Lost Lands of Witch World (63 page)

Utta heard him out and then with a single sharp-voiced sentence broke his arguments to bits. Her thought at the same time rang in my mind:

“Girl use your power. Look upon yonder cup, raise it up and bear it to Ifeng by your will.”

A feat easy to do in the old days but beyond me now. But such was the strength of her order that I obediently raised my hand and pointed to one of the cups wrought of silver, focusing my will on the task she demanded of me.

I shall always think that it was her will working through me which brought results. But the cup did rise and travel through the air, to come to rest at Ifeng's right hand. He gave an exclamation and his fingers jerked from proximity to it, as if it were molten hot.

Then he swung to his nephew and his voice arose in what could only be berating before he turned again to Utta, touched his hand to his forehead in salute, and went from us, urging the younger man before him.

“I did not do that,” I slowly said when they were safe gone.

“Be still!” Her order rang in my head. “You shall do far more if they will be patient. Or wish you to lie under Sokfor's body for his pleasure?” She smiled, and all the thousand wrinkles of her face creased as she read my instant reaction of disgust and horror. “It is well. I have served the tribe for long, and neither Ifeng, nor Sokfor, nor anyone else will rise to cross me. But remember this, girl, and get you to our work together, I alone am your buttress against that bed-service until you relearn such skills as shall protect you on your own.”

Such logic gave me even more reason to plunge into the training she devised, which began almost at once.

There were two other members of her tenthold. One was a crone almost as old as Utta in appearance, though much younger in years for she was of the tribe. She was, however, far stronger than she looked, and her bone-thin arms, her crooked fingers, accomplished a vast amount of labor in the general work of the tent. It was she, cloaked and hooded, whom I had seen feeding the herb fire on my first night in camp. Her name was Atorthi and I seldom heard her speak. She was totally devoted to Utta, and I think the rest of us did not exist for her except as shadows of her mistress.

The woman who had brought me to Utta was also of the Vupsall, but not of this clan. She was, I learned, the widow of a chief of another tribe the Vupsall had overrun in one of the fierce feuds which kept them from becoming a united
people. As spoils of war she had been claimed by Ifeng as a matter of course, only Ifeng already had two wives under his tent and one of them was very jealous.

After two or three tempestuous days of domestic altercation he had made a ceremony of presenting this human battle spoil to Utta as a servant. Within the seeress' establishment Visma had found a place which suited her as perhaps Ifeng's would not, even if she had been the first or only female there. She was a woman of natural dominating qualities, and her new position as liaison between Utta, who was seldom seen outside her tent except well muffled in furs on a sled during a march, and the rest of the clan, gave her just what she wanted. As a guard and overseer she was perfectly placed.

I think at first she resented me bitterly, but when she saw I was not in any way a threat to her own sphere of authority she accepted me. And finally she used reports of my growing power as a new accent to her standing in the tribe.

There was a duality within the nomadic community. Utta and her tenthold reproduced a way of life I had known, a community of women using the Power to bolster their rule. Under Ifeng the rest of the encampment followed an opposite pattern of a male-dominated society.

I soon saw that Utta was right that I must make haste in learning or relearning what I could, for she could not be far from death. The wandering life of the clan was not good for her in this cold, though she was surrounded and tended by every possible comfort that Atorthi and the rest of us could offer.

At last Visma went directly to Ifeng and stated firmly that he must soon locate a more permanent campsite and there settle for a lengthy period or she could not say how long Utta would yet live. That suggestion so frightened him that he straightaway sent out his best scouts to find such a place. For Utta's service had for generations kept this clan “lucky,” as they termed it, far beyond the general lot of their kind.

