Trey Of Swords Part 8

The mist winked out.

Uruk nodded. "He must be greatly shaken," he said musingly. "Targi is not of the Great Ones, no more than am I. But I would have thought he fancied his hold on the Dark Power stronger." Now his voice sharpened and he demanded of me: "How did he die-in that time we know?"

I dredged up Tolar memory. Targi-had Tolar seen him die? Or only heard it reported before his own grievous wound had driven him from the field? Then the words came to me haltingly, for the pictures in my mind were very dim and far away.

"He died by an ax. They raised an outcry when they found his body-that I remember."

"By an ax," Uruk repeated. "Then-"

I knew what troubled him. If it had been his Helm-biter that had so dealt with Targi, to slay him again might avail us nothing. Unless we could also reach the inner core wherein Targi or what was of the real Targi might find secure refuge.

"He will strive to repeat the pattern," Uruk said, this time as if to himself.

"So-"

The way before us was dark. That evil coiling thing of little real substance had vanished. However, we had not lost our wariness, which was well. For now out of the dark again came snaking, some actually crawling upon the rock to better entangle our feet, those root ropes. The ax swung-I need not use the proper hand on Ice Tongue to p.r.i.c.k at those reptilian, wriggling lines of dark.

It was butchery there in the half-dark. Neither Thas nor rope could truly face our weapons when we set our backs to the wall of the pa.s.sage and swung the bright metal to bring death. The sword snarl was that of a wolf eager to be at the throat of its prey. And, while Helm-biter did not give tongue in a like manner, yet the very pa.s.sage of the double-bladed head through the air made a kind of singing. While the Thas squealed and grunted.

Uruk raised his voice above their clamor. "Make an end now!" he ordered. "Targi used these to buy him time-the time he must not have. He thinks he will be safe in that place he has devised, so we must reach him before he sets a lock to guard his safety."

We came away from the wall in a charge. Uruk roared aloud the old battle cry of HaHarc. The sound of his voice was nearly deafening in that small section, and the blaze of our weapons made them living fire in our hands.

The Thas broke. I knew of old that they were fighters who needed the dark to make them confident. And there were bodies' enough, mostly from Uruk's hewing, to discourage them. Whether Targi withdrew the compulsion he had laid upon them to attack we never knew. But at our advance they broke and ran. Some fled ahead down the lefthand section of the pa.s.sage, some withdrew to the right behind us.

Uruk moved swiftly. He might not trot nor run through this murk, but he made the best pace the cramped quarters and our uncertain footing allowed him. And I kept at his back, though I looked often to make sure that those who had run had not doubled back to follow us.

In my own time, the Thas had envenomed their spears. But those we tramped over, lying still sometimes in hands no longer able to raise them, showed no discoloration of point. In so much were we now favored.

We came to a forking of the pa.s.sage, then a second, and a third. Each time Uruk turned right or left with no hesitation. I did not ask, but somehow I believed he knew where he went.

Thus we broke from a side way into one of those caves through which Tsali and I had earlier gone-or if not that, one so much like it no man could tell the difference. The stalagmites shown with crystalline sparkling as Ice Tongue's brilliance caught them. I would have been muddled by the number and variety of these age-long mineral growths, but my companion did not pause, nor search. I saw that Helm-biter swung a fraction in his grasp; perhaps that was acting now as one of those needles the Sulcarmen kept locked within bowls to point a path across the sea.

So we reached at last to another opening in the wall, a crevice I might have overlooked, for it required careful squeezing to get by a large lump of rock into it. Another narrow pa.s.sage awaited beyond, only the walls of this had certainly been hewn smooth, and I saw here and there a pattern of runes I did not know-save from them seemed to reach a coldness to touch the innermost part of a man, awakening in him uneasiness and despair. Only the warm sword hilt in my scarred hand fought that subtle a.s.sault upon my courage.

Uruk slowed his pace. His head was well up, for that pa.s.sage had not been the cramped size beloved by the Thas. Men, or something much like men, had made it.

