"You are life-linked with this one you call Yonan—though once he had another name and played the part of a tool—only not well enough. He had his death of his own pretensions, but not in time—"
And the word "time" seemed to echo through the chamber like a gong from a distance, a sound not to be denied.
"Now he would play the fool again," she continued. "But the past must not be reversed, rather it shall be improved upon. You, and through you Yonan (who is nothing but who unfortunately can move to destroy what a lifetime—twenty lifetimes—cannot bring once more into being), must be used. Therefore—younger sister—you shall take a hand and all will be as we wish—
I found my tongue at last. Perhaps it was the thought that she would make of me a tool to pull Yonan down which brought that croak out of me, rusty-sounding as if I had not given tongue in a score of years.
"As you wish—" Had the two of us ever stood and bargained so before? A teasing ghost of memory assaulted me once more. Perhaps not just in this same way, I believed, but we had been opponents long ago. Then I must have known more—much more—
For a second time she laughed. "If you hunt down that very forgotten trail you will not find much at the end of it—save that you failed then even as you will fail now. Believe me"—her eyes were afire or else had put on the diamond brightness ice can sometimes show under the sun—"you will fail. You are even less this time than you were when once before we fronted one another. Yes, you shall give me Yonan and all shall be well. I will make very certain of that. Come!"
She arose, beckoning me. And, as it had been since I had come into consciousness this time among the hills, I was wholly subservient to her will.
She did not even glance back to see if I followed. Rather she went directly to where a stair spiraled around the circular inner wall of this place and climbed quickly, I constrained to follow.
We came so into a second and upper chamber where the ceiling was not so high. Here were shelves and tables holding all manner of basins, beakers, and small boxes. From the ceiling and along the walls dangled bunches of withered vegetation which I thought I recognized as dried herbs. But the center of the chamber had been kept bare of any furniture. And there, set into the floor in various colored stones so that it would ever be permanent and ready to hand, was the pentagram of witchery. On the points of the stars were thick black candles, which had been lighted before, as drippings of evil-looking wax ridged their sides.
Beyond the pentagram was a smaller circle, this bordered by runes which had been drawn on the pavement in black and red. But lying in the middle of that, tightly bound, a gag forced between his wide jaws, was—Tsali! Though how the Lizard man could have been brought here I could not guess.
Chapter Four
Instinctively my mind reached to touch his. Only my thought send recoiled from an unseen barrier so intricately woven that nothing could pierce it—more of Laidan's sorcery. She had turned her back upon me, and there was contempt in that. She must now have believed me so poor a thing that she no longer even had to exert her power to hold me in control. Rather she was concentrating upon a search along those crowded shelves, taking down here a closed pot of rude workmanship, there a flask in which liquid swirled as if it had life.
I looked into Tsali's eyes and strove, though I could not reach him mind to mind, to make contact. And I saw that he knew me, yet there was that about his gaze which held shock—and—did I read repudiation?
In the beginning I had learned what I knew of my Talent because I could communicate with other life forms—those which are not the lesser (though ignorant men may deem them so because they do not walk, speak, or think after our fashion). The Lizard people, the Renthans, the Vorlungs of the Valley—they had arisen from stock totally unlike our own forefathers, but they were no less than we, only different.
Just as a fish lying in a sun-dappled pool, a pronghorn grazing in a meadow, a snow cat stalking in the upper reaches, have in them all the love of life, a way of thought equal to our own in power even if we cannot understand it.
I have also called to me the scaled ones. And I remembered now, in a small flash, how greatly I had troubled Yonan when he had once found me and a serpent as close-linked as was allowed by our divergent natures.
But all those were clean beasts who had nothing of the rot of the Shadow in them. While here in Escore prowled creatures which to mind-touch would be to open wide a gate through which I, myself, could be invaded. How much did Laidan use those born as a result of ancient meddling on the part of a people grown so decadent that they would tamper with nature to amuse themselves—or to provide servants for further evil?
The Lizard man was clearly an enemy. And that she planned worse for him I did not have to be told. But since she had lifted from me most of the force of her will, leaving only enough to keep me here, I began tentatively to look about me, seeking any weapon, any ally I might find.
This cradle of sorcery had no windows, and the thick stone walls were all shelved. Also, the ceiling over my head was much lower than that of the chamber below. Now I could see that in the corners of that there hung the soft thickness of years of webs, some so heavy with settled dust that they seemed small ragged bits of curtains. And in those webs—I sent out a very small quest of thought.
The mind that I touched was totally alien, the spark of intelligence frightening in its cold avid hunger. I had never tried to summon any of the insect world before. But that I had managed to touch at all was a small triumph. And, apparently, Laidan, in her preoccupation, had not been warned that in so much—or so little—I had begun to evade the geas she had laid upon me.
I located another creeper consciousness, a third. It was very hard to hold to them, for their level of consciousness was so different from my own it was like grasping a cord which was constantly jerked from my fingers, caught again just before it had totally escaped me.
There were huntresses in those dusty webs, cold and deadly. Of our concerns they knew nor cared nothing at all. But they were there. And now I made an effort, concentrating on the largest and what might be the oldest of the webs. Something moved in the hole that was its center. So—I had drawn its inhabitant thus far into the open! I had no plan at all, nothing but a hope which was very dim at that moment. But I put my own talent to the test, summoning those who dwelt above. They seemed to have fared very well, for when they appeared their bodies were bloated with good living—and that in the largest web was larger than my palm.
These were no ordinary spiders. There was poison in their jaws. They could immobilize their prey, enclose it in the web for future eating while it still lived. And their tiny eyes were sparks of evil light.
Laidan had finished her selection of supplies for whatever infamous sorcery she would do here. Now she moved purposefully around the star, setting a second candle beside the first, sprinkling the lines uniting them with powdered herbs—the smell of which was noxious.
I could guess what she intended—that we would be within the barriers she was making very secure, but that Tsali would lie in that wherein should appear whatever being of personified evil she strove now to summon from Beyond. Tsali was meant to furnish the blood-gift to that—
However, she had to release more of her hold on me to concentrate on what she did. Now she muttered words I did not know, keening spells no true Witch would soil tongue with. These must be very exact—for her life would also be forfeit were she to neglect any of the safeguards she now wove here.
The largest of the web dwellers came scuttling to the edge of her noisome dwelling, teetered there, her sparks of eyes seeking the prey which I had set in her mind was not too far away. She launched forth into space, spinning as she came the cord linking her to her dwelling. Now she swung back and forth, her fat body an orange and black dot in the air.