Wizards’ Worlds (16 page)

“Stand away!” he ordered her.

She saw the strain of his body, his flushed face. For a long moment it would seem
that the rock had caught past their moving. Then—

Slowly, and with a wavering from side to side (which Hertha watched with anguished
anxiety, her bleeding hands pressed to her mouth) it went forward, came to a stop
in the center of the way.

There was a sudden sweep of wind, sword-sharp with cold, whirling out her clothing,
raising dust to blind her eyes. Somewhere from within that gritty haze came hands,
arms, a body which steadied her. Was it the wailing of the wind which carried that
strange chorus of grunting cries? Or did she imagine it only?

She could barely keep her feet. A moment later he caught her up, carried her out of
the whirlwind of noise and grit, back toward the bush which still sheltered Elfanor.

The wind died, she heard another sound, the vigorous crying of a baby. Trystan set
her down and Hertha staggered to the cradle. It was not dark yet, the twilight was
still holding off a little. She caught the basket up into her arms as she fell to
her knees. Holding it tight against her with one arm, she clawed at the covering blanket.
Elfanor was screaming steadily.

Hertha stared down. Her eyes were tearing, perhaps the grit of the wind storm had
irritated them. She blinked and blinked furiously, fighting against that distortion
of her sight. Then she could see clearly.

Her daughter’s face was red with effort, her eyes screwed shut as she howled, flailing
at the air with the fists she had managed to loose from her swaddling.

A red face, but—

Hertha’s fear melted away. This was no changeling! She had won! The curse was gone.
The eyes in the baby’s face opened. They were dark, but there was no alien knowledge
in them, just as that anger-reddened skin held no scaled patch of brown.

“Free! She is free!” Hertha crooned, rocking the baby, cradle and all, against her
as she swayed back and forth. Firm hands clasped her shoulders. Dimly she realized
that a new strength had come, that she was no longer alone.

“You freed her.” His voice was clear to her.

She turned her head to look at him, all her gratitude swelling up within her like
an inner fire.

“With you only could I have done it.”

“Did you think I would not help?” He looked stern, harsh and hard, in the failing
light. But that was not Trystan in truth, that she was sure of. For the first time
in days, months, even years which she could remember, Hertha let her stiff independence
seep away, allowed herself the precious safety of his hold.

“With you only,” she repeated softly. She knew from the light suddenly aglow in his
eyes, the softening of his lips that he heard. “Many are Gunnora’s gifts—many and
good.”

“May her name be praised,” he said then, though Gunnora was the holder of women’s
Power and no man worshiped at her shrine. “She has given us both much in this hour.
My lady, it grows dark, shall we go?”

Hertha looked at Elfanor. Whatever rage had possessed her at the sundering of the
dark power was gone. The baby blinked sleepily.

“Yes,” Hertha cried. “Let us go—home!”

The delight in his face was such at her words that she believed she had nothing else
to wish for.

Spider Silk

T
HE
Big Storm in the Year of the Kobold came late, long past the month when such fury
was to be expected. This was all part of that evil which the Guardians had drawn upon
Estcarp when they summoned up their greatest power to blast and twist the mountain
lands, seal off passes through which had come the invasion from Karsten.

Rannock lay open to that storm. Only the warning dream-sending to the Wise Woman,
Ingvarna, drew a portion of the women and children to the higher lands, there to watch
with fear and trembling the sea’s fierce assault upon the coast. So high dashed those
waves that water covered and boiled about the Serpent Teeth of the upper ledges. Only
here, in pockets among the Tor rocks, could a fugitive crouch in almost mindless terror,
awaiting the end.

Of the fishing fleet which had set out yesterday morn, who had any hopes now of its
return save perhaps a scattering of wreckage, playthings of the storm waves?

There was left only a handful of old men and boys, and one or two such as Herdrek,
the Twist-Leg, the village smith. For Rannock was as poor in men as it was in all
else
since the war years had ravaged Estcarp. To the north perched Alizon, a hawk ready
to be unleashed upon its neighbor; from the south Karsten boiled and bubbled, if aught
was still left alive beyond the wrecked mountain passages.

