“Someone is waiting for you. I can show you the face of your destiny, stranger. Would you see the face of the one who waits for you?”
He had never dreamed that it was more than a standard pitch for a few coins; amused, laughing, he had given the wrinkled old woman the coins she asked for, and followed her inside her small awning-covered canvas booth. Inside she had looked into her crystal—strange how on every world he had ever known the crystal ball was the chosen instrument of pretended far-seeing—and then, without a word, shoved the ball toward him. Still half in laughter, half in disgust, ready to walk away, Andrew had bent to see the pretty face, the shining red hair. A pitch for a high-class call-girl, he thought cynically, and was prepared to ask what the old madam was charging for the girl that day, and if she made a special price for Earthmen. Then the girl in the crystal raised her eyes and met Andrew’s, and…
And it happened. There were no words for it. He stood there, half-crouched and unmoving over the crystal, so long that his neck, unheeded, was stabbed with cramp in the muscles.
She was very young, and she seemed to be both frightened and in pain. It seemed that she cried out to him for help that only he could give, and that she touched, deliberately, some secret thing known only to both of them. But he could not, later, understand what it had been, only that she called to him, that she needed him desperately…
And then her face was gone and his head was aching. He gripped at the edge of the table, shaking, desperate to call her back. “Where is she? Who is she?” he demanded, and the old woman turned up a blank, frowning face. “No, now, how do I know what you saw, off-worlder? I saw nothing and no one, and others are waiting. You must go now.”
He had stumbled out, blank with despair.
She called to me. She needs me. She is here....
And I am leaving in six hours.
It hadn’t been exactly easy to break his contract and stay, but it hadn’t been all that hard either. Places on the world to which he was going were in high demand, and there wouldn’t be more than three days’ delay in filling his position. He’d have to accept two downgrades in seniority, but he didn’t care. On the other hand, as Personnel told him, volunteers for Cottman IV weren’t easy to find. The climate was bad, there was almost no trade, and although the pay was good, no career man really wanted to exile himself way out here on the fringes of the Empire on a planet which stubbornly refused to have any dealings with them except for leasing the spaceport itself. They offered him a choice of work in the computer center, or in Mapping and Exploring, which was high-risk, high-pay work. For some reason, the natives of this world had never mapped it, and the Terran Empire felt that presenting them with finished maps which their native technology could not, or would not, encompass might be a very good thing for public relations between Cottman IV and the Empire.
He chose Mapping and Exploring. He already knew—in the first week he had seen every girl and woman in the spaceport—that she was none of the workers in Medic or Personnel or Dispatch. Mapping and Exploring enjoyed certain concessions which allowed them to go outside the severely limited preserve of the Empire. Somewhere, somehow, she was out there waiting…
It was an obsession and he knew it, but somehow he could not break the spell, and didn’t want to.
And then, the third time he’d gone out with the mapping plane, the crash… and here he was, no closer than ever to his dream girl. If she had ever existed, which he doubted.
Exhausted by the long effect of memory, he crawled back into his shelter to rest. Time enough tomorrow to work out a plan for getting down off the ledge. He ate emergency rations, sucked ice, fell into an uneasy sleep…
She was there again, standing before him, both in and not quite in the little dark shelter, a ghost, a dream, a dark flower, a flame in his heart…
I do not know why it is you I have touched, stranger. I sought for my kinfolk, those who love me and could help me…
Damsel in distress, Andrew thought, I just bet. What do you want with me?
Only a look of pain, and a sorrowful twisting of the face.
Who are you? I can’t keep calling you ghost-girl.
Callista.
Now I know I’m freaked out, Andrew said to himself. That’s an Earth name.
I am no Earth sorceress, my powers are of air and fire…
That made no sense. What do you want with me?
Just now, only to save the life I unwittingly endangered. And I say to you: avoid the darkened land.
She faded abruptly from sight and hearing, and he was alone, blinking.
