Warlock of the Witch World

XVII

WE CREPT FORTH from that den in the morning. Again I offered Kaththea some of the roots and she refused, saying she had no hunger for such. When I pressed as to what food she needed, she shut herself off from me. Still she went with me without urging.

Once more the mist curdled the air about the stream. I welcomed it, for the water made a path plain to follow and the fog, I hoped, would shelter us. I watched in the stream for any movement which might show Kofi was here, for I held in mind the thought that Orsya might have left the Merfay to await us.

Or had the Krogan girl believed my mission to the Dark Tower so hopeless that she saw no reason to prepare for any return?

The scraps of vegetation looming through the fog were clean of that taint which streaked the land. But they were beginning to wither from nature. It was much colder and I thought winter must be now the closer. I could not control my shivering and longed for a cloak such as I had used to make my puppet along the way.

As we went I also paid attention to the sword for rune warnings. The mist deadened sound in a curious way and I thought that the blade might be our only alert against some dangers.

We could follow the waterways back to the Heights, if we were very lucky. But I would not attempt a return through the underground passages. Therefore, we must somehow win across the land.

To do so was a fool’s folly. There was every reason to believe that we could be tracked down between one sunrise and sunset. Still I turned to the Heights and kept on. There was no other way.

Laughter—faintly jeering laughter. I turned my head quickly and looked to Kaththea.

“Impossible, my dear brother? You have an excellent fore-future reading, according to your gifts. But, remember, you do not walk alone, and I can show you some tricks which even your water wench or the Wise Ones of Estcarp could not truly lay name to. We shall get back to the Valley, never fear. If we will it, both together, that we shall do.”

Again arrogant confidence in herself, the mocking half-note in relation to others. Yet that confidence carried conviction that she knew whereof she spoke. It was just that, within me, I shrank from any aid she would give me, whereas I had welcomed that of Orsya.

“What . . . ?” Her scarf swathed head turned from me; she was staring into the water which was curiously agitated where the mist curtain touched it.

“Kofi!” I cried. “Orsya?” I sent a thought call. But there was no answer. The rippling in the water drew closer as the Merfay treaded water, waiting for us to catch up.

“What is it?” demanded Kaththea. “I cannot thought-scan it. But there is life here. What is it?”

“A Merfay. It guided us into this country.”

“A friend to your water wench?” Kaththea stopped as if she did not want to approach it any nearer.

Suddenly her designation of Orsya rasped me. “Her name is Orsya and she, too, is a holder of power. With her only did I find you.” My reply sounded sharp, even in my own ears.

“Orsya,” Kaththea repeated. “Your pardon, brother—it shall be Orsya. So, she aided you to me? That I shall remember also. It is her magic which has strengthened this scarf of mine. But to return to this messenger we cannot see, nor mind-touch—he is a messenger, is he not?”

“I hope so.”

I went down on one knee in the shallow wash of the stream and held out my hand—that paw-hand—much as I had when Orsya lent her sense of sight to mine so that I could see Kofi. The disturbance in the water drew closer, but this time I felt no light touch of alien flesh on mine. Perhaps Kofi could not bring himself to such contact with the thing which now served me as a hand. For that I could not blame him. But I hoped my gesture of good will would be accepted as a greeting between us.

The splashing moved away, downstream. I did not know whether he wished nothing more to do with us, or was trying to be our guide once again. Since we must keep to the river for now, I was willing to hope it was the latter.

It must have been that, for he did not leave us behind, but kept to a pace which matched ours, though some strides ahead. Once the runes blazed red and I threw up my hand to stop Kaththea, listening, watching that thick curtain of mist. There was a muffled cawing, a series of cries splitting the silence. Then nothing, though we stood very still to listen. After a while, the runes faded.

“He hunts—” Kaththea’s thought came to me.

For me now there was only one “he.” “Dinzil—for us?”

Again her laughter. “You did not truly believe he would let me go so easily, brother? After he had gone so far to gain my aid? I think now Dinzil needs me more than I need him. Which makes a good point for any future bargains.”

“Bargains?”

“I do not intend to go misshapen in this or any other world, Kemoc!” Her confidence cracked a little; behind it I thought I read deep anger.

“I thought you knew a way to help yourself.” I pursued the subject even though I knew it was painful, for no other reason than I must learn all I could of what she thought Dinzil might do, or what she was prepared to do. I no longer trusted this Kaththea.

“Oh, I do. But it would be like Dinzil to make trouble afterwards. The road I must take can only be walked once. Also—” She checked her thought flow quickly and once more there was a barrier between us.

I shivered almost convulsively. The chill ate into my half-bare body. Kaththea’s head swung around so that the slit which gave her eye room faced me. Then she raised one of her red paws.