Men who had marched with the Borderers under Lord Simon Tregarth or served beneath
the Banners of the Witch Women of Es—where were they? Long since, their kin had given
up any hope of their return. There had been no true peace in this land since old Nabor
(who could count his years at more than a hundred) had been in his green youth.

It was Nabor now who battled the strength of the wind to the Tor, dragged himself
up to stand, hunched shoulder to shoulder, with Ingvarna. As she, he looked to the
sea uneasily. That she expected still their own fleet, he could not believe, foresighted
as all knew her to be.

Waves mounted, to pound giant fists against the rock. Nabor caught sight of a ship
rising and falling near the Serpent’s dread fangs. Then a huge swell whirled it over
those sharp threats into the comparative calm beyond. Nabor sighed with the relief
of a seaman who had witnessed a miracle, life won from the very teeth of rock death.
Also, Rannock had the right of storm wrack. If that ship survived so far, its cargo
was forfeit now to any who could bring it to shore. He half turned to seek the shelter
of the Tor hollows, rouse Herdrek, the others, with this promise of fortune.

However, Ingvarna turned her head. Through the drifts of rain her eyes held his. There
was a warning in her steady gaze. “One comes—” He saw her lips shape the words rather
than voice them above the roar of wind and wave.

At the same moment, there was such a crash as equaled the drum of thunder, the lash
of lightning. The strange ship might have beaten the menace of the reef’s fangs, but
now had been driven halfway up the beach,
where it was fast breaking up under the hammer blows of the surf.

Herdrek stumped out to join them. “It is a raider,” he commented during a lull of
the wind. “Perhaps one of the Sea Wolves of Alizon.” He spat at the wreck below.

Ingvarna was already scrambling over the rocks towards the shore, as if what lay there
were of vast importance. Herdrek shouted after her a warning, but she did not even
turn her head. With a curse at the folly of females, which a second later he devoutly
hoped the Wise Woman had not been able to pick out of the air, the smith followed
her, two of the lads venturing in his wake.

At least when they reached the shore level, the worst of the storm was spent. Waves
drew a torn seaweed veil around the broken vessel. Herdrek made fast a rope about
his waist, gave dire warnings to his followers to keep a tight hold upon it. Then
he ventured into the surf, using that cordage from wind-rent sails, hanging in loops
down the shattered sides, to climb aboard.

There was a hatch well tamped down, roped shut. He drew belt knife to slash the fastening.

“Ho!” His voice rolled hollowly into the dark beneath him. “Anyone below?”

A thin cry answered, one which might issue from the throat of a seabird such as already
coasted over the subsiding surface of the sea on hunt for the bounty of the storm.
Yet he thought not. Gingerly, favoring his stiff leg, the smith lowered himself into
the stinking hold. What he found there made him retch, and then heated in him dull
anger against those who had mastered this vessel. She had been a slaver, such as Rannock’s
men had heard tell of—dealing in live cargo.

But of that cargo, only one survived. Her, Herdrek carried gently from the horror
of that prison. A little maid, her small arms no more than skin slipped glovelike
on bones, her eyes great, gray, and blankly open. Ingvarna took the strange child
from the smith as one who had the
authority of clan and home hearth, wrapping the little one’s thin, shivering body
in her own warm cloak.

From whence Dairine came, those of Rannock never learned. That slavers raided far
was no secret. Also, the villagers soon discovered the child was blind. Ingvarna,
though she was a Wise One, greatly learned in herbs and spells, the setting of bones,
the curing of wounds, shook her head sadly over that discovery, saying that the child’s
blindness came from no hurt of body. Rather, she must have looked upon some things
so horrible that thereafter her mind closed and refused all sight.

Though she must have been six or seven winters old, yet also speech seemed driven
from her, and only fear was left to be her portion. Although the women of Rannock
would have tried to comfort her, yet secretly in their hearts they were willing that
she bide with Ingvarna, who treated her oddly, they thought. For the Wise Woman did
not strive to make life easier in any way for the child. Rather, from the first, Ingvarna
treated the sea waif not as one maimed in body, and perhaps in mind, but rather as
she might some daughter of the village whom she had chosen to be her apprentice in
the harsh school of her own learning.

