The Warding of Witch World

44 The Ship out of Time, North

Simond was locked into his thoughts as he swung along beside Odanki. Before them went Trusla and he was sure that she was purposely lagging behind, hoping for him to join her. But that fear which had been born of the attack on the two Sulcar warriors strode beside him, step by step.

What monster out of his own past could this alien woman of Power summon to blank out all of him except the need to slay? Resolutely he tried not to think of the past—of his long scouts through his homeland, of the sharp attacks along the Alizon Borders, of the things he had helped to hunt down in Escore. He found memory along those paths almost too strong. So he deliberately called up those words of power which Frost had locked into his mind, those which would ward any gate for all time.

He could almost see them etched in the blue fire on the air before him as he went—assuring him that none had been lost.

Trusla and Inquit were supporting Audha between them, Frost a step or so in advance with her jewel giving them still light enough to see the rock under and about them. The girl was blank of face, and yet, whenever they paused for a short rest, she tugged at those who partnered her and had to be pulled down to be seated.

Kankil still showed attachment to the Sulcar girl, climbing at once into her lap when she was down, patting her set face gently, and crooning. It was as if the shaman’s familiar was laboring like a healer to return Audha to them fully herself again.

Night and day no longer had any meaning here, though they kept to a pattern of rest periods and eating the last few crumbs of their supplies. Whatever Inquit had given them appeared to stretch those very meager mouthfuls so they arose again refreshed and with the energy of one who had feasted well.

It was not Frost’s jewel which was preceding them now, but rather a thin, grayish light from ahead, far ahead. As they walked forward that grew stronger, while the odd warmth which had wrapped around them diminished. So they paused to pull on and latch hoods, seek out the mittens ready to be worn.

They came out into day. Small blasts of stinging snow struck at them and they could feel the ice of the air they reluctantly were forced to draw into their lungs.

Deep as the passage through the mountain and glacier had been, they faced again a world lying below them. Ice-circled hummocks and the broken footing of glaciers again awaited them.

However, across that plain stood such a wall as bore little resemblance to the glaciers—though such must have added to it through the centuries. It was more like a mighty barrier set up by man’s purpose, not nature’s, and there were the faint markings of something which had once been ice-free and was not choked. From the foot of that—

Water! Surely they could see the flash of dull sunlight on open water! It was filled with small floating islands of ice. It led to the right.

“East.” The Captain and Odanki spoke almost together.

East? Did the ancient sea so long hidden lie in that direction? And was this the gate they had come so far to find?

The claws Odanki had fashioned out of the horns gave them the ability to descend—with ropes to provide additional safety—the wall on whose crest they had emerged.

Then it was that Odanki cried out, held spear with his right hand and long belt knife with the other. For one of those humps which they had taken for outcrops of the ice moved.

To Trusla it was like a white-frosted tree rising well above her head. A red mouth opened and there was a roar, echoed menacingly back from the cliff behind them. She had seen only the hides of wasbears, and the creature of vision their foe had set upon them, but she had heard enough hunters’ tales here in the north to know that they were the monarchs of the frozen world, intent on holding their hunting rights and instinctive enemies of any men. Only was this real—or was Odanki being tested in his own way of life?

Then she saw Audha jerk free the hold Inquit had resumed on her arm once they had made the descent. In her mittened hand the girl grabbed up a chunk of ice two fists thick and, before they could move, hurtled it through the air, to strike full on the furred shoulder of the animal.

The strangely elongated head of the creature swept in her direction and it went to four feet from its first threatening upright stance. Inquit tried to catch the girl again, but now she had pulled loose from Frost as well, her strength such that she brought the witch off balance and to her knees.

Again the wasbear roared. Its small eyes gleamed as red as its open, well-fanged mouth. Then it charged. Trusla would not have believed that such a bulk could have sprung so swiftly from its position.

Audha made no attempt to even pick up another ice ball in a vain attempt to stop it, Rather, she also sped. Not toward any of her companions but out over the rough ice, and the wasbear followed her.

There was a flash through the air. The spear Odanki had thrown thumped home in that thick body, to be dragged along, its butt catching in the ice furrows. The wasbear turned its head and snapped at the weapon. Its fangs cut through the shaft as if it were no more than a twig, though blood continued to run from a hole in its upper shoulder.

