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Authors: Andre Norton

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I, SABINA, SUFFERED enough that a croak, which was intended to be a full-throated scream, was forced out of me. My trailing hair, loosed earlier by Maclan, had become caught on bushes and was brutally yanked free by the man leading the pony.
No talk passed among our captors, but they kept steadily to a pace that was faster than we had held earlier. We moved ever upward, and now and then the lash of a cold wind struck. How long we traveled so through the dark, I never knew. With the blanket blindfold once more over my face, I should have had no way of seeing what lay around us, even if we had been moving by torchlight.
I held as long as I could to wilting hope, which had been briefly revived by the report that the Border had been aroused on our behalf. The horses, ridden by my father's escort, were superior to these ponies, and sleuthhounds seldom lost the trail. But these Breakswords, who owed no allegiance to any clan chief, knew hidden ways to many strongholds; Maclan himself had been able to escape my father's well-trained men and raid during the past few years without even close pursuit. He had become, justly, something of a legend.
Soon the need for water had overpowered thought and sensation alike in my world. Never, through all those years when I had labored to hone my talent to the highest level, had I so battled with my own body, striving to set aside its demands and master such a craving. Thirst was my chief torment, but hunger shortly joined with it till both beasts claimed me as their prey and gnawed at my middle.
I did not try to Send, for I knew that my sisters suffered the same ills. In this hour, to invoke the unity we had shared for so many years would avail us nothing. Each of us alone must hold on to sanity and so to life. However, as I tried to repeat in my aching head one of the cantrips Duty had taught, my resolve faltered. For all my efforts, I could not put word to word, and what aid could an ancient wisewife's saying give us now? So I was swallowed by a dark which was more than just the night.
Then I caught a trickling sound—not for the ears to hear but for the mind. I had closed my eyes, but by some means I could still see. A crack of light opened in the dark about me, and its radiance grew broader and clearer with every thirst-savaged breath I drew until I felt I was lying in a bath of liquid sunlight. Then—oh, what a cruel mirage born of my body's need—the gold about me cooled to silver, and I rested in a stream of gently flowing water! Instinctively, I opened my mouth, and—yes, water, blessed true water, raised itself out of the flood about me, poured across and into my cracked and bleeding lips. I drank and drank.
WATER! TAM LAY beside me; her hands were unbound, and from each finger poured, impossibly but undeniably, a rill of water. I, Drucilla, drank deeply. For some reason, as the dryness vanished, I felt another need, not of my own but of my sister's. By mind-speech, I answered what seemed to be an unvoiced question. Then once more I scooped up and mouthed the living liquid.
MY FACE WAS awash—
awash
? How? Whence came this water, that soothed not only the racking pain in my body but was as balm to my soul, as well?
Swallow,
I instructed myself,
then try mind-touch
. But that outflung net caught no sister in its invisible weave. A little alarmed by this silence, for it was difficult for any of us to know who we were without our two counterpart/complements, I found myself shaping the words:
I am Sabina of the Scorpys
.
HOW LONG WE traveled on after that strange dream sharing, I cannot tell. However, when it ended, my spirit seemed to withdraw from the body that was called Tamara and rested in a place that sheltered and strengthened like loving arms supporting me.
That refuge was irreparably shattered as my physical self was again dropped to the ground, this time onto a bed of small stones. The shock and pain of the fall pulled me back into my body and the mad, random place that my world had become.
“Bina? Cilla?”
I Sent.
“Here,”
each answered in turn.
Then my feet were seized and, by them, I was dragged roughly over the ground. By the daylight that had, impossibly after a night of such strange doings, come again, I saw that Maclan stood above us. He held a knife in
one hand, and now he stooped and grabbed up a handful of my hair as if to tear it from my scalp. Instead, he sawed the strand loose, and as he did so, he whistled.
I recognized the air; widely sung, it had not only a taunting tune but vicious words guaranteed to enrage the whole of any Border family.
“Th' Snake, he did take Ninen's Peel;
With it hardly did he deal:
Wives, maids, babes did swallow steel.
Snake? Nay, Dragon from the past—
Of him no man will see the last!”
