Lost Lands of Witch World (77 page)

And I did for her what I would not do for Hilarion; I surrendered my will so that her mind linked fast to mine and I knew she viewed all I saw. I turned my head slowly from side to side for her benefit.

“Are these Kolder?” I asked.

“No. But there is a likeness. I think that this world was once close to the Kolder and something of their Power spread to the other. But that is of no consequence now. I know where lies the entrance to the burrow in which you are. We shall come to you with what speed we can. Until then, unless you are in great need, do not link. But if this Zandur would work on you, as he has upon Hilarion, link at once.”

“Ayllia?”

“You have read rightly that she may be your key to freedom. But again we cannot use her as yet, not if we are to have time. Above all, the adept is necessary. He knows the gate; it was of his creation and will answer him. If we are ever to return to Estcarp we must have that gate!”

Suddenly she smiled. “Time seems to have run more swiftly for you, my daughter, than it has for us. Also, I appear to have borne one who is as I wished for, a child of my spirit as well as my body. Take you care, Kaththea, not to throw away now, by some chance, that which will work to save us all. Now I will break link, but you shall be in mind and if you have need, call at once!”

The window into that place of stone was gone. And I was left to wonder—how had my mother and father come here? For she had spoken to him as if he were some distance from her but no world away. Had he stumbled on another gate into this world, she following him thereafter? If so, it would seem that portal had been closed to their return.

That led me back to Hilarion. The gate he created must answer to him, my mother had said. Then we must free him in order to win back. But time—was time our friend or enemy? I fumbled in my cloak and drew out the packet of food I had taken from the gray men's supplies. It was a square of some dark brown substance which crumbled as I pinched it. I smelled the scrap I held in my fingers: a strange odor, not pleasant, not unpleasant. But it was the only sustenance I had to hand and I was hungry. I crunched it between my teeth. It was very dry and gritty, as if made of the ashy dust which covered the surface of this world. But I drank from one of the containers and swallowed it somehow. There was now only the need to wait, and waiting can be very hard.

B
ut I could think and speculate. Time, my mother had said, ran less swiftly in this land than it had for us. It was true that in the mind picture she seemed no older than she had when she had ridden forth on that quest for my father. But then we three had been children not yet started upon our life paths. Now I felt immeasurably older than I had at that hour.

It would seem that she and my father, having once reached this world, were imprisoned for lack of a gate. So her eagerness concerning Hilarion. But if they dared to come to this pit, could they not also be sucked into the same net? It was in me to call a warning by mind link—until I remembered that she had spoken of knowing this place in which I was captive. If she did, then surely she also knew of the perils it had to offer.

I finished the food and drank sparingly. About me the pillars still blazed, the silvery strands continued to veil the adept's prison. Perhaps he slept.

But suddenly I caught slight movement on the dais where Ayllia lay. They had apparently put no bonds on her, no visible ones. Now she was rousing from whatever state of consciousness had held her for so long. She sat up slowly, turning her head, her eyes open. As I watched her closely I thought she did not seem wholly aware of her surroundings, but was still gripped in a daze, as she had been during our journey to the tower city.

She did not get to her feet, but rather began to crawl along the step on which she had lain. I watched the gray man on duty. He sat inert before his board, as if he could see nothing but the lights on the screen.

Ayllia reached the corner of the step, rounded that, began to crawl at a sluggish
pace down the far side. In a moment or two she would be out of my sight. And perhaps out of reach when I needed her. I sent a thought command to halt. But if it touched her mind there was no answer. Now she was out of my sight on the far side of the dais.

Then I noted that one of the silver tendrils about the pillar stirred, enough to touch the one next to it to the right, and that to the next, and the next, before those, too, were hidden from my observation. That movement carried with it a suggestion of surreptitiousness, as if it must be hidden from any watcher. I could not remember whether there had been any movement of the tendrils before Ayllia's apparent waking, or if it had begun only when she moved. Was Hilarion putting into practice what I had earlier attempted, contacting the barbarian girl's mind and setting her under his orders to try a rescue attempt?

Two sides of the dais were hidden from me. The third I faced, where Ayllia had lain, and the fourth I could also see. But any advance along that would be in plain sight of the gray man. And he could hardly fail to notice if she passed directly before him.

I waited tensely to see her come into view. But she did not. The arch in the big screen was in my view; if she tried to leave through that I could see her. Then—then I must contact Jaelithe in spite of the danger lest my one possible aid be taken from me.

But Ayllia did not creep to that door. Instead there was another bright ripple of lights along the screen, followed by that sound which had earlier alerted the gray men to march. I saw the tendrils on the pillar stir and rise slowly, so slowly that watching them one had a feeling of a great weight of fatigue burdening each and every one of them.

Through the arch in the screen now marched a squad of the gray men, while from some point behind me came Zandur. I did not have time to play asleep, it was too sudden. And I was frightened when I saw that the gray men marched straight for me, making a square about the lighted rods of my small prison.

Zandur approached more slowly, but he came to a stop directly before me, and stood as he had earlier before Hilarion, his hands on his hips, staring at me intently. Instinctively I had risen to my feet as the guards closed in. Now I met his gaze as steadily as I could.

It was not a duel of wills as it might have been with one of my own kind, as it had been with the adept, for we had no common meeting of Powers. But I was determined that he would not find me easy taking for his purposes. Yet I also waited before beaming a call to my mother, since I would not do that unless I had no other course.

Zandur appeared to come to a decision. He snapped the fingers of his right hand and one of the gray men crossed to the other side of the dais, to return, pushing before him what looked like a chest set upon one end. Down one side was a narrow panel of opaque substance, not unlike the screens, and this was put to face me.