Audha was screaming now—not, Trusla realized, in fear or for aid, but rather as if she fronted some invader of a ship on which she sailed. Luck had been with her so far and she had not stumbled.

Now there came the whang of a bowstring and the wasbear shrieked as an arrow bit deep into its outstretched neck.

“No!” Audha’s voice cut through the cries of the animal. “She has me in part—let her take me in whole!”

The strong, clear light of Frosts gem cut through the air. In spite of its swift movements, the beam struck the animal between those red eyes. It reared once more to its hind feet, teetering back and forth as might a man who had taken a death stroke. Then it crumpled in upon itself and collapsed, the ice splintering under the weight of its body.

“No—” There was a sound in the voice of the Sulcar girl which hurt as much as if they had watched her being cut down without any defense.

She rounded on Frost as the men approached the wasbear warily. Such were notoriously hard to kill and had often risen seemingly from death to account direfully with their would-be hunters.

“Why? You have had your will of me.” Audha nearly spat the words at Frost. “You have used her tie with me to seek her out. Now let me go free. By steel or the fangs of such as that—it does not matter. I cannot be myself again.”

“What is held can be returned,” the witch answered her. “We have not yet come to the end of the road set us.”

But Audha once more was lost to them, sunk back into the prison deep inside herself.

Trusla ventured to question Frost. “Can she be saved from this?”

Frost nodded. “Power may have many sources, but it answers also to certain defined rules. One who is ensorcelled can be released—if the will is there. However, she said she had brought us to our goal. Now we must wait to discover all we can. For in knowledge itself is Power.”

Odanki and Simond were butchering the wasbear. It certainly was not any trap out of glamorie. Trusla felt queasy as she watched their busy knives and the red fountaining over the snow.

She moved away from that gory spot, closer to the icy river. She was surprised that the bear chase had carried them so far—now the mysterious cliff rose close at hand. But her companions were just now more interested in food.

She knew well that the northerners, the Latts, and the people of End of the World could and did eat raw meat, for there was often no chance of making a fire. She had seen Latt children chewing happily on such strips while watching their elders preparing food to be frozen or dried against the fasting of winter. But surely…

Inquit left her in no suspense as to what use they were going to make of the kill. Odanki, with some ceremony, had brought the shaman a gory offering and she gave him gracious thanks for his courtesy.

Thus they ate again—after a fashion—though Trusla, in spite of all the willpower she could summon, went aside and lost vigorously the few mouthfuls she had been able to choke down.

When they finished what they could, they went to that scrap of open water. It was like a nearly choked river and it flowed out of sight of those standing at this level. But Frost’s attention was mainly for the ghost of a gate they all believed they could see, from which that river issued.

She waved to the Latt hunter and, when he joined her, asked, “Can that wall be climbed? We need to know how wide this may be.”

He nodded and rounded the outspring of the river from the cleft under the choked remains of an opening. Once more resorting to his climbing claws, with the other men behind him, he began to climb. The ice was rough enough to give them good holds and the Sulcars, used to climbing into shrouds in ill weather, seemed to find this as easy as did Odanti. Simond came last. He was still holding away from the others, unable to forget that some trick might be played to entrap him.

Audha stood still, as if pillar-frozen in the cold, her eyes straining unseeingly before her as if her attempt to die at the claws of the wasbear had exhausted what was left of her energy. Trusla’s attention was all for Simond. Within her mittens her hands clenched, wanting to believe that he had only a climb before him and no rise of old danger.

The Latt reached the top and disappeared from sight, apparently to do just what Frost had asked of him—measure the width of that barrier. His shout carried down and Trusla cringed. Then she realized that as no warning, but rather surprise.

Simond had safely scrambled over the edge and disappeared after the others and then Odanki returned, waving an arm vigorously, the Sulcars and Simond busy dropping the ropes. It was plain they wanted the women to join them.

Bringing Audha up was a problem. At last they looped part of a hide rope under her arms while Inquit, her feather cloak billowing wide, climbed beside the seemingly helpless girl, giving a hand now and then to aid that limp body to avoid some outcrop of the ice.

The top when they reached it seemed reasonably flat, nor was it any thick glacier field but limited in size. However, the Sulcars hurried the women forward and pointed down.