"Now-" The word was half a breath he expelled. "Now we win or fail, Tolar-that-was, for we have tracked him as he never believed any man born in the Light could do. And at the bay he will throw against us all his strength-"

He had hardly gotten forth the last word when a blow out of nothingness struck against us both. It sent me reeling unsteadily back, toward that half-concealed entrance. This was as if a giant and all-powerful hand had thumped against my chest, leaving me no defense, hurling me away. I lashed out wildly with Ice Tongue, seeing nothing tangible to so attack but feeling that I must do something or be utterly overborne and rendered helpless.

Uruk was forced back also, but only a step or two. His shoulders were hunched a little, his feet planted apart as if he were determined there would be no more retreat. I tried to copy his stance. More than that, I fought to edge forward again to join him.

The pressure continued. I had not been able to win a palm's-length forward; no, instead I had lost two backward. Anger, dour and sullen, filled me, unlike any I had felt before; Tolar's anger, which had in my touch with him been so tattered by despair. Tolar-once more I turned to that hidden other part of me which the sword had brought to birth.

Uruk was moving forward, his action resembling that of a man wading through thick mud. Each step he took was short, but he made it. I rubbed shoulder against the wall where my last retreat had borne me. Now I took the sword into my right hand, put out the left. As I had felt for those holds in the deep well, so did I now lock fingertips into the lines of the runes. Very small was the purchase such holds gave me. But I came forward again, slowly, one hindered step against another, just as Uruk moved.

Perhaps his ancient enemy could not divide that force easily, so that he was not able to fend us both off at the same time. Thus we were winning by small lengths. The throat veil of mail of my helm swung loose, I was breathing heavily, concentrating on my battle along the wall.

Uruk fared better-his steps grew longer. Under the threatening dragon of his helm crest his eyes were set, glowing.

Thus, through a time which seemed endless, we worked our way along that pa.s.sage.

And the pressure against us seemed never to relax. I was panting, and the beating of my own heart pounded in my ears. On-On-!

Then, even as quickly as the mist had gone, so did this vanish, I went to one knee, overbalanced by that withdrawal which came between one breath and the next. I saw Uruk stagger, but not more than a step.

Holding the ax still before him, he broke into a jogging run, one I was quick to try and match.

We emerged into a place filled with that green-gray radiance I had long known marked a strong center of the Dark Forces. There were no stalagmites here, rather pillars worked into shapes of horror, each a monster or a man, the latter seemingly locked in some unbelievable torment from which not even the end of time might deliver him.

Down the wide center aisle between those pillars, which, after a first glance, I would not look upon-for even seeing them stirred in me a fear I feared I could not suppress-Uruk went directly to the center core of this place.

It was perhaps a temple. But what G.o.d or force had been worshiped here, that had been none born from the adoration of my species. Here the pillars formed a circle, and in the center of that was set, on a half-pillar of rusty red, a crystal skull.

At the foot of the pillar lay, in a lank tangle, the man I had seen on the battlefield-Targi. His eyes were wide, staring unseeingly overhead, and his body was flaccid, that of the newly dead.

But in the brain pan of the skull-!

I could not force my gaze away from that swirl of raw colors, colors which hurt one to look upon. They surged, interwove in patterns, and-they had meaning. I need only look so for a little longer and that meaning would be made clear to me. It was the greatest thing I had ever done-I would be privileged beyond any of my kind-I would rule-rule!

I saw Uruk step over the body, raise his ax. Uruk-he would destroy-he-it was he who was the enemy in this place! Kill-Kill-!

Only the fact that my injured wrist would not obey my will made my blow a feeble one. Ice Tongue grated against the mail covering his shoulder. But that was enough to deflect the fall of the ax. It clanged instead against the pillar.

The skull rocked on its perch, as the colors caught within it moved in an even madder interweaving. I had kept grip on my sword, but only barely. That ill-aimed blow had nearly taken it from my hold.

Uruk-he was danger! As long as he lived-as long as he lived- He had turned those blazing eyes on me.

"Let me in, comrade-" In my mind a powerful voice cried like a burst of pain.

"We can finish him- together-"

Uruk's ax swung aloft again. I was no match for him even with Ice Tongue- "Thrust low!" that other in my mind urged. "There is a weak spot beneath his arm-thrust for his heart! And then-"

"Yonan!"

I tottered, raising my hand to my head, crying out with the pain which was a torment there. The sword hung heavy in my hold, its point toward the blocks of rock under our feet.

