Wizards’ Worlds (17 page)

The Sulcar Captain was impressed by the latest length of Dairine’s weaving, offering
for it, when he bargained with Ingvarna, a much better price than he had thought to
pay out in this forgotten village. He was much interested also in the girl, speaking
to her slowly in several tongues. However, she answered him only in the language of
Estcarp, saying she knew no other.

Still, he remarked privately to Ingvarna that somewhere in the past he had seen those
like unto her, though where and when during his travels he could not bring to mind.
Still, he thought that she was not of common stock.

It was a year later that the Wise Woman wrought the best she could for her sea-gift
foundling.

No one knew how old Ingvarna was, for the Wise Woman showed no advance of age, as
did those less learned in the many uses of herbs and medicants. But it was true that
she walked more slowly, and that she no longer went alone when she sought out certain
places of Power, taking Dairine ever with her. What the two did there no one knew,
for who would spy on any woman with the Witch Talent?

On this day, the few fishing boats had taken to sea before dawn. At moonrise the night
before, the Wise Woman and her fosterling had gone inland to visit a certain very
ancient place. There Ingvarna kindled a fire which burned not naturally red, but rather
blue. Into those flames, she tossed small, tightly bound bundles of dried herbs so
that the smoke which arose was heavily scented. But she watched not that fire. Rather,
a slab of stone set behind its flowering. That stone had a surface like unto glass,
the color of a fine sword blade.

Dairine stood a little behind the Wise Woman. Though Ingvarna had taught her so much
over the years, to make her other senses serve her in place of her missing
sight, so that her fingers were ten eyes, her nostrils, her ears could catch scent
and sound to an extent far outreaching the skill of ordinary mankind; yet at moments
such as this, the longing to be as others awoke in her a sense of loss so dire that
to her eyes came tears, flowing silently down her cheeks. Much Ingvarna had given
her. Still, she was not as the others of Rannock. And ofttimes loneliness settled
upon her as a burdensome cloak. Now the girl sensed that Ingvarna planned for her
some change. But that it would make her see as others saw—that she could not hope
for.

She heard clearly the chanting of the Wise Woman. The odor of the burning herbs filled
her nose, now and then made her gasp for a less heavy lungful of air. Then came a
command, not given in words, nor by some light touch against her arm and shoulder.
But into her mind burst an order and Dairine walked ahead, her hands outstretched,
until her ten fingers flattened against a throbbing surface. Warm it was, near to
a point which would sear her flesh, while its throb was in twin beat to her own heart.
Still, Dairine stood firm, while the chant of the Wise Woman came more faintly, as
if the girl had been shifted from farther away in space from her foster mother.

Then she felt an inward flow from the surface she touched, a warmth which spread along
her hands, her wrists, up her arms. Fainter still came the voice of Ingvarna petitioning
on her behalf, strange and half-forgotten powers.

Slowly the warmth receded. But how long Dairine had stood so wedded to that surface
she could not see, the girl never knew. Except that there came a moment when her hands
fell, as if too heavily burdened for her to raise.

“What is done, is done.” Ingvarna’s voice at the girl’s left sounded as weighted as
Dairine’s hands felt. “All I have to give, this I have freely shared with you. Though
being blind as men see blindness, yet you have sight such as few can own to. Use it
well, my fosterling.”

From that day it became known that Dairine did indeed have strange powers of “seeing"—through
her hands. She could take up a thing which had been made and tell you of the maker,
of how long since it had been wrought. A shred of fleece from one of the thin-flanked
hill sheep put into her fingers would enable her to guide an anxious owner to where
the lost flock member had strayed.

There was one foretelling which she would not do, after she came upon its secret by
chance only. For she had taken the hand of little Hulde during the Harvest Homing
dance. Straightway thereafter, Dairine dropped her grasp upon the child’s small fingers,
crying out and shrinking away from the villagers, to seek out Ingvarna’s house and
therein hide herself. Within the month, Hulde had died of a fever. Thereafter, the
girl used her new sight sparingly, and always with a fear plain to be seen haunting
her.

