Authors: Andre Norton
Devilish greenish lights glowed upon the sitting rocks at its heart. Hertha half expected
those to reach for her, fearing that any protection she might once have had against
those Dark Ones had been withdrawn.
However, they did not appear to be aware of her, if indeed the Toads were present.
Now she moved, as one might who wore wings and used them in slow even beats. She traveled
above that maze of rock ways outward to its circumference. Something else appeared.
At the ends of several of the ways which led into the web of the Toads there stood
straight and fast in the middle (as if they were closed doors to bar entrance) stones
which shown faintly blue. Three such roads were so closed, three were open. Into Hertha’s
mind swept knowledge, as if this were something she had always known and which had
been asleep in her mind, to be now awakened.
So had the Toads of Grimmerdale once been confined and kept from troubling the dreams
of men, kept from drawing to them such foolhardy or evil people as she had been when
she had first sought them out. So must they be confined again. Hertha drew a deep
breath. If this was the task set her, then she was ready for it.
There came to her then a warning. Because she had once attempted to use the Toads
to achieve her end, she was now vulnerable to them. To come so close to their own
place was a risk of death worse than any failure or hurt of body. The choice was hers
alone. Would it save Elfanor? Of
even that she could not be sure, only hope, but hope was strong, it could carry one
far, be meat and drink, rest and surcease. Now Hertha held to it with the full force
of her will.
Once more the girl faced the winds of the heights. There had been food again waiting
her when she had awakened. In the outer court she had discovered the animals, fed,
saddled and burdened, ready. The sun already touched the upstanding peaks of the hills
as she set out, turning once more eastward, picking a way to avoid the closer settled
dales.
As she went Hertha searched for landmarks she had seen but once. Above all she must
avoid any meeting with a far-roving hunter or herder out of Nordendale. The fact that
the dalesmen avoided the places of the Old Ones, shunned their roads, was her only
advantage.
The track which had been a clear guide to Gunnora’s shrine became dimmer on its twisting
way east. Beyond the reaches of Nordendale she should cut south once again for the
circle of the Toads, perhaps over land where there was no trace at all of any road.
She dared not quicken pace. This track was treacherous with a winter slippage of stones
and rock. With Elfanor in her carrying cradle upon her back, Hertha had to dismount
now and again to lead her horse, testing the stability of the trail with the haft
of the spear. Her mount had not so far refused to advance and that she took as a good
sign, accepting that the animal’s sense, so much keener than her own in many ways,
would give any warning of trouble.
After a full day’s travel she slept but fitfully, Elfanor in her arms beneath the
huddle of her cloak, their rest a nest of last year’s leaves and grass which Hertha
scooped into place among a tangle of storm-downed trees. The second day had no sun,
instead a thick mist which was half drizzle dampened her dank clothing against her.
Nordendale she passed—with a feeling of relief. She
had allowed herself a short period of viewing what lay below, marking the changes
which had come to that half-deserted, once masterless holding since last she had come
this way. There were people in the garden patches, a movement of sheep along one hillside.
But her eyes had sought at once the tower of the keep. No banner cracked in the crisp
wind. Which meant the lord was not in residence. Where? Hertha bit down on her mittened
hand. There could well be one place to which Trystan was now bound—Lithendale! If
he had gone seeking her—She shook her head as if her jumble of thoughts could be so
reduced to order. No, there was only one thing which mattered, that stone wheel above
Grimmerdale!
There was little forage for the horse and pony here. They pulled toward the green
now coating hillside meadows. She had to use all her skill and determination to keep
them moving. At noon she bribed them with broken bits of journey cake which they mouthed
eagerly, licking up the last of the crumbs from the rocks where she had dropped the
pieces.
The drizzle never became true rain, only a gray misery which wrapped her around. One
of those lesser irritations which could eat away at one’s determination. Her garments
clung to her, and she shivered continually as she rode. Tonight—if she did not halt
too long at an eating or rest break—tonight she should be within such distance of
Grimmerdale that the next morn she could face her task.
