Wizards’ Worlds (33 page)

Tursla’s robe fell about her feet. Now she stooped once more above the recumbent man,
her fingers seeking buckles,
the fastening of mail. His eyes opened and he looked up to her, puzzled.

“What—do—?”

“These—” She tugged at the mail where it lay across his shoulders, her other hand
picking at the stuff of his breeches. “Off—we must go where these cannot be worn.”

He blinked. “One of the Old Powers?” he asked.

Tursla shrugged. “I know not of your Old Powers. But I know a little of what we can
summon here. If—” She put her forefinger to her mouth and bit upon that as she considered
a point which had only that moment occurred to her. This place would welcome her,
had welcomed her, because she was what she was (and what in truth was she? one small
part of her now asked. But the time for any such questioning was not now). Would he
also be accepted? There was no way of proving that except to try.

“We must—” She made the decision firm—"do this thing. For I have no other way of escape
for you.”

She helped his fumbling hands with the fastenings, the clasps, and belting, until
his body with the wide powerful shoulders, the long arms which marked him as of Torblood,
was bare. Then she pointed to the rock from which she had leaped that other time.

“Do not tread upon the sand,” she cautioned. “Not while it lays thus. We must leap
from there—into the pool.”

“If I can—” but he pulled himself along as she mounted the rock.

Out she leapt and down. Once more that water closed about her. But she moved swiftly
away toward the farther side of the pool, clearing the spot where he should land.
Then she looked up as she trod water.

“Come!”

His body looked as white as the mist curling behind him. He had climbed onto the stone
she had just quitted, and she saw his muscles tense. Then he stretched out his arms
and dove, cleaving the water with a loud splash.

Tursla turned on her back and floated as she had before. He was no longer her charge,
for she had brought him to what safety her instinct told her was all they could hope
for, and the pool had not repelled him.

Tursla, her eyes up to the sky which she could see through ragged patches of mist
which was being tattered by the sea wind, began to sing—without words—the notes rising
and falling like the call of some bird.

A
S
before at her call that sand stirred. The girl could feel no wind, yet the grains
of powdery stuff arose, began to twirl as she had seen them on that night. A pillar
was born, now moving faster and faster, each turn making it more solid to the eye.
Now came the rounding of a head, the modeling of the body below that.

Still Tursla sang her hymn without words as the vessel was formed to hold that which
she summoned. She had half forgotten Simond. If he watched in astonishment he made
no sound to disturb the voice spell she wove with the same certainty as her hands
could follow a design upon her loom.

At last Xactol stood there. Seeing her waiting, Tursla came from the pool, standing
erect on stone from which the forming of that other had swept the last minute grain
of sand.

“Sand sister—” The girl raised her arms, but did not quite embrace the other.

“Sister—” echoed the other, in her hissing, sand-sliding voice. “What is your need?”
Now her hands came forth also and Tursla’s lay palm down upon them, flesh meeting
sand.

“There is this one.” Tursla did not turn her head to look upon Simond in the water
still. “He is hunted. They must not find him.”

“This is your choice, sister?” inquired that other. “Think well, for from such a choice
may come many things you could have reason to look upon as ills in the future.”

“Ills alone, Xactol?” asked the girl slowly.

“Nothing is altogether ill, sister. But you must think of this—you are now of Tor.
If you go forth there will be no return. And those of Tor are not well looked upon
by the Outlanders.”

“Of Tor,” Tursla repeated. “Only part of me, sand sister. Only part of me. Even as
it is with him. I have the body of Tor but the—”

“Do not say it!” commanded Xactol, interrupting her sharply. “But even if it be so,
Tor body may betray you. There is a spell set upon the Marsh boundaries. Torfolk cannot
go forth—and live.”

“And this one?”

“He is divided. He was drawn in by the spelling of Tor, for there was that in him
which answered to such a call. But his outland blood will help him to win forth again.
Do you try to go with him—” Now it was the woman of sand who left unfinished a warning.

