I had heard of such curses—illness of spirit attacking those who wittingly or unwittingly intruded upon some one of the pools of old evil, reflecting in the body the ill of soul. It would require very great power to defeat such. But this was the first time among the Vupsall I had come across any sign of some brush with the ancient ills of Escore.
There was a sudden clashing from without a loud, metallic clatter which startled me. From the women arose in answer a crooning song. Ifeng? Had my bridegroom come to claim me? But not yet! I had not had time to prepare. What might I do? And I lost most of my sureness in that moment.
“Ifeng comes.” Ayllia pushed closer, though I noticed she did not go too near her superior in the household. “He seeks his bride.”
“Let him enter.” There was dignity in Ausu in spite of her grotesque body.
The other women drew back against the wall, with them Ausu’s maidservant. When Ayllia did not follow them Ausu turned on her once more that glare which had force enough to move her.
Then the head wife raised her voice in a call. The flap was raised and Ifeng bowed his head beneath it, coming to Ausu’s right. Her puffy hand groped out and he held his hard brown one where she might take it, though neither of them looked to the other, but rather to me.
I did not read in his face what I had seen earlier in his nephew’s—that which promised me shame. Rather he was impassive, as one who went through a task set upon him by custom and which was part of the dignity and responsibility of chieftainship. But over his shoulder I saw Ayllia’s face clearly and there was no mistaking her expression: jealous rage which burned with a fierce flame.
Ifeng knelt beside the vast bulk of his first wife and now she held her left hand to me and I set mine within it, so that she brought my palm against his as earlier Utta had done. Her wheezing breath formed words I did not understand, perhaps in some archaic speech. Then her hands dropped away leaving us joined in our own grasp. Ifeng leaned farther forward and with his other hand pulled aside the metallic veil which I had draped as closely about my shoulders as I could striving to gain from it some small measure of protection against the cold. Then his fingers came down on my breasts, stripping away the paint there as one would strip away clothing. At that moment the women about the sides of the hut gave a cry which had a queer ring—not unlike that Utta had given at her death, so might they have marked some victory.
How far Ifeng proposed to go now was my growing concern. I had had no chance to take the precautions I had planned. But it seemed that the ceremony was now at an end. And, perhaps because she knew I did not know their customs well, Ausu courteously gave me the clue I needed as to the next step, and one which would carry out my own desires.
“The plate and cup now to be shared, sister. And to this tent blessing. . . . ”
The maid and women swooped forward and hoisted her to her feet. I arose also to do her honor, bowing her out of the tent. Ayllia had already vanished, probably so angered by my new tie with her lord that she had no wish to witness more.
Ifeng was seated on one of the cushions when I returned and I went straightaway to Utta’s chest of herbs. From it I took some dried leaves which could turn one of their ordinary brews into a fine feast-drink. These I added to the goblets which were brought on a tray to the door of the tent and shoved under the flap as if no one would now disturb us.
When he saw what I did Ifeng’s eyes lighted, for Utta’s stores were relished. And he waited with greedy eagerness while I dropped a few more leaves into his goblet, stirred them well with a rod.
It is not always necessary to say a spell aloud; the will being directed toward the needed result is what matters most. And my will was firm that night, the firmer for my need. I added nothing Ifeng could see except an herb he knew well, but what I added by thought was the first step in my plan of salvation.
At least Utta had not tied me in this as she had with the mat runes. Ifeng drank; he ate from the plate we shared. Then he nodded and slept. And from Utta’s chest I took a long thorn of bright red. About that I wrapped two hairs pulled living from my head, and I spat upon it, saying certain words against which Ifeng’s ears were now safely closed.
When it was prepared I thrust it deep into the hide cushion which supported his head, then I began weaving a dream. It was not easy to imagine that which one has never experienced, and I dared not let myself doubt that I was succeeding. But as Ifeng turned and muttered in his sleep he dreamed as well as I could set in his mind that in truth he had taken a wife and set his hand and body upon her.
