Wizards’ Worlds (31 page)

Mafra paused and then continued. “If you wonder how these things are known: when I
was younger, strong in my powers, I sometimes visited in thought beyond the edge of
Tormarsh, even as this day you have done. It was Koris’ friend Simon Tregarth who
was brought hither through strangers’ magic and delivered to his enemies. Also with
him was she who was Koris’ choice of mate after the manner of the outlanders. Then
we chose ill, so that in turn the outlands set their own barriers against us. We cannot
go, even if we wish, outside the Marsh, nor can anyone come to us.”

“Is the seashore also barred, Clan Mother?”

“Most of the shore, yes. One may look at it, but the mist which rises between is a
wall as firm as the stone ones about us now.”

“But, Clan Mother, I have trod the sand beside the sea, found shells within it—”

“Be silent!” Mafra’s voice was a whisper. “If this much was given you let no other
know it. The time may come when it will be of worth to you.”

Tursla allowed her voice to drop also. “Is that a foreseeing, Clan Mother?”

“Not a clear one, I only know that you will have need for all your strength and wit.
This I can tell you, Unnanna calls tonight and, if she is answered, then—” Mafra lifted
her hands and let them fall again to her lap. “Then I leave it to your wit, moth-daughter.
To your wit and that which is in you from that other place.”

She gave the sign of dismissal and Tursla went to her own place and took up her spindle,
but if any watched her for long they would know that she had little profit from her
labors.

Night came and around her the women of the clan stirred and spoke to one another in
whispers. None addressed her, being Filled she was carefully set apart that nothing
might threaten that which she was supposed now to carry. Nor did they approach Mafra
either, rather ranged themselves with Parua and slipped quietly away.

There were no guards set about the House isle, save on the two approaches by which
a wak-lizard might come. No one would watch those bound for the Shrine in any case,
so that Tursla, pulling a drab cloak about her, even over the soft silver of her hair,
thought she could follow behind without note.

Once more she crept along the same path she had
taken earlier that day. Those ahead carried no lighted torches; there was no gleam
save the moonlight, but she saw that every house must be represented. But this could
not be a complete Calling after all, for there were no men. Or so she had thought
until she caught sight of moon gleam on a spear head and noted those cloaked men,
ten of them, standing in a line facing the Chair. While in that seat huddled a figure
who raised her face to the light even as Tursla found a hiding place back behind a
pile of fallen rock.

Unnanna sat in the place of Seeking. Her eyes were closed, her head turned slowly
from side to side. Those standing below began to croon, first so softly that it was
hardly to be heard over the lap of water, the wing rustle of some flying thing. Then
that hum grew stronger—no words, but rather a sound which made Tursla’s skin tingle,
her hair move against her neck. She found that her head was swinging also in the same
way as Unnanna’s and, at that moment, realized the danger which lay in being trapped
into becoming a part of what they would do here.

She raised her hands and covered her eyes so that she might not see that swaying,
while she thought, as one catches a line of safety thrown wide, of the sand sister,
or the racing sea waves. Though a pulse now beat within her, Tursla also fought her
own body; and, without being fully conscious of what she did, she rose to her full
height and began to move her feet, not in the pattern Unnanna’s head had set, but
in another fashion, to break for herself the spell the Clan Mother was raising.

There was power building here; her body answered to it. Force pressed in upon her
like a burden, trying to crush her. Still Tursla countered that, her lips moving in
words which sprang from behind those doors in her mind which she had earlier tried
to open and could not. Only such danger as this would free them for her.

She opened her eyes. All was as before—save that Unnanna had moved forward on the
chair of Volt. One
after another those waiting men came to her. She touched them on the forehead, on
the eyes. Then each made way for his fellow. From the tips of those fingers which
she used to touch them came small cones of light, and those who stepped back from
her anointing carried now a mark on the forehead of the same eerie radiance.

When all had been so marked they turned and made their way from the hall, the women
giving back to open their path. As they passed by Tursla she saw that their eyes were
set and they stared as men entranced. Their leader was Affric; and those who followed
him were all young, the most skilled of the hunters.

