The Warding of Witch World

45 Gate Fall and New Day’s Dawning, North

They had seen no more of the woman who called herself Urseta Vat Yan. Frost spent much time pacing out a line which spanned those very ancient outlines of the now-ice-choked passage. She could not approach it too closely; the sluggish stream issued from its foot. Finally she appeared to have made up her mind on some point and summoned them to a meeting.

Once they were so assembled, she singled out Audha, touched the girls forehead, and repeated, as she might a ritual, the name they had heard days earlier:

“Urseta Vat Van!”

Names had Power. Perhaps the alien from the otherworld had held Frost’s talent so low that she had not believed the witch could so compel her.

But now that shimmer of rainbow across the ice spread upward. Once more they saw the stranger as she wished them to behold her, whether it was in her natural body or not.

She did not hold her ball of fire this time. It hung above her head, and the warmth from it even they could feel. But her green eyes were hard, and as the warmth of the ball, so could her anger be sensed by all of them.

“What would you, Witch Woman?” she demanded.

“What we have spoken of, Urseta Vat Yan—the end of what we have come to do.”

Trusla saw a forked point of tongue show and sweep over the other’s lower lip.

“You would bring down your gate—and crush my ship. So much for all your brave words of mutual understanding.”

“No.” Frost showed a patience Trusla had not expected. “We shall force the gate to close, yes. But can you loose your ship on the same signal? This is an act which, to my knowledge, has never been tried before. And this also will I tell you—those who lock the gate may not survive.”

She was facing the woman very straightly, gray eyes locked to the pupilless green. The ball of flame spun suddenly, and short tongues of flame fringed it around. Once more Trusla saw that double point of tongue show for an instant.

Then Frost’s words struck home to Trusla herself. The witch had chosen Simond to share her task—that might mean she was about to kill him! No—and no!

She discovered that she could not utter that scream of denial aloud, nor could she move to wind arms about him, hold him safe. Power held them fast to the will of those other two. Even Inquit stood silent, her cloak tightly about her as if it were a shield against forces they could feel rising now.

The green eyes appeared to flicker rather than blink. Now the woman reached upward and caught the ball, holding it to her even as Frost held her jewel.

“Such payment…” she said slowly.

Frost’s face was still serene. “Such payment—if it is asked of us—we shall give willingly. However, this, too, I must make clear to you if you choose your own path. Time has sped—you may be returning to a far different world than you left.”

“A different world, a kin-gone world,” the woman repeated slowly. “Yet if that means years will drop upon me even as the snow whirls in this barren place, still I will be… home.”

She tossed the ball from one hand to the other and the colors in it flamed so high she might have been holding a portion of sun far warmer than this country had ever seen. Then she turned partially away.

“My Power is not of your world. If you loose what you can command at the same moment, perhaps neither of us shall profit.”

“Agreed.” Frost’s voice was still calm and untroubled. “You uncase your ship first and then we shall tackle the gate.”

Still the woman hesitated—and then gave a toss of her head which sent her spark-laden hair streaming into the air.

“So be it—and how better a time than now, Witch Woman?”

Frost looked to Simond. Quietly, as they had been speaking, he had been unbuckling, unlacing, dropping to the ground the mail, the weapons of which he had always been so proud. Those who dealt with the greater Power did not bring steel to such a meeting. He stood at that moment in his fur underjerkin, even his belt knife out of its sheath.

Trusla swayed. In spite of all her efforts, she could not go to him. But he turned to face her.

“Heart’s core for me”—he spoke as if the two of them stood alone and there were none else to hear—“much have you given me. Now give me the last gift of all—your courage.”

She saw him only through a glaze of tears. Without Simond, what would she be? But what she saw in his face brought a whisper of answer which it seemed the restraining Power would allow her now:

“You have all of me—forever.”

She had to crouch there, for her legs refused to support her any longer, and she watched him go, shoulder to shoulder with Frost, who had also shed the bulk of her outergarments. They had fit Odanki’s claws and were once more climbing. There was a brilliant flash of flame and the alien was already above them, perched on the middle of the faintly defined archway.

Trusla, pain binding her as with chains, had to watch Simond, now but a small dark figure, cross that arch—move out on the other side away from her and beyond the gate boundaries. If she could only stand with him there!

Urseta Vat Yan, tossing her ball from hand to hand as one about to play some childish game, disappeared toward the far end of the archway. They could no longer see her—only the sparks of her constantly turbulent hair.

Then a hand fell on Trusla’s shoulder, and she smelled that spicy scent which clung ever to the feather cloak of the shaman.

