Three Against the Witch World

X

I HEARD THE sound of hooves pounding turf. And did I or did I not sight the flash of lightning whip on the far shore of the river, that from which the rasti had swun for their attack? But lastly I fixed my mind on the thought of horses and what those might mean to us. In me grew the determination that with the coming of morning light I would go exploring . . .

As if that decision were an answer to allay my uneasiness, I slept. For the sounds of the hunt, if hunt it could be, died away, while the murmur of the river made a sound to soothe overwrought nerves.

Though I was the last to sleep, I was the first to wake. Our fire had smoldered into dead ash and the dawn was cold, with damp eddying from the water to touch us with moist fingers. I pulled the rest of the bleached wood we had gathered and coaxed a new blaze into life. It was while I knelt so that I saw him—coming down to the water to drink.

Torgians were the finest steeds of Estcarp, but they were not beautiful. Their coats never gleamed, for all the grooming a man could give, nor were they large in frame. But here, raising a dripping muzzle from the water’s edge, was such a mount as a man may dream of all his days, yet never see save in those dreams. Big of frame, yet slender of leg, arched of neck, with a black coat which shone like a polished sword blade, a mane and tail rippling as might a maiden’s hair—

And once I looked upon that stallion I knew such a longing as I could not stifle. Head raised he faced me across that current. There was no fear in him; curiosity, yes, but no fear. He was of the wild, and I thought he had never had reason to believe that his will could be subordinated to that of any creature.

For a long moment he stood so, studying me as I moved to the narrow end of the islet. And then, dismissing me as harmless, he drank again, before moving a little into the river, as if he enjoyed the feel of the water about his legs. Looking upon him, his beauty and his proud freedom, I was lost.

Without thought I tried contact, striving to win him so to wait for me, to listen to my desire. Head flung up, he snorted, retreated a step or two for the bank from which he had come. He was curious, yet a little wary. Then I touched what could only be a dim memory—of a rider he had once had . . .

On the shore he waited, watched, as I plunged into the stream, helmless, without the mail or weapons I had laid aside. I swam for the shore and still the stallion stood to watch me, now and then pawing the earth a little impatiently, tossing his head so that the silky mane fluttered out, or flicking his long tail.

He would stand for me! I exulted in my triumph—he was mine! My fears of losing my gift had been foolish; never had my ability to contact an animal mind been so sharp and so quickly successful. With such a horse as this the world was mine! There was only the stallion and me in the early morning—

I waded ashore, unheeding water-soaked garments and the chill of the wind, intent only on the great and wonderful animal waiting for me—for me! He lowered his noble head to blow into the palm I held out to him. Then he allowed me to run my hands along his shoulders. He was mine as securely as if I had followed the ancient craft of training wherein a cake of oats and honey carried against my skin for three days and then moistened with my spittle had been given him to eat. Between us there was a bond of no breaking. That was so clear to me that I had no hesitation in mounting him bareback, and he suffered me to do so.

He began to trot and I gloried in the strong motion of his body, the even pacing. In all my years I had never bestrode such force, dignity, beauty, authority. It carried with it an intoxication greater than any wine a man might savor. This—this was being a king, a godling out of early mists of forgotten time.

Behind us was the river, before us an open world. Just the two of us, free and alone. A faint questioning rose somewhere deep within me. Two of us?—away from the river? But there was something back there, something of importance. Under me that mighty body tensed, began to gallop. I twined my fingers deep in the flowing mane which whipped at my face, and knew a wonderful exultation as we pounded on across a plain.

There was sunlight now, and still the stallion ran effortlessly, as if those muscles could know no fatigue. I believed he could keep to that flight for hours. But my first exultation paled as the light brightened. The river . . . I glanced over my shoulder—that dim line far behind marked it. The river . . . and on it . . .

