The Jargoon Pard (Witch World Series (High Hallack Cycle)) (17 page)

I snarled and growled, my fury rising. Why did they not heed me? I came to bring disaster upon them, yet they made no move.

The woman first extended her wand toward me. Perhaps she could aim a force through that—destroy me—

Instead there flowed into my churning thoughts and fears a soothing, as her herbs had soothed my torn skin when I lay under her tending. The urgency Ursilla had laid upon me as a goad, was muffled, muted—

“I am a danger—” I thought. Though I was not sure on my side of any contact, I hoped that the Wereman, at least, could read that warning.

“We know—we have seen.”

His answer formed clearly in my mind. I longed to ask how, but they must have their own ways of reading spells aimed at them.

“I must take—
her!
”

Again I gave warning. Surely they could understand by now that Ursilla's sorcery had left me no escape. Either I took the Moon Witch back into the buried cavern, or I would die. Of the two choices, the last was the better.

“Not so.” Again came the Wereman's reply. “We have foreread through the water, through the stars, through the fire. Destiny is somehow entangled for us and you with us. We cannot right the scales until we face this sorceress of Car Do Prawn, that is the reading.

“There is ax time,” he continued. “And there is sword time. They are the times of human man. There is wind time and Star times—which are the times of the Great Lords and the Voices. And there is Weretime and spell time—these last twain call and govern us.”

I did not fully understand what he would say. But that our destiny was entwined amazed me, though I did not doubt his words. For if he were no Voice, yet that he governed Powers of his own was something I well knew. Now the woman's voice rang through my thoughts.

“Earth and Air, Fire and Water. By the Dawn of the East, the Moon White of the South, the Twilight of the West, the Black Midnight of the North, by yew, hawthorn, rowan, by the Law of Knowledge, the Law of Names, the Law of True Falsehoods, the Law of Balance—so do we move.”

As her words sped through my mind, leaving nothing but wonder behind them, the Moon Witch advanced from the others, coming straight to me. She laid her hand upon my head as she had done the other time when she had bid me seek out the key of my enchantment. From her light touch more easement of my burden flowed.

“The moon is thin, but it lives,” she said aloud. “It waxes, and so does that which arms me. What you would have me do shall be done. And I think that your sorceress shall not find the facing of what shall come easy.”

Thus, when I turned my back upon the Star Tower, in truth I did not go alone, for the Moon Witch walked beside me. And behind came the woman, as surefooted and swift as the great snow cat that padded at her side. We crossed the river, heading back the way I had come, the same guide drawing me straight as a released arrow.

Yet the easement they had given me allowed a slower pace. We walked the night, we did not race through it. Now and again the Moon Witch's hand would brush my head. And each time she did so her touch lightened my heart, strengthened my hopes that what I brought back to Ursilla was not what she wanted, but what she deserved.

The false light of near dawn was about us when we came into the place of tumbled mounds. But when we were nigh to the dark hole of the cavern entrance, the woman cried out.

I turned swiftly to face her. She had halted, had her hand out before her, running it up and down in the air as if she laid her palm against some surface. There was naught there that I could see, and the Moon Witch and I were several paces past that point.

The snow cat reared on his hind legs and rested his huge paws on an invisible barrier. Growling, he extended his claws, raking them as if along a vertical surface.

My hardly won hope was smothered in an instant. I needed no words to tell me that there was a force field in existence here—one that admitted me and my victim, but not the two who would lend us their support.

I tried to retreat, to take with me the Moon Maid. For I mouthed some of the disk-strung strings of her skirt to pull her. However, just as the others could not come forward, so I could not return.

The forward pull on me was so strong that I knew I could not long withstand it. I would be drawn underground, forced to bring the Moon Witch with me. Better that the Wereman had done as I had begged and slain me out of hand. Destiny entwined or not, they could not reach me now, and I could not reach them.

Of How the Lady Heroise Told the Truth and I Confronted Ursilla

“Go!” The snow cat's command startled me. I was as one caught between two imperative orders, each of which dragged at me—in opposite directions.