In the Year of the Weldworm, when Dairine passed into young womanhood, Ingvarna died,
swiftly. As if foreseeing another possible end, she summoned death as one summons
a servant to do one’s bidding.

Though Dairine was no true Wise Woman, yet there-after she took on many of the duties
of her foster mother. Within a month after the Wise Woman’s burial, the Sulcar ship
returned.

As the Captain told the forgotten village the news of the greater world, his eyes
turned ever to Dairine, her hands busy with thread she spun as she listened. Among
those of the village, she was indeed one apart, with her strange silver-fair hair,
silver-light eyes.

Sibbald Ortis, Sibbald the Wrong-Handed—thus they had named him after a sea battle
had lopped off his hand, and a smith in another land had made him one of metal—was
that captain. He was new come to command and young—though he had lived near all his
life at sea after the manner of his people.

Peace, after a fashion, he told them, had encompassed
the land at least. For Koris of Gorm now ruled Estcarp with a steady hand. Alizon
had been defeated in some invasion that nation had attempted overseas. And Karsten
was in chaos, one prince or lord always rising against another. While the sea wolves
were being hunted down, one after another, to a merciless end.

Having made clear that he was in Rannock on lawful business, the Captain now turned
briskly to the subject of trade. What had they, if anything, which would be worth
stowage in his own ship?

Herdrek was loathe to spread their poverty before these strangers. Also, he wanted,
with a desire he could hardly conceal, some of the tools and weapons he had seen in
casual use among them. Yet what had Rannock? Fish dried to take them through a lean
winter, some woven lengths of wool.

The villagers would be hard put even to give these visitors guest-right, with the
feast they were entitled to. And to fail in that was to deny their own heritage.

Dairine, listening to the Captain, had wished she dared touch his hand, and thus learn
what manner of a man he was who had journeyed so far and seen so much. A longing was
born in her to be free of the narrow, well-known ways of Rannock, to see what lay
beyond in the world. Her fingers steadily twirled her thread, but her thoughts were
elsewhere.

Then she lifted her head a little, for she knew someone was now standing at her side.
There was the tang of sea-salted leather, and other odors. This was a stranger, one
of the Sulcar men.

“You work that thread with skill, maid.”

She recognized the Captain’s voice. “It is my skill, Lord Captain.”

“They tell me that fate has served you harshly,” he spoke bluntly then. But she liked
him the better for that bluntness.

“Not so, Lord Captain. These of Rannock have been ever kind. And I was fosterling
to their Wise Woman. Also, my hands serve well, if my eyes are closed upon this world.
Come, you, and see!” She spoke with pride as she arose from her stool, thrusting her
spindle into her girdle.

Thus Dairine brought him to the cottage which was hers, sweet within for all its scents
of herbs. She gestured to where stood the loom Herdrek had made her.

“As you see, Lord Captain, I am not idle, even though I may be blind.”

For she knew that there, in the half-done web, there was no mistake.

Ortis was silent for a moment. Then she heard the hiss of his breath expelled in wonder.

“But this is weaving of the finest! There is no fault in color or pattern . . . How
can this be done?”

“With one’s two hands, Lord Captain!” She laughed. “Here, give me a possession of
yours that I may show you better how fingers can be eyes.”

Within her there was a new excitement, for something told her that this was a moment
of importance in her life. She heard then a faint swish as if some bit of woven stuff
were being shaken free. A clinging length was pressed into the hand she held out.

“Tell me,” he commanded, “from whence came this, and how was it wrought?”

Back and forth between her fingers, the girl slipped the riband of silken stuff.

Woven—yes. But her “seeing” hands built no mind picture of human fingers at the business.
No, strangely ill-formed were those members engaged in the weaving. And so swift were
they also that they seemed to blur. No woman, as Dairine knew women, had fashioned
this. But female—strongly, almost fiercely female.

“Spider silk—” She was not aware that she had spoken aloud until she heard the sound
of her own words.
“Yet not quite spider. A woman weaving—still, not a woman. . . .”

She raised the riband to her cheek. There was a wonder in such weaving which brought
to life in her a fierce longing to know more and more.