She had this much in her favor, Hertha decided. The Powers of the Dark Ones were fed
by the night, by any absence of light. If she could get to her task by the day she
would have that small advantage. Providing she could finish before dusk deepened again.
Twilight came early. Again she camped at a place from which she could see the lantern
above the door of that inn where once she had served and waited with what patience
she could muster, for the one man whom her singleminded purpose had sent her to deliver
to vengeance. She longed
for a hot drink, for shelter even as squalid as that inn had been, the sound of voices
of her own kind. Instead she crouched alone, her two beasts uneasy beside her, sucking
at a stick of dried meat, and nursing her child. In the last of the light she saw
that once more that knowing, measuring look was back in Elfanor’s eyes. Something
which was not of proper mankind gazed out at her, slyly, maliciously, with anticipation.
Hertha refused to believe that this was more than her imagination. She cradled the
baby in her arms, after giving her the breast, rocking back and forth, crooning in
a whisper one of the old, old songs she remembered her own old nurse had used to hold
at bay the dark and all which might glide within thick shadows.
That night she did not sleep. It was as if the driving purpose which had brought her
here fostered within her a frenetic energy, so that she had to use all her power and
determination not to leave the half shelter she had found, to go straightway to the
place where
they
waited.
So strong did that pull become that she knelt upon the ground, fighting with all the
strength of her being the desire to move, to go—
That night might have lasted for a year, a century, more than her own lifetime, or
so it seemed when the first grayish finger-claws of dawn came clutching over the hills.
Hertha got stiffly to her feet. She was numb with cold, cramped in every muscle by
the battle she had fought. Still lay the task ahead.
Now placing the baby’s cradle on the ground, the girl opened the bag which Dame Inghela
had given her. There were packets of leaves so dried and crushed that their condition
was dry powder, others, withered to be sure, but still clinging to the branches from
which they had sprung.
Hertha made her choices, lifting each pinch she used close to her nose to make sure
that she dealt with the right one. Five such pinches she worked into a thick grease
contained in a small pot, then three more, and lastly one,
which was the strongest and most pungent of them all, making her sneeze, even gag
when she smelled it closely.
The salve which had absorbed all these she rubbed in wide circles about her eyes.
It beaded in her brows, making her squint a little from its strength of emanation.
Again she used more as an ointment. Taking off her damp cap, she thrust her braids
of hair back impatiently that she might anoint her ears. Last of all what was left
she spread across the palms of her hands. Having so prepared herself, and fasting
as required, she picked up the basket cradle and took Elfanor to the nearest shelter,
a bush very thick with budding branches which overhung the ground. Slipping the cradle
back under that rough canopy, Hertha set on end about the open side of the hiding
place those branches of twigged herbs, forcing them into the earth, bolstering them
erect with small stones.
The horse and pony had followed her. Now she recklessly crumbled all she had left
of her journey cakes, leaving the bits in two piles at which they eagerly nuzzled.
Getting to her feet, Hertha started forward, refusing to let herself look back. All
she could do to protect Elfanor she had. She dared not let any apprehension steal
into her mind, she must remember only what she had come to do.
The circle of the outer stones which was the rim of the Toad’s wheel were clear enough.
She held her hands together so that the greased palms were as one. Using them both
then she pointed her fingertips forward, the smell of the herbs very strong.
Hertha edged along, making the circuit of the wheel’s outer wall. Nor would she allow
herself to glance down any of the avenues formed between the spokes of upstanding
stones, but kept her gaze on the ground. She found the first of the “stopper stones”
at the third such aisle.
Hertha faltered. The thing was a rough hunk of rock, not even worked as were the pillar
stones, and it was as tall as her knees, so well embedded in the ground that perhaps
it might be even larger. She wet her chapped lips with the
tip of her tongue and considered its size, her own strength. Could she move such?
