Wizards’ Worlds (18 page)

“Let her be, Wak!” That was Vidruth.

“Aye, Captain,” the other answered with a slur of sly contempt. “Here she be, safe
and sound—”

“And here she stays, Wak, safe from your kind. Get out!”

There was a growl from Wak, as if he were close to questioning the other’s right to
so order him. Then Dairine’s ears caught a sound which might have been that of a panel
door sliding into place.

“You are not the Captain,” she spoke into the silence between them.

“There has been a change of command,” he returned. “The Captain, he has not brought
us much luck in months agone. When we learned that he would not try to better his
fortune—he was—”

“Killed!”

“Not so. Think you we want a blood feud with all his clan? The Sulcarmen take not
lightly to those who let the red life out of some one of their stock.”

“I do not understand. You are all Sulcar—”

“That we are not, girl. The world has changed since those ruled the waves about the
oceans. They were fighters and fighting men get killed. The Kolder they fought, and
they blew up Sulcarkeep in that fighting, taking the enemy—but also too many of their
own—on into the Great Secret. Karsten they fought, and they were at the taking of
Gorm, aye. Then they have patrolled against the sea wolves of Alizon. Men they have
lost, many men. Now if they take a ship out of harbor, they do it with others than
just their kin to raise sails and set the course. No, we do not kill Sibbald Ortis,
we may need him later. But he is safe laid.

“Now let us to the business between us, girl. I heard the words you spoke with Ortis.
Also did I learn much about you from those starvelings who live in Rannock. You have
some of the Talents of the Wise Women, if you cannot call upon the full Power, blind
as you are. You yourself said it—if any can treat with those devil females of Usturt,
it must be one such as you.

“Think on that spider silk, girl. You held that rag that Ortis has. And you can do
mighty things, unless all those at Rannock are crazed in their wits. Which I do not
believe. This is a chance which a man may have offered to him but once in a lifetime.”

She heard the greed in his voice. And perhaps that greed would be her protection.
Vidruth would take good
care to keep her safe. Just as he held somewhere Sibbald Ortis for a like reason.

“Why did you take me so, if your intentions are good? If you heard my words to the
Captain, you know I would have gone willingly.”

He laughed. “Do you think those shore-side halflingmen would have let you go? With
three-quarters of the Guardians dead, their own Wise Woman laid also in her grave
shaft, would they willingly have surrendered to us even your small Talent? The whole
land is hard pressed now for any who hold even a scrap of the Power.

“No matter. They will welcome you back soon enough after you have learned the secret
of Usturt. If it then still be in your mind to go to them.”

“But how do you know that in Usturt I shall work for you?”

“Because you will not want the Captain to be given over to them. They do not have
a pleasant way with captives.”

There was fear behind his words, a fear born of horror, which he fought to control.

“Also, if you do not do as we wish, we can merely sail and leave you on Usturt for
the rest of your life. No ship goes there willingly. A long life for you perhaps,
girl, alone with none of your own kind—think of that.”

He was silent for a moment before he added, “It is a bargain, girl, one we swear to
keep. You deal with the weavers, we take you back to Rannock, or anywhere else you
name. The Captain, he can be set ashore with you even. No more harm done. And a portion
of the silk for your own. Why, you can buy all of Rannock and make yourself a Keep
lady!”

“There is one thing—” She was remembering Wak. “I am not such a one as any of your
men can take at his will. Know you not what happens then to any Talent I may possess?”

When Vidruth answered her, there was a deep note of menace in his voice, though it
was not aimed at her.

“All men know well that the Talent departs from a woman who lies with a man. None
shall trouble you.”

“So be it,” she returned, with an outward calm it was hard for her to assume. “Have
you the bit of silk? Let me learn from it what I can.”

She heard him move away the grate of whatever door kept snug her prison. As that sound
ceased, she put out her hands to explore. The cubby was small, there was a shelflike
bunk against the wall, a stool which seemed bolted to the deck, nought else. Did they
have Captain Ortis pent in such a hole also? And how had this Vidruth managed so well
the take-over of the Captain’s command? What she had read of Sibbald Ortis during
their brief meeting had not been such as to lead her to think he was one easily overcome
by an enemy.