“What will happen to me?”

“I do not know. This spelling is none of ours. The Outlanders have their own witcheries
and their learning in such is very old and very deep. You would go at your own peril.”

“I stay at even more, sand sister. You know what cloak of safety Mafra dared to throw
over me; and, in the way they understand that claim, it is false.”

“The decision is yours. What now would you have of me?”

“Can you buy us time, sand sister? There are those who will trail us to the death.”

“That is so. Their rage and fear reaches out even to this place. It is like the mists
which they love.” The woman withdrew her right hand from where it rested under
Tursla’s. Now she raised that so that her finger touched the girl’s forehead between
and just above her eyes.

“This I give you. Use it as you will,” she said in a soft voice. “I must go—”

“Will I see you again?” Tursla asked.

“Not if this choice is yours, sister, this choice I read in your thoughts. My door
between the worlds is here alone.”

“Then I can’t—” Tursla cried out.

“But you have already chosen, sister. In your spirit’s innermost place that choice
lies. Go with peace. Accept what may lie before you with the courage of your spirit.
There is a meaning behind what has happened to you. If we don’t see it now, all will
be made clear in time. Do as you know how to do.”

Her arms dropped to her sides and Tursla fell once more to her knees, and veiled her
eyes with one hand. But the other she rested on one knee, palm up and slightly cupped.

Xactol began to turn, her spin grew ever faster. The fine sand which had formed her
whirled out and away as the body became a pillar, and the pillar, in turn, sand falling
to the rock. But in Tursla’s hand there remained a small pile of the sand.

When the rest of that substance was once more spread out upon the rim of the pool
she arose, cupping her fingers tightly about what she held. Now she hailed Simond.

“You may come forth. We must go on.”

Her head jerked around. There was a sound behind. The hunters may have been questing,
at last they had the trail. Like Xactol, she could now sense the rage and fear which
drove them. Not even her claim of being Filled would be a protection against what
moved them now. She shivered. Never before had emotions other than her own been fed
to her in this way. The alienness of this was frightening. But there was no time to
hesitate, to learn fear fostered by that hate.

Simond came ashore. He walked more steadily, his head was up, but his attention was
not for her, rather on their back trail as if he, too, had picked up some emanation
from their pursuers.

Tursla climbed the rock to where she had left her robe. She held it up in one hand
and spoke:

“Can you tear from this a portion of cloth? What I carry—” she showed him the fist
which grasped the sand-dust—"must be safe until we have need for it.”

He caught the cloth from her and tore a portion from the mud-stained hem. Into this
she emptied the sand, making a packet of it. Then she drew on her robe. But though
he had breeches and boots on now, he fastened on only the leather undershirt, left
his mail lying.

When he caught her attention he stirred the mail with his boot. “It will slow me.
Where do we go?”

“To the sea.” Already she was on her way.

The stay in the pool might have refreshed Simond’s body, brought beginning healing
to his wound, for he kept pace with her as she climbed and slipped among the rocks.
She could hear the come and go of the waves, the wind sweeping mist and marsh air
away from her.

They came to the shore. Simond looked north and then south, finally standing to face
south. “That is the way for Estcarp. Let us go—”

If I can,
she thought.
How strong is that spell laid upon the Torfolk? Does it rule body only, or body and
spirit both? Can my spirit break a bond laid upon the body?
But she asked none of this aloud.

So they sped along the sand just beyond the reach of the waves. From behind came a
shout, and a spear flashed over the wash of the water. A warning, Tursla guessed.
The hunters wanted them not dead but captive. Perhaps Unnanna still would have her
sacrifice.

Suddenly the girl gasped and cried out, stumbling back. It was as if she had run into
a wall and rebounded, her body bruised from the force of that encounter. Simond
was already several strides farther on. He whirled about at her cry and started back.

Tursla put out her hands. There was a surface there—invisible—but as tight as the
stone side of her place in the clan house. She could feel its substance.

