Wizards’ Worlds (28 page)

“It is not for you—”

Tursla did not need Mafra to tell her what was not for
her. But in her was the heat of shame, and also a little anger. For she had not chosen
to be what she was; that fate had instead been thrust upon her from the hour of her
birthing.

“What then is for me, Clan Mother? Am I to go unfulfilled and give no new life to
this House?”

“You must seek your own fulfillment, moth-child. It lies not among us. Yet there is
a purpose in what you are and a greater purpose in what awaits you—out there.” Mafra’s
hand pointed to the open door of the House.

“Where do I find it, Clan Mother?”

“Seek and it will find you, moth-child. Part of it already lies within you. When that
awakes you will learn and learning—know.”

“This is all you will tell me then, Clan Mother?”

“It is all I can tell you. I can foresee for the rest. But between your spirit and
mine rolls a mist thicker and darker than any Tormarsh gives birth to in the night.
There is this—” She hesitated a long time before she spoke again.

“Darkness lies before us all, moth-child. We who foresee can see, in truth, only one
of many paths. From every action there issues at least two ways, one in which one
decision is followed, one in which it is made in opposition to that. I can see that
such a decision now lies before the folk. Ill, great ill may come from it. There is
one among us who chooses even now to ask for the Greater Power.”

Tursla gasped. “Clan Mother, how can this thing be? The Greater Power comes not by
a single asking. It is called only when there is danger to all whom Volt taught.”

“True enough in the past, moth-child. But time changes all things and even a geas
may fade to a dried reed easily snapped between the fingers. Such a calling needs
blood to feed it. This I say to you now, moth-child. Go you out this night—not to
seek the place of the Shining One—there are those there who tend strange thoughts
within. Rather go where your dreams point you and do what you have learned within
those dreams.”

“My dreams!” Tursla wondered. “Are they of use, Clan Mother?”

“Dreams are born of thought—ours—or another’s. All thought is of some use. That which
entered into you at your birthing cannot be denied, moth-daughter. You are now ripe
to seek it out and deal with it. Go. Now!”

Her last word had the force of an order. Tursla still hesitated however. “Clan Mother,
have I your blessing, the good will of this House?”

When Mafra did not reply at once Tursla shivered. This was like being before the House
and seeing the door barred, shutting one out of all touch with kin and heart-ties.

But Mafra was raising her hand.

“Moth-daughter, for what it may be worth to you as you go to fulfill the future laid
before you, you have the goodwilling of this House. In return you must open your mind
to patience and to understanding. No, I will not tell this foreseeing, for you must
be guided not by any words of mine but by what comes from your own heart and mind
when you are put to the test. Now, go. Trust to what the dreams have laid in your
mind and go!”

Tursla went into the moonlight, into a world which was the black of bog-buried wood,
the silver of mist and the pallid moonlight. But where was she to go? She flung out
her arms. This night no moths came to dance with her.

Trust to what the dreams had laid in her mind. Would such point her in the direction
she must take? Following the discipline of those who used the talent, she strove to
clear her mind of all conscious thought.

Tursla began to walk, steadily, as one who has a purpose and a definite goal. She
did not turn to the east, but faced westward, her feet on the blocks of one of the
lesser roads. Though her eyes were open, she was not aware
of what she saw, or even of her moving body. Somewhere before her lay the pool of
her dreams and about it the all-important sand.

The mist clung about her like a veiling, now concealing what lay ahead, what she had
left behind. She crossed one of the islands and another. The road failed at last but
unerringly her feet found tussocks and hillocks of solid land to support her. At last
the mist itself was tattered by a wind, strong, carrying in it a scent which was not
that of the Tormarsh.

That wind awoke Tursla from her trance. She slowed to a halt at the highest point
of a hillock covered with grass, shaped like the finger of a giant, pointing due west.
The girl used both hands to keep the silk-soft strands of her hair out of her eyes.
Now the moon was bright enough to show her that this ridge of land ran on to further
rises beyond.