“Should I not take up the harp as a bard, my lady?” The Breaksword brushed my shorn hair across my face, grooming me as he preened himself. “And wait till you hear the next verse, which I have just composed! We do not hang you, you see—that is not the way of the Maclan. Your father set me in a lick-stone cell, and licking is how I gathered my water, see you—my tongue to cold, bare stone. I do not think you will have even that much where you go now. We deal with you as is custom, you see. They can hunt with hounds—bring their hell-taught magic to search—it will not serve.” I was puzzling over his words as he summoned his men once more.
Our captors worked quickly after that. We were dragged forth again and pushed onto a flat surface; then that platform was raised into the air. Pinioned as we were, we could see but a braiding of taut-drawn rope above. Now our temporary floor swung outward, dipping a little so that I feared we would be rolled from the rimless support it offered.
Down—they were lowering us down somewhere, and we could be sure that whatever waited us below would be no better than what we had left behind.
T
he support on which we rested was swinging as a brisk wind pushed at it. We had not been secured in any way onto this platform, and the possibility was very real that we might roll off before we ever reached the goal our captors had selected.
Even as I strove to brace myself against such a fate, it came upon me. I spun over, and then I was falling, falling until the blanket-roll that bound me thudded home onto another surface with force enough to drive the breath out of me. I choked out a scream, only to suffer a second hard blow from above as a weight covered my body. Then darkness took me.
WE HAD BEEN swinging—how? why? And who—who was I? At least that knowledge returned: I was Sabina. Then I was falling, to strike a surface that moved under me. I heard a choked cry, sounding as from a far distance. Once more I lay still, on my side this time. Summoning what small strength I still possessed, I mind-Sent:
“Tam—Cilla!”
“Yes—”
That was Cilla, I knew, for the variations of mental “speech” can be as individual as voices.
“Tam!”
I called silently again. She had always been the strongest, the most assured of us three. However, she had borne the brunt of Maclan's attention at the last … .
Before I could thought-call a third time, my body was jerked upward by my bound feet to hang, in painful movement, upside down. The pulls continued, growing ever more vicious. I realized I must have become entangled in a rope fastened to the platform we had ridden.
A final yank, followed by further shaking; then I was free and thudding downward. My cheek scoured across a rough surface—blanket?
“Cilla? Tam—Tam—?”
I Sent desperately.
“Yes.”
Again Cilia answered instantly.
“Tam is close beside you—I can see her! But—is that blood on her face? Tam!”
Cilla's own message entwined with mine.
I could neither lift my head nor change position, so I could see no more than the band of darkening sky above. Then came movement against that backdrop—a square object was swinging on ropes, describing a series of irregular lifts and drops, but rising ever higher. The platform that had brought us here was returning aloft.
After I reported the departure of the flooring-square, I strove, in fashion of an eyeless worm, to edge myself backward, hoping to meet with a rocky outcrop against which I could wriggle sufficiently upright to see something of our surroundings.
Almost as if some power had read my purpose and was moved to answer an unvoiced plea, I bumped against a hard surface, nearly as wide as my shoulders, so that I was heartened to struggle onward—or at least upward. Perhaps if I continued rubbing against the unyielding support, I could hatch myself from the cocoon of rope-wound blanket. And there was a sloping shape to what I pushed against! I added another bruise to my tally, but I fought on. Then my head and shoulders reached high enough so that I could at last see.
Tam lay farthest from the wall down which we had been lowered. Her eyes were closed, and a wild lock of new-cropped hair had been glued to her forehead and right cheek by blood. Still farther from me, Cilia lay flat with her head free of wrapping.
“This—”Her lips moved now, to loose a voice that was thin and
strained. “This—is—the—Dismals.” She paused between each word, as though she brought the sentence forth with immense effort.
Dismals—what did she mean? The dark state of spirit to which we had been reduced?
Suddenly my memory sharpened. Those reports we had researched while alone at Grosper had mentioned a country-within-a-country in which the creatures were so terrifying that it might be the place to which all the horrors that populated men's nightmares retreated during the day. But surely that was a legend, like some imaginary monster a nurse might use to frighten an ill-behaved child: “Do such-and-so, and you will go to the Dismals.”
A land that lay below the surface of the world known to man, an enclave only able to be entered by ropes, though no one in his—or her—proper senses would choose to do so. Cradled by the Yakin Mountains, the Dismals was rumored to have been delved by the Servants of the Dark, the monster-kin. No man knew its extent because no would-be explorer had ever returned.
Tam sighed, and her eyes opened. She shifted her head toward Cilla.
