Three Against the Witch World

XIII

IT WAS A strange sight we had, operating on two levels. First it was as if we hung in the sky above this land as it had once been, all its fields, woods, streams and mountains spread below us. And it was a fair land then, holding no shadows, no spots of corruption. Also it was a well peopled land, with garths and manors serene and safe. There were three cities—no, four . . . for in the foothills of the mountains was a collection of tall towers apart in use and spirit from the rest. Men and women of the Old Race went about, content and untroubled.

Also there were others, partly of the Old Race, partly of a yet older stock. And these had gifts which led them to be revered. There was a golden light on this land and it drew us as if we rode at twilight through the wind and dark of a coming storm, to see before us the guest lights of a manor wherein dwelt the best of friends. Yes, it drew us, yet we could not accept what it promised, for between us lay the barrier of time.

Then that all-encompassing vision narrowed, and we watched the coming of change. There were Wise Women here, but they did not rule so autocratically as they did in Estcarp. For not only did the women of this land have the gift of Power—among them were men who could also walk with spirits.

How did the ill begin? With good intentions, not by any active evil. A handful of seekers after knowledge experimented with Powers they thought they understood. And their discoveries, feeding upon them in turn, altered subtly spirit, mind, and sometimes even body. Power for its results was what first they sought, but then, inevitably, it was Power for the sake of power alone. They did not accept gradual changes; they began to force them.

Years sped as might the moments of an hour. There was the rise of the brother-sisterhood, first secretly, then in the open, dedicated to experimentation, with volunteers, then with those forced to their purposes. Children, animals, things were born which were not as their parents had been. Some were harmless, even of great beauty and an aid to all. But that kind became fewer and fewer. At first those that were distorted, ill-conceived, were destroyed. Then it was proposed that they be kept, studied, examined. Later yet their makers released them, that they might be observed in freedom.

And, as the corruption spread and befouled those who dabbled in it, these monstrosities were used! Nor did the users and the makers any longer place bonds on the fashioning of such dark servants and weapons.

So began a struggle, to eclipse the fast fading brightness of the land. There was a party of the Old Race, as yet unshadowed by the evil flowering among their kind. At first they sounded war horns, gathering a host to put down the enemy. But they had waited far too long; they were as a dipper of water against the ocean. War brought them bitter defeat and the prospect of being utterly lost in the ocean of defilement which was turning their homeland into a morass wherein no decent thing might find existence.

There were leaders who argued that it was better to perish in war than to live under the hand of the enemy, taking with them all that they held dear, so that death would in fact be safety from that which threatened more than the body. And there were many who supported them in that. We watched households go into their manors, take comfort together, and then bring down upon themselves a blotting out by raw forces they deliberately summoned and did not try to control.

But others held to a faith that the end was not yet for them and their kind. Against the array of the Enemy they were a pitifully few in number. But among them were some wielders of the Power such as even their opponents might well fear. And these ordered an ingathering of those willing to try another road.

There was this about the Old Race: they were deeply rooted in their own country, drawing from the land a recharging of energy and life force. Never had they been wanderers, rovers, seekers of the physical unknown—though they moved afar in mind and spirit. And to leave the land was almost as hard as death. Still they were minded to try this. And they set out for the west and what might lie across the bordering mountains there.

They did not go without trouble. The crooked servants of the Enemy harassed their train, harried them by night and day. They lost men, women, families—some to death, some otherwise. Yet they held to their purpose. Through the mountains they fought their way. And once beyond those barriers, they turned and wrought such havoc against the land that it closed the road behind them for century upon century.

Left to itself, evil boiled and spread out in greedy freedom. But it was not entire master in the land, even though what challenged it lay very low, making no move in those first years to betray its presence. The Old Race had not taken with it any of the creatures that had been born of experimentation, not even those attuned to good rather than ill. A few of these were strong, and they withdrew to the waste spaces and there disguised themselves against detection. There were also those who were not of the Old Race in whole, but part more ancient yet. And these were so united to the land that it was their life base.