There was a thick mist hanging close to ground level below, hiding whatever might be there—solid ice or berg-filled water. However, it was what projected into that mist which centered their attention. This was no ledge of rock—nor any freak of nature. Even land-bred Trusla could guess she was looking down at the stern of some kind of ship, nearly as large as the Wave Cleaver. But it glistened as if covered against the wearing of time with a transparent coating of ice.

“The ship…” Captain Stymir had brought out his plaque and was staring first at it and then what lay beneath them. Though their find was halfway covered by the heavy ice, they could see the stern plainly, as well as part of that rise of the strange hump which appeared to take the place of sails.

Now the captain turned to Frost. “We have found the gate, Lady. Let your Powers now destroy it—and the thing which survived.”

“The gate, yes, but I have not yet the Power.” She took a step from them and held out her arms. On her breast her jewel was flashing fire which was answered from a pinnacle of ice nearby—or was it ice? Those rainbows of rippling color…

“Kin in Power,” Frost called into the chill air. “We have found what we have sought—yet I do not believe you guard it against us.

Rainbow tendrils moved like living roots along the ground, encircling them. Yet neither Frost nor the shaman appeared ready to counter what might be an attack of Power.

Frost had shed her mittens, so they hung by strings, to bare her inner, gloved hands. She did not touch her jewel; rather, her fingers moved in the air. And slightly behind her Inquit spread wide that feather cloak so that Trusla almost could hear the whisper of great wings about them.

“By my Power”—Frost’s twisting fingers left trails of blue light in the air—“I swear truce. For you are not of the Dark we know.”

Those lines forming the circle about them began to whirl, until the colors became such a streak of mingled light as to hurt the eyes if one tried to watch them. And that ground-held halo of light drew in toward them before it halted. Around and around it spun, ever faster, rising a little from surface level to form a low wall. There was a low moaning wail and Audha sank to her knees, her hands before her face.

“By my Power”—Frost’s voice now held a note of command—“I swear truce.” Her busy hands were stilled and fell to her sides.

The wall still whirled and Trusla was sure somehow that none of them would be able to cross it—perhaps even Frost’s Powers might be tried to the uppermost.

How long did they wait there? First there came the warmth they had known in the underways. Winds might sweep snow, as they saw around them, but they did not feel the bite of those drafts.

Then, as if she walked out of some unseen door in the air before them, she appeared. Across her body played the many ribbons of color, granting her clothing of a kind. In her hands she balanced a globe so large even her two palms and fingers could not encompass it. That held raging fire, such fire as had fed the mountain pit.

Her long hair, which seemed to change in shade constantly if one tried to look at it, crackled about her, and sparks were thrown off from its coils. In her triangular face her large green eyes showed no pupils—they could have been pieces of lantern glass behind which flames held steady.

“Why?” The single word rang in all their heads but they knew it was meant for Frost.

“Because, even as this gate was used, it was not done so by the will of your breed. We move now to close forever all such openings into other worlds, thus pledging that there shall never more be any entrapment of the innocent, nor invasion of evil, nor meddling in what is not for us.”

The woman continued to stare at Frost.

“You are one of great Power in this world.” In her hands that globe swung a little. “Can Power stand against Power?”

“Why should it?” Frost asked. “The Dark is always with us—even as it must be in the world you know. If you were of the Dark we would have long since discovered it. What you have done you can undo…” She turned her head a little to look to Audha.

“Sulcar slut,” spat the other.

“The stars move.” For the first time Inquit spoke. “They have moved—the time wheel turns. Here the Sulcars live in peace. Perhaps in your world they no longer exist.”

The woman laughed, and that laugh was sword-edged. “How well you have read us, feather flapper. Yes, knowing my kin, I think that world is now wholly ours.”

Trusla was aware of a growling throat sound from the captain, yet not loud enough perhaps to be heard by the others.

“So we make a truce—then you do as you came to do: destroy this trap which was sprung by some Power from your own brewing. What then of me?”

Frost deliberately looked to Captain Stymir now. “Captain, ships and things of the sea are known to you. This gate is half open, for it holds something which exists now in two worlds. Can this ship be freed into its own place once more?”

Trusla saw the woman clutch the ball of fire even closer to her. She was watching the captain as a huntress watches prey.

