The Warding of Witch World

37 The Drawing in of the Dark, North

For a number of the nearly endless days, with summer dusk banishing the dark, people returned to End of the World: families—kin clans—single trappers, and prospectors. But there were others who would never come again. There were grisly finds of at least three devastated camps with dead.

One of the last to arrive, a brawny giant of a man oddly matched by a teammate who was a native, dragged at a distance behind the last pack animal in his party the tattered remnants of a grizzled gray thing broken and torn and exuding such a stench that he cut it free before he came to the circle of earth houses.

It was viewed at a distance by those with hardy stomachs, who agreed that what Hessar had snared in a rope trap was truly a stinkwolf. But that these had been the only attackers, many of the returning hunters denied—even though none of them had seen any human opponents.

There were conferences held in the Trade Master’s hall, and on the fourth day of the indrawing a second ship made harbor. The Spindrift had come up along the coast from the Dales and their news was eagerly listened to.

“There is trouble aplenty,” Captain Varmir declared. “Not in the Dales themselves, though they are restless—there have been two blood feuds between kin clans since the Year Turning, and Imry has his hands full with these hot-tempered swordsters.

“But ill news has spread from Arvon of danger in the Waste. That pest hole could hide any danger until it grows strong enough to engulf half a ship’s crew. There is a place named Garth Howell.”

Frost started and her hand went up as if to hide her jewel from menace.

“The traders are getting out,” Captain Varmir continued, “and they have stories in plenty. Those of Garth Howell never troubled the land much—stay out of their claimed territory and you need only watch your back now and then. But those who carry rumors now say that it has been claimed by a Dark master and that those within it do his will.

“All the mantlelords have warded and will not stir from within those wards. But it is also said that some with the true Power are now daring the Waste itself, to bring Light into the Dark. May the Storm Ruler give them His axe and spear!”

“What say the shoreliners of the broken lands?” the Trade Master demanded.

“Little enough. That has always been outlaw territory and if the Dark eats up what hides there, the better for all concerned.”

“Not eats,” Frost said, and though she spoke quietly there was a sudden silence and all murmurs of talk in the hall stopped. “Not eats, but calls—or drives. Garth Howell…” There was such a look of revulsion now on her face that Trusla was amazed. She had never thought one of the nearly impassive witches could show such emotion. “Garth Howell is no fortress, no boundary holding. It is a place of storage of ancient knowledge. What if they have uncovered there, even as the mountains fall uncovered such at Lormt, things hidden and forgotten? Do any of these rumors, Captain, speak of travel northward?”

“No, lady, only that those of the Light travel west, and one who spoke with me in Quayth said that they were possessors of Power and on the trail of the Dark.”

“As we should be also,” Frost said slowly.

The Trade Master answered her quickly: “Lady, you have heard all our people have to say of the tundra. Where is any army you can summon to back you?”

Her lips curved into the faintest of smiles. “Trade Master, each of us has our purpose in life. What I and those with me have been sent to do must be accomplished.” Suddenly she opened her hand and for an instant the jewel blazed.

“I will speak with my sisters now, and then there is much to be done.”

She rose and left them. Something small and soft tumbled from the seat cushions and pattered after her, and then Inquit moved. Trusla felt the pull on her. Though she was not of their sisterhood, yet she was now compelled to follow.

With the return of the many summer-scattered parties, the newcomers no longer had the use of their homes. No one, though, had appeared to claim that which the shaman and the witch shared, and it was toward that that Frost now led the way.

Once within the larger foreroom, Inquit went straight to the fire and threw into the small core still living there something she had drawn from within her fur tunic—which must, Trusla had long since decided, have a number of pockets.

The red coals on the hearth flared green and she smelled a strong puff such as came from the burning of the needlelike leaves of some northern trees.

Frost bent her head a little forward and drew that fragrance deep into her lungs, then settled herself on the cushioned ledge at the side of the room. Kankil curled up above her head, round eyes on the witch’s face.

Trusla found a quiet shadow as far away from the witch as she could manage lest she disturb the other, and Inquit sat cross-legged by the fire, swaying slowly back and forth, her eyes closed. At length that swaying stopped and Trusla had the thought that the Latt had entered her own form of trance.

The girl closed her eyes, not for need of sleep, bur because she felt she must shut out the world about her. And opened the doors of memory once more to the night of her awakening, her oneness for a space with another.

