Warlock of the Witch World (23 page)

But to con the unhappy past was no good stepping-stone to any future. That Dinzil had powers I had known since I had begun this so far ineffective quest. On my side were only the facts that I had won to the Tower, which he had not expected, that I still had the sword. Ha—I held the sword across my knees. Had Dinzil let me keep that weapon because he scorned the use of steel, or had he seen it at all?

That speculation lingered. Suppose to Dinzil the sword had been as invisible as Kaththea had been to me! Why? Or why had I not tested it upon him when we met? It was, looking back, as if I had been in bonds of a kind, unable to raise hand against him.

The Tower was his fortress. It could have safeguards in plenty, none of which were wrought of stone, steel, or even things visible. I could have been subject to them from the time I entered the mound door.

I had not once thought of using the sword, not until this moment when Dinzil must believe me safely caged. The sword had picked away the support of the gem stone wall. Could it do as well against the stones of my present prison?

Once free—if I were still in the tower—what could I do? Kaththea had fled from me to Dinzil. She had not accepted my call of identity. And she was already under the change Dinzil had set upon her. That thing he had showed me—now I wished it was wholly monster, knowing what the changes meant.

Kaththea had knowledge out of Estcarp. But much of the lore of the Wise Women could be only used by a virgin. They had held it against my mother that she had managed to retain her power even after she had wedded my father.

Dinzil could not make her wholly his without destroying her usefulness.

Dear one—the words he had used to soothe her . . . My rage was choking; my paw closed tight upon the sword hilt. Then the other arose to touch the band of light which had been Kaththea’s, on which Orsya had set magic of her own.

That had been woman’s magic also. It had served me, but from the outside, not the in. What had Orsya said? Seek with the heart—

The heart . . . What had I used to set the scarf seeking? Not Kaththea as she was but as she had been, before any magic save that which was born in us—which we used as naturally as we breathed, slept, walked, talked—was known to us.

I could not really touch the scarf which was now only a band of light. But I put my toad paw firmly into the glow, kept the other on the sword hilt. I began to make magic—not Dinzil’s, not any of this land, nor of Escore, but of the past. I sent back my mind, far, far back, to the first memory which had been mine, and Kyllan’s and Kaththea’s. We were on a furry rug before a fire which sent sparks flying upward now and then.

Anghart, who had been our foster mother, spun and the thread came smoothly between her fingers, her skilful ever-busy fingers. Kaththea’s thought reached me—

“There is a fairy wood, and there are fairy birds in the trees—” Looking into the fire, I saw it as she did.

Then Kyllan thought: “Here comes our father riding with his men.” And flames rode manwise on some mountain horses.

“Mountains beyond—” That had been my addition, little guessing then how mountains beyond would change our lives. No, do not think of what happened later. Keep memory clean and clear!

Anghart had looked down on us; very big Anghart had seemed then.

“So quiet; so quiet. Listen; I will tell you of the hoarfrost spirit and how Samsaw tricked it—”

But we had not been quiet; we had been talking to one another in our own way. Even then we knew that that was something those about us did not do and we kept it for our secret.

Memory after memory I pulled from my mind, trying to recall each small detail to make a vivid picture. Once we rode in the spring fields. Kyllan broke a branch from the Tansen tree, and its white flowers with their pink centers gave forth the sweetest fragrance. I had caught up flowering grass and made of it a crown. We had put them, crown on head, scepter in hand, on Kaththea, and told her she was like unto the Lady Bruthe, who was so fair that even the flowers blushed that they could not equal her.

“I remember—”

It had stolen so into my thought weaving that at first I was not aware. Then I took tight rein upon my emotions. Immediately I summoned up another memory and another. She who had been so drawn now joined with me. Together we knitted a tapestry of how it had been with us. I did not venture to approach her along that line of memory, only bind her tighter to me in the sharing.

“You—you are Kemoc?”

It was she who broke the spell with a tentative, uneasy question.

“I am Kemoc.” I acknowledged that, but no more.