A quill the other held swept the ice and snow before where she huddled and the girl saw, as through a window—or into a mirror. There was the thick curtain of cloud, with only visible the protruding stern of the alien ship. But that was brightly lit now, for standing on the deck was Urseta, and she hurled the ball into the air. Faint and far away Trusla caught her call. Along one side of the ship rolled the ball, and then along the other, and the ice was gone as if it were mist puffed away.

Then once more the instrument of Power returned to Urseta and she stood looking upward, even though Trusla doubted she could see the other two at the gate—certainly not any of them waiting below.

However, her voice came clearly enough, ringing in their heads.

“I cannot leave any anchorage here now. Take what is of your world and time!” The ball broke into halves, each of which became a small ball in turn. One she threw into the air with all her might, and the other she hurled with even greater force straight before her to where the other half of her ship was still imprisoned.

There was a bursting apart—sight, sound, feeling were all a part of it. Trusla heard the roll of those other two voices speaking words which had not been voiced for centuries. Through suddenly dimmed eyes she tried to see Simond, but there was descending on them something else. Faded as if its journey through the air had nearly dimmed its Power came the fireball. It struck full upon the head of Audha, who had stood forgotten among them, gripped in the dazed state which mainly held her.

Trusla had just time to see the rainbow fire compass the Sulcar girl before she heard that other sound: the roar of rock and ice, shattering under the hammer of true Power, the cliffs shuddering and scaling off great chunks.

“Simond!” She covered her face with her hands. Maybe if fortune favored her one of those great slabs would find her.

It would seem that the roaring of the broken gate would never stop. Snow half buried them, and Trusla dimly felt pain as a razor-edged splinter cut along her arm, slitting the fur and hide as if it were a knife.

The silence in the end was as overpowering in its way as had been the noise of the destruction. Somehow Trusla forced herself to look up—

Up at what? Where there had stood a wall barrier was a jumble of broken slabs, some seeming as great in size as a Sulcar ship.

Ship? Half-dazedly she tried to center her eyes on where that ship had once been caught. Did it lay crushed under this pounding, or had the woman indeed made her return?

“Lady Trusla!” Someone was tugging at her, striving to pull her free of the ice which half covered her. Bleared of eye, she looked up into the face of Audha.

There was spirit behind those eyes again, concern in the Sulcar girl’s expression. Truly what Urseta had taken she had, at that last moment, returned. Faintly Trusla was happy—faintly—for nothing mattered now that Simond was not here.

There came the sound of rushing water and she could hear calling in the distance, though that meant nothing to her now. That stream which had edged from under the gate was now a river, shearing off pieces of ice which bumped along in what seemed a strong current whirling eastward.

“Aaaaheee, ahhheee!” That cry broke through the confusion in her head. She was dimly aware of Audha digging swiftly about her, dragging her out of the mass of snow which half covered her. Not too far away Kankil was also digging, throwing a storm of snow and bits of ice into the air as she screamed over and over again that ear-piercing cry.

Odanki suddenly towered over the shaman’s small familiar and his big hands added to the welter of snow they were throwing into the air. Then the hunter stopped and, using both hands, pulled the shaman out.

However, even before she was raised to more than her knees, she was pointing to one side, crying in her own tongue nearly as loud as Kankil. The captain, staggering a little, came up. One arm hung limp and Joul was close to give him a hand.

But at the shaman’s insistence not only did the Sulcar man leave the captain, but Audha also moved to aid. Trusla remained dully where she was, watching them, as might a detached dreamer, work to bring out Frost.

At first she thought that the witch was dead, struck down by the very Power she had summoned. Then the girl was aware that the jewel on the other’s breast was showing a spark of fire.

Only… Trusla tried to get to her feet, and when she discovered she could not make it, she started on hands and knees to the river. If Simond’s side of the gate had collapsed even as Frost’s—and it looked as if it had—then he lay buried across that barrier of rushing water. The longer he remained below any heap of snow and splintered ice, the sooner the last flickers of life would be frozen out of him. That he was not yet dead Trusla could believe. Surely that shutting off of warmth and good, of her very heart hold, would be sensed by her.

She paid no attention to those behind her, pausing for a breath or so now and then to watch that other shore, see some small splotch of hide clothing perhaps among the everlasting blue-white of the snow. Then she was at the water’s edge and that was a perilous perch, but the danger meant nothing to her now.

The ice was still breaking off in pieces, to be rolled over in the water, carried away. And she knew this much of this land: to throw herself into that frantic stream and hope to reach the other shore was merely to reach out for death. Though in the end that is what she might well do.

She was dimly aware of someone who was standing now beside where she crouched in despair. The softness of a feather brushed against her and then a small warm body, almost like a brazier of coals, hurled itself upon her.

Inquit—Kankil. Of what matter their coming? There was nothing which would bridge that waterway—and no sign beyond of where to hunt.