In my mind there was a click. Kaththea! Kemoc! How, why had I come to do this? Back—I must head back there. Without bit or rein I should use my mind to control the stallion, return him to the river. I set my wish upon him—

No effect. Under me that powerful body still galloped away from the river, into the unknown. I thrust again, harder now as my faint discomfort became active alarm. Yet there was no lessening of speed, no turning. Then I strove to take entire control wholly, as I had with the Torgians and the prong-horn I had brought to its death.

It was as if I walked across a crust beneath which bubbled a far different substance. If one did not test the crust it served for a footing, but to strike hard upon it carried one to what lay below.

And in those seconds I learned the truth. If what I rode carried to my eyes and my surface probing the form of a stallion, it was in reality a very different creature. What it was I could not tell, save that it was wholly alien to all I knew or wished to know.

And also I believed that I had as much chance of controlling it by my will as I had of containing the full flood of the river in my two hands. I had not mastered a free running horse; I had been taken in as clever a net as had ever been laid for a half-bewitched man, for that I must have been from my first sighting of this beast.

Perhaps I could throw myself from its back, though its pace, now certainly swifter than any set by a real horse, could mean injury, even death, to follow such a try at escape. Where was it taking me, and for what purpose? I strove frantically to pierce below the horse level of its mind. There was a strong compulsion, yes. I was to be entrapped and then delivered—where and to whom?

Through my own folly this had come upon me. But the peril at the end could be more than mine alone, for what if the other two could then be reached through me? That enchantment which had held from my sighting of the horse was breaking fast, cracked by shock and fear.

With me they would possess a lever to use against Kaththea and Kemoc. They—who or what were they? Who were the rulers of this land, and what did they want with us? That the force had taken me so was not beneficent I was well aware. This was merely another part of that which had tried to trap me in the stone web. And this time I must not summon any aid, lest that recoil upon those I wanted least to harm.

The plain over which we sped did have an end. A dark line of trees appeared to spring out of the ground, so fast was our pace. They were oddly pallid trees, their green bleached, their trunks and limbs gray, as if life had somehow been slowly sucked out of them. And from this gaunt forest came an effluvium of ancient evil, worn and very old, but still abiding as a stench.

There was a road through that wood, and the stallion’s hooves rang on its pavement as if he were shod with steel. It did not run straight, but wove in and out. And now I had no desire to leap from my seat, for I believed that more than just clean death awaited any who touched this leached ground.

On and on pounded my mount. I no longer strove to contact its mind; rather did I husband what strength I possessed in perhaps a vain hope that there would be some second allowed me in which I could use every bit of my talent in a last stroke for freedom. And I tried to develop a crust of my own, an outer covering of despair, so that whatever intelligence might be in command would believe I was indeed now its full captive.

Always I had been one who depended upon action of body more than of mind, and this new form of warfare did not come easily. For some men fear ignites and enrages, it does not dampen nor subdue, and so it is with me. I must now curb my burning desire to strike out, and instead harbor all my ability to do so against a time when I might have at least the smallest of chances.

We came through the wood, but still we kept to the road. Now before us was a city, towers, walls . . . Yet it was not a city of the living as I knew life. From it spread an aura of cold, of utter negation of my kind of living and being. As I stared at it I knew that once I was borne within those gray walls Kyllan Tregarth as he now was would cease to be.

Not only did my inborn rejection of death arm me then, but also the remembrance of those I had betrayed by my yielding to this enchantment. I must make my move—now!

I struck, deep down, through the vanishing crust, into the will of the thing which had captured me. My will now, not to turn, to reach safety for myself, but to avoid what lay before me as the final end. If I would die it would be a death of my choosing.

Perhaps I had played my part so well I had deceived that which would compel me to its own ends, or perhaps it had no real knowledge of my species. It must have relaxed its strongest force, for I succeeded in part. That steady stride faltered, and the stallion turned from the city road. I held to my purpose, despite a boiling up of that other will. Then came a petulant flash of anger which reached me almost as if I understood words shouted at me from the walls now to my left. Very well, if I would have it so, then it would let me choose—

And in that was a hint of the wearing of age on the force in command. For, angered by defiance, it was willing to sacrifice a pawn that might be of greater value alive.