“IF YOU BE KEMOC”—there was rising tension in her thought—“then this is no land for you! Get you forth before ill comes. You do not know what happens to those who do not have the proper safeguards. I have seen—monstrous things!”

She had seen what Dinzil had taken good care to show her.

“Dinzil!” Her thoughts rang even louder. “Dinzil will protect you; use the counterspells—”

So was she caught in his net that she turned instantly to him when there was need for aid.

“I have come for you, Kaththea.” I told her the simple truth. If she had not gone too far down that road on which he had set her feet, then I might reach her, even as the memories I had spun had drawn her.

“But why?” There was a simplicity in that question which was not of the sister I had known. She had never been one to lean upon another, but held to her own mind. This was a different Kaththea.

I tried to make my thoughts simple, to keep her holding that slender tie between us: “Did you believe that we would let you go, uncaring what chanced with you?”

“But you knew!” her retort was swift. “You knew that I had gone to a place of power, to learn that which would make us all safe against the Shadow. And I am learning, Kemoc, much more than the Wise Women ever dreamed of. They are really small-minded, timid. They but peer through doors which they dare not enter. I marvel that we are in any awe of them.”

“There is knowledge and knowledge. You yourself said that once upon a time, Kaththea. Some can pass through man and come into flower—some men cannot hold, unless they change.”

“Men, yes!” she caught me up. “But I am of the Witches of Estcarp, who are adepts. What man cannot hope to do, we can! And when I have garnered what I came here to find, then I shall return and you will rejoice at what I bring with me.”

Loskeetha’s third picture. Suddenly that was vivid in my mind and I saw it as sharply as it had appeared in the sand bowl. There rode the hosts of the Shadow and among them Kaththea, hurling her bolts of force against us, her kin.

“No!” Kaththea’s cry of denial was sharp. “That is a weaving of evil, not a true foretelling. You have been deceived; you believe that I—one of the Three—could do so? Dinzil has said—”

She hesitated and I prompted her. “Dinzel has said—what?”

But she did not answer at once, and when she did there was in her reply a coolness, such as had been in her in the Valley.

“You wish me to have no true friends, but to keep me to yourself. Kyllan, he is larger of heart; he knows we shall still be united, even though we walk apart. But you will not admit it; you would prison me in bonds of your choosing.”

“This Dinzil has said, and you believe?” He had been wily, but what else might I have expected? This was an argument my own actions to free her would bolster past my being able to refute.

“You do not like Dinzil. He has other unfriends. He did not need to tell me this; I had already seen it in you, in others of the Valley. Yet now he strives to gather such power as will deliver all of them. Do they believe they can turn sword steel and a few mutterings of lesser learning against the Great Ones whom rebellion in Escore now rouse? It takes forces beyond most men’s knowledge to face those.”

“Dinzil can summon such forces, control them?”

“With my aid, yes!” There was an arrogance, a pride in that which might have had roots in the confidence of the Kaththea I had known, but which had grown to turn her into a stranger.

“Go back, Kemoc. I know you love me, though that love is a thing of fetters for me. Because you came in love, I wish you well. Dinzil will see that you return to the world suited to you. Tell them there that we come with such powers behind us that the Shadow, seeing what marches with us, shall be routed before the first blow is struck.”

I shut my mind to her words, to this Kaththea who was the monster Dinzil had shown me. Deliberately and with all the energy I could summon, I thought again of the Kaththea I had known and loved, who had been a part of me—

“Kemoc!” The arrogance had gone out of that cry; it was one of pain. “Kemoc, what would you do? Stop, stop! You lay your fetters on me again and it takes strength, such strength to break them. That strength I must save for the tasks set me here.”

I thought. Kaththea who was young of heart, clean of heart, happy, danced in a green meadow and charmed birds out of the sky to come to her singing . . . Kaththea, laughing, put up her hand to break off a dripping icicle from the eave edge and suck it, while before her the land was frost and snow, yet gem-beautiful under a winter sun. She took the icicle from her lips to trill a call, to be answered by the snow hawk . . . Kaththea diving cleanly into the river flood to swim with us, but forgetting all contests when she found a watercub tangled in a reed bed, freeing the captive tenderly . . . Kaththea in the firelight, sitting between us, listening to Anghart’s tales . . .

