I saw a village of stone-walled houses and forms moved among those, but again I did not want to look upon faces. So my journey continued farther eastward from the sea. There was a river and across, it the remains of a bridge and from that led still a road, one of the straight tracks which the Old Ones knew. While the land that led into was like unto an Estcarp where no war had come.
High on a rise above that road was a place which my heart leaped with joy to look upon. To it I would have gone, to give all that I had and take again that which I most needed. Only this I could not do and I knew that the time was not yet but, as always, farseeing had favored me.
Then I opened my eyes and what I saw was that skull face and it was laughing, its direful eyes upon me. I was sure Laqit had seen through my talent for that future voyaging, but she was dismissing all of it as a dream which would never bear fruit.
Whether I actually saw her or hot I was never afterwards sure. But that she did know I had been questing and what I had seen I never doubted. Now her head was gone like a snap of the fingers. The axe man had vanished also. A moment later he came about from the other side of the cube. He was no longer smoking. Instead he had in his hand a length of carved wood, a little shorter than his forearm, and as he strode, along the far side of the figures he had drawn, he shook that. The wood bore two thongs on which were sprung bones or teeth and those rattled together in time to his pacing.
Back up the stairs were coming the four others of our command against the enemy. Lord Simon, hand on sword hilt, though it was not steel which would win this engagement now before us, Kemoc, Orsya, and the Lady Jaelithe. It was she who carried in one hand a small pouch which she offered me.
There was grey sky to the east; our messenger had made better time than we had dared hope. It remained to be seen if the weapon he had brought was indeed that—arms to serve us—or whether I had guessed wrongly. But that I had not foreseen. Also I shut out of my mind what I had foreseen, the destruction of the cube, so that it might not bring any of us to grief as such seeings had done for me in the past.
I opened the bag and shook its contents free into my other hand. In the gathering light gems caught light from my jewel and brilliant sparks flew from them. The necklace I wrapped about my hand so that it would hold the other pieces against my flesh. I stood before the cube but first I looked to those five others who shared danger with me, for I was certain that, even if mine was the first move against the enemy, they would be a part of what would happen.
As Kemoc had done I advanced to the side of the cube, setting there my feet a little apart, bracing my full body as sturdily as I could. Then I leaned forward a little and put the hand which held the jewels against a surface which had not the feel of honest stone but rather a sleekness which made one think of slime and abominations. I loosed mind search.
I might have stepped on into the embrace of that dark evil. There seemed to be no solid barrier anymore. What lay within was a constant tumult, like the rushing of identities to and fro. I thought of Chief leaping into some narrow space containing a multitude of mice all of which strove to escape but found no way open.
To fasten on any one of those faints stricken, dying identities (for dying: they truly were) would avail me nothing. No, I might even be drawn also to the same fate. There was only one chance—
My thought had been a signal. Where my right hand might be, though I could not see it, there came a glow, first the merest trace of light, and then a small but steady flame. In my mind I fixed the picture thought of the I gems—and bent all my Power (how much I might call upon now I could not guess) upon the summoning of she who had hidden that treasure.
Those entrapped still spun and fled here and there, mindless in the last emotion left to them, abiding fear, on the very edge of madness, but not across terror, for this thing fed upon their thoughts and mad, thoughts lost much of their nourishment.
The gems—I mind-pictured them again—not now in my hand held but rather on one whose face I had never seen and could not know. Around the throat the necklace, at the ears, on the finger the flash of jewels growing ever brighter.
She was there! I need not construct a thought shape to wear them; she who owned them claimed them. Straightway I plunged on into that one mind which the gem-brought memory had cleared.
There still abode fear, but another part of her thought caught mine.
Just as the blazing stone of Gunnora proved an anchor for me, so was what I offered fighting the wildness of her despair. Gifts—gifts of honor, or love—some of her thoughts were plain and open, others sealed to me. However, for now that which had her captive no longer played with her.
She was strong, was that stranger. The jewels were in deed a key for her, turning in a lock so that she could see a measure of freedom beyond this hell in which she ran captive and near mad.
Knowledge flashed between us. First she, asked had freedom come? And I was forced to tell her in the openness of mind to mind that all freedoms save one were closed to her. I feared that I might lose her when I said that. She indeed retreated as one looking from side to side to find a way out.
Then she proved that she was indeed strong. For her thought caught mine and held tightly to it. If not freedom, save what lies beyond the last gate of all—then what was to be hers?
Again there could be no dissembling between us. I thought of what must be done and I felt her mind grow hard and as keen as the blade of a sword as I stretched put before her the dangerous game which we must play—nor could I promise anything for its ending except hope.
There was anger in her and that was now fully awake. Women who have seen all they cherish fall in a raided village can rise to those heights of rage—it is cold, not hot, and it is deadly. I knew what the Witches had felt when they prepared to turn the mountains upon invaders. This was anger which could well be a potent weapon.
“Do what must be done!” That was an order and it was followed by a promise: “I shall do the same.”
