City of Sorcery (46 page)

Wondering vaguely how a blind woman could guide them on a confusing trail which even Marisela could not find, Magda volunteered to lead the pack chervine for the first stretch. Down here the wind was not the jet stream of the heights, but still blew so strongly that old Rakhaila’s matted hair blew out behind her magnificently as she set off in the teeth of the gale.

The snow was slushy under foot, and the wind cut hard; but Magda, wrapping her woolly scarf over her face, was grateful that it was not freezing. Vanessa, she noticed, was still limping a little. She followed Rakhaila close; behind her came Jaelle, then Camilla with Cholayna at her side; at least at the start, Cholayna set off fresh and strong and rested, and her breathing was good. Perhaps she had managed to acclimate to the altitude by now. They would not have let her go, she told herself, if there had been any sign of continuing pneumonia.

They set off along a trail which led across the knife-edge of a ridge, with a long drop to either side. Magda, leading the chervine behind Cholayna and Camilla, looked to the right, where the slope was gradual and gentle, and did not make her dizzy. The trail was just wide enough for one, but looked quite well-traveled; where the snow had melted Magda could see that it had been beaten down hard as if by generations of feet.

Behind Magda and the chervine was Marisela bringing up the rear. The fierce wind prevented much talk, and they went on at a smart pace.

An hour on the trail; part of another. The five days of rest had done Magda good; her heart no longer beat furiously with the altitude. Lower down she could see the tops of trees. A good place for banshees, she thought dispassionately, looking out over the icy wastes below her, on either side of the ridge, but even they would have starved to death centuries ago.

Rakhaila flung up her arm with a long shrill cry and they came to a halt.

“Rest ye here; eat if ye ha’ need.” Rakhaila herself, thought Magda, looked as if she had been battered into stoicism by all the winds of a hundred years; as they got out the camp stove and brewed tea she hunkered by the trail, immobile, looking like a random bunch of rags, and when Camilla offered her a mug of the brew she shook her head contemptuously.

Camilla muttered, “Now
there’s
an Amazon who makes us all look like puppies!” She gnawed on a half-frozen meat bar.

Cholayna had one of the cakes made from ground-up nuts and fruit stuck together with honey; she munched at the stuff with determination.

Magda heard her ask Camilla: “Do you really think they are dead?”

“Marisela isn’t given to exaggeration and I’ve never known her to lie. If she says they’re probably dead, she means it. Or else, as she said, they’re in the hands of Acquilara, or whoever else is hanging around.”

“And we’re still looking for this, whatever it is, this city of sorceresses? I think we ought to try and trace where the
others
have gone, try to find out where Acquilara could have taken them. If they’re being held for ransom, we can pay it. And if they want to fight, well, I’ll try that too.”

Rakhaila’s old filmed eyes turned to Cholayna. She said, “Ha’ ye a care what ye ask, sister; the goddess may gi’ it to ye.”

“I’ll take that chance, if you will guide me there,” said Cholayna quietly. “Marisela can take these others on to the City, or wherever they prefer to go.
Will
you guide me to whatever place Marisela believes our friends are being held?”

Rakhaila only gave a contemptuous, “Haw!” and turned away.

Jaelle and Camilla were sitting on their packs, eating meat bars. Magda heard them talking about Kyntha.

“She said, ‘Never name the evil you fear. ‘ Does that mean such things as weather? Is it wrong to discuss the storm that’s coming?” Jaelle asked.

“Wrong? Of course not. Wise? Only if you can do something to avoid it. Certainly it is sensible to discuss precautions you can take. Apart from that, it only creates a self-fulfilling fear of something that can’t be helped. Don’t talk of how terrible the storm might be; think of what you can do to ride it out undamaged.”

“Then why did she tell us not to talk about Acquilara or even mention her name?”

Marisela smiled. Magda noticed it was the same cheerful, dimpled smile she used when she was instructing the young Renunciates in the Guild-house.

“I have spent too much of my life as a teacher,” she remarked, “I must be getting old; I am glad that there are wiser heads than mine to instruct you two. In brief, naming them could attract their attention; thoughts, as we know, have power.”

“But who
are
they, Marisela? I can just manage to believe in one benevolent Sisterhood demonstrating some interest in the affairs of women - “

“Of humankind, Camilla. Our sisters and our brothers as well.”

“But the idea that there is a rival organization dedicated to doing harm to humanity strains my belief!”

Marisela looked troubled. She said, “This is not the wisest place to discuss their doings. Let me say only that - Jaelle, you must have heard this among the Terrans as I heard it when I was in nurse’s training there -
for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction
.”

“So they are a reaction to the good sorceresses, and do evil?”

“Not that simple. I can only say that they care not enough to do evil to humankind; they want what they want, that is all. They want power.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Jaelle argued. “You are always telling the young girls, in training session, that women have a right to claim power - “

“Power over
themselves
, my dear! That kind of power is in accord with the Sisterhood. We have only one aim; that in the fullness of time, everyone who comes to this world shall become everything that he or she can be or do or accomplish. We do not fall into the error of thinking that if only people would do this or thus, the world would thereby be made perfect. Perfection is for individuals, one at a time, we do not determine the way they choose to live. Nevertheless, when the Sisterhood sees long-term trends and dangers, they nurture - how shall I put it - tendencies which will break these patterns and give people a chance to live another way.” She smiled gently at Camilla and said, “I do not know; perhaps it was a part of the pattern that you should not have grown up to be the powerful Keeper you were so obviously born to be.”