“Little sister.” The Latt woman’s hand rested softly on her head. “He is not dead.”

Trusla shrugged. What matter? He would soon be so. She looked into nothingness and knew its bite.

Kankil was patting her face with soft paw-hands, crooning with a rumbling purr which reached into Trusla’s own body but did not soften the growing bleakness there.

“What can be done?” It took a moment or so for Trusla to realize that the shaman was not speaking to her but to Odanki, who had come up on her other side.

“To cross in this flood—Voice of Arska, that is impossible for anyone, for we cannot grow wings and fly.”

Trusla started up, dislodging Kankil from her lap with a sharp shove. She was on her feet, teetering on the very edge of the water, only half aware that a firm hold had fastened on the back of her belt.

But she had not been mistaken! Surely, by the Greatest of Powers, her eyes had not played her false now. That dark arm seemingly grown out of the very earth was showing clear against the snow. A moment or so later there was a cascade of chunks, then head, another arm, shoulders appeared!

“Simond!” Trusla screamed with all the power her lungs could summon.

He tried to rise and sprawled forward on his face. She would have thrown herself into that flood now if the hold on her had not remained so very strong.

No, he was not stirring now. They must reach him! Cover him with the garments he had discarded, somehow get him warm—bring life back to him!

Trusla tried to turn and fight that hold, but she was as entrapped as if the ice had risen to wall her in. She screamed at Inquit.

“He must have help!”

“There is no way to cross the river in such a flood.” Captain Stymir, his left arm now lashed across his breast, came up to them. “Unless…” He looked to the shaman. “Many times Power has done what force of arm and heart cannot. The witch seems to sleep; we cannot rouse her. Thus what she might be able to control we cannot call upon. And you, Shaman?”

“Animals I may command in the name of Arska, winds I can summon and sometimes lighten storms, and there are other things. But here I stand as you, Captain.”

Trusla’s breath was coming in dry sobs. “Simond, Simond”—she made of his name a plea, like some ritual which could not escape answer.

He moved. Somehow he had levered himself up on his hands, though his head still hung as if any effort was too great for him.

“Simond, Simond.” Perhaps it was her calling which reached him, kept him from lying waiting for death.

“Hunter!”

That one word was so imperative that it broke all their attention centered on the struggling man.

It was Audha who had come to them. Yet—it was not the Audha Trusla had known, beaten by adversity, robbed of her birthright. Now the Sulcar girl put out a hand to lay fingertips on Odanki’s bulky arm. He jerked and his mouth opened, but what he might have wished to say was swallowed up in the question she asked:

“You are one who knows the ice. If there be an air bridge, would you risk a crossing? You alone, for I do not know…” She hesitated. “I have yet much to learn.”

“A bridge?” he repeated almost stupidly, as if he could not believe that she had asked that. “To bridge that…” he pointed to the ever-flowing flood.

Trusla saw Inquit’s eyes narrow and then the shaman herself spoke.

“You have followed the flippered ones out on the floating bergs. You stand as my man and shield. If there be a bridge, dare you cross it?”

He shook his head as if he could not believe what she was saying. “I am the Lord Simonds bondsman for my very life! Did he not bring me out of the very jaws of the worms? Show me your bridge!”

Audha moved a little apart from them, even as Frost did when she would deal with Power. She flung wide her arms and in the wide space between her hands danced color, ribbons of color such as had run across the walls of the ice palace.

The fingers of her left hand slacked apart and those ribbons of color shot out over the river even as Trusla had seen a fisherman of the marshes throw a baited line. The tip of the rainbow touched a floating cake of extra width and drew it toward them. It nudged a second and then a third. In spite of the battering of the water—perhaps that now flowed beneath what Audha wrought and did not try full strength against it—there was a bridge.

“Go with speed,” she ordered. “I do not know how long…”

Odanki had already thrown aside his long outer tunic and his bow and quiver. But he still had spear in hand and was using that in a way odd to Trusla, to give himself a running start to jump for the nearest bobbing cake of ice. Trusla wanted to close her eyes; she was sure that what the hunter attempted now was beyond the ability of any man.

Yet, though the strangely hooked-together cakes bobbed, they did not spill him into that current. With his spear hooked well into the ice of the opposite bank, he pulled himself up and over. Though he was limping more, he was still moving at nearly running speed.

He reached that dark blot which was Simond and with a struggle somehow got the limp body over his shoulders, almost as he might carry a kill to camp. Beside her Trusla heard Inquit making sharp rasping cries even as might some great bird working itself up to its highest point of energy.

Audha’s expression was not unlike the one Frost wore when she called upon her Power. Also—somehow her Sulcar features appeared to alter a little—she was not quite Audha anymore. But the ribbons of light continued to flow from her.