There were only a handful of these, yet they were held in awe and shunned by the new rulers. For, though they had not stirred against evil, nor actively aided good, yet they had such forces under their command as could not be reckoned by evil. These too withdrew to the wild, and in time they attracted to them the created ones in loose alliance. But evil ruled totally except in these wastes.

Time flowed as the river current. Those who were drunk with power arose to greater and greater extravagances in its use. Quarreling, they turned upon one another, so that the countryside was wracked with strange and terrible wars, fought with energies and inhuman, demonic things. Struggles lasted so for centuries, but there were drastic defeats, completely wiping out one force or the other. Thus the more outwardly aggressive ate up each other. Then there were those who turned their backs upon the world as it was and ventured farther and farther into weird realms they broke open for exploration. Of these few ever returned. So did the long toll of years bring a measure of quietude to the riven land.

There were still powers of evil, but the majority of them, satiated by countless tastings and explorations, were lulled into a kind of abstracted existence in which they floated unmoved and unmoving. Now those in the wastes ventured forth, a creeping at first, wary, ready to retreat. For they only tested evil in small ways, not battles.

In time they held again half the land, always taking cautiously, never offering direct opposition when one of the evil ones was aroused to active retaliation. And this had gone on so long it was the accepted way of life.

Then—into this balanced land we had come, and we saw in part what our coming had done. Magic summoned magic, aroused more than one of the dreaming evils into languid action. Yet against the least of these, alone, we were as helpless as the dust the wind whirls before it. As for now the evil was old, withdrawn, yet still a little rooted to this plane. Were we greater than we were—only a little greater—it could be utterly driven forth into that world, or worlds, which it now roved, doors sealed behind it, the land free and golden, and open for our kind once again. I opened my eyes to meet Kemoc’s.

“So now we know,” he said quietly. “And are no better for that knowing. The Council, in our position, could overcome this. We have not a single chance! And it was—is—so fair a land!”

I shared that nostalgic longing for the country we had seen at the beginning of that time flight. All my life I had lived under the cloud of war and trouble. And I had faced from a child the knowledge that I was living in the end days of a civilization which had no hope. Therefore to have seen what we had been shown was doubly bitter. And to realize there was nothing we could do—not even to save ourselves—was more than bitter.

Kaththea stirred in our hold. Her eyes opened. Tears gathered, flowed to her thin cheeks.

“So beautiful! So warm, so good!” she whispered. “And if—if we only had the Power—we could bring it back!”

“If we had wings,” I said harshly, “we could fly out of here!” I gazed over my shoulder at what lay beyond our protecting ring of stones.

The creatures of the dark still prowled there. And I knew, without needing the telling, they would continue to do so, until there came an end to us and all the slight danger to their overlords which we represented.

It was growing dark and, while I knew that the pillars would keep them at a distance, yet I was also haunted by the knowledge that with the night their true world began, that they would be strengthened by so much. I was hungry and if I felt thus, how much more must Kaththea and Kemoc be in need of food. To stay here, waiting for death—that could not be my way!

Again I thought of Shabra. He had brought me safely in—could be get out again? And doing so, might he serve as a messenger? Could or would Dahaun do aught to aid us now? She had said she was going for help, but hours had passed since then and none had come. It could well be that she had failed in the persuasion she had said she must use. Once more the thought of Kaththea on the horned one, Kemoc and I to flank her in a break out crossed my mind . . . only to be answered by my sister’s weak voice:

“Have you forgotten? They have set a witch bar. But you and Kemoc—perhaps that will not encompass you—”

Our combined dissent was quick and hot. As three we would escape or not at all.

“There is no way left to fight them with the Power?”

She shook her head. “Already I have done too much. My acts troubled the quiet here and aroused that which hunts us now. A child playing with a sword cuts itself because it had neither the skill nor strength to use such a weapon properly. There is only this, my brothers: that which sits out there cannot take us. For which we should give thanks, for if it could we would not face clean death of body, but that which is far worse!”

Remembering what I had learned as the stallion bore me towards that city of dread silence, I understood. Yet I was not meant to await death, clean or otherwise, without a struggle. And all I had now was a very faint hope that a wraith girl, who had saved my life and then ridden from me, would redeem a half promise she had made.