"Yonan!" came that call again.

"Thrust-now!" bade that other commanding presence pouring into my mind. Weakly I knew or guessed what was happening- I raised the sword and I brought that blade down, largely by the weight of it alone, since there was very little strength left in me. Ice Tongue fell square upon the dome of the skull.

There followed such a torment within my head that I hurled the sword from me, fell to my knees, clasping my head on either side and moaning.

I did not see Uruk raise the ax again. But I heard the clack when one of its edges met the skull, cleaving it, shattering it, as if it were indeed ancient bone. There was a wild clamor in my mind-I would go mad-that thing which had tried to possess me would see to that. Babbling I sank forward, face down on the pavement, while eye-aching light swirled about me, closing me in.

But there had been a small part of Yonan unconquered, a fraction which had retreated into hiding. And now (how long I was under pressure of Targi's will I shall never know), that sc.r.a.p of the one I had once been came out of hiding, in desperation, I think. I was stiff, cold, yet I was still alive and Targi no longer held me in his bonds. I centered what remained of my own will on moving my hand-to prove mainly that this I could do. Then, aching in every muscle, I struggled up.

Around me was a very gray light, forbidding, though only a faint shadow of the threat I had conceived had earlier hung there. Within reaching distance lay Uruk, while beyond him, where we had seen the discarded body of Targi- Had those fragments of brittle bone, those ashes, once really been a man or the semblance of one? Of the crystal skull which had dominated this hall, strove to master us, there was not even a broken shard remaining. But there was something else-there lay the hilt of a sword, a bladeless weapon now as dingy gray as the light around.

I crawled to Uruk. His ax had not suffered the same change; no, it lay intact under his hand. I felt for a pulse at the side of his throat. He still lived.

Now I fumbled my water bottle loose from my belt, raised his head to rest against my shoulder, and dribbled the liquid between his teeth. At last he swallowed, coughed, and his eyes opened.

For a moment he stared at me as if I were a stranger to him. Then- "Tolar-?" but he hesitated over that name.

I shook my head. Putting aside the water bottle, I reached for the sword hilt, to hold it into his line of vision.

"I am Yonan-even as you summoned me."

His lips curved very slightly. "And return you did, to our salvation. Targi, great in sorcery as he was, could not control the yet unborn. So Ice Tongue has left you-for good or ill this time, I wonder?"

Somewhere in me laughter bubbled. "For good, so shall I believe. I am done with ill-omened weapons and ancient battles, either lost or won. The future is what I shall make it!"

Then I remembered-were we still in the past? I had only the evidence of what remained of Targi to bolster my hope that we were free of time change.

Uruk must have followed the glance I gave to those nearly vanished remains; his mind caught my thought. "I think it is your time now, Yonan-who-was-more. Targi, at least, is very dead. And the shattering of his power could well have swept us onward once again. If that is true, Escore still has some use for us. Shall we endeavor to prove that?"

The hilt of Ice Tongue was dead. I sensed that never again would it play any part in the schemes and ploys of men. I laid it down on the wide step which supported the pillar on which the skull had been. Targi had striven to use me; he had failed. It was that intangible trophy which I would bear from this struggle; no man save myself would ever see it. I was not Tolar, yet something of him would always remain within me, honing what I was now into a better self, even as a careful warrior hones his blades. I could not deny that-I did not want to. But I was Yonan-and somehow I did not want either to deny that or forget it.

Perhaps time had indeed swept us forward as the sea tide will sweep that which it carries. If so, there would be other swords, other battles, and for me a new life into which I must fit myself carefully and with more self-knowledge than many men are given to understand.

"Time was, time is, time will be- " Uruk said-no he did not say it, the words seeped into my mind. And in me there was a sudden heady spark of joy. Tolar I could thank for this-that I had at last that other sense I had always longed to possess. I got to my feet, reached down a hand to aid Uruk.

Time will be-the words sang in my mind, awakening impatience in me. Ice Tongue no longer held me, and all Escore waited!

PART THREE : SWORD OF SHADOW.

Chapter One.