“Go!” The Tower woman echoed him. “This is not a spell of might, but one worn thin by years, one we can break. However, if you linger, then she who awaits you shall know and perhaps send that to make this barrier the stronger.”

I wanted to believe that it was the truth. But dared I? Only the Moon Witch's hand on my head once more, her face turned resolutely toward the hole of utter darkness, told me that if I could not accept the complete belief in the others’ Power, she had. Fearless she appeared, only she did not realize—

Reluctantly I went forward, she matching pace with me.

“There is great dark here,” I thought. “I am led, I do not know how—”

“Then I am led also,” she returned. “For we shall be one now.”

Thus together we entered the hole, descended warily the first of the ramps. I soon could not see her, even through my heightened cat senses, but her touch never left me.

Then—a dim glow moved beside me. Something not unlike the haze that enwreathed the Star Tower. It came from the disks that made her brief kilt, from the horned moon on her breast.

“There exists a great force here,” she said then. “It awakens all that is in tune with Power.” In her other hand she swung forward her flower-studded wand. I saw that each of the flowers, widely open, produced a wan circle of light. “Even though Mother Moon reaches not into the earth, yet her Power is fed here. Long ago there must have walked some in this way who knew the moon calls and used them.”

That she was not alarmed awakened still more strongly my own fear for her. I tried to express the fear by voice, forgetting that I had only the gutterals of the cat to make myself heard. Again she must have read my thoughts.

“No, Kethan. I do not deny that this Wise Woman of yours has sorcery beyond my knowing. But also, I do not believe that she reckons that I, in turn, can summon some that may, in turn, be strange to her. I have been well taught.

“When I was still so young a child that my speech was not plain, I saw beyond the barriers of men. My mother, reading the fire and the water, knew that I had in me talent, and one that differed from her own. However, that is not a fact to be amazed at. For my mother is a Witch of the Green Way and my father once was a Wererider.” She said that as proudly as one who recited a listing of blood-kin heroes in some Keep.

“My mother, knowing that I would be a worker of force, took me to the Fane of Neave. Those who serve there weighed my talent and said that I would be a Moon Drawer. Thus, when I was somewhat older, I went to join those of Linark. There I learned much. From my mother and my father still more when I returned to Reeth. For long ago there was Moon Magic at Reeth and the stirrings of it were still alive when my mother and father discovered the Tower and took it for their dwelling.”

Her words came easily. She might have been speaking to some friend as they walked across any open field. Still we were going farther and farther into the depths of the earth, to face a Power that I believed greater than my race had ever tested before.

I had been right in my guess. The snow cat had been a Wererider. But why was he not then at the Gray Towers?

“My mother,” the girl beside me continued, perhaps because again she had read my thought question, “was a Bride of the Dales. Have you not heard that tale Kethan? It is so famous a one that songsmiths have already worked it into the Chronicles.”

Yes, that I had heard. The Wereriders had been among those exiled from Arvon when the struggle of the Elder Lords came to an end. Far were they sentenced to wander, and to be homeless, until there were certain changes in the star readings. Then they might ask to return.

South to the Dales they had gone. Later, when there had come a war of men against men—long before I was born—they had made a pact with the men of the Dales, the ones who had taken over our deserted lands. They served beside the Dalesmen, driving the invaders of High. Hallack to the sea, or slaying them.

In exchange for their services, the Wereriders had stated a price, that when the war was done and High Hallack victorious, they would receive from the Dales Lords maids to be their brides.

Thus in the Year of the Unicorn, thirteen such maids were brought to the border of the Waste. They chose among the Wereriders and so came into Arvon and to the Gray Towers. But that there had been a Witch among them—that part of the tale was new to me.

“They did not know my mother was of Witch blood. She was taken as a child from overseas, found captive on a ship of the invaders and fostered by a Dales Lord. But the talent lay in her. That caused trouble among the Riders, for they feared to bring one of Power among them.