“Bring me some of those—” She motioned toward reeds growing nearby.

Though my paws were not shaped for such work, I pulled a goodly handful and held them out to her, at her gesture laying them across her two paws. She bent her head and breathed on them. Though her mind was now closed to me, I felt a kind of stirring which came from the use of power. The reeds lengthened, thickened, became part of one another, and she held a thick, wadded jacket, such as we wore in Estcarp in autumn. I took it from her and drew it on. Not only did it shield me from the chill of the wind, but also it appeared to radiate warmth, so I was now as comfortable as if I walked through a warm spring day.

“You see—power can be used to smooth the way in little things as well as big,” Kaththea’s thought came to me.

I rubbed the front of the jacket. It felt very real. I only trusted that the spell would linger.

She caught that. “As long as you have the need, it will, for it is shaped to your use.”

We reached the main river, the mist disappearing. I still kept watch, but Kaththea marched along through the shallows as one who had naught to fear. Before us the vee of ripples marked the swimming Kofi. So he still accompanied us.

Far off sound again. Not the cawing this time, but rather a baying, such as the way the hunting hounds of Alizon (those bred for the harrying of men) sound when they course their prey.

“The Sarn ride—“

I only realized since Kaththea went veiled how much one reads in the expression of one’s comrades. Could I be sure that the emotions aroused by her thoughts were hers—or mine? I thought she was excited, but not as if the hunt had any connection with her. She might have been an onlooker. Was she so sure that Dinzil valued her to the extent that if his hunters came upon her she need have no fears?

“Dinzil know what he needs.” So again she read my thoughts. “Dinzil has not climbed clouds to assault the high skies without being careful of all he must use along the way—until he is finished with it. Dinzil had fitted many tools to his task in the past, but he has never had one from Estcarp. So he now faces a surprise.”

The baying grew louder. I saw the vee mark of Kofi dart to the opposite shore. There was a waving in the weeds; the Merfay must be going into hiding. I looked about me, but we were in such a place as had no natural defense spots. We could take to deep water, but when I said so, Kaththea gave a definite negative.

“Your Orsya likes her mud holes and to slink along the bottom of water reaches. But I am not Orsya, nor do I have gills. As neither do you, dear brother. What of that sword of yours . . . ?” She put out her paw as if pointing a finger and then gave a small cry, jerking it back to nurse against her breast.

“What do you hold there?”

“A weapon and a talisman.” Somehow I had no desire to share with her the story of from whence it had come and what it did for me.

The runes were taking fire, standing out upon the golden blade. Not for the first time I wished that I had the knowledge to read them, to know just how much this weapon could do for him who carried it, so that in danger I could call upon all it had to offer and not blunder in the dark.

There was a stirring along the ridge on the other side of the river. I tried to push Kaththea into deeper water, but she eluded me, stood to front what came as if she had no fear of it. So, perforce, I had to stand with her, sword in hand, while the runes on it ran so bloody that one might think to see their crimson drip from the blade.

They came: three wolfmen running on all fours, and it was these who bayed. Behind them came men such as the ones who had captured Orsya. In their rear were two more, and they were as those who had used the lightning rods to kill the Krogan.

Again Kaththea’s unearthly laughter rang in my head.

“A paltry handful, brother, not meet to think to drag us down! Dinzil forgets himself to offer such insult.”

Her paws rose to the scarf about her head of horror and deliberately she began to unwind that covering, all the time facing those who came. In my paw-hand the hilt of the sword heated.

The jaws of the Gray Ones were agape, showing their fangs, while they drooled slaver. Their eyes were red sparks of pure evil. Behind them the others slowed their mounts to a trot. I saw that the animals they rode were not Renthan, but closer in appearance to the horses of Estcarp, save they were larger and more powerful, and all were black. They rode bareback, with no use of bit nor rein. I remembered the Keplian, that horse-demon which had almost slain Kyllan.

So they came to the river bank and looked across to us, the water flowing between. The Gray Ones crouched at the edge of the stream, the others ranged behind them. The swordsmen were, as Dinzil had been, outwardly sons of the Old Race, or enough to pass unnoticed among them. But the two who bore the fire weapons were alien. They rode masked with hoods. But the hands—ah—there I saw paws like those I now was doomed to wear. I thought that, could I pull off those hoods, I might see toad heads. Dinzil must have summoned these henchmen out of that other world to which the Tower was the dread entrance way.

The folds of the scarf dropped away from Kaththea’s head. In this open daylight that monstrous face which was not a true face was pitilessly revealed. For the first time I saw it completely and could not help an involuntary shrinking, though I fought it instantly.