“You are right.” The Captain’s voice broke her preoccupation with that need to learn.
“This comes from Usturt. And had a man but two full bolts of it within his cargo,
he could count triple profits from such a voyage alone.”

“Where lies Usturt?” Dairine demanded. If she could go there—learn what could be learned.
“And who are the weavers? I do not see them as beings like unto our own people.”

She heard his breath hiss again. “To see the weavers,” he said in a low voice, “is
death. They hate all mankind—”

“Not so, Lord Captain!” Dairine answered him then. “It is not mankind that they hate—it
is all males.” For from the strip between her fingers came that knowledge.

For a moment she was silent. Did he doubt her?

“At least no man sails willingly to Usturt,” he replied. “I had that length from one
who escaped with his bare life. He died upon our deck shortly after we fished him
from a waterlogged raft.”

“Captain,” she stroked the silk, “you have said that this weaving is a true treasure.
My people are very poor and grow poorer. If one were to learn the secret of such weaving,
might not good come of it?”

With a sharp jerk he took the riband from her.

“There is no such way.”

“But there is!” Her words came in an eager tumble, one upon the other. “Women—or female
things—wove this. They might treat with a woman—one who was already a weaver.”

Great, calloused hands closed upon her shoulders.

“Girl, not for all the gold in Karsten would I send any woman into Usturt! You know
not of what you speak. It is true that you have gifts of the Talent. But you are no
confirmed Guardian, and you are blind. What you suggest is such a folly—Aye, Vidruth,
what is it now?”

Dairine had already sensed that someone had approached.

“The tide rises. For better mooring, Captain, we need move beyond the rocks.”

“Aye. Well, girl, may the Right Hand of Lraken be your shield. When a ship calls,
no captain lingers.”

Before she could even wish him well, he was gone. Retreating, she sat down on her
hard bench by the loom. Her hands trembled, and from her eyes the tears seeped. She
felt bereft, as if she had had for a space a treasure and it had been torn from her.
For she was certain that her instinct had been right, that if any could have learned
the secret of Usturt, she was that one.

Now, when she put a hand out to finger her own weaving, the web on the loom seemed
coarse, utterly ugly. In her mind, she held queer vision of a deeply forested place
in which great, sparkling webs ran in even strands from tree to tree.

Through the open door puffed a wind from the sea. Dairine lifted her face to it as
it tugged at her hair.

“Maid!”

She was startled. Even with her keen ears, she had not heard anyone approach so loud
was the wind-song.

“Who are you?” she asked quickly.

“I am Vidruth, maid, mate to Captain Ortis.”

She arose swiftly. “He has thought more upon my plan?” For she could see no other
reason for the seaman to seek her out in this fashion.

“That is so, maid. He awaits us now. Give me your hand—so. . . .”

Fingers grasped hers tightly. She strove to free her hand. This man—there was that
in him which was—wrong—Then out of nowhere, came a great, smothering cloak, folded
about her so tightly she could not struggle. There were unclean smells to affront
her nostrils, but the
worst was that this Vidruth had swung her up across his shoulder so that she could
have been no more than a bundle of trade goods.

S
O
was she brought aboard what was certainly a ship, for in spite of the muffling of
the cloak, Dairine used her ears, her nose. However, in her mind, she could not sort
out her thoughts. Why had Captain Ortis so vehemently, and truthfully (for she had
read that truth in his touch), refused to bring her? Then this man of his had come
to capture her as he might steal a woman during some shore raid?

The Sulcarmen were not slave traders, that was well known. Then why?

Hands pulled away the folds of the cloak at last. The air she drew thankfully into
her lungs was not fresh, rather tainted with stinks which made her feel unclean even
to sniff. She thought that her prison must lie deep within the belly of the ship.

“Why have you done this?” Dairine asked of the man she could hear breathing heavily
near her.

“Captain’s orders,” he answered, leaning so close she not only smelt his uncleanly
body, but gathered with that a sensation of heat. “He has eyes in his head, has the
Captain. You be a smooth-skinned, likely wench—”