“They strove to lose her in the Other World, yet there she and my father fought a battle and won, so returning to their bodies here. However, thereafter, my father would not dwell in the Gray Towers, for he liked not what the Riders had done in their fear. So he and my mother found Reeth—or rather they were told of Reeth. Thus the Star Tower came to be our abiding place. Of Reeth we have made a place where the Green and the Brown Magic are entwined, to stand as a stronghold against the creep of the Shadow.

“But now Arvon is again troubled. There is talk of Gates about to open, exiles to return. Not all of them are like the Riders, willing to accept peace. Lately the Riders themselves have sent messengers to my father, saying the day comes when they shall be summoned to defend their lands. Not yet has he answered them fully. I think in him kin-ties pull one way, his old anger another. Until he settles that struggle within himself he cannot say he will do this or that. But Reeth's hold on him is, we hope—my mother and I—greater than one of memory— since much of that was unhappy. Reeth has a place, so our foreseeings show, an important place in Arvon. Long was it forsaken, but now it lives, and, within it, the force of that life grows!”

As she continued, I could almost see through the complete dark the rise of the Star Tower walls, smell the scent of the herbs that made the garden around it. My longing to be there once again was like a pain.

“Yes,” she said, and I felt that she sensed the longing. “Reeth is like a warm hand, to cup protectingly around one. Still it is what we do that makes the hand endure.”

My mind turned to what I now did and I was sickened. I strove to halt my body, I fought against the compulsion Ursilla had laid upon me. To play Ursilla's foul game, with the Moon Witch as a part of it—no, that I could not allow!

I snarled and spat. My limbs would not answer the commands of Kethan—the pard was Ursilla's thing! Again the Moon Witch's hand rested on my head. I could not reassure her, yet she strove to reassure me! And she could not possibly understand to where I took her, what might await her there.

“Kethan.” Her words took on the solemnity of a chant. “My name—it is Aylinn, my mother is Gillan, my father, Herrel.”

It took a full instant out of time for me to realize what she had done. By naming herself and the two from the Tower, she had claimed a kind of kinship. For a name is the inner core of a man when the Power is in use. And to grant that knowledge to another is the fullest trust one may bestow.

“You should not!” I protested.

“Ah, but I have!” There was something akin to laughter in her reply. Not the horrible laughter of Ursilla's triumph, but rather the joyful note one hears among happy friends. The sound of it warmed me as no fire had ever done. For, though many in Car Do Prawn could claim me as kin, there had been none I could name in return as friend. Those of the Star Tower were as cup-companions and shield-mates.

“This is a long way,” Aylinn commented, as one who was now a little shy and would speak of matters less close.

“I do not know how long,” I returned.

While she had told me of herself I had not been aware of the crushing darkness. Now it wrapped us about as if to smother us in its heavy folds. I wished that I had counted the ramp ways when I had come up so I knew how far we needed now to descend. But then I had been driven by a single thought—to reach what Ursilla had sent me for.

Down and down. The glow of my companion's kilt and pendant remained alight, but showed little beyond the portions of her own body against which they rested. Still, any light in this place brought with it a measure of comfort for those who were bred for the surface of the world and not its depths.

At last we reached the floor. I turned left, to head out into the center of the cavern, for it was my belief that the circle of globe-faced figures must form the center. Far ahead there was a faint speck of light in that direction.

The cord of force that had guided me back tightened. I thought Ursula was aware we came, and I warned my companion of that fact.

“In truth she must know.” Aylinn's answer was tranquil. “She already moves to meet us. However, Kethan, what she does not know is that Gillan and Herrel have broken the force barrier above and are now following.”

How could she tell that?

Again the sensation of soft laughter. “Kethan, for purposes of the Power we have been one in minds and hearts several times over. Any part knows when the whole is near—”

I did not quite understand it. But her certainty again raised my hopes. What Ursilla could do I dreaded because it was unknown. However, the confidence of my companion suggested that perhaps this time the Wise Woman would meet opponents she could not so easily defeat.