They had been traveling eastward again for a space of some ten days since my taking. I had no way of telling how many leagues we had put between us and the mountains, which still loomed high behind. I had begged many times of Utta a reading in her seeing globe for some news of my brothers, but she said repeatedly she was no longer able to waste her strength on such a search. Until I learned enough to lend my winging thought to hers it was a useless exhaustion for her which might even bring about her death. So it was to my self-interest, if I wished to use the globe, to protect her from such a drain and obey her commands to learn, cramming into me all she could give. I grimly noted, though, that when she was following her own desires in any matter she was far more strong and able than when I pushed for my own wishes.

I saw that I must humor her if I would gain what I had lost. And not to have her as a buffer between me and the men of the clan, especially Sokfor, who continued to follow me with his eyes whenever we were in sight of one another, was
a danger indeed. Could I relearn certain parts of my Power I would be free of that peril at least: a true witch cannot easily be forced against her will—as my mother once proved in the Hold of Verlaine when one of the arrogant nobles of Karsten would have claimed the role of bedfellow.

So I bent my will to Utta's. And she was not only content but triumphant in an almost feverish fashion, working me for long hours with a hectic need, it would seem, to make me as much her equal as she could. I thought at that time it was because all these years she had sought for an apprentice and found her not, so that all the frustrations which had so long haunted her were now fastened on me.

She had few of the techniques of the Wise Women; her talents were more akin to witchcraft than sorcery, so perhaps the easier for me to assimilate now. I soon found it irking that her mind seemed to skip erratically from one piece of knowledge to another which appeared to be no kin to the first, so that what I accumulated (at the best rate I could) was a vast mass of odds and ends I never seemed to have a chance to unravel and put into any order. I began to fear that I would be left like this, an aide to her when she needed, but without enough straight knowledge in any direction to serve myself. Which was very well what she might intend.

Twice after those first days of traveling we established longer camps, one to the extent of ten days, while the hunters were out to replenish our supplies. Before each of these hunts Utta worked her magic, drawing me in to lend my strength to hers. The results of her sorcery were detailed descriptions to be set in the minds of the hunters, not only for the locating of game, but listing those places under the influence of the Shadow which must be avoided.

Such sessions left her exhausted, and we would not work together for a day or so thereafter. But I could understand how valuable was her gift for these people, and what dangers and losses lay in wait for any clan who had no such guardian.

I had kept track of the days since my awakening under the fringe of the avalanche. And it was on the thirtieth thereafter that our sleds swept into the mouth of a narrow valley between two ridges of very rough cliff seamed here and there by frozen runnels of water. As we descended farther into a narrow end of a funnel-shaped area, that water thawed and dripped. And the snow which had been heavy and thick-crusted became slushy and light, so that those who had ridden the sleds, save for Utta, now walked, that the struggling dogs would have lighter loads.

Finally the snow disappeared altogether. Two of the younger men trotted closer to add their strength to the pull lines of Utta's sled. The brown earth showed bits of green life, first a coarse moss, then tufts of grass and small bushes. It was as if coming down that way we had advanced from one season to another, all in a few steps.

It was warm, so much so that we must first open our outer coats, toss back their hoods, and then take them off; the men and women of the tribe both went
bare to the waist and I found my under tunic sticky with sweat, clinging dankly to my body.

We came to a stream and had I not been warned by the steam which hung above it I might have tried to drink, since my throat was dry and the damp heat made me very thirsty. But this was hot water, not cool, and must arise from some boiling spring. It was its breath which made the core of the valley into near summer.

Our traveling pace had grown slower, not just because of the lack of snow for the smooth passing of the sleds, but we also paused for intervals while Ifeng conferred with Utta. That this was a place the clan longed to enter was plain, but that it might hold some great danger for them I also guessed. At last Utta gave the signal that they might advance without fear, and so we came into what had manifestly been a favored camping site—if not for this clan, then for others, and for a long time.

There were the scars of many old fires, and lengths of bleached wood had been set upright to form posts for tents. Walls of loosely piled rocks were also ready to be used as additional security. And the Vupsalls speedily set about making a more permanent settlement than I had seen.