Around me the night was very still, yet it seemed that just beyond the range of my sight, the seeking of my ears, there was movement. I pressed the palms of my hands tightly together, breathed deeply and slowly, summoned not only courage, but that strange part of my mind which I had never understood, but which, even in earliest childhood, I realized dimly was there-something which could change all the world for me if I could harness it properly. Only there was no one to teach me that then; I had only faulty instinct to depend upon.

I looked down at those hands so tightly enfolded. I had seen them sticky with clay and-no, I was not going to think of that. For remembering too deeply might open a door-like the one of the ever-to-be-feared Gates of the Old Ones-to that which I sensed prowling out there.

Yet there were those moving close about me now, each and every one willing to raise protection such as the Shadow fears, to wall me around with their own defenses. It was in me that the flaw lay. And how deep or dangerous that flaw might be haunted me waking, was a part of my dreams sleeping, sometimes strong enough to bring me gasping to full consciousness, to lie shivering- wondering what I might have done during that time my waking mind was not in command.

In my race many women are so cursed. Most may consider it rather blessed, but I do not. In Estcarp those with Talent are early detected and taken for training, taught all the safeguards one must have when one deals with the Power-even lightly.

But I was born into a time of chaos, my people fleeing over the mountains from Karsten, the few remaining members of a very ancient race which the ruler of that land had outlawed. And even had we been left alone I might never have developed my unexplainable gift-since there were no Witches in Karsten to seek out and train their kind. While the Wise Women who did dwell among us did not meddle with the greater Powers, but the lesser, which have in them only a portion of the Talent.

I was born to the sister of the Lady Chriswitha, who fostered me when my mother died of an illness I think now she willed upon herself, since she could not face a world in which her lord lay dead. They said that at my birthing she turned her face to the wall and would not even look upon me. For it was the fact that in protecting her escape from a band of Karsten over-the-Border raiders my father had died.

But the Lady Chriswitha had a heart which was big enough to open wide its door for me. And I was not her only fosterling in those turbulent days. She had also Yonan, who was half of the Old Race, half Sulcar, the son of her heart-friend.

There were also her own children -Imhar, heir to the House, the Lady Dalhis and the Lady Meegan, both of whom were older and wed young to liegemen of Lord Hervon. But I was different- At first they thought that I had been given only the healing gift. For I could look upon man or beast and somehow see the ill which encompa.s.sed them. And with the animals I had kinship, so that in time I could not easily eat meat or wish any hunter well. Though this I kept secret within me.

When the Witches of Estcarp performed their last and greatest feat of battle, making the hills and mountains themselves move by the power of their united wills, and so walling off Karsten, then it seemed that a new and more peaceful life stretched before us. I could remember nothing but days of war-it seemed very strange to face peace.

And I wondered how those like Imhar would live. For he was born to war and knew nothing else, nor cared for it, I was certain. I knew so little of him, though he was to be my lord, thus uniting the kin more solidly together. But I think that meant little to him, and mostly it made uneasiness for me.

Yonan was more friend than Imhar. He came from two races which were born to hold sword and measure steel with enemies-yet he was seemingly a son to neither in that fashion. Doggedly he practiced swordplay, shot at targets with the dart guns, strove to do all which was expected of a man in those years. Yet with me he talked of other things, old legends and strange stories he had heard. He might have been a songsmith perhaps-save that to his clumsy fingers the lap harp was more unlearnable than was the sword. It was as if within him the cleavage of race had somehow marred or lessened the man he had really meant to be.

What would have become of us had we stayed in Estcarp? Sometimes I have wondered a little concerning that. Would I have come to wed with Imhar and perhaps never have known what lay buried within me? Would I have been happier for that ignorance? Sometimes my heart answers yes. But there is another part of me which denies that I could have done this.

However, even as we worked to build the Manor for the House, a youth came to us from the east. And his story of a need for us struck so deep into our minds that nearly without thought we found ourselves riding not only into the unknown, but into a war which was more grim and black of purpose than all the struggles we had known before.

Thus we came over-mountain into the Valley. And there I was like some plant which is given the soil it needs for full nourishment, sun, and water. For I met the Lady of Green Silences-she who bears many names in our ancient tales, but who in this cycle answers to that of Dahaun. She and her people are not of our race, perhaps even of our species, but they are human-formed. And with those of the Old Race who had not defiled themselves with dealings with the Shadow they held kin-friendships.