“Callista” means simply “beautiful,” as I remember, he thought. Maybe she is simply a symbol of beauty in my mind. But what is the darkened land? And how can she help to save me? Oh, rubbish, I’m treating her as if she were real again.
Face it. There’s no such woman, and if you’re going to get out of here, you’ll have to go it alone.
And yet, as he lay back to rest and make plans, he found himself trying, again, to call up her face before his eyes…
* * *
Chapter TWO
« ^ »
The storm still raged on the heights, but here in the valley daylight shone through, and lowering sunlight; only the thick anvil-shaped clouds to the west showed where the peaks of the mountains were wrapped in storm.
Damon Ridenow rode with head down, braced against the wind that ripped his riding-cloak, and it felt like flight As if he fled before a gathering storm. He tried to tell himself, The weather’s getting into my bones, maybe I’m just not as young as I was, but he knew it was more than that. It was an unease, something stirring, nagging at his mind, something wrong. Something rotten.
He realized that he had been keeping his eyes turned from the low tree-clad hills which lay to the east, and deliberately, trying to break the strange unease, made himself twist in his saddle and look up and down the slopes.
The darkened lands.
Rubbish, he said to himself angrily. There was war there, last year, with the cat-people. Some of his folk were killed and others were driven away, forced to resettle in the Alton country, around the lakes. The cat-people were fierce and cruel, yes, they slaughtered and burned and tormented and left for dead what they could not kill outright. Maybe what he felt was simply the memory of all the suffering there during the war. My mind is open to the minds of those who suffered—
No, it was worse than that. The things he’d heard about what the cat-people did.
He glanced behind him. His escort—four swordsmen of the Guard—were beginning to draw together and murmur, and he knew he should call a halt to breathe the horses. One of them spurred and came to his side, and he reined his mount in to look at the man.
“Lord Damon,” the Guardsman said, with proper deference—but he looked angry. “Why do we ride as if foemen rode hard at our heels? I have heard no word of war or ambush.”
Damon Ridenow forced his pace to slacken slightly, but it was an effort. He wanted to spur his mount hard, to race away for the safety of Armida beyond them…
He said somberly, “I think we are pursued, Reidel.”
The Guardsman warily swept his eyes from horizon to horizon—it was his trained duty to be wary—but with open skepticism. “Which bush, think you, hides ambush, Lord Damon?”
“That you know no more than I,” said Damon, sighing.
The man looked stubborn. He said, “Well, you are a Comyn Lord, and it is your business, and mine to carry out your orders. But there is a limit to what man and horseflesh can do, Lord, and if we are attacked with wearied horses and saddle sores, we will fight the less.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Damon said, sighing. “Call halt if you will, then. Here at least there is little danger of attack in open country.”
He was cramped and weary, and glad to dismount, even though the nightmare urgency still beat at him. When the Guard Reidel brought him food, he took it without smiling, and his thanks were absentminded. The Guardsman li
ngered with the privilege of an old acquaintance.
“Do you still smell danger behind every tree, Lord Damon?”
“Yes, but I can’t say why,” Damon said, sighing. Afoot he was little more than medium height, a thin pale man with the fire-red hair of a Comyn Lord of the Seven Domains; like most of his kindred he went unarmed except for a dagger, and under his riding-cloak he wore the light tunic of an indoor man, a scholar. The Guardsman was looking at him solicitously.
“You are unused to so much riding, Lord, and in such haste. Was there so much need for it, so swiftly?”
“I do not know,” the Comyn Lord said quietly. “But my kinswoman at Armida sent me a message—a guarded one—begging me to come to her with all speed, and she is not of that fearful kind who start at shadows and lie awake nights fearing bandits in the courtyard when her menfolk are away. An urgent summons from the Lady Ellemir is nothing to treat lightly, so I came at once, as I must. It may well be some family trouble, some sickness in her household; but whatever it is, the matter is grave or she could deal with it on her own.”