She was once more dancing on the carpet of red sand, yet there was a purpose in this. Like any maiden being trained for the ways of Volt, there were steps which were right and those which destroyed the weaving. One went so—and so—then one turned a fraction in another direction and this time took three steps, the next time nine.

Trusla set herself to embed in memory for all time the pattern of that dancing—for there would be a need in days to come. Twice through she danced that measure. The Sand Sister did not appear. This venture was her own to carry out. Yet she could feel the warmth of the other’s care about her like a cloak.

“So be it.”

Trusla opened her eyes. Her feet had trod the last of that measure—it was finished. She had learned what that which was in her desired her to learn. Frost sat up, though she leaned against one of the pillows, and the girl guessed that the witch had suffered from the usual energy drain laid upon those who used Power.

Inquit turned her head slowly, and her eyelids looked heavy as if she strove now to awaken from a dream. “So be it,” she echoed he witch. “And it must be soon. That we hold Power it must sense, but so far it has had the besting of our kind. A ship and its people destroyed, camps turned into sinkholes of corruption at its will. The longer we sit, the stronger it grows. Captain Stymir was right—that which Hessar found in the ice river is the key.”

“They labor at Lormt,” Frost said. “Hilarion is the last of the early adepts. His searching must bring the answers we need. Those on the south trail have overcome some traps, but they head to even greater.”

Neither of them looked to Trusla, nor seemed to be interested in what she had to report. For now she was satisfied that was so, for she could not have explained what she had done—or what she was meant to do.

They went together to Captain Stymir and discovered that he had somewhat anticipated them by meeting with Hessar. The plaque the latter had found lay between them on the small table in the captain’s cabin of the ship. Simond was there and again he must have been at arms practice, for, though he had put aside his face-masking helm and thrown back the underhood of chain mail, he was still in full field gear. Matching him was Odanki, and they were both intent on the piece of skin scrawled with markings which the captain anchored in place with one thumb.

“No, Captain, I have not returned,” Hessar was saying as the three women entered. “Nor would I take up the like of that again. It is an unchancy thing. Also”—a glare as if he were issuing some challenge struck them all from under his bushy brows—“believe me or not, but that water—it seemed ice-born even as are all such streams. But by Blood Oath, I tell you, it was warm!”

He appeared to be waiting for scoffing dismissal of his story. But Captain Stymir looked thoughtful.

It was the shaman who broke that short silence. “There is a strange place in our own lands,” she said. “Ice lies around it—but within those walls there are springs which are hot enough to scald the hair from a leaper. And from them run—until they disappear underground—streams which are warm. Healing, too, though the smell is not pleasant. Those with an aching of the bones could lie in such streams where the heat was less and come out feeling limber once again. I have seen this place. When I was in my apprenticeship to Narvana I went with her. She harvested some of the water, and some of the ill-smelling encrustations about the hottest of the pools—which she kept and used for the good of the skin. If such a place is in one part of the world, why can its like not exist elsewhere? Hessar’s stream may be the guide to it.”

The Sulcar prospector nodded. But his scowl did not lighten. “Unnatural things are best left alone,” he commented gruffly.

However, he did agree to mark his trail to the ice stream, though he utterly refused to be the guide there, even when Captain Stymir offered him what Simond knew would be a well-filled purse even in Es.

It would appear that no one in End of the World wanted to be a part of what they would do. When Simond and Odanki went to buy packhorses they were refused, except for four with hanging heads which looked as if they were of small use to their present owners. Nor would any of the townspeople volunteer as guides.

They gained but one more for their party and she came to them in battle dress, a hard scowl on her face.

“I am blood-sworn to gather toll for my shipmates,” Audha declared defiantly as she faced them. The girl had changed. She was still lean of body, but Trusla, during her own bow practice each day, had seen the wavereader in training combat with any who would give her an opponent. And during the final days before they planned to leave, that trainer was most always Odanki—nor did he ever spare her, as far as Trusla could judge.

They had their supplies, but it was the Trade Master who at the end ordered them a selection of better beasts chosen from those owned by his own kin. However, these small creatures could not carry packs even as full as a hill pony of the south. So the party pared and pared again all they had brought with them.

They were assured there was game to be found clear up to the very verge of the ice wall. In fact, along the foot of that even greathorns were to be found. And such plants as could nourish a traveler were carefully displayed and the virtues of each explained.

