Master pushed a drink horn into Simond’s hand as his voice grew hoarse.

Trusla could see that he had truly won to their side the Lady Gagna and the Trade Master. She tried to read behind the impassive mask that the Watcher continued to wear. At least the woman had at last turned her gaze from Frost and Inquit and was, she was sure, listening intently.

When at last Simond was done, his voice was harsh from use, for Trusla knew that he had put into his account all the force he could summon. Simond was not a man of many words, preferring mainly to listen and not to address any company in form. Now the Trade Master turned to the Watcher.

“Lady, by the right of office given me in this town, I ask you now, once more the runes!”

She did not move or answer him at once, her attention still on Simond. Trusla longed to voice aloud her own irritation that this Sulcar witch could not see at once it was the truth he was speaking.

Then at last Svan raised her chin almost defiantly as she replied, “There is no moon this night, Trade Master.”

Frost moved so the cushions about her rustled. She held her gem a little away from her breast so that it dangled from its chain. “There is Power and Power,” she said crisply. “We must come to a decision, for I am under pledge to report to my sisterhood and learn from them in return.” In the heart of the jewel there was a spark of white fire.

“Well enough,” the Trade Master’s heavier voice responded. “But first we eat and restore ourselves.”

There was no answer from the Watcher. Trusla noted that Inquit’s gaze followed the Sulcar wisewoman steadily and she had a suspicion that the Latt shaman was not pleased by the Svan’s attitude.

It seemed that by unspoken consent among the whole party no more reference was made to the quest. But as several others, both men and women who apparently had some say in the affairs of the town, came in and small blocks of tables were strung together to support dishes of steaming stew and hard ships’ crackers in place of bread, there was excited talk of the fate of the Flying Crossbeak. Audha’s story had apparently sped through this company.

“Such should be wiped from the earth!” declared one young man, not wholly Sulcar by birth, for his hair was dark and he had slightly obliquely set eyes.

The Sulcar seated beside him brought his fist down on his portion of the shared table with almost enough strength to send the dishes spinning, filled though they were.

“Dargh was talked of at the last All Gather,” he burst out. “And what was said then? That we could not spare fighters or ships enough to take the island. It is pitted with caves to which those demons flee whenever they are threatened. We can destroy their foul dens and kill maybe a hand’s worth”—he held up his hand now and wriggled the fingers—“that are too old or stupid to take to hiding in time. If we stay for a period, they creep out at night and pick off any sentry and are gone where even our best trackers cannot follow. They are of the Dark and the Dark favors them. But this matter of icebergs which drive a ship to them—Dunamon himself, who knows the northern seas as a wasbear knows the hunting flows, swears that this maid is sure of what she saw.

“I tell you, shipmates and kin blood, if some Power has turned the very force of nature against us—then what comes of our outpost here? The demons of Dargh twice raided our holdings here when we were building. We drove them off at cost and then have sat well pleased our battle honors because they came not again. But what if they have now a force which turns aside axe and sword?”

“There is this, Trade Master”—Inquit had popped a round of vegetables from her stew into Kankil’s mouth—“when there is a gather of Dark forces, drawing in to its core all such as can be influenced by it, then when it falls, so does its followers. For Power unleashed does not halt until all which threatens it is gone—and the Light is very sure.”

The Sulcar man grimaced. “Wisewoman, we who have no talents and are drawn into the affairs of Great Ones also may be wiped away. Tell us the truth—what do you seek here? Save for Dargh, we suffer no threat.”

“You have a path,” Captain Stymir put in. He pushed aside his dish and from a belt pouch produced the plaque he had shown those on board the Wave Cleaver. “What story have you about the coming of the Sulcars?” He asked that with force enough to rivet their full attention.

The man who had been speaking was quick enough to answer. “That our far kin came on ships through an ice gate into this land.”

“And why did they come?” For the first time Simond spoke again after his long spell of reporting news.

“The saying is that they fled some danger,” the Sulcar growled. “Many people on this world have such tales of their own. But the seasons between that time and this have been past the counting even for the Rememberers.”

“How far north has any ship gone in—say in the past fifty seasons, Trade Master?” Simond persisted.

The Trade Master answered with authority. “Evan Longnose took the Raven past the ice wall that season when there was more heat.”

“Only his longboat returned, crewed by four dead men,” answered the other Sulcar flatly. “We do not go beyond the high wall unless some hunter is a witless fool.”

“But,” Captain Stymir now cut in, “this is the season for the running of the under-ice streams. More than half your people here are already on the trek to mine them as well as set their traps. This, as the Trade Master knows, was found two seasons ago by Jan Hessar in one such stream.”