But she was sitting quietly on the stool when Vidruth returned to drop the length
of riband across her quiet hands.

“Learn all you can,” he urged her. “We have two days of sail if this wind continues
to favor us, then we shall raise Usturt. Food, water, what you wish, shall be brought
to you, and there is a guard without so that you need not be troubled.”

With the silk between her hands, Dairine concentrated upon what it could tell her.
She had no illusions concerning Vidruth. To him and the others, she was only a tool
to their hands. Because she was sightless, he might undervalue her, for all his talk
of Talent and Power. She had discovered many times in the past that such was so.

Deliberately, Dairine closed out the world about her, shut her ears to creak of timber,
wash of wave, her nose to the many smells which offended it. Once more her “sight”
turned inward. She could “see” the blur of those hands (which were not quite hands)
engaged in weaving. Colors
she had no words to describe were clear and bright. For the material she saw so was
not one straight length of color, but shimmered from one shade to another.

Dairine tried now to probe beyond that shift of color to the loom from which it had
come. She had an impression of tall, dark shafts. Those were not of well-planed and
smooth wood; no, they had the crooked surface of—trees—standing trees!

The hands—concentrate now upon the moving hands of the weaver.

But the girl had only reached that point of recognition when there was a knock to
distract her concentration. Exasperated, she turned her head to the door of the cubby.

“Come!”

Again the squeak of hinge, the sound of boots, the smell of sea-wet leather and man-skin.
The newcomer cleared his throat as if ill at ease.

“Lady, here is food.”

She swirled the riband about her wrist, put out her hands, for suddenly she was hungry
and athirst.

“By your leave, lady,” he fitted the handle of a mug into her right hand, placed a
bowl on the palm of the other. “There is a spoon. It is only ship’s ale, lady, and
stew.”

“My thanks,” she said in return. “And what name do you go by, ship’s man?”

“Rothar, lady. I am a blank shield and no real seaman. But since I know no trade but
war, one venture is nigh as good as another.”

“Yet of this venture you have some doubts.” She had set the mug on the deck, kept
upright between her worn sandals. Now she seized his hand, held it to read. For it
seemed to Dairine that she must not let this opportunity of learning more of Vidruth’s
followers go, and she sensed that this Rothar was not of the same ilk as Wak.

“Lady"—his voice was very low and swift—"they say that you have knowledge of herb
craft. Why then has
Vidruth not taken you to the Captain that you may learn what strange, swift illness
struck him down?”

There was youth in the hand Dairine held and not, she believed, any desire to deceive.

“Where lies the Captain?” she asked in as low a voice.

“In his cabin. He is fevered and raves. It is as if he has come under some ensorcelment
and—”

“Rothar!” From the door, another voice sharp as an order. The hand she held jerked
free from hers. But not before she had felt the spring of fear.

“I promised no man shall trouble you. Has this cub been at such tricks?” Vidruth demanded.

“Not so.” Dairine was surprised her voice remained so steady. “He has been most kind
in bringing me food and drink, both of which I needed.”

“And having done so—out!” Vidruth commanded. “Now"—she heard the door close behind
the other—“what have you learned, girl, from this piece of silk?”

“I have had but a little time, lord. Give me more. I must study it.”

“See that you do” was his order as he also departed.

He did not come again, nor did Rothar ever once more bring her food. She thought,
though, of what the young man had said concerning the Captain. Vidruth’s tale made
her believe that the whole ship’s company had been behind the mate’s scheme to take
command and sail to Usturt. There were herbs which, put in a man’s food or drink,
could plunge him into the depths of fever. If she could only reach the Captain, she
would know. But there was no faring forth from this cubby.

Now and again Vidruth would suddenly appear to demand what more she had learned from
the riband. There was such an avid greediness in his questions that sometimes rising
uneasiness nearly broke through her control. At last she answered with what she believed
to be the truth.

