“Say that rather to Volt’s gift and he who bears it, lady. From Kolder’s fingers few escape. But Koris lives, and rides, and hates—”
“Let him ride and hate and show Volt’s gift to Alizon. There is the need for action there. Odd, March Warder, there is that in you which does not align itself with your words. You speak as one who resigns himself to fate, yet I do not believe that is so. Now—” Once again she sketched a sign in the air. “The gate is open and it is time you go.”
What happened then was beyond any description Simon was ever able to give. He only knew that one moment he was in the doorless cell, and the next, still helpless in whatever hold they had upon him, he was in the open on the bank of a dark lake where the water was thick and murky, with a threatening look to it.
There was the murmur of voices about and behind him, the Torfolk were gathered there, men and women. And a little apart the smaller group of which Simon was an unwilling part.
Aldis, a look of confidence and expectancy on her face, Loyse, standing so stiffly that Simon guessed she was held in the same immobile spell as himself, and two of the Tormen. There was also a fifth from beyond the marsh boundaries.
No Kolder—at least not the Kolder such as he had seen in Gorm. Of middle size, face round and dark of skin, a kind of tan-yellow unlike any Simon had seen in this world, though they had found representatives of unknown races among the dead slaves in Gorm. He wore a tight-fitting one-piece garment of gray, like the Kolder dress, but his head was bare of any cap though he had a silvery disk resting under the fringe of his thin, reddish hair at the temple.
And the stranger was weaponless. However on the breast of his suit there was one of those intertwined knots fashioned of green metal, such as had been on Fulk’s swordbelt and Aldis carried.
The murmur from the Tormen grew louder, so that individual beepings carried to Simon. For the first time he wondered, with a small surge of hope, if the bargain the woman had told him about had been so widely accepted as she would have him believe. Could an appeal from him now split the ranks, give the prisoners a chance? But, even as Simon thought that, one of the marsh natives, standing with Aldis, raised his arm in a lashing motion. There was a ring of bells, the first really melodious sound Simon had heard in this half-drowned country. As the chain bearing those fell again to the Torman’s side there was quiet, instant and absolute.
Quiet enough so that the disturbance in the murky water of the lake broke in an audible bubble on the surface. Then the water poured away as out of the depths arose the mud-streaked surface of a Kolder underwater vessel. There were scars and scrapes along its sides as if it had found whatever passage ran this way a difficult one. It moved without sound closer to shore.
An opening in the rounded upper surface flipped to shore to form a platform bridge uniting land and ship.
Aldis, her eager expression now an open smile, started along that pathway. Then Loyse, as if Aldis pulled her by cords, followed, walking stiffly, her whole body expressing her fear and repulsion. Simon’s turn—his muscles, his bones, his flesh, were no longer his own. Only his mind imprisoned in that helpless body struggled for freedom, with defeat for the end.
He walked to that opening in the Kolder ship. Then, still by another’s will, his hands and feet found holds on a ladder, and he descended into the space below. But not to freedom. Loyse moved ahead and he after, into a small cabin bare of any furnishings. They stood, he slightly behind the girl, and heard the door clang shut. Then and then only, did the compulsion cease to hold him.
Loyse, with a little moan, slumped and Simon caught her. He lowered her gently to the metal flooring but still held her as their bodies tingled with the vibration reaching them through the structure of the ship. Whatever power moved the submarine was now in force; the voyage had begun.
“Simon,” Loyse’s head turned so that he felt her breath come in gasps, not far from sobs, against his cheek. “Where are they taking us?”
This was a time when only the truth would serve. “To where we have wished to be—though not under these circumstances—I think, the Kolder base.”
“But—” her voice quavered to a pause. When she spoke again it was with a measure of self-control, “that—that lies overseas.”
“And we travel under water.” Simon leaned back against the wall. As far as he could see the cabin was bare and they had no weapons. Not only that, but there was that control over them the Kolder appeared able to use at will, leaving all hopes of rebellion doomed. But, perhaps there was one way . . .
“They will never know where we are. Koris cannot—” Loyse was traveling her own path of thought.
“At present Koris is occupied, they have seen to that also.” Simon told her of the invasion from Alizon. “They plan to bay Estcarp around with snarling dogs, letting her wear down her forces with such blows, none of which will yet be fatal, but which will exhaust her manpower and her resources—”
“Letting others do their fighting,” Loyse broke in hotly, “ever the Kolder way.”
“But one which can win for them as time passes,” Simon commented. “They have some plan for us also.”
“What?”
“By right of marriage you are now Duchess of Karsten, and so a piece worth controlling in this devious game they play. I am Border Warder. They can use me as hostage or—” He hated to put into words the other reason which might make him valuable to the enemy, the much more logical one.
“Or they can strive to make you one of them and so a traitor to serve their ends among the ranks of Estcarp!” Loyse stated it for him. “But there is one thing we may do so that we cannot be used so. We can die.” Her eyes were very somber.
“If the need comes,” Simon replied crisply. He was thinking: the site of the Kolder base—that was what they had long wanted to know. Not to snap off the monster’s hands and arms, but destroy the head. Only, the world was wide and Estcarp had no clues as to the direction in which such a base lay. The Kolder use of underwater ships meant that they could not successfully be tracked by the Sulcarmen who counted the ocean their true home.
But suppose that Kolder could be tracked? The Sulcarmen were not truly land fighters. Certainly their raiders would be now harrying the coast of Alizon with the hit and run tactics they had developed to a high art, but that employment would not require the majority of their fleet. And if that fleet were free to track a Kolder ship, find their base—their fighting crews would harass the enemy on their home ground until Estcarp could throw the might of striking power against that hold.
“You have a plan?” The fear which had shadowed Loyse’s features was fading as she watched Simon.
“Not quite a plan,” he said. “Just a small hope. But—”
It was that “but” which was all important now. The Kolder ship would have to be traced. Could that be done by contact such as he and Jaelithe had had in the Tormarsh village? Would the blight of those barriers the Kolder had always been able to use to cloak themselves against the magic of Estcarp sunder them utterly? So many “ifs” and “buts” and only his scrap of hope to answer all of them.
“Listen—” More to clear his own thinking than because he expected any active assistance from Loyse, Simon outlined what that hope might be. She gripped his arm fiercely.
“Try it! Try to reach Jaelithe now! Before they take us so far away that even thought can not span that journey. Try it now!”
In that she could be right. Simon closed his eyes, put his head back against the wall and once more bent his whole desire and will-to-touch on Jaelithe. He had no guide in this seeking, no idea of how it might be done, he had only the will which he used with every scrap of energy he could summon.