The wall the outlanders had set about the Tormarsh! It would seem that it was indeed
a barrier she could not pierce.

“Come!” Simond was back at her side, apparently what was the wall for her did not
exist for him. He caught at her, tried to drag her on.

The force of his attempt again brought her hard against that barrier.

“No—I cannot! The spells of your people—” she gasped. “Go—they cannot follow you through
this!”

“Not without you!” His face was grim as he stood beside her. “Try by sea. Can you
swim?”

“Not well enough.” She had splashed now and then in some of the marsh pools, but to
entrust herself to the sea was another matter. Yet what choice had she? That heat
of hate behind was warning enough of what might happen!

“Come—”

“Stand!” That shout was from behind. Affric—She did not even have to look around to
know who led the hunters.

“Go—” Tursla tried to push her companion on, through that wall which was no wall for
him.

“The sea!” he repeated.

But it would seem they were too late. Another spear expertly thrown, flashed between
them, struck the unseen wall and rebounded. Tursla faced around, her hand going to
the breast of her robe, closing upon what she had brought from the pool side.

Affric, yes, and Brunwol, and Gawan. Behind them a score of others, closing in, their
eyes avid with a lust of hatred such as she had never met before. Consciously or unconsciously
they were using that hatred as a weapon,
beating at her; and the hurtful blows of it made her sway, sick and spirit wounded.

But Tursla still had strength enough to bring out the packet she had made. With one
hand she tore that open as she balanced the fold of cloth upon the palm of the other.
Now that the sand was uncovered, she raised it level with her lips and gathered a
great breath to blow it outward. As it swirled she cried aloud. Not a word, for such
spelling as this was not summoned by the words of this world. Rather she shaped a
sound which seemed to roar, even as the alarm trumpet of the Torfolk had done.

There was no sighting the disappearance of the sand that her breath had dispersed.
From the shore itself there uprose small curlings of white grit. Those began to whirl,
even as Xactol had formed her body. Higher they grew by the instant, drawing more
and more of the shore’s substance into them. But they remained pillars, not taking
on any other form. Far taller they were now than any of those who stood there.

Affric and his men backed away a little, eyeing the pillars with the uncertainty of
men who face a hitherto-unknown menace. Yet they did not retreat far, and Tursla knew
well that they still held to their deadly purpose.

The top of the tallest pillar began to nod—toward the Tormen. Tursla caught at Simond’s
shoulder. The strength that moved the pillars was draining from her. That she could
order them much longer she doubted.

“The sea!”

Had she cried that aloud, or had he read it in her mind? She was not sure. But Simond’s
arm was about her and he was striding toward the wash of the waves, bearing her with
him.

As the waves struck against her, the water rising from knee to waist, Tursla strove
still to keep her mind upon the columns of sand. But she did not turn her head to
watch how effectively her energy wrought.

There was shouting there, not now aimed at the
fugitives. Some of the voices were muffled or ceased abruptly. The water was high
about her now. Simond, sparing no glance for what might be happening on the shore,
gave an order:

“Turn on your back. Float! Leave it to me!”

She tried to do as he wanted. So far there had been no barrier. Now as she splashed
she could see the shoreline again. There was a mist. No, not a mist—that must be a
whirl of sand thick enough to half hide the figures struggling in it as if they could
not win forth from its embrace, rather were caught fast held in the storm of grit.

Then she was on her back and Simond was swimming, towing her with him. No longer did
he head out to sea, but rather altered course to parallel the shore. Tursla had held
the sand, sent it raging as long as she could. She was drained now, not able to move
to aid herself even if she had known how to swim.

That shouting grew louder. Then—

Force—force pushing her back, sending her under the water. She gasped, and the salt
flood was in her mouth, drawn chokingly into her lungs. She fought for breath. The
barrier! this was the barrier. She wanted to shout to Simond, tell him that all her
efforts were useless. There was no escape for her.

No escape! Her body, her body was sealed into Tormarsh by the spells of the outlanders!
No—hope—