No mouth, no nose, only those eyepits in the red ovoid of head. Remembering my fair sister, I understood how such a happening could well nigh turn her brain, make her seek any remedy she knew of.

The Gray Ones did not advance into the stream, and I recalled Orsya’s saying that running water was a deterrent to certain types of evil. But I had seen the fire weapons of those hooded ones spit across another river and I waited tensely now for one of those rods to point in our direction.

Kaththea raised both paws as high as her shoulders, held them outwards, the paws pointed to that assorted company. She used thoughts and her hands moved as if she waved them on at the enemy. What words they were I did not know. I wanted to run from her, for in my mind was a tearing, a burning, such as no man of human birth could stand. But I held to the sword and the warmth from the hilt traveled up my arm, into me, finally reaching my mind and there set up a barrier against the forces she summoned, so that, though her paws still waved and she continued to hurl her thoughts, it meant nothing to me.

The Gray Ones threw back their heads and broke into a wild, tormented howling, like unto the cries of those damned and doomed. They dashed back and forth, finally away from the river, retreating into the broken country behind.

After them the Keplians neighed, reared. Some threw their riders before they followed the wolfmen. Some of the men managed to keep their seats, but those who fell lay prone, unmoving, on the ground as if struck dead. Only the two hooded ones slid from their unhappy mounts, which plunged off, and stood together, watching Kaththea. But they made no move to turn their weapon tubes upon us.

My sister’s arms dropped to her side. She spoke by open mind thought so I understood her.

“Say this to your overlord: The hawk does not hunt when the eagle flies. Nor does one who wears the cloak of power send to an equal less than a Herald of Banners. If he would have words with me, let him say them as we have always dealt—face to face.” She laughed. “Remind him of what you see now; it will hearten him, for there can be a bargaining.”

They gave no outward sign that they understood, any more than they replied; they simply turned and walked away, presenting their backs to us as if they had no fear of any attack. Now Kaththea again fastened the scarf back in shrouding folds.

“You sent a challenge to Dinzil,” I said aloud.

“I sent a challenge,” she agreed. “He will not again, I believe, dispatch underlings to hunt us as if some slaves of his were escaping. When he comes, it will be full in the power he thinks he has.”

“But—”

“But that is what you fear, brother? You need not. Dinzil thought to make of me a tool, as one uses pincers of iron to take a blazing coal from the heart of a fire. For a while”—she tucked the loose ends of her scarf into the front of her jacket to keep them tight—“he might have had a small part of it. Only—you see—he exposed me to much he had learned. Since I had already been well taught in another school, I could fit that learning into a new pattern which he does not know. Let him believe I have power and he will be twice eager to treat with us. Shall we go?” She turned her muffled head from one side to the other, and then pointed to our left. “I dislike water walking. I do not believe we shall again be challenged by anything in this land. The Valley lies that way.”

“How can you be sure?” Her arrogance was growing. She snapped her thoughts now as a hunter snaps a riding whip against a boot. Surely the Kaththea I had known all my life was further and further from me.

“The Valley is a reservoir of power, surely you cannot deny that. As such it puts forth a signal for all those who can feel. Try it yourself, brother, with that mysterious fire sword of yours.”

So much was I under her command at that moment, that I did raise the sword, holding it only loosely to see if it could act as a pointer. I swear that I did not incline it, but it did point in the same direction she had indicated.

Against my will we left the river, though I knew that sooner or later we would have had to do so, since I would not have gone underground again.

We were quickly through that wholesome growth along the stream bed and into the blasted land which laced this rolling country. Kaththea marched straight ahead, as one who has no need to fear, but I held the sword as a guard against what might lie here, avoiding, making her avoid, certain bushes, stones, and the like, when the runes warned. We had not gone far before I knew that we had skulkers to our right and left, also trailing behind. Some of the shapes I sighted were ones I had seen before in the ranks of evil, others new to me. Not all were foul or monstrous seeming. If they were illusions they were proof against my desire for clear sight.

None of these moved to obstruct us in any way, save that they were ready to close in upon the command of their warlord. I kept ever alert, waiting for Dinzil to appear and accept Kaththea’s challenge.

For such a battle I was ill-equipped. I had but one ultimate weapon, as Orsya had pointed out. There were those words from Lormt which had been answered. I might call again on what had so answered. Though to do so was a risk only to be taken by one in the depths of despair at a time of complete loss of hope.

Good spots appeared here and there in this seared land, mostly, I noted, about springs, pools, or small runlets, as if water was a factor in holding back the evil which had blasted so much of the country. It was a hard way to follow, for, as I had seen from my rock perch in the Heights, it was very broken, sharp ridges dividing narrow ravines, so that it seemed to me we were eternally climbing, or descending to climb again. Yet Kaththea appeared to be in no way baffled at direction and unhesitatingly took the lead, always bearing to the left. Now I could see the Heights themselves as proof she was right.