The hide walls of the tents were fortified from the outside by new walls of stone until finally the hide was only visible as a roof. In the steamy mildness of this place, however, there appeared to be less need for such protection than there had been in the snow waste through which we had come.

Pools and eddies of the hot steam provided us with water that needed no heating. And in the privacy of our hut-tent we washed our bodies thoroughly, which to me was a great comfort and joy.

Visma brought fresh garments out of those painted chests and saw that I was clad as a tribeswoman in breeches with painted symbols, a wide jeweled belt and many necklaces. She wanted to paint my breasts, having so redecorated her own, but I shook my head. I later learned from Utta that my instinct had been right, for a virgin did not so adorn herself until she chose to accept some warrior, and I might have unwittingly given an invitation I was not prepared to follow in a way acceptable to a proud clansman.

But I did not have much time to consider the formalities of daily living for once more Utta plunged me into learning, hardly giving me time to eat or sleep. I grew thin and strained, and had I not earlier known the discipline of the Wise Women I might have cracked and broken. Yet it seemed to me that Utta throve, not suffered as I did.

What she taught me was the same knowledge she used for the welfare of the clan. And more than once in the following days she put me to service answering some need of those who sought her out, sitting by to watch, but allowing me to follow through the spell by myself. To my surprise the clanspeople did not resent this as I well believed they might, asking for mistress instead of student. Perhaps it was her sitting by which led them to trust me more.

Healing spells I learned, and those for hunting. But as yet she had not brought me into direct foreseeing as she used when Ifeng needed it. And I began to suspect that she did this of a purpose, not wanting to give me the chance to contact any beyond this camp as I might well do, since the method of such foreseeing and the long-looking of straight mind search was largely the same.

My struggles on my own behalf seemed to be hampered in that direction; the haze which had covered my last days with Dinzil lifted enough to let me know that this was the portion of the Power which I had truly misused, and so perhaps I might never regain it. I remembered with a shiver and a feeling of hot guilt what Kemoc had told me, that, fully in the grip of the Shadow, I had used the calling to try to summon Kyllan for the betrayal of the Valley. No wonder it was now forbidden me. It is of the very nature of the Power that once misused, or used only for a selfish purpose, it can recoil or be drained past recovery.

And all my pleas to Utta to let me know whether my brothers lived or died went unanswered, save for some enigmatic statements which could be interpreted many ways. I could only cling to my belief that so strong was our birth tie I would have known it if they were dead.

My toll of days, marked on the innerside of my jacket by pinprick, reached forty and I reckoned up what I had accomplished during that time. Save for the forereading-mind search, I had as much now at my service as I had had in my second year of schooling among the Wise Women, though what I had learned was more witchcraft, less sorcery. And there were still gaps Utta could not, or would not, bridge.

Although the surroundings of our camp were much easier for the clan than the harsh necessity of travel had been, they were not idle. Now they turned to craftsmanship. Furs were tanned and made into garments, and the smiths set about the mysteries of their calling, attended by their chosen apprentices.

Hunting parties ranged out from the valley of the warm springs in greater numbers, always assured by Utta that they had naught to fear. I gathered that though the raiders were many in autumn, the winter months were not good for seafaring. Free of that danger, as well as encroachment from other clans, who had been earlier exterminated by the raiders or also driven west, the Vupsalls had an empty land to themselves.

Here it was almost possible to forget one was in Escore: we saw no ruins; there were no near places of ill repute where the Shadow taint lingered. In fact, there were no traces of the Escore I had known. And the tribesmen were so unlike the Old Race or those mutants who were allies of the Valley that I sometimes speculated as to whether they were native to this world at all, or had come through one of those Gates which the adepts had opened to make passage from one world to another possible.

We had a healing session, a child brought by its mother. A fall among the
rocks had injured it beyond the knowledge of the people. I used the inner seeing and made right what was wrong, plunging the little boy into the deep sleep of healing so that he could not undo with movement what had been done. And Utta had in no wise given any aid, but had left it all to me.