Then, she began to run—lightly. In her some barrier had broken and she was swallowed
up by this great need to find what lay ahead; that which had waited for her so long—so
very long!

Nor was she surprised to come at last into that very place of her dreams. Here was
the clear pool, and the sand. Though in the moonlight the colors of her dream had
been leached away, the sand was dark and so was the pool.

She tore off her robe, letting the length of cloth, spattered with the mud and slime
of her marsh journey, fall from her. But she did not allow it to drop onto the sand.
It was as if nothing must sully or mark that sand.

Nor did Tursla step upon its smooth surface. Rather she climbed a small rock just
beyond its edge and from that sprang out, to dive into the waiting water. That closed
about her body, neither cold nor hot, but rather silken smooth, caressing. It held
her as might a giant hand cupped about her, soothing, gently. She surrendered to the
water, floating on the surface of the pool.

Did she sleep then, or was she entranced by some
magic beyond the knowledge of those who had bred her? Tursla was never quite sure.
But she was aware that there came a change within her. Doors opened and would never
close again. What lay behind those doors she was not yet sure, but she was free to
explore, to use. Only the first thing—

As she lay floating on the soft cushion of the water Tursla began to hum, and then
to sing. There were no words in her song, rather she trilled as might a bird, first
gently, quietly, then with a rising—call? Yes, a call!

Though she lay with her face turned up to the sky, the moon, the stars, those far-off
night jewels, she was aware that about her was a stirring; not in the water which
cradled her, but in the sand. It was arising, partly to her will, or rather her call,
partly to the need of—of—someone.

Still Tursla sang. Now she dared to turn her head a little. There was a pillar of
sand from which came a tinkling, a faint chiming, caused as one grain of its substance
rubbed against the other in a whirl so fast it would seem that there was no sand but
only a solid column of the dark grit. Louder grew Tursla’s song, more and more the
pillar thickened. It no longer reached skyward, rather kept to a height no greater
than her own.

The contours of the pillar began to alter, to thin here, thicken there. It took on
the appearance of a statue—crude at first, a head which was a ball, a body with no
grace or shape to it. But still the sand changed, the figure it formed became more
and more humanlike.

At last the sense of movement was gone. A figure stood there on rock from which her
birth had drawn all the sleeping sand. Tursla trod water, drew into the shore, and
climbed out to front this being for whom her song had opened the door and wrought
a shaping.

Into her mind there came the name she must now speak—the name which would anchor this
other, make
sure and safe the bridge between her world and another one that she could not even
imagine, so alien was its existence.

“Xactol!”

The sand woman’s eyelids quivered, raised. Eyes which were like small red-gold coals
of fire regarded Tursla. The girl saw the rise and fall of the stranger’s breasts,
the moonlight was reflected from a dark skin as smooth seeming as her own.

“Sister—”

The word from the other was hardly more than a whisper. It held in it still some of
the sound of sand slipping over sand. But neither woman nor voice wrought any fear
in Tursla. Her open hands went out, offering kinship to the sand woman. And hands
as firm to the touch as her own caught and held, in a clasp which welcomed her in
return.

“I have hungered—” Tursla said, realizing in this moment that she spoke the truth.
Until those hands closed about hers there had been this deep lack, this hunger in
her which she had not even truly known she carried until it was so assuaged.

“You have hungered,” Xactol repeated. “Hunger no more, sister. You have come—you will
have what you seek. You shall do thereafter what must be done.”

“So be it.”

Tursla took another step forward. Their hands fell apart, but their arms were wide.
They embraced as indeed close kin welcomed one another after some long time apart.
Tursla found tears on her cheeks.

W
HAT
is asked of me?” The girl drew back from that embrace, studied the face so close
to her own. It was calm and still as the sand had been before her power had troubled
it.

