Zarsthor's Bane

8

The boy snarled.

“Do you dare to strengthen him in this haunted dreaming then?” he spat at Brixia. “No word of reason from me has reached him since he came through the escape way. He would have only the Bane and will drive himself to death for it.”

No word of reason had reached him, perhaps, yet Lord Marbon’s face no longer was empty, vacant. But his eyes were not for them at all, rather he watched the lake eagerly—almost demandingly. A frown of puzzlement drew his dark brows closer together.

“It is here—yet it is not—” There was a querulous note in his voice. “How can a thing be and yet not be? For this is not of idle legend, I do stand in Zarsthor’s land!”

The boy continued to scowl at Brixia. “See?” he demanded. “Through the night and day he would come here, as if he knew this place as well as once he knew Eggarsdale. Now it is as if he seeks some place he knows well—but he will not tell me what!”

Uta left the girl, padded forward to the edge of the lake. The water was not rimmed by any growth of weed or plant. There was only a sharp line of light sandy earth enclosing it as far as they could see—an oval green-blue gem set in an unnaturally clearly marked tarnished casing of silver.

The cat looked back over her shoulder at the three of them. Daintily, as if urging them to watch her action, she advanced a paw, dabbled it fastidiously in the water, sending ripples out across the quiet surface. For nothing troubled that mirror of water. No insect skated across its surface, no fish sent bubbles upward to break.

Brixia limped around the boy to the cat’s side. She dropped her spear, knelt to view herself in that liquid mirror. But there was no reflection to be seen.

At first glance the water was turgid, unclear below its quiet surface. It was not muddied, for the color was not brown or yellow. Brixia cautiously advanced her own hand, felt the liquid, which was slightly warm, wash up around her fingers. Withdrawing those quickly she examined them. There was no staining of any kind left on her sunbrowned skin. And, when she held her hand close to her noise, there was no smell either that she could detect.

Yet it was plain the lake was not normal, judged by Dale standards. As she leaned forward again, striving to see what might indeed lie below, the bud fell out of her shirt. Though she grabbed, it had already floated just beyond her reach.

She had lifted her spear in an effort to hook it back to her when the boy cried out.

“What—what is happening?”

For, as the bud floated out upon the water, it did not appear to drift at random. Rather it moved steadily away from the shore, spinning in a spiral path. Where it passed the water cleared. The color remained, but the depths beneath could now be seen.

Below that now transparent surface were rising walls, domes. Caught within the filled cup of the lake there lay some settlement, or perhaps only a single spreading edifice, of strangely shaped building.

Out and on swirled the bud, and clearer grew what its passage uncovered. There were carvings on the sunken walls and the glint of other colors subdued by the hue of the water. Farther in towards the center the building stretched. Nor did it show any sign of ruin or erosion.

“An-Yak!”

Brixia, startled by the shout, only saved herself from falling forward into the embrace of the lake by clutching at the long grass.

“Lord!”

Marbon passed her in a single long stride, halting only when the water washed waist high about him, his hands stretched towards lay beyond. The boy splashed after, trying to drag him back.

“No, Lord!”

Marbon fought to wade deeper into that flood. He did not even look at his companion, his attention was all for what the floating bud had disclosed.

“Let me go!” He flung the boy away. But Brixia, who had found her balance, came to seize the man’s shoulders from behind. In spite of his fight to free himself, she held on as the boy came to aid her.

Somehow they dragged him out of the lake. Then he collapsed so that they had to support him between them, pull him back to the fire. Over his now inert body Brixia spoke to the boy.

“It is only because he is weak that we could master him,” she pointed out. “I doubt if we can force him away from this place.”

The boy had gone down on his knees to touch his lord’s face.

“I know. He—he is ensorcelled! What was that which you threw into the water? It was that which caused—”

Brixia stood away. “I threw nothing. It fell from my shirt. As to what it was—a flower. One which served me well.” She told him curtly of what aid she had had from the tree, and, in turn, its blossom.

“Who knows what manner of thing is to be found in the Waste?” she ended. “Much of the Old Ones’ owning and rearing may be here still. Your lord named that,” she waved towards the water. “Is it what he has sought then? The place of the Bane in truth?”

“How do I know? He has been one possessed, giving me no choice but to follow after. He has walked without rest, would not eat or drink when I tried to stop him. He is walled away in his own thoughts, and who may guess what those may be?”

Brixia glanced back at the lake. “It is plain that he cannot easily be kept from what lies there. Nor do I think that together we can carry him away while his senses have left him.”

The boy’s hands tightened into fists, and with them he pounded on the ground, his face twisted with both fear and concern.