I sensed her reaching out to those silent, yet screaming, identities, searching, finding one, trapping it with fierce promise. Then I was without the cube, blinking in the rising sun.
They stood waiting even as they had been positioned when I left them. Though another had been added. Chief stalked forward, his ears, flattened against his skull, his tail enlarged as was a ridge of fur along his back, and he yowled a fierce war cry. Before I could move he was past me, his nose pressed tightly to the cube. I heard him yowl” again but the cry sounded muffled as if it came from far away.”
When I stooped to pick him up he struck at me with unsheathed claws, leaving red rails on my forearm, and I loosed him quickly. He was back again in a moment. This time I used the mind send. Only, so different were our thought patterns, I could not match his level. There was a steady core at which he was aiming and I had hope that so he had .found her and that she was doing what she could.
Thus we prepared for battle and under the sun's light we marched, mind with mind, to front that which had never been meant to be and must now vanish forever, if such as we were strong enough to stand against it—and if she within could indeed arouse one other, perhaps more to our cause.
Lord Simon drew his sword, putting it point down into a crack in the rock, his hands clasped over its plain cross hilt. Kemoc had also bared steel, his head was well back and up, he was looking towards the sky as if there hung the weapon he favored. By his side Orsya twirled her ribbon, shuffling the shells along it, her lips also moving as if she told some tale of numbers. The Lady Jaelithe's hands were up; I saw what she held in one was that rod I had found in the wilderness but along it circles, tight rings of blue, speeding ever faster, to spring from its end into the air.
The axe man held that mighty weapon in one hand, in the other the rattle, and the sound of that broke through air which was suddenly heavy and stagnant, full of foulness.
I? I had Gunnora's jewel and what more within me I could not tell, only that it was growing. Chief drew himself
away from the cube, retreating, still hissing, now and then, growling. A strange band of warriors were we indeed; all we had in common was purpose.
On the side of the cube formed that circle of light, the skull, and then the fleshed head of Laqit. She was smiling and she favored each of us, even Chief, with a long, measuring stare.
“Little ones, flesh and blood, captive to the final gate—tied and held within one life—”
She mocked. We listened.
There was a fearsome crack of sound from above us and lightning struck—but not straight—deflected so it hit the cliff to the west. I saw Kemoc's face white under the mask of weatherbrowning and I knew that it was his Power which had broken that aim.
“The dead lie down with the dead and are at peace.” Words came to me and I said them. My belief that I was now a Voice grew stronger. “Peace be with you, Laqit. He for whom you keep this gate is long since gone, nor will he return. Be at peace.”
In that moment I knew that it was will in the greater part which held this danger together. The will of one long gone, the will of her who should be dead.
She spat much as Chief had done. The cube seemed to swell. Over us swept the edge of a thrust of energy which, had it hit us full on, might well have blasted us into nothingness—but Laqit could fight only in the design set for her.
There was a rumbling to the east. The ground under us quivered. A portion of the cliff was loosened and fell away.
“Now!” Lady Jaelithe's word reached me. My mind struck farther. I sought for her within the cube, touched—and then there was a barrier which crashed down between us.
We struck Into the face I hurled all which was Gunnora's, growth, harvest, love and being, life and death, which is only another gate, peace and all the fair things of the world. Thrusts, of light burst from Lady Jaelithe's fingers to strike the wall. Kemoc shouted and his voice filled the heavens as if all thunder known to our world answered him, while from the sky came lashing of lightning, not striking toward us but against the cube. The axe man twirled his weapon above his head; it might have been only fancy but I thought I saw giant figures resembling those he had drawn upon the rock come, each from a different direction, and their square-fingered hands reached for the cube.
Orsya whirled high her shell-tied strip of reed and again I felt a trembling under my feet. But what moved there were new courses of water hunting ways which led them under the cube.
So did we fight. But there were others. I knew when she who was prisoner within launched her own battle. Three of those otters she had won to her, and united they stood. When the demand fell upon them for energy, they denied it. More and more and more anger beat—still they stood—though with each onslaught they weakened.
I saw Laqit's face twist, first with rage, and then in fear, and lastly in death, as such as she would know death, having surrendered her being to another way. Lightning struck full on the cube just as each of those giants from the sand paintings delivered also a blow.
There was a crack. I reached within, holding what Gunnora had to offer. She who fought did not claim it yet, but there were others and swiftly did that peace go to each whom the gate had not fully drained, last of all to her who watched me and smiled. She made a gesture and a bit of glitter came toward me. I threw back what I found now in my hands—flowers such as the Dales maidens wear at their bridals and are given them again at their last going forth. I saw her hands close about those and she was gone—there were no more half lives left.
But there was still Laqit. From something she had built a body, though it was skeleton thin, and her head was pulled to one side. She came striding from the cube towards me.
“I always hated you.” Her voice in my mind was a scream. “I swore that I would bring you down. There was, no other reason for—” She gestured to the cube behind her where cracks ran now along the walls. “He promised me that I would in the end have you. And Yahnon was known to always keep promises. Therefore—”
She leaped for me, her bone arms out, her pointed fingers reaching for my throat. Out of nowhere there sprang a black-furred body. It struck full upon her shoulders and she did not reach me, rather fell at my feet.