Had it been so with Utta? I wondered when I was done and sat exhausted, watching him sleep in the thin glow of the netted insects. Was this how she had been wife to chiefs and yet still a Wise Woman? It would be tested when he awoke, the sureness of dream weaving.
VI
The night was long and I had much time for thinking, also to foresee some of the perils which might now lie in wait. Utta had taught, or retaught me much, that I knew. But she had left, either by design or because we were not originally of the same order of Wise Women, blanks in my knowledge which could make me as a wounded warrior striving to defend a stretch of wall where he could only use one arm, and that the left, when the right was natural to him.
She had not given me back my foreseeing. And of all the talents the Vupsall might call upon me to display, that was perhaps the most important. I wondered more and more concerning that lack of preparation on Utta’s part. Had she feared I might use the mind touch which was a part of it to bring aid from the Valley? Yet she had made no seeress of her people, bereft of the gift which would mean the most to them.
Ifeng slept on. I crept across the tent, reversed the rune mat, to read again the lines set there which bound me to those people. At the same time I searched my memory for all which pertained to such spells, their making and breaking.
There are many ways for a Wise Woman of Power to bind one (especially one who has lesser talent than herself, or who may be ignorant of such matters altogether). Such as to present something of value to the victim. If he accepts, then he is yours until you see fit to release him. But for the lesser dabbler in power that has one side danger—if he chances to refuse the gift the spell recoils upon the sender. There is a kind of overlooking with the proper spells, a weaving of dreams to drive someone from his body and make two entities slave to the witch, the soulless body and, in another world, the bodiless soul.
But mainly these were matters of the Shadow, and I knew that Utta, one-minded as she had been for the welfare of her adopted people, had not depended upon the light, nor the dark for her powers. No, if I were to break these runes to escape (and that I must do speedily) then it must be by some of Utta’s own learning.
And I doubted whether my newly awakened skills could do that—yet. As in all arts practice is an aid; one advances in skill by the use of it. I crept back to Ifeng, listened closely to his breathing. He no longer dreamed the dreams I had sent him; rather was he now in a deep sleep which would hold him yet awhile. Moving with what care I could, I put off the bridal robe, folding it carefully. Now I stood with none of their making on my chilled body, scraping the remains of the paint from my breasts, putting aside all that was of the tribe. I must have nothing about me to tie me to these people, for I would try a piece of magic which I feared too great for my limping skill, but which was my only chance to foresee even a little.
There is this: any object which has been used by a human being takes to itself some impression of that owner. Though most of Utta’s personal belongings had gone with her into the tomb pit, yet I had what lay in the two chests, which were part of her magic.
Shivering in the cold, I knelt by the box where I had found those scrolls with the unreadable runes. At least in handling all from the chest I had learned this much, that of all Utta had left there was the greatest concentration of Power in those.
I brought them forth, and sat, holding one in each hand, trying to make my mind an empty pool, a mirror, waiting
to be filled, to bear some reflection which could come from these things.
There was a stir—slow, reluctant, thin—as if so long a time had passed between that day and this that only a shadow of a shadow of a shadow could be summoned, despite all striving to bring it into clear focus.
I was not a mirror, rather did I look upon a mirror which was befogged by mist. Yet in that things moved dimly; dusty, dusky figures came and went. It was no use! I could not make them clear.
The containers in my hands grew heavier, dragging down my arms. Against the uncovered skin of my body they were icy cold, so that I shuddered.
If not the encased rolls, then what of the rolls themselves? One I laid aside, the other I opened, brought forth the scroll. This I took in both hands, lowered my head that I might press my forehead to a surface which felt like a long dried leaf.