“Lady, of Power such as yours I know nothing. The ship looks to be fully sheathed in ice. To free it might be a task beyond your strength.”

Again the woman laughed. “A Sulcar who speaks the truth as he knows it—this is indeed a change in the way things be. Worry not about my sweet Storm Flitter. What you see is the time-dispelling casing I set upon her, even as I went myself into the deep sleep. Those who were my guard…” Her head bent as she looked at the ball she held. “When I awoke through the roar of that great wild Power of yours, the spells had faded and they were… gone. Happily so, for perhaps they returned, in spirit, home. I wove too well—though perhaps there was a reason for that also. Witch Woman”—she twirled the ball in her hands—“you have opened your mind to me. It is true as you think, we need no more gates, and perhaps it is also true that this one exists still because my ship is half-bottled in it. Can you swear to release it and me with your spelling?”

“Who can swear certainly to anything of the Power?” Frost returned. “The gate I can close, once your ship is freed. But consider this, Sister in Power. You will be in your own world; however, as the shaman says, it has been long—the stars have changed.”

The woman was smiling. “Let my future be my own. It is no concern of yours, Witch Woman. What I return to, if I can, will be mine to face. Perhaps I have even become a legend for the telling.”

With one hand she slapped the side of the ball she held and that encirclement of color disappeared.

“What of the Sulcar girl? What you have taken from her—is it gone forever, then?” Frost demanded.

The woman shrugged. “They are a Powerless lot, save when they have weapons to hand. Who cares?”

As one the captain and Joul moved forward and they were followed closely by the Latt and Simond.

“But we do have weapons.” The captains voice was low, almost caressing, as if he held in his hand not a drawn sword but some well-loved thing.

The woman seemed to consider him, her head a little to one side. “Fire and steel, yes. But I have this.” She had posed the fire ball on the palm of her hand as if she steadied it for tossing. Then she smiled. “And I would be quickly answered, would I not, you who deign to call me Sister in Power, with such fates as you could hope to bring upon me. This much I will promise. I do not know the full strength I have taken from this slut. But I know what can be returned, if and when matters go to my satisfaction.”

As swiftly as she had appeared she was gone, and her going brought them to the edge of the gate to look down again at the ship in its clear ice envelope.

“Can it be done?” the captain demanded of Frost.

“We can only tell when we try. But note you cannot see the place in which that ship now rests. That is not any mist given off by the substances of this world.”

It was true, the ship was plain enough to be seen half-caught in the ancient trap of the gate. But behind and around it was not really a mist but a fog, which, even as they watched, appeared to thicken and hide. What it covered, they could not see. If anything moved in it, they could not tell. It was… just as it had been for countless generations now. And no one suggested a climb down into that rolling grayness.

Instead, left rather at a loss since their proposed partner in labor had chosen to disappear, they climbed down once more and Frost went to study the gate, Simond with her.

“Hilarion did not foresee such as this,” she said. “I can strive to reach Es or Arvon. Still, the otherworld Power alive here may interfere with that.” She sighed. “It is difficult to depend upon another, and one who cannot be trusted.”

“She may yet spring some trap?” Simond demanded, well aware that he might be the target. “Lady, let me be put under watch, for she may still think that I will serve her purpose. I ask of you, should I fail in such a testing, will you look to Trusla? Her people will have none of her because she saved my life, as you well know. She will need someone to stand beside her.”

Frost had been bending her head a little forward, studying the jewel now resting on her palm. “I think this stranger will not trouble us so again, Simond. There was truth in what she said: if she believes we can offer her a return to her own world, then she will link Powers.”

“But it has been so long.” Without them realizing it, Trusla had joined them. She could not bear now to have Simond too far away. “To return to a world one does not know, that has moved apart…”

“There is this,” Frost said. “Simon Tregarth, when he sought the Port of Dead Ships and found the floating derelict which was from his own world, discovered that time was different between us. There was evidence on the ship that he had spent more years apart than he had reckoned. This Urseta Vat Yan could even possibly discover that such transition works in an opposite fashion. For no two Powers are alike—just as no world copies another to the last blade of grass.”

“I hope”—Trusla had captured Simond’s hand and held it close—“that that is so for her.”