However, Trusla was well aware that those who helped never expected to see the party again. In fact, a few were hinting that their very presence in the port perhaps could bring down the Dark on bystanders.

Stymir formally turned the captaincy of his ship over to his mate. Oddly enough, at the last moment he gained them another recruit—old Joul, who actually appeared where they were assembling the pack train with an animal of his own, a seaman’s well-corded chest on its pack frame.

Since there was no real dawn in this land that was nearly always light, Trusla was not sure what time their small party moved out. But early as it was, there were those gathered to watch them. The attitude of those watchers, however, was somber, and there was none of the bright joking and friendly calls which had marked their embarkation from Korinth.

The Trade Master marched with them to the end of the scattered burrows of the village, but the Watcher, though appearing bedabbled in her ceremonial paint, made no such concession to ceremony. In fact, it was plain that she was glad to see the last of them.

Odanki, Simond, Stymir, old Joul, and even Audha strode along with full complements of weapons and armor, helms covering their heads. As usual Frost was well to the fore with her swift smooth stride. She carried no visible weapons, but she had accepted from the Trade Master a seasoned staff with the admonition that it was sometimes wiser to test patches of footing ahead. Matching her, the bulk of her feather cloak and furred cloth making her look almost square from behind, was Inquit, who led one of the horses, on the back of which, above the rolled belongings of the shaman, perched Kankil, who alone of their present company appeared to treat this faring forth as a good and exciting adventure.

There were no roads to follow here, only the traces of trails made by those who had gone out earlier this season and returned during the past few days. But they did have a guide, as they need only lift their heads to view it.

The glaciers in their slow march had covered the land, but even with their weight they had not completely defeated some show of the rock crowns of a cluster of northern mountains. It was toward one of these that Hessar had pointed them and somewhere along its cloaking glacier—if it did exist at present—they would find the seasonal drainage stream.

The land about them was so fair under the clear sky that Trusla found it hard to believe that evil had already marked it. However, long before nooning they were to have proof of what had occurred before and could be done to the unsuspecting travelers.

They saw the smoke first—tendrils befouling the air—before the odor of the burning reached them. Stymir and Simond split off from the party, but not until Inquit had joined them, moving as swiftly, in spite of her heavy clothing, as the men.

Frost took up position between the rest of the party and those going to investigate. She was holding her jewel and it was beginning to glow. But she made no attempt to stop them.

They did nor go far. Those waiting could still see them as they stood together on a slight rise staring ahead—and then they returned at a swifter pace than they had gone.

“A death camp,” the captain explained curtly. “We must not be caught in the open so.”

“Nor shall we,” replied Frost. “We have warning.” She had slipped off the chain of the jewel and now held it lying flat on her palm before her. It glowed, not with the clear light of day, but rather with a dull and blackish color. Yet when Frost swung her hand toward the points of the half-buried mountains, it cleared.

“There be caves along the ice wall,” Joul rasped. “Better a wall to the back, even if it be ice, than have to face four ways at once and perhaps find ourselves a fifth one and them in it we don’t want to meet.”

They no longer kept to the even pace of their mornings start. And when they halted to rest the animals and take some food for themselves, they ate with weapons close at hand. As they continued to travel steadily far into the dusky night with only a few such rests, the third day brought them to the ice wall.

Joul had been right. The edge of the glacier was pitted and jagged with falls of ice, some of it carrying great embedded boulders. It was among such that they set up a camp as a midpoint for their searching.

That night Frost again communicated with her sisterhood while entranced. But this time Inquit kept guard, sitting image-still at the witch’s feet while Kankil guarded her head. Trusla, on impulse, brought out her sand jar and sat with it between her hands, but she did not allow herself any entrance into dreaming.

“There is a find,” Frost reported at the loosening of her trance state. “Hilarion works against time to unravel some ancient puzzles. And”—now she was very sober—“this much fortune allows us. For some reason, that which awaits has for a space withdrawn. Whether this is a ruse on its part so that we shall enter its nets without sensing them, or whether it has exhausted more Power than it can now summon, who knows? For this space we are free, though how long that freedom will last I do not know.”

“The more reason we find our stream, and speedily!” the captain said.