The stallion ran smoothly and I had no doubts at all that I rode to my death. But no man dies tamely and I would not yield where any chance of a fight remained. There was a flash in the sky as a bird flapped overhead. The shimmer about it—

Flannan! That same one that had visited us on the islet? What was its purpose?

It made a sudden dart and the stallion veered, voicing at the same time a scream of rage, though he did not abate his pace. Again and again the bird dived, to change the path of the animal, until we headed north, away from the city, on ground which climbed to heights forest-cloaked and dark against the sky, but green and good, with none of the withered evil of that other wood.

Once the stallion was headed in this direction the Flannan flew above us, keeping a watchful eye upon our going. And in me a small, very small hope was kindled, a fire which a breath could have puffed into nothingness. The Flannan served good, or at least was an ally, and by so much had it challenged that other Power in this land. Thus by a fraction had I the aid of something which might be well disposed to me.

In my need I strove to communicate with any such unknown friend, using the link sense I shared with those of my triple birth. But I was not seer trained; I had no hope of contact. Then I feared lest I endanger those who I hoped were still safe. Only one short cast did I make before I busied myself with thoughts of what I could do for myself.

We were running into broken ground, not quite as twisted and torn as the foothills of the western range, but still cut by sharp bitten ravines and craggy outcroppings. It was no country into which one should penetrate at a wild run. When I tried to reach the stallion’s consciousness I found nothing now, only the command to run and run which I could not break.

The end came as we reached the top of a rise, where our path was a narrow one between cliffside wall and a drop into nothingness. In that moment my hope was extinguished, for the Flannan made another of those darts, the stallion leaped, and we were falling—

All men speculate sometime during their lives on the nature of death. Perhaps this is not so common while we are young, but if a man is a warrior there is always the prospect of ending at the point of every sword he must face. Thus he cannot push from him the wonder of what will become of that which is truly him, once that sword may open the final gate.

There are believers who hold to them the promise of another world beyond that gate, in which there is a reckoning and payment on both sides of the scale, for the good and the ill they have wrought in their lifetimes. And others select endless sleep and nothingness as their portion.

But I had not thought that pain, torment so racking that it filled the entire world, was what ate on one when life was passed. For I was pain—all pain—a shrieking madness of it in which I no longer had a body, was only fire ever burning, never quenched. Then that passed and I knew that I had a body, and that body was the fuel of the flame which burned.

Later, I could see . . . and there was sky over me, blue as ever the sky of life had been. A broken branch showed a freshly-splintered end against the sky. But always the abiding pain was a cover over and about me, shutting off the reality of branch and sky.

Pain—and then a small thought creeping through the pain, a dim feeling that this was not the mercy of death, that that was yet to come and I had life still to suffer. I closed my eyes against the sky and the branch and willed with all left in me, in that small place yet free from the crowding pain, that death would come and soon.

After a while there was a little dulling of the pain and I opened my eyes, hoping this meant death was indeed close, for I knew that sometimes there was an end to agony when a man neared his departure. On the branch now perched a bird—not the Flannan, but a true bird with brilliantly blue-green feathers. It peered down at me and then raised its head and gave out a clear call. And I wondered dully if so fair a thing could be an eater of carrion, akin to those black ill-omened gleaners of the battlefields.

The pain was still a part of me, yet between it and me there was a cushioning cloud. I tried to turn my head, but no nerve nor muscle obeyed my will. The sky, the branch, the peering bird: that was what my world had become. But the sky was very blue, the bird was beautiful, and the pain less . . .

As I had heard the bird call, so now I heard another sound. Hooves! The stallion! But I could not be charmed onto his back now; in that much had I escaped the trap. The pound of hooves on earth stopped. Now came another noise . . . But that did not matter; nothing mattered—save that the pain was less.