Inquit took two steps coming up behind her. The shaman’s glove and mitten had been loosed and her hand was free in the cold. But those fingers went forth and closed on Audha’s neck where the hood had slipped from her head. Inquit’s eyes were closed and her expression was one of deep concentration.

Odanki’s pace, for all his efforts, was slowing. He had Simond and was approaching the edge of the river once more with uneven strides. Reaching the bank, he paused and shifted his burden a little and then leaped. Under the combined weight of both men, the ice dipped and water washed, but Odanki was already taking off for the next portion of that bridge.

What moved her Trusla could not have told, for pure fear had kept her held in place, but now she felt Kankil’s hand close on her and when the small creature drew her, she was able to take the steps to Inquit’s side. Kankil reached up with her other stubby fingers to catch at the shaman’s dangling hand.

A drawing such as she had never known gripped Trusla. Still she chanted, as her own private ritual, Simond’s name. But she realized that even as the shaman was feeding Power to Audha, so she was now a part of that chain. Her will arose fiercely, trying to feed all she could into that linkage.

The hunter was past the middle of the river. Only it seemed to Trusla that those colored bands which built his path were not holding steady; rather, they faded and then pulsed anew at intervals as if they were near the end of their Power to hold.

Joul and the captain had been working frenziedly at a section of rope, the captain’s one-handed efforts sometimes more of a hindrance than a help. Joul took over their labor, fashioned a loop, and then cast with a seaman’s eye.

Odanki was caught and held by Joul’s coil and the captain held the shore end. The ribbons flickered—but the Sulcars were ready and gave a great forward pull. Odanki slammed against the bank. Audha’s hand fell to her side. The lights were gone, but the shaman had moved with speed and Trusla was with her.

Scrambling, pulling, seizing on whatever part of the two came to hand, they worked together and brought both the hunter and his burden ashore.

Trusla caught at Simond, his head falling back against her shoulder. Was she still chanting his name? Perhaps—for his eyes opened and he was looking up at her, a slow smile curving his lips as if the flesh were too frozen to answer his will.

“Not—this—time, Heart…” Those eyes fluttered, shut again.

The party had no means of building a fire—and they needed the heat to live. Inquit went to Audha. The girl stood nearly as blank of face as when she had moved to Ursetas will, but when the shaman laid hand upon her shoulder, she shuddered and came alive again.

“Who are you?” the shaman asked.

Audha laughed. “I am Audha, wavereader. But that one, when she would take me for her servant, entered into me. And when she left… she took what she claimed as hers, but she could not take all. For something of it had rooted. Just”—she laughed again—“as some of the hated Sulcar had rooted in her. Perhaps that will mean a new beginning for her also.”

The shaman nodded. “That is possible—as none can deny. She had control over warmth, that one. What can you do with that?”

Audha’s smile was gone. “Wisewoman, I am not Urseta, only one to whom some small shreds of Power have come. It may be that I have lost all that I had, for now I know I am empty and it is useless for me to try.”

“Rightly so.” They were startled by Frost. There was the weary look upon her which she always wore when she had been entranced. But her jewel was ablaze.

“I have spoken to Korinth and the Watcher there was already warned from Lormt that aid was needed. Now…” Her hands cupped the jewel and she knelt beside Simond, passing the blaze of its light down from the crown of his head to his feet. He sighed as he turned his head a fraction closer to Trusla’s breasts.

“Be not afraid, child,” Frost said. “He will lie unknowing and unharmed now until they come for us. Now let us see to this champion of yours, Inquit. He was well chosen and deserves high honor.”

Odanki also lay on the ice, but his eyes were wide open, first in apprehension and then softening with awe as Frost’s gleaming symbol of Power passed over him. As with Simond, he seemed to fall asleep, and Inquit, unfastening her feather robe, drew it over him.

“Lady, you spoke of help,” Stymir said. “In this land such must come soon.”

“As it will. Be sure, Captain, every drum calls for wind launching.”

She stood for a moment looking back at the ruins of the gate. That strange fog which had blanked out what lay on the other side was no longer to be seen—only rough foothills which arose in the distance to mountain height.

“I hope,” she said, “that she will be served as well in her own world and time as we shall be in ours. For there was nothing of true evil in her, only strangeness, and despair and the burden of terrible loneliness. Let us wish her all good fortune, as perhaps such thoughts will carry past all barriers, seen and unseen.”

And looking around that half circle of faces, Trusla knew that Frost’s appeal was truly answered. Might Urset Vat Yan find at least a portion of what she had lost. For them… it was done, all the struggle and peril. They had only to wait, for none of them could doubt that what the witch had promised was the truth; their own needed help was on the way.