He laid the plaque on the board before him and those who had not already viewed it on shipboard crowded closer to see it.

“This is a thing of Power—the Lady Frost has tested it.” He bowed his head a fraction in the witch’s direction. “But Dark Power. Like the gold and gems you pick from the gravel of the ice streams, this was borne slowly into light—probably by the ice itself and then freed through the seasonal melting. Therefore it has a source beyond our explorations.”

“To go by ship is folly!” burst out the Sulcar. “And over the ice mountains? What fool would try to set a trail? And…” he paused to scowl at the plaque, “who knows what awaits at the other end?”

“We shall see,” Stymir said quietly. “This is perhaps a key. We know of gates; which one will this one open?”

“Enough!” The Trade Master ended the discussion. “All this talk of evil is enough to unsettle any stomach. Tell us of how things go in Korinth, what trade has come in from the Dales.” And he gazed at them from under bristling brows.

Captain Stymir was the first to grin in answer. “Well enough. You have heard the worst; now let us turn to the best. The Dale lords squabble as usual among themselves. Though since the Falconers have established an Eyrie in the north there are no more sea raiders thinking to fill their chests with the products of honest traders’ labor.

“Lord Imry works to bring all the forces under him, but the southern holders who suffered the most in the Alizon invasion are not so ready to relinquish any authority. The three major ports have been largely rebuilt and there is a steady stream of traders—especially in wool and artifacts from the Waste.”

Lady Gagna shivered. “Such are unchancy,” she commented.

The captain agreed. “True, but none are taken aboard until they have been examined by a sage or one of the Dames of the Flame abbeys. And they have their own way of dealing with that which is cursed. Estcarp is quiet now—Koris is a good lord and justly esteemed, and Simon Tregarth sits at his right hand.

“Escore boils now and then and perhaps always will, but the Tregarth sons and those of the Green Valley are good guardians. In the far south several seasons ago the Port of Dead Ships was destroyed, and there is much talk now of an exploring expedition to head farther than Var in that direction, after the search for the gates is behind us.

“So far, outwardly, all follows the usual pattern.”

But, Trusla though, why? At least the Trade Master knew what occupied the minds of most thoughtful people now, talented or untalented.

She and Simond had been offered quarters in one of the empty houses, the owner of which had gone off for the summer harvesting of whatever this land had to offer. The misty rain had stopped and they did not need a lantern to guide them, for the strange light which held in this north during the summer season was still giving the impression of day.

Trusla gave a sigh which was partially of happiness when she shed again her cloak and left it to dry, draped over two wall hooks.

“You are tired.” Simond, having shed his own cape, came to her.

“I am very proud,” she said, and linked her arms about his neck, drawing him as close as she could. “For my lord presented our cause as no one else might have. You do not deal in power and thus you see matters as most of these people do. Their Watcher…” She ended that with a long kiss and savored the good feeling of his touch along her small body.

“Their Watcher…” he said, having marked her chin line and down to her throat with his lips, “you do not like her.”

“I do not know her. But, my lord, this night let us forget all guests and Powers, witches, shamans, and Watchers, and keep some hours for us alone.”

He laughed softly. “Always you are the wise one, my lady. So be it. The Lady’s moon lamp may not shine upon us, but Her grace will fill us.”

In this odd light Trusla did not know how long she slept—for it had certainly been late when, with her head on Simond’s shoulder, she had sunk into the deepest and sweetest sleep she had known for what seemed a very long time.

At first she was puzzled when she opened her eyes. She lay alone on the wide bed and this was certainly not the cabin of the ship with its cramped space. No—she rubbed her eyes—this was a house, or so the people here deemed it—and they had reached port. But this would be only the beginning, and perhaps the easiest portion of their traveling was behind her.

There was a soft rap at the door and, when she answered, one of the women who appeared to fuse Sulcar and alien features came in carrying a pitcher of water from which steam arose.

“Your lord said you were greatly wearied, but now it is the noon time for eating.” She was pouring a portion of the water into a basin, laying out a coarse strip of weaving as a towel.

“I am indeed a lazy slugabed.” Trusla laughed and hurried to wash. Then she hunted out clean underclothing, even if it was sadly wrinkled, and she felt at ease as she came to join the others at the Trade Master’s hall.

For the first time she saw Audha among that company. Youth seemed to have been drawn out of the wavereader’s face. Her jaw was set and she gazed ahead as if she saw nothing of what was about her. Kankil sat close to her, paw hand on her knee, and In-quit was just beyond, keeping a close eye on the girl.