Simond stirred. “We have already marked streams,” he said slowly. “One at least seems to agree with Hessar’s description. Lady,” he addressed Frost directly, “is there any way that something found can be again attracted to the place of its finding?”

Inquit clapped her hand over her mouth. Kankil, who had been in her usual resting position against the shaman, sent out a series of loud chirps and made almost wild gestures with her small paw-hands.

“Give me the find,” the shaman commanded the captain.

He hesitated, watching the now extremely excited Kankil dubiously. Then he did produce the plaque. In the glow of the day that black center dot was this time fully visible. Kankil made a quick dart forward and wrested it out of his hands before he could stop her.

“Here—” He made a grab for the small creature, only to have Odanki suddenly between them.

Kankil brushed the mosslike tundra growth smooth and set the plaque at a precise angle on it, making several small adjustments, until she seemed sure that she was correct in what she would do.

Having so placed the plaque, she dropped cross-legged beside it. Holding out her hand with the stubby index finger pointing, she moved her hand as if it were fastened by a cord to the plaque. The plaque had, Trusla was sure, taken on a glow of its own, and certainly the blot which was its core was growing larger and darker.

It was clear to all of them that Kankil in no way touched the plaque where it lay. Yet suddenly the block lifted far enough so that space could be seen between it and the tundra on which it had rested.

Now Kankil, still holding her finger in position, scrambled to her feet. She moved as if she led one of the pack animals forward, while the plaque slid through the air definitely to some purpose.

The rest hastened to join her. Frost’s jewel was again agleam, but once more with the white light of acceptance. They pushed on, silently, for they were all intent on what they were watching. There came the soft sound of running water and Kankil now stood on the bank of one of the lesser streams they had charted, not one they had considered a major find.

Slowly Kankil lowered her finger and the plaque sank to earth at the very edge of the stream. She looked over her shoulder to Inquit and shrilled those thrilling notes which Trusla had come to know signified pride and accomplishment.

Leaving the plaque lying now inert, she flung herself into the shamans outstretched arms and hugged the woman.

“There are many talents, Captain. No one, even the ancient adepts, could count nor command them all. This little one is a talented searcher. She has found your stream.”

The captain stopped to pick up the plaque. It slipped out of his fingers into the water and he grabbed frantically to get it back. Now he stared up at them all in utter amazement.

“It must be Hessar’s stream in truth—the water is warm.”

Which set them all to testing it. Compared to the icy, biting cold of the other streams, this was indeed warm and yet it flowed, as they could well see, out of a fractured crack in the ice wall, the chilling breath of which reached them.

They moved camp after Stymir was at last able to reclaim his trophy from the water, though the horses were unruly and could not be brought to drink of the stream or graze near it.

There was an odor to the water true enough. Yet the shaman’s testing could produce no sign of anything poisonous. Now it remained for them to strike into the country of the ice itself.

Regarding those treacherous walls of the glacier which they had been warned to keep at a distance from, they could see no way of climbing to move inland. Odanki, the only one among them who knew the ice lands, declared at once that such a feat was impossible.

Nor could they take the pack beasts on any such climb, and to cut their supplies to less than half at near the very beginning of their journey would be utter folly. There remained then only one road for them—the bed of the stream itself. Stymir and Odanki tested it with staff and the poles of spears. Here it was not deep, though the bottom was dangerous, being strewn with stones released and washed down into the open. There were no fish or other life to be seen.

However, the fissure through which it came was nearly as tall as a ship’s foremast and venturing in by degrees the men reported that that ceiling did not lower. However, the unpleasant smell of the water seemed caught under the ice roof to strike anyone daring to travel so.

That night they held a full conference, each giving an opinion. As Simond pointed out, Frost smiling and nodding as he spoke, they had never really believed that what they were sent to do would be an easy task. They had Frost’s jewel for a warning and, though the shaman did not advance any details, she let it be known that she, also, had her ways of Power for protection and practical foreseeing. It was Audha who had the last word. As she was usually silent and aloof, her voice brought silence when she spoke:

“If there is but a single path, then that is the way I take with the morning. I cannot rest until my kin’s blood is cleansed from me. I know little of your Light and Dark battles—to me this is a life debt and only I can pay it. Therefore I shall go.”

And they accepted that she spoke the truth. Her ordeal in Dargh had left her with only one purpose—to repay death with death, and as all Sulcars she would hold to it.