When Dahaun and I saw each other for the first time there was between us instant knowledge that we sought the same road. She took me into her household, where I first learned how much there was for me to learn, and how little I had been able to give because I lacked such knowledge. I was like one long athirst in a desert waste who is offered a flagon of cool water. But I knew that also as one who thirsted, this I must take slowly, a sip at a time. For the talent too strongly seized may turn upon one.

The Valley was a beleaguered fortress-of the Power against the Shadow. For in this land of Escore there had been much ancient evil wrought by adepts who had set themselves above the rules of the Talent, feasting their crooked spirits on what they could warp nature into doing. And that ancient evil, though perhaps much weakened by time, was now waking, gathering its strength to rage again.

Within the Valley, we were told, safety lay, for it was guarded by such strong runes of Light that naught which carried the foul mark of the Dark might come.

Yet our men (together with those who were not men in form and yet gave liegeship to the Light) patrolled the upper reaches of the heights, beating off attacks that strove to win up sheer rock to come at us.

Then-one morning I awoke and my hands were sticky with clay such as I had seen along the riverbank. And in me there was such an uneasiness that I felt as guilty as one who unbars the door of a keep to let through the enemy. Still also this I could not speak of, not to the Lady Dahaun, nor to my foster mother. But I had that to keep me busy. Yonan had been injured in a fall upon the heights-and might have died save that Tsali of the Lizard folk found him wedged into one of the crevices there.

I was glad that I must tend his ankle, occupy myself in other ways. For, though I had at once washed that clay from my fingers, it seemed to me that I still somehow carried the stain of it on my flesh, and the uneasiness which was part of it lay at the back of my mind where I firmly imprisoned it. Three times I tried to speak, and found that I could not shape the words; and so my unquiet grew, and I used what skills Dahaun had taught me-still there was no suggestion that anything of the Shadow had won through our barriers.

But I was reluctant to sleep that night, wishing even I might be watched by someone-yet this I also found myself unable to ask for.

The dream came as suddenly as if I had pa.s.sed through a door. And it was as vividly real as awakening, so real that all which lay behind me at this moment seemed more of a dream or vision than where I stood now.

This was a hall-not like those I knew in Estcarp-unless very ancient Es might hold such. The walls appeared so far away on either side that they were hidden by dusk. But the pillars on either side were tall, and their carvings of strange monsters very clear. A light which was not the warmth of sun, nor that of any lamp, but which seeped greenly-yellow from divers of the pillars themselves, gave me full vision.

There was someone waiting here-someone I must meet- I did not seem to walk normally as I flitted forward down the well-marked aisle; rather it was as if I were drawn through the air, weightless and without the power to resist. Then the aisle ended in a circular s.p.a.ce. And on a pillar which was the center core of that, was a skull-life-sized and carved of what seemed the clearest crystal. Still the brain pan was filled with whirling, dancing light of rainbow colors, one shade eternally fading or deepening into another.

And resting one hand lightly on the base where the skull was placed stood a woman. She had some of the same look of Dahaun's people, for she changed color-her hair flaming near to scarlet, then deepening to brown, and at last to black; her skin one moment ivory, the next sun-browned. Yet I knew that she was not of the Valley.

Power radiated from her as if she aimed that directly at me. And, though her coloring changed so from one moment to the next, her features did not lose their own set expression. Her full lips were curved in a small, secret smile, as if she dwelt exultingly upon some knowledge she would share with no one.

Her body was clothed only by whirls of mist which also writhed and moved, revealing now a crimson-nippled breast, again a smooth thigh, the beginning of a slight curve of belly .There was something utterly wanton in that play of clothing which was faintly disturbing, reached perhaps that part of me which was not here in answer to her sorcery.

"Crytha!" She flung out one hand in a parody of friendly welcome. And her voice echoed in my mind, not in my ears. "Well met, little sister-"

There was that in me which cringed at her careless claim of kinship. I was not of her blood-I was not! And perhaps my instant revulsion troubled the spell she had set upon me, for I saw her smile disappear, her eyes on me burn with anger.

"You are what and who I will you!" So quick was she with the leash of ownership.