“It is true—” his voice was very low as if he did not want to acknowledge that to her but the words were forced from him. “I do not know what I can do. Before he has been as a child I could lead, not my lord. I brought him to Eggarsdale for I thought that there his wits might return to him. Now he has brought me here—and within his mind he is as far from me as if the sea runs between us. He is ensorcelled, and I know not how to break this bond upon him. I know nothing which is of any use. Only what he has said of this Bane. Though the matter of that is still his secret.” He covered his face with his hands.

Brixia bit her lip. It was close to nightfall now. She looked around with a wanderer’s sharp valuation of the land. Here there stood no trees, nothing to give them any shelter at all. The fire burned on a stretch of gravel, but there were not even rocks to provide a barricade. She could no longer see the bud—if it still floated it must now be near the center of the lake.

The girl did not like the thought of being in the open when dark at last closed in. But she could sight no better camp than where they now were. Slowly she went back to the side of the lake.

Thirst parched her throat. Though she feared that stretch of water, and perhaps even more what it covered, Brixia knelt and scooped up a palm’s hold of it, setting her lips gingerly to the liquid. It had no taste, no scent her human senses could detect. Uta crouched beside her and was busy lapping. Dared she depend upon the cat to point out danger here?

The few drops she had sucked from her hand were not enough. With a fatalistic shrug the girl scooped up more and drank, then splashed handfuls to wet the tangled hair on her forehead, drip from her chin. It refreshed her, in a way renewed her determination to withstand whatever might come.

Gazing over the lake she half expected to see that the murkiness had returned, to once more hide the structures below. But that was not so, she could still trace wall, dome, roof, on and on outward. Nearly below her lay a paved way which ran straight ahead into the heart of the walls.

A smell of roasting meat drew her back to the fire. There the boy tended a skinned and quartered leaper he had impaled on sticks to sizzle over the flames.

“Is he asleep still?” Brixia nodded at Lord Marbon.

“Asleep—or entranced. Who can say which? Eat if you wish,” he spoke roughly, not facing her.

“You are of his House?” she asked turning the nearest of those chunk loaded sticks to roast its burden more evenly.

“I was fostered in Eggarsdale.” He still looked into the flames. “As I told you, I am younger son to the Marshal of Itsford—my name is Dwed.” He shrugged. “Perhaps there remains none now to call me by it. Itsford was long since swept away. You have seen Eggarsdale—it is dead as the man who marched from it.”

“Jartar—?”

Both their heads turned. Lord Marbon had raised himself on one elbow. His eyes were fixed on Brixia. She would have denied at once that she was whom he looked to see there, but Dwed’s hand shot forth and his fingers closed with crushing pressure on her wrist. She guessed then what he would have her do—let her pretend to his lord, and, perhaps through such a pretense, Marbon might be drawn away from the trap of the lake. Or else be led to explain his preoccupation with it. Making her voice as low as she could, Brixia replied:

“My lord?”

“It is even as you said it might be!” His face was eager, alight. “An-Yak! Have you seen it—within the lake?” Lord Marbon sat up. There was a new youth in him, and Brixia realized how much this animation made of him a different man.

“It is there,” she kept her answers as short as possible, lest some mistaken word of hers return him again to the state that had held him for so long.

“Just as the legend—the legend you spoke of,” Marbon nodded. “If it is there—then also within it must lie the Bane—and with that—yes, with that!” He brought his hands together with force. “What shall we do with it, Jartar? Call down the moon to give us light? Or the stars? Be as the Old Ones themselves? Surely there is no limit for he who can command the Bane!”

“There is still a lake between us and it,” Brixia said softly. “There is ensorcellment here, Lord.”

“Surely,” he nodded. “But there must also be a way.” He glanced up at the steadily darkening sky. “Anything which is of value does not come easily to a man. We shall find a way—with the coming of light we shall do so!”

“Lord, without strength a man may do nothing,” Dwed had withdrawn one of the meat laden sticks and held it out to Marbon. “Eat and drink. Be ready for what you would do with the day.”

“Wise words,” Lord Marbon took the stick, then he frowned slightly, studying the boy’s face, revealed as it was by the firelight. “You are—are—Dwed!” He brought out the name with triumphant emphasis. “But—how—” He shook his head slowly, a measure of the old lost emptiness returning. “No!” now his voice was sharp again, “you are in foster ward—you joined us last autumntide.”

Dwed’s scowl was gone, he wore an eager, hopeful expression.

“Yes, my lord. And—” He caught himself nearly in mid-word. “And—” it was obvious he strove to change the subject, “since we came here, lord, you have not made plain what the nature of this ‘Bane’ is we seek.”

Brixia was pleased at his cleverness. As long as Marbon appeared shaken out of his apathy it was well to learn as much as they could.