I covered my eyes with my hands and strove with every bit of any small power I had to fix upon her face, to somehow reach her, to learn if I could in any way find hope. For if I could not, then I must turn to some desperate and doubtless fatal move of my own.

But those features of many changes could not be so pinned in mind for a real picture. All the vision faces she had shown me spun elusively, sometimes singly for an instant, sometimes superimposed one on the other. Dahaun was not one of the created ones, produced by a whim of the Old Race; she was one of those who had stood apart, being of yet more ancient blood, and in her the human portion was the lesser.

There was a snort from Shabra. With the coming of evening a pale luminescence fingered up the menhirs. About them swirled threads of light, twining about them as planted vines might seek support on such rough stone. Also the blue platform on which we now rested had its measure of such spectral radiance. By the light I saw the horned one face about, head up, nostrils expanded. Then, with a toss of head so that his red horn caught the light, he voiced a cry, not unlike the challenge of a fighting stallion.

I almost expected to see that black thing which had entrapped me come pacing along with the other besiegers. But Shabra’s answer came in another form—a crackle of fire on the crest of the slope down which the line of pillars marched. There was no mistaking its source—the lash of an energy whip!

Dahaun! I put into that silent call all my need.

No answer, save once more the whip cracked an arc of raw lightning in the sky. A bush flamed where its tip must have stuck the ground. And from outside the circle arose a concentrated, growling roar from the things who kept sentry duty there.

Shabra—I reached for contact. Who rides there?

Be still! Would you have the Dark Ones know? It was a sharp rebuke.

I was startled. This was no contact with any animal; this was equal chiding equal, or perhaps even an adult rebuking a child. I might have ridden Shabra to this place, but his function was not only that of mount. And now I caught a flash of amusement at my surprise. Then his mind was closed to me as a door might be locked and barred to any entrance.

Kaththea grasped my arm and Kemoc’s and pulled herself up.

“There are forces on the move,” she said. But something in the curling light about the pillars bedazzled our eyes to anything which lay beyond. We could hear the evil host but we could no longer see it. No more whip cracks broke the night.

“Can you reach—have any contact at all?” Kemoc demanded.

“No, I must not. I could disturb, awaken—Our power is a mixture. Ceremonial magic comes from ritual, from study, used by those who learn as scholars and priestesses. True witchcraft is older, more primitive, allied with nature, not truly bound by our standards of good and evil. In Estcarp we have united the two, but always give the greater weight to magic, not witchcraft. Here magic went utterly wrong and crooked, becoming a twisted, wicked thing. But witchcraft stepped aside and walks in its earlier guise. Thus when I strove to use what I knew I drew magic, yes, but I used a force which had been distorted. What may work in our favor is witchcraft, and of that I have no mastery. Tell me, quickly, Kyllan, of this Lady of Green Silences and how you met with her!”

With my attention half for anything which might move outside the lights of the menhirs, I told my story—and more slowly of what had happened after my awaking in the mud basin.

“Natural forces,” Kaththea broke in. “Shapechanging—because she has Power which adapts—”

“How do you mean?” I had not guessed that my sister, never having seen Dahaun, could yet explain some of her mystery.

“The Green Silences—the woodlands—have always had their guardians and inhabitants. And their magic is of wind, water, earth and sky—literally of those. Not as we witches use them, imposing our will for a space, either in illusion or for destruction, but with the rhythm and flow of nature. They will use a storm, yes, but they do not summon one. They can use the rushing current of a river, but within its boundaries. All animals and birds, even plants, will obey them—unless such are already in the service of evil, and thus corrupt. They take on the coloring of their surroundings. If they wish, you can not see them among trees, in water, nor even in the open. And they cannot live among stone walls, nor in places wherein only men dwell, or they wither and die. Because they are of the very stuff of life, so they are feared by the forces of destruction. But also they will be wary of the risking of life. In some ways they are indeed more powerful than we, in spite of all our centuries of magic; yet in others they are more vulnerable. Their like does not exist in Estcarp; they could not make the break to leave this land in which they are rooted. But still we had our legends of their kind—”

“Legends centuries old,” I interrupted. “Dahaun—she can not be that Lady of those—”

“Perhaps an office descending in some ancient line, the name with it. Morquant is one of the names by which we evoke wind magic, yet you say she gave it as her own. Also, note that unlike a sworn witch she gives you her name freely, proving that she has no fear of so delivering herself into your hands. Only her kind are so above the threat of counterspell.”

