“Is that why I am a prisoner here?” Simon countered.
“Yes. But not to remain a prisoner—unless you will it. Simon Tregarth, March Warder of the south. Ah, we know you all—the mighty of Estcarp.” His expression did not change, but there was a sneer in his voice.
“Where is your witch wife now, March Warder—back with those other she-devils? It did not take her long to learn that you had nothing she cared to possess, did it? Oh, all that passes in Estcarp, Karsten and Alizon is known to us, to the minutest detail it is known. We can possess you if we wish. But we shall give you a choice, Simon Tregarth. You owe nothing to those she-devils of Estcarp, to the wandering-witted barbarians they control with their magic. Has not that witch of yours proved to you that there can be no loyalty with them? So we say—come with us, work in our grand plan. Then Estcarp will lie open for your plucking, your terms—or strike any other bargain you wish. Be March Warder again, do as Estcarp wishes, until the word comes to do otherwise.”
“And if I do not accept?”
“It would be a pity to waste one of your potential. But he who is not with us is against us, and we can always use a strong back, legs, arms to labor here. You have already tasted what we can do—your muscles do not obey you now, and you cannot take a step unless we will it so. This can be used otherwise. Would you care to breathe only by our favor?”
There was a sudden constriction about Simon’s chest. He gasped under that squeezing pressure and panic awoke in him. Less than a second, but the fear did not leave him when he was released. He did not in the least doubt that the Kolder could do as was threatened—keep the air from his lungs, if they chose.
“Why. . . bargain?” he gasped.
“Because the agents we wish cannot be forced. Under such controls you must be constantly checked and watched, you would not so serve our purpose. Accept freely and you will be free—”
“Within your limits,” Simon returned.
“Just so. Within our limits, and that will remain so. Do not believe that you can give assent with your lips and keep to your own purpose thereafter. There will be a change in you, but you will retain your mind, your personality, such of your desires and wishes as fit within the framework of our overall plan. You will not be only flesh to carry out orders as those you term possessed and you will not be dead.”
“And I must choose now?”
The Kolder did not answer at once. Again his expression was blank, but Simon caught a faint tinge of meaning in his voice—threat, uncertainty, maybe one and the same.
“No—not yet.”
He made no signal which Simon could distinguish but the control brought him about, set him walking. No guards this time, but they were not needed. There was no possible way for Simon to break free, and the threat of constriction about his chest was with him still, so that every time he thought of that he had the need to breathe deeply.
Down the corridor, into the elevator again. Up, an open door; the order to move, another hall and another door. Simon went into the room beyond and the control was gone. He turned quickly, but the door was closed and he did not need to try it to know that it would not open.
The harsh, artificial light of the lower room was gone. Two slit windows were open to the day and Simon went to the nearest. He was in a position of some height above a rocky coastline with a sheer descent to water. By side glimpses he got an idea of the building; it must resemble Yle. Not only was the window slit too narrow to climb through, but there was no way down, save that drop straight to the sea-washed rocks.
Simon crossed to the other window. Bare rocks again, not the slightest sign of vegetation—rocks in wind-worn pinnacles, in table mesas, slashed into sharp-walled canyons and drops. It was the most forbidding stretch of natural territory he had ever seen.
Movement. Simon pushed forward as far as he could in the window slit to see what moved in that tormented wilderness of broken rock. A land machine of some sort, not unlike a truck of his own world, though it progressed on caterpillar tracks, which crunched and flattened the surface at a pace, Simon judged, hardly faster than a brisk walk. There were marks on that surface which the machine followed. This was not the first truck which had gone that way, or perhaps not the first trip this one had made in the same direction.
It had a full cargo, and clinging to that lashed-on gear were four men, their ragged scraps of clothing labeling them slave laborers. The machine lurched and jerked so that they held with both hands and feet. That slow crawl inland with a cargo on board. Simon continued to watch until the truck disappeared behind a mesa. It was only then that he turned to examine his new prison.
Monotone color and a bed which was merely a shelf opening from the wall and covered by a puffed, foamy substance. Closed doors of cupboards—a whole row of them. One upon his investigating turned down into a table, another gave him sanitary arrangements as there had been on the submarine. The rest remained tightly closed. It was a room to induce boredom, Simon thought. Perhaps its very monotony was a piece of careful contrivance.
But there was one thing he was sure of: this was the Kolder base. And there was a good chance that they might have him under some form of observation. The fact that he had been released from control might even be because they wished to see how he would use his freedom. Could they suspect the tie? Was he bait in a trap to bring in Jaelithe?
What would the Kolder give to have one of the witches in their hands? Simon thought that under the circumstances they would give a great deal. Suppose that everything—everything—which had happened to him since the awakening in Tormarsh when he had found Jaelithe again had really been of their engineering! He could not be sure it was not.
Yet the Kolder depended upon their machines. They affected to despise the power. So had they any way of detecting what Simon, Jaelithe and Loyse had woven? To contact Jaelithe now . . . would it be right or wrong?
Betrayal or report? He had promised to let her know when he reached the base, give her the news which would eventually summon Estcarp. But how long would it take to bring in that armada? And what could darts and swords or even the power do against the weapons the Kolder must mount here—things which had not perhaps been in Gorm or Yle? Should he call or stay silent?
More movement. A truck crawling back. Was it the same vehicle he had watched depart? But that hardly would have time to unload and this was empty.
Call—or be silent? Simon could no longer use this useless survey of the land as an excuse for not making up his mind. He went to the bed, lay down upon it. A chance—but everything was a chance now, and if this was not betrayal, then he dared not delay.
14 WITCH WEAPON
JAELITHE HAD journeyed on Sulcar ships before, but never into the void of mid-ocean. There was a vast impersonality about the sea which undercut her confidence in herself in a way she had never known before. Only the knowledge that her witchdom had not been swept away was her support. The witches had the reputation of being able to control natural forces. Perhaps on land they could summon up a storm, a mist or weave hallucinations to control the mind. But the sea was a power in itself and the farther the Wave Cleaver sailed the less sure Jaelithe was.
Simon’s fear that they might have awakened the suspicions of the Kolder, oddly enough, steadied her. Men—even the Kolder, alien as they were—she could face better than this rolling immensity of wind-driven wave.