I looked up into a face which came between me and the branch.

How can I describe a dream in clumsy words? Are there ever creatures fashioned of mist and cloud, lacking the solid harshness of our own species? A wraith from beyond that gate now opening for me—?

Pain, sudden and sharp, bore me once more into torment. I screamed and heard that cry ring in my own ears. There was a cool touch on my head and from that spread a measure of curtain once more between me and red agony. I gasped and spun out into darkness.

But I was not to have that respite for long. Once more I came into consciousness. This time neither branch nor bird nor wraith face was over me, though the sky was still blue. But pain was with me. And it exploded in hot darts as there was movement over and about me where someone subjected my broken body to further torment.

I whimpered and begged, my voice a quavering ghost which was not heeded by my torturer. My head was raised, propped so, and forcing my eyes open I strove to see who wished me such ill.

Perhaps it was the pain which made that whole picture wavery and indistinct. I lay bare of body, and what I saw of that body my mind flinched from recording—broken bones must have been the least of the injuries. But much was hidden beneath red mud and the rest was being speedily covered in the same fashion.

It was hard in my dizzy state to see the workers. At least two of them were animals, bringing up the mud with front paws, patting it down in mounds over my helpless and broken limbs. Another had a scaled skin which gave off sparkling glints in the sunlight. But the fourth, she who put on the first layer with infinite care . . .

My wraith? Just as the Flannan’s feathered wings had shimmered, so did her body outline fade and melt. Sometimes she was a shadow, then substance. And whether that was because of my own condition or an aspect of her nature I did not know. But that she would do me well instead of ill I dimly guessed.

They worked with a swift concentration and deftness, covering from sight the ruin of torn flesh and broken bones. Not as one would bury a spirit-discarded body, but as those who labor on a task of some delicacy and much need.

Yet none of them looked into my eyes, nor showed in any way that they knew I was aware of what they did. After a time this came to disturb me, leading me to wonder if I were indeed seeing this, or whether it was all born of some pain-rooted hallucination.

It was not until she who led that strange company reached the last packing of mud under my chin and smoothed it over with her hands that she did at last look into my eyes. And even so close a view between us brought no lasting certainty of her true countenance. Always did it seem to flow or change, so that sometimes her hair was dark, her face of one shape, her eyes of one color, and the next she was light of hair, different of eye, changed as to chin line—as if, in one woman, many faces had been blended, with the power of changing from one to another at her will or the onlooker’s fancy. And this was so bewildering a thing that I closed my eyes.

But I felt a cool touch on my cheek and then the pressure of fingertips on my forehead growing stronger. There was a soft singing which was like my sister’s voice when weaving a spell, and yet again unlike, in that it held a trilling like a bird’s note, rising and falling. But from that touch spread a cooling, a soothing throughout my head and then down into my body, putting up a barrier against the pain which was now a dim, far-off thing, no longer really a part of me. And as the singing continued it seemed that I did not lay buried in mud for some unknown reason, but that I floated in a place which had no relation to time or space as I knew those to exist.

There were powers and forces in that place beyond measurement by human means, and they moved about on incomprehensible duties. But that it all had meaning I also knew. Twice did I return to my body, open my eyes and gaze into that face which was never the same. And once behind it was night sky and moonlight, and once again blue, with drifting white clouds.

Both times did the touch and the singing send me out once more into the other places beyond the boundaries of our world. Dimly I knew that this was not the death I had sought during the time of my agony, but rather a renewing of life.

Then for the third time I awoke, and this time I was alone. And my mind was clear as it had not been since that dawn when I had looked at the stallion by the river. My head was still supported so that I could look down my body mounded by clay. It had hardened and baked, with here and there a crack in its surface. But there were no fingers on my flesh, no voice singing. And this bothered me, first dimly and then with growing unease. I strove to turn my head, to see more of where I lay, imprisoned in the earth.