Now—
I might almost have cried out at the sharp picture leaping into my mind had not long discipline warned me. It was a filling right enough, but such a filling, whirling about wildly, scenes which flashed so fast I could not grasp their significance. Lines of formulas, columns of runes came and went before I could guess their meaning. There was no reason, logic, nor sequence to this. It was as if someone had emptied a vast amount of poorly related material into an empty bin, and stirred it vigorously about.
I dropped the roll, thrust it back into its container. Then I put my hands to my head where that whirling of ill-timed, ill-sorted odds and ends of learning started such a pain as I had felt upon my first coming to the Vupsall camp. Nor could I at that moment advance further in my trial and error searching for Utta’s secrets. I was suddenly so tired that I could not keep my eyes open. Almost, I thought with a small surge of unease, as if I had drunk such a cup as I had put in Ifeng’s hands and was now about to follow him into a dream world.
I pulled myself together long enough to dress in the clothing I had laid aside when they had given me the marriage robe, though I moved sluggishly. Drawing one of the hooded cloaks about me, I fell back rather than laid me down, to sleep. And I had been right: I dreamed.
There was a castle, a keep as great, or so it seemed, as that citadel which centered Es City. It was the largest work of men’s hands I had ever seen. In parts it was as solid as the stones of Es, yet other parts shimmered, came and went, as if they had substance in this world, yet in another also. Though I knew that, I did not understand the why or how of it.
And there was one who wrought all this, both by the work of the hands of those he commanded, and by Power. The master here was no Wise Woman, but an adept who was far more than warlock or wizard. And the castle was only the outer casing of something which was strange and of greater power than the walls about it.
I saw him, sometimes as only a shadow thing, as I had seen when I held the tube to me, and again as clear as if he stepped at intervals from behind some veil held about him by spells. He was of the Old Race, and yet there was that about him which argued that he was partly of another time and place.
He was working with Power, and I saw him do things as if he gathered up the raw strings of force to weave them and shape them this way and that into a pattern obeying his desires. He moved confidently, as one who well knows what he would do and has no fear that it shall not follow his desire. Watching him I knew a bitter envy. So once had I almost known the same sureness, before I had become one to creep blindly where I would have run.
Under his feet runes burst in lines of fire, and the very air about him was troubled by the words he uttered, or the strength of his thought sendings. This was greater than aught I had ever seen, though it had been given me once or twice to watch the most powerful of the Wise Women at their spelling.
Now that I saw all his weaving and building was centered in the hall in which he worked, the lines of the runes, the troubling and stirring of the air gathered into one place. Finally there was to be seen there, standing straight, an archway of light. And I knew that what my dream showed me was the creation of one of those gateways to another world which are to be found in this ancient, sorcery-steeped land. That they existed was well known, but that they were created by adepts, that we had learned only after we had come into Escore. Now I had witnessed the opening of one.
He stood there, his feet planted a little apart, his arms suddenly flung up and back in a gesture which was wholly human, one of triumph. The calm concentration on his face became fierce exultation. But, having his gate, he did not hurry to enter it.
Rather did he retreat from it step by step, though I saw no sign that his confidence ebbed. I believe that he felt then some unease which kept him from any rash leap into the unknown. So he seated himself on a chair and sat there, looking at the gate, his hands folded palm to palm, raised so that his steepled fingers touched his pointed chin, his look of one deep in thought or planning.
While he sat so considering his creation, I continued to watch him, as if the man himself and not the sorcery in which he had been engaged had drawn my dreaming. As I have said, he was of the Old Race, or was at least a hybrid of that breeding. Was he young—old? No age touched him. He had the body of a man of action, a warrior, though he wore no sword. His robe was gray and belted tightly about his narrow middle with a sash of scarlet along which rippled lines of gold and silver. If one fastened attention on them long enough, these lines seemed to take the form of runes, yet they glowed quickly and faded before one could read them.
He appeared to come to some decision, for he arose and held up his hands a little apart. As he brought them together with a sharp clap I saw his lips move. And in answer that gateway disappeared and he was in a steadily darkening hall. But it was in my mind that having so wrought once he could do it again, that his triumph remained.