“Stop!” Weaker that plea. I pushed it from me, concentrated on the pictures, on my touch upon the two talismen I trusted in this place which Dinzil believed he ruled.

Kaththea running lightly between us to the harvest field where we worked under the sun with all the manor folk to bind the grain. Kaththea chosen to take the Feast bowl to greet passing strangers that day, to gather the Earth-tithe after the old custom, bringing it back jingling and ringing, laughing at her success because a whole troop of Borderers had passed and each had tossed a coin into it.

But never Kaththea in use of her power—never that! For to be Kaththea of the power was to open the door to this Kaththea of the here and now, whom I did not know, whom I feared.

“Kemoc—Kemoc, where are you?”

For a second or two I thought that was the cry of the Kaththea of my memories; for it was young, and strangely uncertain, almost lost.

I opened my eyes and looked about me. Where was I? In some place Dinzil deemed safe keeping. But now my confidence rose. I might have little on which to base that confidence. But when a man reaches a point which seems to have no future at all, then he can make a firm stand. In such stands are weak causes sometimes won, simply because there is nothing left to fear.

“Kemoc, please—where are you?”

“With you, soon,” I made answer. I did not know if I spoke the truth.

I struggled to my feet, held the sword. “Kaththea!” Once more I sent the winged thought. It flew to the wall immediately before me, was gone. I walked to the wall.

Stone, solid under my touch. But still my confidence held. I set the sword point to the stone, and once more made my reckless magic. For I combined the word “Sytry” which was the sword key with the phrases out of Lormt.

The hilt in my paw burned. But in spite of the pain I held it steady. The point chewed at a line between two of those blocks. Began to chew, that is, but as I continued to recite those names the stone itself yielded to my weapon, which cut as it had cleared my path through the mud pit. I came out of the prison where Dinzil had put me, and once more I stood in the underground chamber from which raised the stair into the Dark Tower.

Once more I climbed, coming into the first chamber. But now the furnishings were more substantial, less ghosts of themselves. When I put out a paw to touch one I almost dropped the sword. Had I put forth a paw—or a man’s hand? Now I could see fingers! Then once more they were hidden in monster flesh—to appear again—back and forth.

I was shaken. The creature Dinzil had shown me and said was Kaththea on this plane—woman’s head and hands combined with loathsome body. She had used her hands, her head, to work forces here. He had said—when she was all human seeming again—then she would be completely sealed to his purposes. Now—I brought forth my other hand to look upon it. Yes, there, too, was a flow from hand to paw. Still the paw had greater substance; the hand was but a ghost.

Using magic here, had that linked me to the world of the Shadow, brought about that change? Yet there was nothing else I could have done. I crept up the next flight of stairs to the dining room. Again firmer lines, colors I could now see. Kaththea, would she still be invisible to me, and I the monster who roused only fear in her?

The last stair. At its top the door was this time open to me. If Dinzil once more waited he would have the advantage, but that was a risk I must escape. I raised the sword before me. Never in this other world had the runes blazed to warn me, but now so great was my dependence upon it that I had as much confidence in it as a commander in the field has upon long tried and tested scouts.

At least I had not been blasted as I moved. Laboriously I gained the top of the stairs. There was the mirrored table. Almost I expected to see the comb in action. But to my first inspection the room was empty of any life save my own.

“Kaththea!” I summoned sharply. My winged word sped for the darksome other side of that chamber where tapestry hung. Then out of the gloom shuffled the thing Dinzil had shown me—save that now the hands hung white and distinct from the swollen wrists, and the head was more misty, looming behind it an ovoid such as matched the weeper of the plain.

Her gait was as shuffling as my own, and there was a frozen horror on her face—as one who faces a nightmare come to stalking life.

“No!” Her protest was shrill, near to a shriek.