“Only what you yourself choose,” came the murmured reply. “Open your mind, and your
heart, sister-one, and it shall be shown to you in the appointed time. Now—” The right
hand of the sand woman arose, and the slightly rough fingertips touched Tursla’s forehead,
held so for the space of several heart beats. Then they slid down, over the eyelids
the girl instinctively closed and again held so, before going on to her lips. The
touch withdrew, came again to her breast over the faster beating of her heart.

From each of those touches there issued an inflowing of strength so that Tursla’s
breathing quickened; she felt a kind of impatience, of a need to be busy, though with
what task she could not have said. This inflow of energy made her flesh tingle, alive
in a way she had never experienced.

“Yes—” her voice was swift, her words a little slurred. “Yes, yes! But how—and when?
Oh, how and when, sand sister?”

“The how you shall know. The when is shortly.”

“Then—then I shall find the door? I shall be free in the place of my dreaming?”

“Not so. For each her own place, sister-one. Seek not any gate until the time. There
is that for you to do here and now. The future is the threaded loom upon which there
is not yet any weaving. Sit before it, sister-kin, and fix the pattern you desire
in your mind, then take up the shuttle and begin your task. In one sense we, in turn,
are shuttles in the service of a greater purpose and we are moved to form a pattern
we cannot see, for to its weaving we are too close. We can know the knotting and the
breakage and perhaps even mend and reweave a little—but we are not that Great One
who views it all. The time has come for you to set your portion of the pattern into
the unseen design.”

“But with you—”

“Younger sister, my bridging of the space between us cannot be held for long. We must
hasten to the task set upon us both. Your mind is open, your eyes can now see,
your lips are ready for the words, and your heart is prepared for what must come.
Listen!”

So there by the dream pool Tursla listened. It was as if her mind was as porous and
empty as one of those leaves of the draw-well, a sponge ready to be filled when one
dipped it into water. She drew in strange words, and heard stranger sounds which she
must shape her lips to form. Though that was a difficult thing, for it would seem
that some of those sounds were never meant for her to utter. Her hands moved to pattern
designs in the air. While following the movements of her fingers there remained for
an instant thereafter a faint tracing of color—that which was red-brown like the sand
which had formed the body of her teacher, or else green-blue as the pool beside which
they sat.

Again she got to her feet and moved her body in the measures of a dance—to no music
save that which seemed to be locked into her own mind. All this had a meaning, though
she was not sure what that might be, save that what she learned now was her true birthright
and also both a weapon and a tool.

At last her companion was silent and Tursla, now slumped upon the sand, felt as if
that energy which had filled her had seeped away little by little, driven out of her
again by the learning which she had so eagerly grasped.

“Sand sister, you have given me much. To what purpose? I cannot set aside Volt’s ways
and be ruler here.”

“So was never intended. In what manner you can serve these people—that you will see
from time to time. Give them what is best for their needs, but not openly, not claiming
for yourself any powers. Give it only when such giving shall not be marked. There
will be a time when your giving will set another part of the design to work—then,
oh, younger sister, give with all your heart!”

She who answered to the name Xactol and whose true form and kind Tursla only dimly
could perceive (and then only in her mind) arose. She began to turn, and that turning
became faster and faster, a blur of movement. Just as she had put on the substance
of the sand so now she lost it. Tursla covered her face with her hands, protecting
her eyes against the trails of grit which spun out and away from what was becoming
once more only a pillar.

The girl sank forward, feeling the drift of the sand over her. She was so tired, so
very tired. Let her sleep now dreamlessly, she asked something beyond, the nature
of which she recognized no more than she did the real form of Xactol. As the sand
arose about her body, covered her lightly as might a soft cloth of spider silk, she
indeed slept without dreams, even as she had petitioned to do.

It was the warmth of the midday sun beaming down upon her which roused her at last.
She sat up, sand cascading from her. The colors of her dream were here, bright—green
of pool, red of sand. But last night had not been a dream. It could not be! Tursla
gathered up a palmful of the sand and allowed it to sift between her fingers. It was
very fine, more like powder-ash than the grit she expected.