“Have you never heard, Captain, that the Talent
cannot be forced? I have tried to read from this all which I might. But this scrap
was not fashioned by a race such as ours. An alien nature cannot be so easily discovered.
For all my attempts, I cannot build a mind picture of these people. What I see clearly
is only the weaving.”

When he made no answer, Dairine continued:

“This is a thing not of the body, but the mind. Along such a road one creeps as a
babe, one does not race as one full grown.”

“You have less than a day now. Before sundown, Usturt shall rise before us. I know
only what I have heard tell of witch powers, and that may well be changed by the telling
and retelling. Remember, girl, your life can well ride on your ‘seeing’!”

She heard him go. The riband no longer felt so light and soft. Rather, it had taken
on the heaviness of a slave chain binding her to his will. She ate ship’s biscuits
from the plate he had brought her. It was true time was passing, and she had done
nothing of importance.

Oh, she could now firmly visualize the loom and see the silk come into being beneath
the flying fingers. But the body behind those hands, that she could not see. Nor did
any of the personality of the weavers who had made that which she held come clear
to her, for all her striving.

Captain Ortis—he came in the reading, for he had held this. And Vidruth also. There
was a third who was more distant, lying hid under a black cloud of fear. Was this
day or night? She had lost track of time. That the ship still ran before the wind,
she sensed.

Then—she was not alone in the cubby! Yet she had not heard the warning creak of the
door. Fear kept her tense, hunched upon the stool, listening with all her might.

“Lady?”

Rothar! But how had he come?

“Why are you here?” Dairine had to wet her lips with her tongue before she could shape
those words.

“They move now to put you ashore on Usturt, lady!
Captain Ortis, he came up leaning on Vidruth’s arm, his body all atremble. He gives
no orders, only Vidruth. Lady, there is some great wrong here—for we are at Usturt.
And Vidruth commands. Such is not right.”

“I knew that I must go to Usturt,” she returned. “Rothar, if you have any allegiance
to your captain, know he is a prisoner to Vidruth in some manner, even as I have been.
And if I do not do as Vidruth says, there will be greater trouble—death—”

“You do not understand.” His voice was very husky. “There are monsters on this land.
To see them even, they say, makes a man go mad!”

“But I shall not see them,” Dairine reminded him. “How long do I have?”

“Some moments yet.”

“Where am I and how did you get here?”

“You are in the treasure hold, below the Captain’s own cabin. I have used the secret
opening to reach you as this is the first time Vidruth and the Captain have been out
of it. Now they must watch carefully for the entrance to the inner reef.”

“Can you get me into the Captain’s cabin?” If, in those moments, she might discover
what hold Vidruth had over Captain Ortis, she perhaps would be able to help a man
she trusted.

“Give me your hands, then, lady. I fear we have very little time.”

She reached out, and her wrists were instantly caught in a hold tight enough to be
painful, but she made no sound of complaint. Then she found herself pulled upward
with a vast heave as if Rothar must do this all in a single effort. When he set her
on her feet once more, she sensed she was in a much larger space. And there was the
fresh air from the sea blowing in as if through some open port.

But the air was not enough to hide from her that telltale scent—a scent of evil.

“Let me go, touch me not now,” she told Rothar. “I seek that which must be found,
and your slightest touch will confuse my course.”

Slowly she turned away from the wind, facing to her right.

“What lies before me?”

“The Captain’s bed, lady.”

Step by step she approached in that direction. The sniff of evil was stronger. What
it might be she had no idea, for though Ingvarna had taught her to distinguish that
which was of the shadow, she knew little more. The fetid odor of some black sorcery
was rank.

“The bed,” she ordered now, “do you strip off its coverings. If you find aught which
is strange, be sure you do not touch it with your hand. Rather, use something of iron,
if you can, to pluck it forth. And then throw it quickly into the sea.”

He asked no questions, but she could hear his hurried movements. And then—

“There is a—a root, most misshapen. It lies under the pillow, lady.”