When they had gone from her sight, Tursla looked back to the hall. Once more Unnanna
sat with closed eyes. Power surged; it came from each of them there. Unnanna in some
manner drew that unseen energy from them, consolidated it, shaped from it a weapon,
aimed that weapon, and sent out on course.

Tursla was not one of them. Now she stood tense, seeking within herself something
she sensed must be ready to answer her call. She used her thought to mould it, thinking
of what she would hurl—not as the spear Unnanna’s wish had fostered—no, what then?
A shield? She did not hold strength enough in herself to interpose any lasting barrier.
But perhaps there was something else she could mind-fashion. She thought of the likenesses
of all the weapons known to the Torfolk, and fastened in the space of a breath upon—a
net!

Clenching her hands until her nails cut into her own flesh, the girl centered all
of her unknown energies, untested to their full extent since that night by the pool,
and thought of a net—a net to entangle feet, to impede those who marched by night,
those who would set a trap. Let they themselves be now entrapped.

As blood draining from a grievous, mortal wound, the energy Tursla summoned seeped
from her. If she could only call upon that greater well of strength which Unnanna
could tap for herself! But a net—surely a net! Let it catch about the feet of Affric;
let it ensnare him where he would go. Let it
be!

The girl stumbled back against the wall, weakness in her legs, her arms hanging heavily
by her sides, as she had neither the will nor strength now to raise them. With her
back against the rough stone she slipped downward, the ruins rising around her like
a protective shield. Her head fell forward on her breast as she made her last attempt
to send what remained in her to reinforce the net her vivid mind picture had set about
Affric’s stumbling feet.

It was cold and she was shivering. Dark lay about her, and she no longer heard that
sound which had built up the energy for Unnanna’s mind dart. Rather what came was
the whisper of wings. Lifting her head, Tursla looked upward to the night sky above
the pocket in the ruins where she rested.

There were two moths a-dance, their beautiful shadowy wings outlined with the faint
night shine which was theirs when they flew in the deep dark. Back and forth they
wove their meetings and partings. Then the larger spiralled down, and for just a moment
it clung to the dew-wet robe on her breast, fanning its wings, tiny eyes which were
alight looking into hers . . . or so it seemed to the bemused girl.

“Sister,” Tursla whispered. “I give you greeting. Fair flying for your night. May
the blessing of Volt himself be with you!”

The moth clung for another instant and then flew away. Stiffly Tursla pulled herself
up. Her body ached as if she had done a full day’s stooping at the loom, or at harvest
in the fields. She felt stupid, also, when she tried to think clearly.

She tottered along, one hand against the wall to support her. There was no one here—Volt’s
chair was empty. For a moment she wavered as she gazed upon that seat. Should she
try again? There was a longing in her, a strange longing. She wanted to see how the
rider fared.
What had Mafra named him? Simond, an odd name. Tursla repeated it in a whisper as
if a name could be tasted, said to be either sweet or sour.

“Simond!”

But there was no answer. And she knew that, even if she mounted Volt’s chair again,
this time there would be no answer. What she had done or tried to do here this night
had exhausted for a time her power. She had nothing to aid her to reach out.

Walking slowly, catching now and then on some half-broken wall or pile of stones,
she won out of Volt’s hall. But she needed to sit and rest several times before she
got back to the clan house.

Then it took all the skill she had to be able to make her way through Mafra’s house
to her own corner. Should she tell the Clan Mother what had been done this night?
Perhaps—but not in this hour. To rouse any of the nearby sleepers would be the last
thing she wished.

She lowered herself onto the sleeping mat. In her mind then there was only one picture,
already becoming fuzzed with sleep—the image of Affric fighting a web about his feet,
his sneering mouth open as if he shouted aloud in fear. Though she was not conscious
of it, Tursla smiled as she fell asleep.

M
IST
was heavy about the island where the ancient clan houses stood, hanging curtains
between house and house, turning those who went outside into barely seen shadows moving
in and around through the fog. The moisture in it pearled on every surface in large
drops which gathered substance and then trickled down-ward. That same damp clung to
skin, matted hair, made clammy all garments.

