“Will you ever be?” Again it was my mother’s whisper, not her thought, to strike as a blow. “You have walked another road from which there may now be no returning. I demanded for you three what I thought would serve you best in the world into which you were born: for Kyllan the sword, for Kemoc the scroll, for you, my daughter, the Gift. But you shared in a way I had not foreseen. And perhaps it was worst for you—”
“No!” My denial was instant.
“Tell me that again in the future,” was her ambiguous reply. “Now, my daughter, trouble us with no more sendings. We need rest this night.”
Although it went sore against my impatient desires, I made her that promise. “No more—tonight.”
Again I settled to scanning only the outer world, that of the night about us, until that hour when Jaelithe roused to take the watch and I willed myself resolutely into slumber.
Shortly after dawn my father awakened us all and we ate of the jar cakes. It was more chill than it had been the day before. Now there was a rime of frost on the branches about us.
Though my father had been much afield along the borders, my mother riding with him as seeress for the rangers, yet they had not gone afoot. Neither had I ever before this time traveled for any space in that fashion, for the nomads had made use of their sleds, walking and riding in turn when they were on a long trek. So now we all found this a slow method of covering the ground, one which wearied us more than we would have guessed before we began it. We tried to keep an even pace, slowed as we were by Ayllia.
The Vupsall girl would walk at our direction, just as she ate what we held to her lips, drank from the cup we gave her. But she went as one walking in her sleep. And I wondered if she had retreated so far from reality that she might never be whole again. As she now was we could not have left her with her people, even had we found them. They would have given her only death. Such as she were too much of a drag upon a wandering people. Utta had lasted so long only because of her gift, and Ausu, the chief’s wife, because she had had a devoted servant to be her hands and feet.
XVII
Simon Tregarth had the skill of one who had long laid ambushes, or avoided those of the enemy, in the wild lands of the Karsten mountains. He scouted ahead, sometimes ordering us to remain in hiding until he had explored and then hand-signaling us on. I could not understand what had so aroused his suspicion, unless it was something in the very lay of the land, but I trusted in that suspicion as our safeguard.
We did not use mind touch because this was a haunted land. Twice my mother ordered us into hasty detours around places where her arts told of the lurking of the Shadow. One of these was a hillock on which stood a single monolith of stone, dusky red under the sun. No grass or shrubs grew there; the earth was hard and had a blackened look as if it might once have been burnt over. And the pinnacle itself, if one looked at it for more than an instant, flickered in outline, appeared to change shape. I averted my curious eyes quickly, knowing it was not well to see what might reform from that misty substance.
Our second detour nearly plunged us into disaster. It was caused by a spread of wood wherein the trees were leafless, not as might normally be because of the early season, but because the foliage had been replaced by yellowish lumps or excrescences with pinkish centers, sickening to behold. They might have been open sores eating the unwholesome flesh of the vegetation. One had a queasy feeling that not only were those trees deformed and loathsome, but that something crawled and crept in their shade, unable to issue forth into the sunlight, but waiting, with an ever ravening hunger, for the moment it might grow strong enough to leap.
To pass this ulcerous mass we had to strike south, and the wood proved then to be much wider than we had first suspected, with fingers of leprous vines and brush. It was like a beast, belly-down on the earth it contaminated, crawling ever forward by digging those fringe growths into the soil to drag its bulk along. At one point those holds were on the river bank and we halted there in perplexity.
We would either have to batter our way through them, a task we shrank from, or take to the water, unless we could negotiate a very narrow strip of gravel below the overhang of the bank. And with Ayllia to care for that would be far from easy.
Then sounds carrying over the water set us all to lying low on the earth of the upper bank, a thin screen of growth between us and the water below. I choked as a breeze blew toward me, passing over the tainted growth nearby—the stench nearly drove all the wholesome air from my lungs. Yet we had no chance to withdraw, for out on the far bank of the river came those whose voices carried, not with distinguishable words, but rather as a rise and fall of sound.
For a moment or two I believed them survivors of the village raid, as they were certainly of the same breed as the Vupsalls. But as the newcomers splashed into the shallows to fill their water bags, I did not recognize any face among them. And I noted that while their dress was generally the same, they wore a kind of brightly woven blanket folded into a narrow strip across one shoulder, rather than the cloaks of Utta’s clan.
They were in no hurry to move on; in fact the women and children settled down, preparing to make a fire and set up their three-legged cooking pots. Some of the men pulled off their boots and took to the water, crying out as they felt its chill, but persevering, to spread a net among them and sweep it for water dwellers.
For the first time I felt Ayllia stir on her own and I turned quickly. That blankness of non-expression was fading; her eyes focused with intelligence on that busy scene, and I saw recognition in them. She raised her head, and I feared that, though these newcomers were not Vupsalls, yet she knew some among them, and would call out for their attention. I tried to grasp her hand, but she twisted away, striking out at me, her blow landing on the side of my head to momentarily daze me. Then she was on her hands and knees, not trying to reach that party overstream, but scuttling away from them, as if she saw not friends but deadly enemies—which could well be with the many feuds in existence.
Had she merely headed back, away from the river’s edge, all might still have been well. But in her blind haste she went west, straight for that nightmare growth. And we all knew that she must be stopped before she reached it.
My father threw himself in her direction and an outstretched hand managed to close vise-tight about her ankle, jerking her flat on her face. At least she did not cry out—perhaps her fear of the tribesmen was such that it kept her silent. But she curled around to attack her captor with teeth, nails, all the natural armament she possessed.
But what was worse than that fierce struggle (in which Simon was plainly winning the upper hand) was that the evil vines toward which their battling carried them began to stir. Not as if any wind had brushed them into motion, but as if they had serpents’ awareness of what moved close by and were preparing to attack.
In that moment both my mother and I united in a blanketing mind send meant to subdue Ayllia, whose frantic struggles might not only betray us to those across the stream, but could carry her and my father into the grip of those vines now poised in the air as if about to strike.
Ayllia went limp as our mind bolt struck her deeply into bondage. My father lay an instant or two panting, half across her. But it was the vines which frightened me.
They, too, were studded with those loathsome bulbous knots. And now, as the stems set up a wild writhing, the bulbs cracked open. My mother cried out and rose to run forward, with me following.
We caught at whatever portion of the two bodies was the nearest, jerking them away from proximity to the vines. And we were none too soon, for at least one of the knots burst across, loosing in the air a stream of menacing motes. Luckily they did not float toward where we scrambled frantically to get out of range, but drifted to the ground under the writhing stems.