The Guardsman nodded slowly. “I have heard the lady is brave and resourceful,” he said, “I have a brother who is a part of her household staff. May I tell my fellows this much, Lord? They may grumble less, if they know it is grave trouble and no whim of your own.”
“Tell them and welcome, it is no secret,” Damon said, “I would have done so myself, if I had thought to do so.”
Reidel grinned. “I know you are no man-driver,” he said, “but none of us had heard rumors, and this is not a country any man cares to ride in without need.” He was turning away, but Damon kept him, a hand on his sleeve.
“Not a country to ride in without need—what do you mean, Reidel?”
Now that he was asked a direct question, the man fidgeted.
“Unchancy,” he said at last, “and bad luck. It lies under a shadow. They call it, now, the darkening lands, and no man will ride there or travel there unless he must, and not even then unless he carries mighty protections.”
“Nonsense.”
“You may laugh, Lord, you Comyn are protected by the Great Gods.”
Damon sighed. “I had not thought to find you so superstitious, Reidel. You have been a Guardsman for a score of years, you were paxman to my father. Do you still think we Comyn are otherwise than other men?”
“You are luckier,” Reidel said, his teeth clenched, “but now, when men ride into the darkening lands, they return no more, or return with their wits astray. No, Lord, do not laugh at me, it befell my mother’s brother two moons ago. He rode into the darkened lands to visit a maid he would make his second wife, having paid bride-price when she was but nine. He came not when he was expected, and when they told me he had gone forever into the shadow, I too laughed and said he had, no doubt, delayed to bed the girl and get her with child. Then one night, Lord, after overstaying his leave a full ten days, he rode into the Guardroom at Serré late one night. I am not a fanciful man, Lord, but his face—his face—” He gave up struggling for words, and said, “He looked as if he’d been looking straight down into Zandru’s seventh hell. And he said nothing that made sense, Lord. He raved of great fires, and of death in the winds, and withered gardens, and witch-food that took a man’s wits, and of girls who clawed at his soul like cat-hags; and though they sent for the sorceress, before she could come to heal his mind, he sank, and died raving.”
“Some sickness in the mountains and foothills,” Damon said, but Reidel shook his head.
“As you reminded me, Lord, I have been Guardsman in these hills a score of years, and my uncle twoscore. I know the sicknesses that strike men, and this was none of them. Nor do I know any sickness which strikes a man only in one direction. I myself rode a little way into the darkened lands, Lord, and I saw for myself the withered gardens and untended orchards, and the folk who live there now. It is true they live on witch-food, Lord.”
Damon interrupted again. “Witch-food? There are no such things as witches, Reidel.”
“Call it what you will, but this is no food from grain, root, berry, or wholesome tree, Lord, nor flesh of any living thing. I would not touch a grain of it, and I think this is why I escaped unscathed. I saw it come from the air.”
Damon said, “Those who know their business can prepare food from things which look inedible, Reidel, and it is wholesome. A matrix technician—how can I explain this? He breaks down the chemical matter which cannot be eaten with safety, and changes its structure so that it can be digested and will nourish. It is not sufficient to sustain life for many months, but it will keep life for a little while in urgency. This I can do myself, and there is no witchery to it”
Reidel frowned. “Sorcery of your starstone—”
“Sorcery be damned,” Damon said testily. “A skill.”
“Then why can no one do it but you Comyn?” He sighed. “I cannot play upon the lute; my ears and fingers have neither the inborn talent nor the training. But you, Reidel, were born with the ear, and the fingers were trained in childhood, and so you make music as you wish. So it is with this. The Comyn are born with talent, as it might be a talent for music, and in childhood we are trained to change the structure of matter with the help of these matrix stones. I can do only a few small things; those well-trained can do much. Perhaps someone has been experimenting with such imitation food in those lands, and not knowing his skill full well, has wrought poison instead, a poison which sets men’s wits running wild. But this is a matter for one of the Keepers. Why has no one brought this to them for their mending, Reidel?”