We stopped at last beside one of the pools of sweet water.

I ate one of the few remaining roots Orsya had given me, though I could have finished them all. But again Kaththea would have no food, seating herself with her back against a great rock, staring downstream. I was well aware that all about us scouts of that company behind watched us.

“We must find a place for night camp.” I tried to find a normal subject to discuss with this stranger I found it hard to believe was my sister.

“We shall find one and—” her thoughts were silent. Then she added, “If all goes well, we shall discover thereabouts what is most needed. But there is no time to linger now.”

Already she was on her feet, striding away up the cut above the pool. As I tramped after her I suddenly saw, in the soft earth of the bank, the print of wedge-shaped feet, the toes only marked by faint indentations. As I had learned to know them—Krogan! They led from the pool, away from water, which puzzled me.

Orsya? But I could not be sure of that. If the Krogan had allied themselves with the Shadow as they may well have done by now, then any one of them could be among that company now ranging behind us. Only, why away from water? That was the one thing they dreaded more than anything else. I saw no other prints to suggest that this wayfarer had been a prisoner, nor even if he or she had been hunted, and thus forced into dry country.

The marks were to be seen now and again in patches of dry soil, smudged but still unmistakable. A Krogan, apparently deliberately, climbing the same way, against all nature and custom. Twice I knelt to examine them more closely, certain I must be mistaken. Once I touched sword point into one to see if the runes would tell me anything. This might be an illusion meant to deceive. But the runes did not light.

It was growing fast into twilight when we came into a narrow dark cut leading upward and Kaththea went into it without faltering. I saw the prints here also, but something made me believe that the maker now walked with difficulty. Was there water ahead? If so, I trusted that the straggler from the river had managed to reach it.

Then I saw in the deep gloom a tiny spark of white fire. It could be nothing but Orsya’s horn-rod, set up as she had before, for protection against the evil roaming here. But Orsya away from water—why?

“Because we have need of her, brother!” Kaththea’s thought reached me for the first time in hours. “She gave of her magic in this scarf—and that can be a two-way road. Having put something of herself into it, I could reach her so—now she waits us.”

“But she is far from water, and she is Krogan. She must have water!”

“Do not worry; she shall have all she needs when we reach her.”

I was aching tired but I ran now, stumbling into rocks which choked this place. Then I came to where stood the unicorn horn with its taper of protection. By it lay Orsya. She moved feebly as I dropped on my knees beside her. Water—but I had no bottle of that precious fluid. Could I take her back, down the broken land, to the pool where I had seen her prints first? It would be almost hopeless to try, but if there were no other way of saving her, that I would do.

“It is not necessary.” Kaththea stood there, gazing down at the two of us, “What needs to be done can be done here and now.”

“There is no water, and without water she will die.” Kaththea was slowly unwinding the scarf. Orsya’s head turned a little on my arm. I had an impulse to lift my hand, to cover her eyes so that she could not look upon the monster my sister had become.

“Monster—yes.”

I was ashamed that my sister had caught that thought “But now we have the remedy—that which you can do for me, Kemoc. As I know you will—you will—you will—” She repeated the words in my brain with a beat, and I found myself agreeing that what she wanted would be done.

“Take that good sword of yours, Kemoc, and give me blood—blood to wash away ensorcelment, to be Kaththea again.”

“Blood!” I was startled out of my acquiescence.

“Blood!” She leaned closer, stretched out her paws. “Kill the water wench; let me have her blood! Or would you have me half monster all the rest of my days?”

Then she spoke other words, meant to bind and command, and I raised the sword. On it the runes blazed high and the hilt burned my hand. I looked to Orsya and she gazed at me, though she made no plea for mercy, nor was there any fear in her large eyes, only a kind of patient waiting for what she could not escape.

I cried out, rammed the point of the sword into the earth so it stood quivering between Kaththea and the two of us. And I heard Kaththea cry in answer. This time not with her mind but aloud, it being so terrible I shuddered. In it I heard that moan of one betrayed by him upon whom she had the greatest right in the world to trust. Her anguish cut through the Kaththea who now was, to reveal the Kaththea who had once been. She cowered away from us covering her face with her forearms.

I laid Orsya back on the ground and reached for the sword hilt.

“If you must have blood,” I began and raised that blade to my own flesh.

But she did not listen. Instead she laughed, that terrible, lost laughter. Then she ran away from us, back into the dark. But her thoughts still reached me.

“So be it! So be it! I shall make another bargain. But perhaps it will not be so simple, and you shall rue it even more, Kemoc Tregarth!”