Such fen mists had been known to Tursla all her life.
Still this one was far thicker than any she could remember; and it would seem her
uneasiness was matched within the clan house, for no hunters went forth, while those
within stirred higher the fires, drawing in closer for the light and heat. Perhaps
they did this not for any warmth to send their garments steaming but because the very
brightness of the flames themselves had a kind of cheer.

Tursla had sought out Mafra again. But the Clan Mother appeared unwilling to talk.
Rather she sat very still, her blind eyes staring unwinking at the fire and those
about it, though she made no move to add herself to the circle of company there. At
length Tursla’s foreboding of a shadow to come made her greatly daring and she touched
timidly one of Mafra’s hands where it lay palm up on the woman’s lap.

“Clan Mother—?”

Mafra’s head did not turn, yet Tursla was sure she knew that the girl was beside her.
Then she spoke, in so low a voice Tursla was sure it could not carry beyond her own
ears.

“Moth-child, it comes close now—”

What—the fog? Or that other thing which Tursla felt, though she had no part of Mafra’s
powers.

“What may be done, Clan Mother?” The girl shifted her body restlessly.

“Nothing to stop these witless ones. Not now.” There was a bitter note in that. “You
cannot trust in anything or anyone save yourself, moth-child. The ill act has been
begun.”

At that moment there sounded, through the doorway of the clan house (like the bellow
of some great beast), a call which brought Tursla and all the rest sheltering within
to their feet. Never before had the girl heard such a sound.

Then the cries of those by the fire, who were now all turning to the mist-hidden doorway,
running toward that, made her understand. That had been the Great Alarm, which had
never been sounded in her lifetime, perhaps
even in the lifetimes of all now here. Only some action of overpowering peril could
have brought the sentries on the outer road to give that alert.

“Girl!” Mafra was also standing. Her hand tightened about Tursla’s arm. “Give me your
strength, daughter. Ill, thrice ill, has been this thing! Dark the ending thereof!”

Then she, who so seldom left her own alcove nowadays, tottered beside Tursla. At first
her slight body bore heavily upon the girl’s support. Then she straightened, and it
appeared that strength returned to her limbs as she took one step and then another.

They came into the open but there the mist was very thick. Figures could only be half
seen and that just when close by. Mafra’s pressure on her arm drew Tursla in a way
which it would seem the blind woman knew well.

“Where—?”

“To Volt’s Hall,” Mafra answered her. “They would carry this through to the end—profane
the very place which is the heart of all we are, have ever been. They will slay, in
the name of Volt. And, if such a slaying comes, why, then their own deaths must follow!
They have decided upon their road—and evil is the end of it!”

“To stop—” Tursla got out no more than those two words when her companion interrupted
her.

“Stop—yes. Girl, open now your inner thoughts, give yourself freely to what may lie
within you. That is the only way! But it must be quick.”

She had never believed that Mafra’s strength might still be such as to send the Clan
Mother at so fast a pace. There were others around them, all were heading in the same
direction. The stones of the ancient road under their feet were slimed with water,
yet Mafra, for all her lack of sight, made no missteps.

About them loomed the broken walls of Volt’s Hall. Still on they pressed, until they
were in the place of the chair. Here through some trick perhaps of emanations from
the ancient stones themselves, the mist thinned,
raised, to lay above their heads like a ceiling, yet allow them full sight of all
which was below.

Those torches set upright in the vases to either side of the chair were ablaze. Other
brands were in the hands of those standing along the walls. In Volt’s chair sat Unnanna
once again. Braced with a hand on either arm of the giant seat she leaned forward,
an eager, avid expression on her face.

Those she so eyed were gathered immediately below. Affric stood there; but he had
not the arrogant pride which he had worn so confidently when he had strode forth from
this place at the Clan Mother’s bidding. He was pale of countenance, and his clothing
was smeared with swamp slime, while one arm was bound to his side with vine fiber,
as if bones had been broken that must be straightened and protected for healing.