But it would seem that my dream had only this much to show within that hall. Then I was outside, going down a passage, and between great towering gates on which crouched creatures out of nightmares; they turned their heads to look solemnly upon me as I passed, yet I knew they were bound against harming such as I.
That journey was in such detail that I thought, should I, waking, come upon that same place I would know it instantly and be able to find my way again into that hall, as if I had been born within those walls and lived there through my childhood.
The reason for my dream I did not know, though such dreaming is always sent for a purpose. I could only believe, when I awakened, that it had sprung from my attempt to “read” the scroll. My head still ached with a pain which made the morning light a torment to my eyes. But I sat up with a jerk and looked to where Ifeng slept. He was stirring and I lurched quickly to him, drew forth the thorn, hiding it in the hem of my cloak, and then sank back as he opened his eyes.
He blinked, and, as intelligence came back into his face, he smiled oddly with a kind of shyness which sat oddly on such a man.
“Fair morning . . . ”
“Fair morning, leader of men.” I gave him formal greeting in return.
He sat up on the cushions and looked about him as if he were not quite sure of where he had rested that night. For a moment or two I was wary, wondering if the dream I had spun for him had been so badly woven that he would know it for a dream. But it would seem that I need not have feared, for now he bowed his head in my direction and said, “Strength grows strength, Farseeing One. I have taken your gift to me and we shall be great always, even as it was under Utta’s hand.” Then he made a gesture with two fingers crossed which was common to his people when they spoke of the dead, so warding off any ill from naming those gone before. He went from me as a man well satisfied in the doing of some duty.
But if the dream satisfied Ifeng and those of the tribe he must have reassured with his account of that night, it also made me an enemy—this I was not long in discovering. For, after the custom, I was visited during the morning by the senior and chief women of the tribe, all bringing gifts. Ausu did not come to me since I had made it clear that we were equal in Ifeng’s family, but Ayllia was th
e last to visit my tent.
She came alone, and when I was alone, as if she had waited until there was none to witness our meeting. And when she entered, her hostility was like a dark cloud about her. So much had my powers advanced that I could so read danger when I met it face to face.
Alone among her people she seemed in no awe of my sorcery. It was almost as if she could herself look into my mind and know how little I really knew. Now she did not sit, nor did she give me any formal greeting. But she flung with force, so that it struck the ground before me and burst open, spilling forth its contents, a small box cunningly and beautifully fashioned. And the necklace it had held was a great work of art.
“Bride price, elder one.” Her mouth twisted as if the words she spoke tasted bitter. “With Ausu’s welcome—”
I dared not allow her this insolence. “And yours, younger sister?” I asked coldly.
“No!” She dared that denial, though I noted she held her voice prudently low. For some reason she was wrought to strong anger, but she still had prudence in that she did not want those who might listen to know ill feeling lay so nakedly between us.
“You hate me,” I put the matter bluntly; “why?”
Now she did come to her knees so that her face was nearer on a level to mine. She thrust her head forward so that I could see the congestion of fury darkening it, the small flecks of spittle at the corners of her wide mouth.
“Ausu is old; she is ruler in Ifeng’s tent only in small things. She is sick—she no longer cares.” The words came forth in a rush bringing mouth moisture with it to touch my cheek. “I”—her fist beat against her gaudily painted breast—“I am chief in Ifeng’s sight, or was. Until your witchery stole his mind. Aye, dealer in spells, blast me, turn me into a worm to be crushed beneath the boot, to a hound to draw a sled, to a stone to lie unheeding—better would that be to me than what I am now in the tent of Ifeng.”
And I knew she spoke the truth. In her rage of jealousy she would rather have me enchant her as she believed I could rather than take her place and leave her to watch what she believed to be my triumph over her. It was the courage of complete despair and envy past bearing which led her to defy the person she thought I was.