“Keeper? I?” Camilla snorted indignantly. “Even had I grown to womanhood in my father’s house - my
real
father, that is, and after this I should be a fool if I did not suspect who he was… “

“Right. Can you imagine yourself in the sorceress Leonie’s position?”

“I would rather - ” Camilla began, drew a long breath, and said on a note of surprise, as if she had just this moment thought of it, “I would rather have wandered the roads all my life as a bandit’s sword-mate!”

“Exactly,” said Marisela, “but had you been reared in the silks and privileges of the royal house of Hastur, I doubt you would have felt that way, but would willingly have followed Leonie into Arilinn. Ah, Camilla, Camilla love, don’t fall into the error of thinking this was your destiny, ordained in stone before you were born. But if some God or well-meaning saint had put forth his hand to save you from your fate, where would you be today?”

Of course, Magda thought. It was the totality of her life that had made Camilla what she was.

Camilla asked, “Did you know? Before this?”

“I knew of you, till this very day only what you chose to tell me, Camilla, and what once I read in your mind and heart when you were - broadcasting; believe me, I have never invaded your privacy. What you
were
is of no interest to me.”

Jaelle said aggressively, “I suppose now you will say that the Sisterhood chose to save my life and Magda’s for some reason - “

“I am not privy to all their reasons! Shaya, child, I am only one who serves them, one of many messengers. I am free to guess, no more. Perhaps they felt some long-term purpose would be served that the daughter of Aillard should bear a child lest her
laran
be lost to the world forever. Perhaps they wished some psychic gift of the Terrans to be strengthened in the Forbidden Tower and thus brought Magda there after she had decided she wished for a child, so her little Shaya would be reared among those who would foster her
laran
. Perhaps some one of them succumbed, as I do even when I know it might be better not, to the simple wish to save a life. Who can tell? They too are only human, and make mistakes, though they can see further than we do. But no one is perfect. Perfectable, maybe, in the fullness of time. Not perfect.”

“Yet after they went to all the trouble of saving Lexie’s life they let her fall into the hands of - Acquilara? I’m sorry, Marisela, I just can’t believe that.”

“I never asked you to believe anything,” said Marisela, suddenly indifferent, and rose to her feet. “Except that just now, I believe Rakhaila wants us to move on, and my legs are cramped from sitting down. Can I help you pack the kettle?”

As they went on Magda had plenty to think about. If what they said about
laran
in those of Terran blood was true, she thought, I am surprised that I was not somehow pushed into having Andrew’s child; heaven knows, he has about the strongest
laran
of any Terran I have ever known. But evidently they allow total free will. They left me to destiny. And I have heard that the Syrtis are an old Hastur sect; so Shaya is kinswoman to Camilla by blood as well as to Jaelle by the laws of a freemate’s oath.

That was reassuring.
If anything happens to me, Shaya will have kinfolk who will care for her. She and Cleindori are sisters indeed
.

Jaelle said, “I’ll take the chervine now for a bit,
breda
,” and Magda relinquished the rein, moving forward to walk at Marisela’s side. The path was leading upward now, edging alongside a mountain trail with long switchbacks, hugging a stone cliff from which, sometimes, loose rocks bounced downward; but the trail at this point was covered with an overhang and Rakhaila strode confidently along it as if she could see every step of her way.

“Want to walk on the inside?” Marisela asked. “As I remember, heights bother you.”

“A little,” Magda said, and accepted, and they strode along side by side for a time, without talking. At last Magda asked:

“Marisela, these - I won’t name them; you know who I mean - ” the picture of Acquilara was in her mind, in the curious bluish glow of her nightmare, “May I ask just one thing? Why would anyone - want to go that way? Are they the ones who, maybe, tried to - to look for the
real
Sisterhood and failed? And this was easier?”

“Oh, no, my dear. It takes much,
much
more strength and power to do evil than to do good, you see.”

“Why is that? I heard that evil was just being weak, taking the path of least resistance - “

“Goodness, no. That’s just being weak, fearful, selfish… in a word, human, imperfect. If being weak were a crime we’d all stand before the judges. That’s excusable. Terrible sometimes, but certainly excusable. The thing is, people who are good, or are
trying
to do good the best way they can, they’re working with nature, see? To work up the power to do positive evil, you have to go
against
nature, and that’s much,
much
harder. There are resistances, and you have to work up momentum against the whole flow of nature.”

This was a new idea to Magda, that good was simply fulfilling nature’s plan and evil was anything which worked against it. She was sure she did not entirely understand it, for Marisela was a midwife and a nurse and, taken to extremes, this could be interpreted as a prohibition against saving lives, which Marisela had spent her whole life doing. She decided she would have to talk further about it some time with her friend. She was never to have the chance.

They were taking a long dip now, along the steep trail, into a long valley below the timberline. Before they dipped into the trees, Marisela called softly to Rakhaila to halt a moment, and pointed upward. Across the valley was a long line of steep ice cliffs, shining in the crimson brilliance of the sun.