“What's to be done?” Her voice was hardly above a whisper.
Before either of us could answer her, a rattle of pebbles cascaded down behind me. Both Tam and Cilia looked at once to me—or what was happening at my back. I feared that, if I tried to turn and see for myself, I might lose what small advantage I had gained through my efforts.
Nonetheless, I swung my head around as far as I could, just in time to catch sight of a flow of red fur that poured itself toward us like living fire. Its owner advanced as far as my feet, then sat up, as might a cat, on its haunches. But this creature was no cat, nor was it like to any other beast I had ever seen, even among the varieties in the queen's animal-park, which was one of the great sights of the capital.
However, I still thought
cat
when I looked at the head, save the ears were not pointed but rounded. And certainly this was larger by far than any sharer-of-the-house among our people. The form possessed longer lines than seemed natural, but the tail was the most striking feature, being fully the length of the beast's body.
It opened its jaws wide now, and the teeth exposed were all pointed as if for tearing. This display concluded, it swiped its whiskers with a forepaw, arose, and trotted leisurely toward Tam.
“No!” I screamed, hopeless, helpless to protect her. The cat-thing was
plainly carnivorous and was anticipating my sister as a meal it would not have to stalk.
Cilla's shriek joined mine. Tam was staring, with a certain fatality, straight at the beast. The fanged head lowered toward hers; then an elongated tongue swept out to wash my sister's face. The taste of fresh blood must surely arouse it to kill—
Cilla was struggling to heave herself up, but her frantic efforts only rolled her back and forth. I worked my own shoulders higher on my support. Suddenly I felt a loosing of one of the ropes about my breast. I channeled all my strength into forcing my arms away from my body, but no feeling answered in them. Being so bound for so long might have leached all life from my muscles, leaving them powerless.
The red-furred monster had finished its predinner dainty from Tam's face. I caught the edge of what she was trying in a final attempt at defense. She was striving to use Send—not to us, but to the animal crouching beside her. Was that possible?
I stopped my physical exertions and aimed my spirit-energy to feed hers. We had done this once or twice, experimented with projecting Power, but never for any reason. We
had
that purpose now!
At first, no joining occurred. For a moment, I feared that I might even have weakened Tam's Talent by my interference. But, even as I tried to feed Tam's strength, so I was fed—by Cilla! We were well linked; I had anchored true with Cilla's Send, and the two of us touched and held with Tam. So firmly were we bound that, when a wave of another type of Power unexpectedly washed over us, we three felt the alien surge of force as one. Then, like a stream of water, pure and heady as if leaping from a spring in the high mountains, the alien Talent flowed into ours fully!
My earlier struggles had given me a chance to see Tam more clearly. The animal had settled back on its haunches again, seeming to study our sister closely. It appeared that what we had striven to do had been pointless, for the beast was making no movement to withdraw.
That fearsomely fanged head lowered again. This time, though, it did not aim at Tam's face, but rather at her breast. I saw it lunge forward and waited, shivering, for the first of my sister's screams. My Send quivered and nearly broke; then the new Power caught it up, melded once more with ours, and held. My terror began to drain away. Was the force I had summoned—all I could raise—feeding now upon that fear?
The animal's head came up with an effort. Between its jaws dangled a strip of cloth; perhaps it preferred its prey with flesh bared for easier fanging.
Where I leaned among the rocks, I rubbed my shoulders back and forth, though I dared not concentrate too much upon such efforts, lest my part of the mind-thread snap. There seemed no danger of that, however—indeed, it felt to me stronger than I had ever known it to be. None of us had such Talent as this, even though our Gifts had been enlarged by years of practice. Who—or what—had enhanced the force we could wield, we had no way of telling.
Tam and Cilla had always claimed that I was one who mistrusted new things and always sought for an explanation of how they worked. Only my Talent for healing had I accepted without demanding proof of this and that. In this hour, however, I knew I dared not question but must simply lend all strength I could to keep our mind-link intact.
The animal continued to tear at Tam's bindings. My own were loosening also, but far from swiftly enough. Now hanging from the beast's jaws was a frayed ribbon of white; the blanket having been pierced, what the creature now mouthed was a portion of her bed robe.
Those needle-tipped teeth dipped again, settled into a firm grip. I could hear the sound of that ripping, and Tam's inert body lifted a little, only to settle back as the cat-thing spat out another mawful of the confining cloth.