“The Bane—” Marbon replied slowly. “It is a tale—Jartar knows it best. Tell the lad, brother—” He turned his attention to Brixia.

So her would-be cleverness had been a mistake after all. She tried to think of the words of the doggerel song she had heard in the keep courtyard of Eggarsdale.

“It is a song, Lord, an old one—”

“A song, yes. But we have proved it true. There lies An-Yak, water buried, it proves the truth. We have found it! Tell us of the Bane, Jartar. It is the story of my House and yours, you know it best.”

Brixia was trapped. “Lord, it is your tale also. You have claimed it.”

He watched her narrowly from across the fire. “Jartar,” he did not answer her question but asked one of his own, “why do you call me ‘lord’? Are we not foster-kin?”

To that Brixia could find no answer.

“You are not Jartar!” Marbon flung the spitted meat from him. Before she could get to her feet he was around the fire, moving with a cat’s grace, a cat’s leaping speed. His hands had closed on her shoulders, jerking her up to face him.

“Who are you?” He shook her with force, but now she resisted. Her own hands closed about his wrists and she exerted all the strength she could summon to break his hold. “Who are you!” he demanded the second time.

“I am myself—Brixia—” She kicked at his shin and gasped at the pain in her bruised foot. Then she gave a quick sidewise fling of the head and set her teeth in his wrist with the same wild fury Uta might have shown when resenting rough handling.

He yelled and hurled her from him so that she fell into the grass. But there was enough outrage and strength in her to roll frantically away, scramble to her feet. Her spear lay beside the fire, but she had her belt knife ready in her hand.

Only he had not followed her. Instead he swayed, and he held up his wrist, eyeing the marks her teeth had left. Now he looked at Dwed who was beside him.

“I—where is Jartar? He was here—and then-sorcery! There is sorcery—Where is Jartar—why did he wear the look of—of—”

“Lord, you have slept and dreamed! Come and eat—”

Brixia saw Dwed’s hold tighten on him. Perhaps the boy could soothe Marbon. In any case she had better stay well beyond the fire lest the sight of her again cause trouble. She eyed the meat hungrily.

Dwed succeeded in calming Marbon. He persuaded the man to reseat himself, got him to pulling the seared meat from the stick to eat. Indeed the awareness had ebbed out of Marbon’s eyes, his mouth became loose and slack—the forceful person he had been vanished.

Brixia watched the boy persuade his lord to settle once more to sleep. And when some time had passed without any movement in that recumbent figure the girl crept back to reach for the charred meat, gulping it down only half chewed. Dwed’s voice came cold:

“He will not accept you. Why do you not go your own way—”

“Be assured that I shall,” she snapped. “I tried to play your game, that good would come of it. If evil has chanced instead it is through no fault of mine.”

“Good or ill—we are better apart. Why did you follow—you are no liege of his.”

“I do not know why I followed,” she said frankly. “I only know that something I do not understand willed it.”

“Why did you speak of the three together when you came?” he persisted.

“Again I cannot answer. The words were not mine, I did not know what I said until I spoke so. There is sorcery in old places—” She shivered. “Who may say how that will influence the unwary?”

“Then be not unwary!” he snapped. “Be not here at all! We do not want you—and he may be beyond my control if he thinks you keep Jartar from him in some fashion.”

“Who is this Jartar—or was he—for I heard you name him dead—that he so moved your lord?”

Dwed shot a quick glance at the sleeping man as if he feared his lord might wake to hear, then he answered:

Jartar was my lord’s foster brother—they were closer than many who are blood-kin. I know not from what House he came—though he was a man who was used to authority of his own. How can I find words to say so another can understand if that other knew not Jartar? He was no master of any Dale, yet anyone meeting with him gave him the honor name of ‘lord’ upon their first speaking. I think there was something strange about his past. My lord, too—men said of him that he was of mixed blood—that he had ties with the Others. If that was so of him, then it might be doubly so of Jartar. He knew things—strange things!

“I saw him once—” Dwed swallowed and paused, “if you say this is not possible,” now he stared at her fiercely, “you give me the open lie for I saw it. Jartar spoke to the sky—and there came a wind which drove upon the enemy, forcing them into the river. Afterwards he was white and shaking, so weak my lord needs must hold him in his saddle.”

“It is said that those of Power when they use it to a great degree are so weakened,” Brixia commented. Nor did she doubt that Dwed had seen exactly what he reported. There were many stories of what the Old Ones could do when and if they wished.

“Yes. And he could heal—Lonan had a wound which would not close, but kept ever breaking open. Jartar went out by himself and came back with leaves which he crushed and laid upon the raw flesh. Then he sat with his hands upon the leaves, holding them there, and he stayed for a long time thus. The next day the slash began to close—there was no foul odor. It healed without even a scar. My lord could do so also—it was a gift which made him different from other men.”