“Say what you like,” the Guardsman said, and his clenched and stubborn face said volumes. “The darkened lands lie under some evil, and men of goodwill should avoid them. And now, if it pleases you, Lord, we should be a-horse again if we would reach Armida before nightfall. For even if we stay clear of the darkening lands, this is no road to ride by night.”
“You are right,” said Damon, and mounted, waiting while his escort gathered again. He had plenty to think about. He had, indeed, heard rumors about the lands at the fringes of the cat-country, but nothing, as yet, like this. Was it all superstition, rumor based on the gossip of the ignorant? No; Reidel was no fanciful man, nor was his uncle, a hard-bitten soldier for twenty years, any man to fall prey to vague shadows. Something very tangible had killed him; and he’d have bet the old fellow would have taken a lot of killing.
They had topped the summit of the hill, and Damon looked down into the valley, alert for any sign of ambush; for his sense of being watched, pursued, had grown to an obsession by now. This would be a good place for an ambush, as they came up over the hill.
But the road and the valley lay bare before them in the cloudy sunlight, and Damon frowned, trying to loosen his tense muscles by an act of will.
You’re getting to where you jump at shadows. Much good you’ll be to Ellemir, unless you can get your nerves in order.
His gloved hand went to the chain about his neck; there, wrapped in silk inside a small pouch of leather, he could feel the hard shape, the curious warmth of the matrix he carried. Given to him when he had mastered its use, the “starstone” Reidel had spoken about, it was keyed to his mind in a way no one but a Darkovan—and Comyn-telepath— could ever understand. Long training had taught him to amplify the magnetic forces of his brain with the curious crystalline structure of the stone; and now the very touch of it quieted his mind to calm; the long discipline of the highly trained telepath.
Reason, he told himself, all things in order. As the disquiet lessened, he felt the quiet pulse and slow euphoria which meant his brain had begun to function at what the Comyn called basic, or “resting,” rhythm. From this moment of calm, above himself, he looked at his fears and Reidel’s. Something here to be examined, yes; but not to be chewed over restlessly from confused tales as he rode. Rather, something to be set aside, thought about, then systematically investigated, with facts rather than fears, happenings rather than gossip. r />
A wild shout ripped into his mind, crashing his artificial calm like a stone flung through a glass window. It was a painful, shattering shock, and he cried aloud with the impact of fear and agony on his mind, half a moment before he heard a hoarse male scream—a fearful scream, a scream which comes only from dying lips. His horse plunged and reared upward beneath him; his hand still clutching the crystal at his throat, he hauled desperately at the reins, trying to get control of his pitching mount. The animal stopped short under him, standing stiff-legged and trembling, as Damon stared in amazement, watching Reidel slide slowly to the ground, limp and unmistakably dead, his throat a single long gash, from which blood still spouted in a crimson fountain.
And no one was near him! A sword from nowhere, an invisible claw of steel to rip out the throat of a living, breathing man.
“Aldones! Lord of Light deliver us!” Damon whispered to himself, clutching the hilt of his knife, struggling for self-control. The other Guardsmen were fighting, their swords sweeping in great gleaming arcs against them.
Damon clutched the crystal in his fingers, fighting a silent battle for mastery of this illusion—for illusion it must be! Slowly, as through a thick veil in his mind, he saw shadowy forms, strange and hardly human. The light seemed to shine through them, and his eyes went in and out of focus, trying hard to keep them before him.
And he was unarmed! No swordsman at best—
He gripped the reins of his horse, struggling against the impulse to rush in against the invisible opponents. Red fury pulsed in his blood, but an icy wave of reason told him, coldly, that he was unarmed, that he could only plunge in and die with his men, and that his duty to his kinswoman now came first. Was her house besieged by some such invisible terrors? Were they, perchance, lying in wait to keep any of her kinfoik from coming to her aid?