We were running now, I with the pard's leaps, as the strength of the bond jerked me on and on, Aylinn lightly, as she might have done across some woodland glade in utter freedom.

Thus we came to the figures. But there were others among them—Maughus! How had he won to this place? And the Lady Eldris! My cousin and my grandam stood statue-still. They might have been carven from the same stone as the seated ones. There was no sword in Maughus's hand, though one lay bare-bladed at his feet.

His face was a mask in which fear and anger were intermingled. But the one my grandam wore was of fear alone, though, when her eyes shifted now and then toward my mother, hatred shone there also.

Ursilla waited for us, her wand of Power outstretched as a fisherman might hold a pole by which he has hooked a catch he now draws to shore. Aylinn no longer moved beside me. When I glanced back, I saw her face in the light from the glowing globe-visages of the surrounding figures. It was serene, but set—another mask, save that this reflected no emotion, and her eyes were alive.

Her flower-enwreathed wand lay across her arm as if it were indeed only a sheaf of long-stemmed blooms she had gathered along the way. If Ursilla believed that the Moon Witch was truly part of her catch, she might well be surprised.

“Welcome, Kethan.” Ursilla broke the silence of those within the circle. “You have done well—”

“And you—” She turned her glance from me to survey Aylinn from head to foot, then back again. There was startlement, quickly veiled in her eyes. Whatever she had expected, it was not to be confronted by the Moon Witch.

“So—” Her voice was a hiss as her wand moved, flicking back and forth as might a swordsman's blade before he engaged. Sparks flew from the rod as it swung. Then I saw Aylinn smile, not in victory, or in mockery, but openly, as a child would do.

“You have called, Wise Woman. I have come. What would you have of me?”

My mother wavered from where she stood on the other side of the brazier—her face mirrored open amazement.

“Who—are—you?” She breathed as might a nearly spent runner and pressed her hands against her breast as if to ease the pain.

“I am she who the Wise Woman has summoned,” Aylinn returned.

The eyes of all were centered on her. Her bearing was as proud as my mother's when she was wrapped in her finest feasting robes.

“No!” The Lady Heroise retreated step by step as Aylinn advanced. My mother might be facing some wraith of the Shadow, which had intruded in this place. Her astonishment had changed to what was manifestly fear. Now, with a visible effort, she turned her gaze from Aylinn to Ursilla. Her voice rose shrilly. “You have brought the wrong—”

“Not so!” Ursilla interrupted. She lowered her wand, though still held it with the point toward Aylinn, who did not seem to notice it at all.

“The spell does not fail, not with the force of the ancients behind it,” the Wise Woman continued. “Which means—”

My mother lurched forward as one so stricken she could not keep her feet without support. Her groping hand fell upon Ursilla's shoulder.

“This cannot be!” Her protest now was near a scream.

“Do you think I know not our Clan blood? We have no talent beyond the lesser. This is one possessing Power!”

I listened completely bewildered. There was something between my mother and the Wise Woman, something that made my mother completely oblivious of all else.

“You did not ask concerning the father.” Ursilla's thin lips stretched in a grin akin to the grimace of a fleshless skull. “Did you know his blood-kin?”

My mother dropped her grasp on Ursilla and cowered away. She beat her rolled fists together. “No! What did you then summon to my bed? What have I bred?”

Ursilla laughed, the same terrible laughter I had heard when she promised to make Maughus rue his violence.

“Seemingly better than you thought, my Lady. As for the breed of your mate—you did not care. It was the child who mattered.” Now the hand that did not hold the wand made a sign in the air, which flamed orange.

Bewildered, I looked from one to the other. The secret they had held between them so long was first understood by Maughus. His body rocked a little as if he tried to move and could not. But there was a wild light of triumph on his face.

“So—that was what you wrought!” he spat at the two before him. “Now it comes clear to me. You went to Gunnora to bear your heir, my Lady. There all your charms failed you, for you bore a daughter instead of a son! Where got you then this Shadow-bred mongrel?” He looked to me with a death wish in his eyes.