“Go in peace.” I knelt beside her and my jewel shed its light on her body so I saw how under its flash she appeared firm and smooth and how she became all woman and no longer a thing of horror.
She writhed over on her back and looked up at me.
“I—always-—hated—you—'’ she said. “Leave me that—just leave me that!”
Then she was gone and there was only dust mingling with the colored sands.
There was no more thunder. Those giants who had come at the axe man's call were gone. The cube was falling in upon itself. From the center of it there upsprang a fountain and I smelled the flowers of springtime and not the stench of ancient, death.
Thus was the gate closed and those it had slain were freed. Much came of our questing. The Sulcar ships sailed south and they found wonderful strange cargoes in the dead ships of the bay. Varn also ventured to that harvest and enough was recovered to rebuild much of their destroyed city.
The Lady Jaelithe and Kemoc set guards where the cube had been. They believed that it had indeed once opened the gate according to pattern but during the years had grown erratic—it needed always life force to feed it. That Yahnon Laqit had spoken of must have indeed followed a darksome path to have created such a thing.
There was one thing from the ruins which Chief brought to me. He had gone sniffing and hunting there, the first of us to dare such entrance—seeking I am sure one to whom he had been more than friend. When he returned he stopped before me and dropped what he held in his mouth—the ring from the set of jewels. That I slipped on my finger, which it fitted, and kept in memory of a very gallant one.
The axe man chose to stay, in the place a handful of survivors had found after they escaped from the mist. We made a visit there but I did not see any among them like those with whom I had shared my own adventure though diere was a man with down upon him who said that his mother, her brother, and his father had escaped together—so time defeated that wish of mine.
When plans were made for going north I made plain that I would stay. I had never had a place of my own—though now both the Lady Jaelithe and Orsya wished me with them. Instead I told them a little of that last foreseeing and of the search I must make for that place which is truly mine.
“Be it so,” the Lady Jaelithe said then, “Voice, for we each have her own place and happy and lucky are we who find it.” I saw her then look at her lord and there was that in her eyes which told me where her place lay.
This I have written at the bequest of Kemoc that it might be carried to Lormt and there set with the chronicles which will tell the history of all happenings for those coming after. Tomorrow Chief and I take the eastern trail which lies so plain in my mind, and so shall we both come to our true inheritance.
That a place of such menace as that eater of life force from captured seafarers could exist was a strong warning that much might haunt our world of which we knew nothing. That it bad been destroyed was indeed a blow against the ancient Dark and I set the account of she who now calls herself the Voice of Gunnora to the fore for the noting of those who will themselves begin new ventures. For with Kemoc and Ouen it was my thought that other such traps might well he bidden. Since after all we appear now to know very little beyond the world wherein we ourselves travel.
Still, after Kemoc and his lady bad ridden on to Escore, I was not given much time to meditate upon such speculations for within a ten days after Kemoc's going there came another needing my aid. He was a Falconer and such had not ridden our way before (save for Pyra and she was no dour fighting man). Still I had met his comrades among the Borderers and had always felt well disposed towards them—though as all men they varied. Some being more approachable and others not welcoming any gesture of goodwill from those beyond their closed units.
This one wished of us histories con
cerning his own people. This also had been a mission of Pyra'a but I knew better than to call his attention to her. In fact she made some excuse to ride out the day after his arrival to go herb bunting. The strange situation between the Falconers and their women bad long been a topic of gossip in our land and a matter of much speculation, some of it often lurid but never voiced near any of the breed.
The bird of this one bespoke Galerider and that awakened the man's closer interest in me, I think. One night when he was wearied of much searching and little reward for that, he came to my quarters, which astounded me a little. The Falconers, even those best disposed to outsiders, seek no close speech beyond their own ranks. But sometimes the need to talk comes on a man and thus I recognized it was for him. I listened—still all his story I did not then bear from him because he saw it through his eyes only. The rest I gained in another way later on and it was indeed a. tale which made even plainer how the travail of the mountain changes had altered our world.
Seakeep
by
P. M. Griffin
1
There was no need of a fire this fair into the spring, at least not by day. At night, it was another matter. Damp and sea cold still made themselves felt once the sun's warmth was gone, and so logs had been laid at ready in the hearth of the Holdlady's sleeping chamber to combat them.
Una's eyes shifted from the waiting wood to the smoke-blackened stone wall behind it. The absence of the familiar light and heat depressed rather than soothed her, and she quickly turned away again.
She sighed in her heart. She had reason in plenty for her low spirits, and she could not close out her bleak thoughts, as she had the sight of the idle fireplace. The situation before her must be faced, and the decisions she made would mold not only her own fate and future but those of the people dependent upon her.
She did not think to rebel against the responsibility laid on her. She had grown accustomed to that weight, having carried it, with more than passing success, for year after year until she could scarcely recall save as a sort of distant dream the long-past days before war and the miseries that were its outriders had descended upon the Dales of High Hallack.