She might only find one of the missing ones and try. The girl dropped her cloak to
the ground, its sodden folds hindered her shoulders and arms. Already she had sighted
what she wanted. This was one! All points and angles, its blue surface standing out
vividly in this place. Hertha reached it quickly, set her palms to it and pushed,
to find the boulder set in the ground as securely as any forest tree.
So—but it could be moved! Having been in place once, it must be put so again. Now
she exerted more strength, strove to rock it back and forth, her hands chafed by the
roughness of its surface. The stone moved!
So small a triumph, but enough to encourage her. Panting, fighting, rubbing her hands
near raw in spite of their protective covering (for in this place she knew that she
dare not use the mittens which dangled from her wrists), she edged the rock on, brought
it into place at last midpoint of one unguarded aisle, and leaned against it, panting
for a space.
There was something building about her, a kind of soundless laughter, of jeering at
one who dared so much surely to fail. Hertha straightened. Her lips were one firm
line, her chin set. One! Now for the next—
She found a second stone, but this was half buried in rubble. She had to pull and
dig to free it before she could once more try to move the rock on. It was stubborn,
leaving its bed with such reluctance that once or twice she despaired of ever getting
it out. Her hands left bloody prints upon its surface when she dragged it at last
to the doorway it must lock. Two—
Hunger gnawed at her. She swayed dizzily now and again as she went to search for the
last. Surely she could find and set that. Her wide divided skirt dragged at her legs.
She felt as one wading through a vast quagmire of sucking mud, having to fight for
each forward step.
There was no stone! There must be! She could not have
been misled in her vision in the shrine. Those of the Power who turned to the light
played no such cruel tricks. They could refuse help, but they did not deliberately
deceive. Somewhere near the stone must lie. Hertha turned slowly, examining the ground.
There were tumbled stones, yes, plenty of them, both large and small, but none of
a blue sheen.
Could it be wholly buried in some pile as the second was half concealed? She could
sight no heap in that clutter of rocks which was large enough to hide totally what
she sought. Once more she made the dragging round of the outer circumference of the
wheel. As she went, so did that sly laughter seem to grow within her mind, buffet
her like the wind of a rising storm. She was certain that the Toads knew what she
attempted, that they watched her in amusement, somehow certain that her efforts would
fail. But those would not!
The circling of her search grew wider, farther away from the edge of the wheel. Now
she sought out Elfanor and nursed the whimpering baby, not realizing her own fatigue
until her legs seemed to fold under her and the bleeding hands with which she clasped
the child to her shook with tremors she could not control.
Her hunger was gone, leaving only a dull pain in her body as she hunched forward,
impatient but waiting that the child might be satisfied. The horse and the pony stood
on either side of the tangled bush. They had again licked up all the food she had
left but they had not strayed.
Suddenly the mount which had carried her threw up its head and nickered before Hertha
could stop it. A neigh answered. She stiffened where she crouched, taking the baby
from her breast and placing it quickly in the basket behind her. Elfanor opened her
mouth and gave forth a furious yell.
Somehow Hertha got to her feet, stood there wavering, one hand making fast her clothing,
the other resting ready on the hilt of her dagger. Though the drizzle of rain no
longer fell, the clouds still hung overhead. Not dark nor close enough however to
hide the fact that there was a rider coming.
There were outlaws enough in this war-torn land who had the desperate courage, or
perhaps even the inclination, to follow the Old Roads. She remembered, too, nightmare
tales of
things
which prowled, or were said to run the ridges. Surely no one would come here unless
he was bent on some form of mischief, so evil was the reputation of this place.
The newcomer fronted the rise, and she saw he wore war mail, a snouted helm which
hid much of his face. A shield swung by his saddle horn, and its device had been new
painted. That was the only bit of color about him, for the horse he rode was of the
same dull gray as his half armor, as dusky of mane as his surcoat.