I was staring at these in surprise, which betrayed me when the stranger came in and caught me open-eyed and plainly aware. Angry at my own foolishness, I tried to play my chosen role, assuming an expression I hoped he would read as fear, wriggling back on the bedding as one who would flee but could not.
He knelt by the side of the bed and stared down at me critically, appraisingly. Then he suddenly thrust his hand inside my jacket with brutal force, in a manner I could not mistake. Now I did not have to play at fear; I knew it, and what he would do, as well as if I could still read minds clearly.
I could no longer hold to my role of cowed female. It was not in me to allow without a struggle what he would do. I bent my head vainly, trying to snap my teeth into the hand which was now joined by his other, ripping loose my jacket and the tunic beneath. And I brought my knees up, not only to ward him off, in an effort but to battle as best I could.
It would seem that this was a game he had played before and he took delight in it. He sat back on his heels and there was such a grin on his face as promised evil of another kind than I had known. Perhaps drawing out and prolonging my degradation was also pleasing to him, for he did not proceed as I thought he would. Instead he sat watching me as if he would think out each step of what he would do, savoring it in fantasy before taking action.
But he was never to have his chance. There was a sharp call and the head and shoulders of another appeared under the, tent flap, letting me view my first tribeswoman.
She had the same broad features as my captor, but her hair was coiled and pinned into an elaborate tower on her head, the pins being gem-set so that they glinted in the light. Her fur coat was not tightly belted, but swung loose to show that under it, in spite of the chill of the weather, she wore nothing above the waist but a series of necklaces and collars of jeweled work. Her breasts were heavy and the nipples were painted yellow with petals radiating from them as if to stimulate flowers.
While she spoke to my captor she stared at me with a kind of contemptuous amusement, and her air was one of authority such as would set on a minor rank Wise Woman. Somehow, I had not expected to find this among these people, though why I had deemed it a male-dominated society I did not know, except for the way the stranger had served me.
Their words were oddly accented and they spoke very fast. I thought that here and there I caught a part of speech I did dimly recognize, yet I could make no sense of it at all. Again I yearned for my lost power, even a small measure of it. Only one who has held such and lost it can understand what I felt then, as if a goodly half of me had been emptied, to my great and growing loss.
Although I could not understand their words, it was plain that they speedily grew to be ones of anger, and that the woman was ordering my captor to do something he was loath to do. Once she half turned to the door behind her and made a gesture which I read as suggesting that she call upon someone else to back her commands.
The leering grin had long since vanished from his fat-lipped mouth. There was such a sullen glowering there now as I might have feared to see had I been the woman. But her contempt and impatience only grew the stronger and she swung again as if to call that help she had indicated stood outside. Before she could do so, if that was her intent, she was interrupted by a low, brazen booming which rang in one’s ears as if the air reechoed it.
And, hearing that, I for a short instant of time forgot where I lay and what ordeals might yet be before me. For that sonorous sound awoke in me something I thought I had lost forever—not only a bit of memory but instantaneous response which was for me so startling I wondered that I did not cry out as one suffering a sore wound.
Though my Power had seemingly been rift from me, memory had not. I could call to mind the skills, spells, domination of will and thought which had been taught me, even if I could not put them to use. And memory told me that what had sounded through this barbaric camp was a spirit gong. Who might use that tool of sorcery in such a place I could not guess.
The woman’s triumph was plainly visible, my captor’s scowl uneasy. He drew from his wide belt a long bladed knife, stooped over me to saw through those twisted cords which held my ankles tightly together. When I was free he hoisted me to my feet, his hands moving viciously over my body in a way which promised ill for the future if he could not have his way now.
Placed on my two feet by his strength as if I had no will of my own, he gave me a push forward which would have sent me helplessly on into the wall had not the woman, with muscles to match his, not caught me by the shoulder.
Her nails dug in in a grip which was cruel. Holding me, she propelled me out of the tent into a night which was alight with fires. Those about the flames did not look up as we passed, and I had the feeling they were deliberately avoiding sighting either of us for some reason. There still hung a trembling in the air, a vibration born of the gong, which had not died with the sound.
I stumbled along, both upheld and forced forward by the woman, past the fires, other tents, deeper into the woods, by a winding way which the trees gave us. With the fires well behind us now it seemed very dark and our path completely hidden. But my guard—guide—never faltered, walking confidently as if she could either see better in the dark than I, or had come this way so many times that her feet knew it by heart.
Then there was the wink of another fire, low, with flames which burned blue instead of crimson. And from it rose an aromatic smoke. That, too, I knew of old, though then it had spiralled from braziers and not from sticks set in the open. Had I been brought to a true Wise Woman, perhaps some exile out of Estcarp come over-mountain even as we in search of the ancient homeland?
The fire burned before another tent and this was larger, almost filling the small glade wherein it had been pitched. A cloaked and hooded figure did sentry duty at its door, stretching forth a hand now and then to toss into the flames herbs which burned sweetly. Sniffing those, knowing them well for what they were, I was heartened by this much: this was no power from the Shadow. What was fed, or could be summoned to such feeding, was not of the dark but the light.
Magic stands in two houses. The witch is one born to her craft, and her power is of the earth, of growing things and what is of nature. If she makes a pact with the Shadow then she turns to those things of evil which abide on earth—there are growing things to harm as well as heal.
The sorceress may be a born witch who strives to climb higher in her craft, or she may be one without the gift who painfully learns to use the Power. And again she chooses between light and dark.
Our Wise Women of Estcarp were born to their craft and I had been one of them, though I had not vowed their vows, nor taken on my breast the jewel as one of their sisterhood. Perhaps I could once have been deemed sorceress, since my learning went far beyond the simple witchcraft I could have wrought without struggle and preparation.
Which did I front now, I wondered as my guide bore me on toward the tent doorway? Was this a witch, or a learned sorceress? And I thought perhaps I should be prepared for the latter, judging by the evidence of that gong.
While the tent in which my captor had put me had been wanly lit by his entrapped insects, this was brighter. There were the strips of gauze with their prisoned, crawling things, but there also was, on a low table meant for one who knelt or sat crosslegged rather than in a chair, a ball of glimmering crystal. I was impelled to enter and that light which seemed to swirl fluidly within the container flared to sun brightness.