These years were bleak for Rannock. Full half the fleet did not return from out of
the maw of that storm. Nor did any of the coastwise traders come. The following winter
was a lean one. But in those dark days, Dairine showed first her skill. Though her
eyes might not see what her fingers wrought, yet she could mend fishing nets with
such cleverness that even the experienced women marveled.

And in the following spring, when the villagers husked the loquth balls to free their
seeds for new plantings, Dairine busied herself with the silken inner fibers, twisting
and turning those. Ingvarna had Herdrek make a small spindle, and showed the child
how this tool might be best put to work.

Good use did Dairine make of it, too. Her small,
birdclaw fingers drew out finer thread than any had achieved before, freer from knotting
than any the villagers had seen. Yet never seemed she satisfied, but strove ever to
make her spinning yet finer, more smooth.

The Wise Woman continued her fosterling’s education in other ways, teaching her to
use her fingers, her nose, in the herb garden. Dairine learnt easily the spelling
which was part of a Wise Woman’s knowledge. She absorbed such very quickly, yet always
there was about her an impatience. When she made mistakes, then her anger against
herself was great. The greatest when she tried to explain some tool or need which
she seemed unable to describe but for which she evinced a need.

Ingvarna spoke to Herdrek (who was now village elder), saying that perhaps the craft
of the Wise Woman might aid in regaining a portion of Dairine’s lost memory. When
he demanded why she had not voiced such a matter before, Ingvarna answered gravely:

“This child is not blood of our blood, and she was captive to the sea wolves. Have
we the right to recall to her past horrors? Perhaps Gunnora, who watches over all
womankind, has taken away her memory of the past in pity. If so—”

He bit his thumb, watching Dairine as she paced back and forth before the loom which
he had caused to be set up for her, now and then halting to slap her hand upon the
frame in frustration. It seemed as if she longed to force the heavy wood into another
pattern which would serve her better.

“I think that she grows more and more unhappy,” he agreed slowly. “At first she seemed
content. Now there are times when she acts as a snow cat encaged against her will.
I do not like to see her so.”

The Wise Woman nodded. “Well enough. In my mind, this is a right choice.”

Ingvarna went to the girl, taking both her hands, drawing her around so that she might
look directly into
those blind eyes. At Ingvarna’s touch, Dairine stood still. “Leave us!” the Wise
Woman commanded the smith.

Early that evening as Herdrek stood at his forge, Dairine walked into the light of
his fire. She came to him unhesitatingly. So acute was her hearing that she often
startled the villagers by her recognition of another presence. Now she held out her
hands to him as she might to a father she loved. And he knew all was well.

By midsummer, when the loquths had flowered and their blossoms dropped, Dairine went
often into the fields, fingering the swelling bolls. Sometimes she sang, queer, foreign-tongued
words, as if the plants were children (now knee height, and then shoulder height)
who must be amused and cherished.

Herdrek had changed her loom as the girl suggested might be done. From Ingvarna, she
learned the mysteries of dyes, experimenting on her own. She had no real friend among
the few children of the dying village. Firstly, because she did not range much afield,
save with Ingvarna, of whom most were in awe. Secondly, because her actions were strange
and she seemed serious and more adult than the years they believed to be hers.

In the sixth year after her coming, a Sulcar ship put in at Rannock, the first strange
vessel they had sighted since the wreck of the slaver. Its captain brought news that
the long war was at last over.

The defeat of the Karsten invaders, who so drained the powers of the rulers of Estcarp,
had been complete. Koris of Gorm was now Commander of Estcarp, since so many of the
Guardians had perished when they turned the full extent of their power upon the enemy.
Yet the land was hardly at peace. The sea wolves of the coast had been augmented by
ships of the broken and defeated navy of Karsten. And as in times of chaos, other
wolfheads, without any true lands or allegiance, now ravaged the land wherever they
might. Though the forces under Captain
General Koris sought to protect the boundaries, yet to clearly defeat such hit-and-run
raids was yet well beyond the ability of any defending force.