Behind it Zandur stood and his fingers played across its surface, first hesitatingly, and then with an air of impatience, as if he had expected an easy answer and had not received it. He said nothing, nor did the gray men even show interest in their master's action. Rather they simply stood around me as a guard fence.

Three times Zandur touched his panel. Then, the fourth time he did so, that opaque length came to life. Not with the rippling patterns of the screens but with a weak blue glow.

That color! It was—it was that of the rocks which spelled safety in Escore! To look upon it now was almost reassuring. I had a strange feeling that could I but lay my hand to the screen over which it crawled, I would be far more refreshed than from the food I had just eaten.

But Zandur jerked his fingertips away from the block with a sharp exclamation. He might have been burnt where he expected no fire.

He hastened to press a new place. As the blue spread it also became darker. And I thought he must be focusing upon me some test of Power. For long moments he held fast until the color reached the top of the panel. There it remained steady, neither darkening nor lightening again. Zandur gave a nod of satisfaction and took away his finger. Straightaway the color disappeared.

“The same, and yet not the same.” For the first time he spoke. He could have been addressing me, or only speaking his thoughts aloud, but in either case I saw no need to answer.

“You,”—he gave another wave of hand which sent one of his followers moving off the box—“what manner of thing are you?”

Manner of thing! It seemed that he now equated me with his machines. To him I was a thing, not a person. And I felt some of the rage which ignited Hilarion. Did Zandur only recognize force as coming from machines, and therefore see us, because of what we held in us, as machines?

“I am Kaththea of the House of Tregarth,” I made answer with those words I could best summon to underline the fact that perhaps I was even more human than himself.

He laughed. There was that in his scornful mirth which fed my anger. But a warning alerted me within:
Do not let him play upon your emotions, for in that way lies danger. You must guard each step you take
. So I fell back upon the discipline of the Wise Women and ordered myself to look upon him objectively as they would have done. Perhaps it was their old feeling that the male was the lesser creature which now came to my aid. I had not accepted such a belief—I could not when I knew my brothers and my father, all of whom had a portion of my talents—but when such an idea is held constantly before one, it is easy enough to accept it as a pattern of life.

This was a man—at least one who had been a man. He was not born to the Power, but must depend upon lifeless machines to serve him as our minds and
spirits served us. Therefore, for all his trappings, he was not really one to stand full equal to a witch out of Estcarp.

Yet there was Hilarion, an adept, who had fallen into Zandur's web. Yes, my mind rationalized swiftly, but Hilarion had come here unprepared, had been entrapped before he was truly aware of the danger. I—I could have safeguards.

“Kaththea of the House of Tregarth,” he repeated as one would mock a child by reiterating a simple statement. “I know nothing of this Tregarth, be it country or clan. But it would seem that you have that which I can use, once we fix you even as we have this other—” He waved to Hilarion.

“And it is best for you, Kaththea of the House of Tregarth, that you do as we would have you, since the penalty for doing otherwise is not such as you would wish to face a second time—though it is true you are a stubborn lot if you are akin to this other.”

I did not answer him; best not be drawn into any argument. Many times is speech weakness, silence strength. I was sure that Zandur could not read my mind without his machines, which I distrusted deeply. Thus I could plan and not be uncovered in that planning.

It would seem that his gray men did not need spoken orders; perhaps he controlled them as I had tried with Ayllia. They split into two parties and marched into the obscurity of the chamber somewhere behind me. I did not turn to see them go, not wishing to lose sight of their master.

He seated himself before one of the small boards, releasing the chair to turn and face me. There was about him an air of ease which to me spelled danger. . . . If he deemed me so well in his control perhaps I had against me more than I could imagine.

Ayllia? She had not come into sight at the far corner of the dais, nor had she headed for the arch. Therefore she must now be before Hilarion. And Zandur and a single gray man, still in his own seat, were alone—for the moment.

I did not close my eyes in strict concentration, but at that moment I aimed my call, seeing that I might have no better moment for attack.

“Jaelithe—Simon!”

Instantly came their answer, full, strong—as if protecting arms were about my shoulders, a shield moved to stand between me and sword point. There is an old tale that if one with Power wishes to sever two who have caused tears and heartache to one another for all eternity he or she shakes a cloak between them. I could almost believe in that moment that the cloak was before me, that I could see, feel it. Still that sense of protection, though it continued to abide with me, did not cloud my present purpose.

“What need you?” came my mother's quick question.

“To deal with Zandur—now!”

“Draw.” She gave both consent and order in that word.

I drew because of my crippled need, and there flowed into me such strength as
I had not known since the days I walked with Dinzil. All I had regained through Utta's teaching and my own seeking was as a single pale candle's shine compared to the full sun of midday. And that power I pulled and shaped into a beam of command, seeking again my answer to Zandur.

“Ayllia!”

This time there was no failure: my command, my enveloping force swept into the barbarian girl. I filled her with my purpose, not daring in my extremity to remember I was doing this to a living person, for she was my only weapon for all our safety.

There were a few moments of strange disorientation when I looked through my own eyes at the lounging Zandur and the dais, but I also had another glimpse of the fore of the pillar as Ayllia must be seeing it.

Then I concentrated on that second seeing. I had never before ruled another so, save under carefully controlled experimentation in the Place of Silence when I was a novice. This was so dire a thing that one's spirit sickened as might one's body if put in a place where no human had a right to be. But I fought that sickness and kept my place in Ayllia.

At first her body answered me clumsily. It was as if I were one of the traveling puppet masters who used to come on harvest feast days to the manor markets—yet an inept one, as I handled the strings controlling the arms and legs awkwardly, making them slew in the wrong directions.

Still, I dared not be clumsy if I could help it. So I did not try to totter to my feet, but turned and crept as Ayllia herself had earlier crept, heading in the direction from which she had come. If I could so reach the same step where she had been I would be able to make my move at the right time.