“But Jartar died—” Brixia said.

“He died like any other of us—by a sword thrust through the throat. For he stood above my fallen lord beating off that scum who spilled rocks into the pass to stun us. He took a wound, blood ran as it would from any man, and he died, my lord unknowing. From a rock blow on the head, my lord came back to me with disordered wits—as you see him. Only he spoke of Jartar as one who waited somewhere for him, and that he must gain the Bane. First he said that it was because of Jartar he must do this thing—now—you have heard him! I know no more of what he seeks than that song he will sing and some scattered words.

“When he came to this place he walked as does a man who is so intent upon what he must do that he looks neither right nor left, but presses forward that it be speedily finished. Now it seems he has taken it into his head that what he seeks lies out there—” Dwed motioned to the lake now hidden in the night. “I know not how to deal with him any more. At first he was weak of body from the head wound and I could lead him, take care of him. Now his strength has returned. At times it is as if I am not with him at all—he thinks only of something I do not know and cannot understand.”

Dwed’s words spilled out as if he found relief in talking of the burden he carried. But that he expected any reponse or sympathy from Brixia—no, he would probably resent that she had heard so much after he had obtained relief from such unguarded speech.

“I cannot—” she began.

“I need no help!” Dwed was quick to refuse what she might offer. “He is my lord. As long as he lives, or I do, that will not alter. If he is under some spell—this damned land may well have set its shadow upon him forever, weak and open as his mind is. If that is so I must find what I can to break him free.”

He turned his back on her and went to settle beside his lord, pulling over Marbon the journey cloak. Brixia huddled on her own side of the fire. She was very tired. Dwed might want her gone, her own sense of self preservation might agree. But tonight she could not summon strength to move on.

There was no feeling this night of being guarded, or lying safe, as there had been under the trees. The girl curled in the grass and suddenly there was a warm and purring body next to hers. Uta had come to share her bed once again. Brixia stroked the length of the cat’s body from prick-eared head to smooth furred haunch.

“Uta,” she whispered, “what sort of a coil have you led me into, for indeed the first meeting with these two was of your doing and I may be undone because of it.”

Uta’s purring was a song to weight the eyelids of the listener. Though all she had learned in the past dark years urged her to caution and to the safeguards she had always depended upon, Brixia could not rouse herself again. She slept.

“Where is he?”

She struggled out of deep sleep, a little dazed. Hands pawed at her, shook her. She opened her eyes. Dwed had hold upon her. His look was that of an enemy peering at her over a battle shield.

“Where is he—you outlaw slut!”

His hand rose, cracked against her cheek, rocking her head.

Brixia jerked back.

“Mad—you’re mad!” she gasped and clawed farther along the ground, away from him.

When she was able to sit up she saw him running from the burnt out ashes of the fire down to the edge of the lake.

“Lord—Lord Marbon—!” His cry arose like a wounded man’s scream. He splashed into the water, beating out frantically with his arms.

Brixia began to understand. Only Dwed and she—both Marbon and Uta were not in sight. In the same instant she knew the reason for Dwed’s present fear. Had his lord awakened—walked on into that stretch of water as he had tried to do last night—walked out to death beneath the surface?

She followed Dwed to the lake’s edge. That clarity which the water had gained from the passage of the bud was lost again. There was no sighting of what lay beneath its surface, smooth and quiet as a mirror save for where Dwed splashed and sought to swim. Swim he could not—just so far was he able to win into the water—then, as frantically as he struggled, he could go no further.

He was fighting in that fruitless manner when Uta broke from the grass and came unto the narrow strip of sand shore. The cat meowed, loudly and demandingly, a cry Brixia knew of old. Uta sought attention.

“Dwed-wait—!”

At first he might not have heard her, then he turned. Brixia pointed to the cat.

“Watch!” she ordered, with, she hoped, enough force to make him obey.

Uta turned and bounded off, looking back now and then to see if she were indeed being followed. Brixia broke into a trot to keep up. There was no more splashing; she glanced back. Dwed had come out of the lake, was pounding after them.

So the three of them ran on through the grass until they came to where Lord Marbon stood in a channel, dry, but cut deep enough in the soil of the valley to hide his hunched figure from their view until they were directly upon him. By his side lay Brixia’s spear, earth stained, and in his hands was Dwed’s sword. With the point of that he pried at a wall of stones which stopped the end of the channel.

A dam—a dam set to lock up the lake! Now he glanced at them.

“Get busy!” his voice was sharp with impatience, “don’t you see—we must let the water flow. It is the only way to reach An-Yak now!”