There was a trill overhead. Startled, we looked up at a blue-green bird such as had been with me during my hours of pain. Three times it circled us, trilling in short bursts of clear, sweet notes. Kaththea gasped, her grip tightening to dig nails into my shoulder, her face becoming even more pale. She whispered:

“They—they are indeed great! I have been—silenced!”

“Silenced?” Kemoc echoed.

“I cannot use spells. Should I strive to use an incantation it would not make sense! Kyllan—why? Why would they do this thing? I am now open to what lies out there. Kyllan, they wish us ill, not well! They have chosen this time to stand with evil!”

She pulled away from me and clung to Kemoc. Over her bowed shoulders he gazed hostilely at me, as he had never done before.

Nor could I deny that he might have some cause for such judgment. I had returned to them through the agency of this force which now acted against Kaththea, to take from her what might be her only defense. And I had come charging in blindly, not to bring them any real succor, perhaps merely to direct a final blow. Yet a large part of me would not accept that measurement of what was happening here, even though I could not give any reason for still believing that we had hope for aid.

The prowlers were growing bolder. A lean wolf head was clearly outlined in the light from a menhir; a vast armored paw, talons outspread, waved in another direction. Kaththea raised her head from Kemoc’s shoulder. There was now fear in her eyes.

“The lights—look to the lights!”

Until her cry I had not noted the change. When we had awakened from the time spell those wreathing threads had been of a blue shade, akin in color to the rock platform they ringed. Now they were smoky, yellowish, giving one an unpleasant sensation when looked at too closely. That change in them appeared to summon the attackers. More and more faces and paws were visible by their glare. Our besiegers were drawing in closely.

Shabra stamped a forehoof, and the impact on the ground had the thud of hand against war drum, booming unnaturally in the air. Kaththea’s throat worked convulsively, as if she were trying to speak; her head turned from side to side, and her hands arose before her by visible effort, as if she struggled against bonds. They jerked, twitched, rebels against her will. And I knew that she was fighting to use her own craft—without avail.

The horned one began to trot around with the blue stone the core of his circle. His trot became a canter, then sped to a gallop. Now he gave voice in a series of sharp barking cries. Still more faces of evil were plain in the yellow light.

Then I sighted something else, something I had to stare at a long second before I could believe in what my eyes reported. Shabra might not be running on trampled grass, but hock high in a flowing, deep green stream of water. There was a rippling out and away from his circling, gathering impetus as he passed. Not light, nor mist, but a flowing—of what, I could not say. And, under us, the blue stone was growing warm. From its four corners spiraled tendrils of blue which arched over to touch that flowing green, and were swallowed, blue to green. And the green swept on, a little faster, towards the smoky yellow of the pillars. Round and round Shabra galloped.

I dared not watch him, for his circling made me light-headed. The edge of the green flow lapped at the roots of the menhirs. There followed an explosion of light, as had when my whip had cut at the mist thing. Eyes dazzled, I blinked and rubbed, striving to clear my sight.

Before me the menhirs were no longer a smoky yellow, but each a towering green candle, so lost in light that their rugged outlines vanished. No more did the sentries stare hungrily at us from between them.

The columns began to pulse in waves, as the light mounted higher and higher. But it proved a barrier to our sight of all that lay beyond. We did not see; we heard—a crying, the sound of running . . . It was the breaking of the siege! I got to my feet, jumped from the platform, sought for the whip I had dropped hours earlier.

Magic, perhaps not that which we knew, but still magic, had come to our aid. Whip in hand I strained to see beyond the pillar light.

“Dahaun!” I did not shout, I whispered, but that I would be answered I was almost sure.