However, no savaging of my sister's bared chest followed; instead, that tongue, which had cleansed her face of blood, began to sweep her body. The fact that she had not been attacked by now somehow lessened my terror, or else we had been under fear's shadow for so long that it had come to feel familiar as our own. I have read in our records that in the old days, when a depraved dynasty ruled my country and torture was accepted by law, a victim who had suffered the worst a body could endure passed to a point beyond pain. Was this happening to us?
THE BREATH OF this dweller in the Dismals was hot and fetid as that of any carnivore. However, as its green eyes stared into mine between assaults upon my swathings, I began to understand that it meant me no harm. I did
not release the Send; instead, sharpened by the force we had all felt loosed to join ours, I still tried to reach the creature. I could only trust that I had touched it, though in a way I could not yet detect.
The dark had come upon us, yet here we could still see as we might on a heavily beclouded day. My own vision was centered upon the action of the creature arching its body above me. Suddenly, a rope, which must have been a major anchor for most of those twisted about me, broke. The cat-thing now pawed at my coverings instead of using its claws, and by so doing it was able to scrape my body mostly clear of the noisome bag that held me prisoner.
I strove to sit up, but my limbs felt heavy and dead from their long confinement. Still, with what effort I could summon, I slid my right hand across the rumpled stuff of the blanket and forced my fingers to touch the paw of my rescuer. Once more we met eye to eye. In some way, our silent defense-by-mind had been the right one. Perhaps I was simply an object of curiosity to the beast; in any event, I was not prey.
At that moment, without my willing it, the Send broke and was gone. Bina had held it with me, and also Cilla, but most certainly we had been companied by a fourth. The sharing had, in fact, been as profound as that venture into the unknown when, in our extremity, we had shared spiritborn water. I had to accept as true what I thought—what I now believed as if it had been duly sworn.
“It means no harm,” I said hoarsely.
I LAY EXHAUSTED from my attempts to win freedom. Tam's white body lay on the ruins of her constraints, but still she did not move. I drew a deep breath. Would her rescuer turn now to me, or Bina, or—on us?
However, the animal seemed content to remain with Tam, for it stretched out full length, in watchful-cat fashion, that long plume of a tail resting straight behind it.
Delivered from fear of immediate savaging, I dared to give an order. The green eyes blinked; the head lifted. Now the creature was looking beyond me—at Bina. Swiftly on its feet again, it moved toward my sister. In the meantime, I set my teeth and began, drawing on remaining rags of energy,
to master my body and force arms and legs to obey me. The pain of feeling's reawakening was welcome, though it stung like a whiplash. I pulled myself up, bracing the upper part of my body with my returning-fromthe-dead arms.
THUS WE WON to freedom, as yet unthreatened by whatever fate might await us in this darkly fabled land. A wind was rising, but still we refused to assemble any makeshift garment from those foul bindings on the ground. Tam had always been our leader and, through long practice, both Cilla and I now turned to her.
She had positioned herself on a large stone, and before her was her red rescuer. It, too, was seated and now, as I watched, I saw a clawed paw reach out to rest on Tam's knee, where bruises made black shadows. Neither of us tried to catch her attention by word or gesture; we also refrained from attempting any mind-speech, for it was plain that she and the beast were engaged in some form of communication.
Cilla had come to me and we huddled together, watching, hoping against hope that our sister was finding answers that would serve us for the future.
“Look!” Cilla was no longer intent on Tam and the animal. Her arm was extended, and her forefinger pointed back toward where we had lain.
The surface of the ground where we had been dropped was rough with rocks and gravel, as our many painful bruises could testify. Now, however, small rings of light encircled some of the stones. Their glow, though soft, held back the utter dark of night and gave us limited sight.
Curiosity could not be denied. I loosed my hold on Cilla and stooped painfully, reaching for the nearest of those strangely radiant rocks. I almost dropped it again, for my fingers had closed on—warmth! I held the pebble up, turning it about. The outer casing, though against my fingers it had the roughness of stone, now appeared on closer examination to be like crystal—a drop of transparent mineral bearing a heart of fire. Cilla and I were still examining my find, Cilla leaning against me to view it better, when Tam rose abruptly and beckoned.
“Come!” That word was delivered as an order. We did not question, but followed.
BOOK: Three Hands for Scorpio
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