Now that I did not believe. I shook my head. “I go after Kaththea, to that end I do not weaken.”
“Be it on your own head, then, warrior who is no witch.”
She reached out swiftly and caught both my hands, pulling them toward her with a sharp jerk which also brought me to my knees across the basin of blue sand. Then, keeping a tight grasp with her fingers about my wrists, she moved those hands in certain gestures and the sand fountained to make a picture. This was not a flat, two-dimensional showing such as had lain there before. Now it was as if I looked down into a living landscape, far below and small, as it had been in the Garden of Stones.
I myself was therein and before me a tall dark tower without windows. As I went toward it the wall reached out and engulfed me, but still I could see what happened. Kaththea was there. I caught her up to take her with me, but as I turned I fronted—not Dinzil—but a menacing shadow. Kaththea twisted and broke my hold and I saw a stricken look upon my face. Then—then I saw myself cut down Kaththea before she could join with that shadow!
My sharp cry of horror and denial still rang in my ears when the sand fountained again. This time I was in the Valley, riding with men I knew, to my right was Kyllan.
We faced not the strange rabble we had beaten back from the walls but a shadow host. In the midst of them rode Kaththea, her eyes a-glitter, her hands upheld. From those burst sullen flashes of red which brought death to members of our company.
Then I saw myself ride forward and swing my sword, to throw it as a lance. It spun through the air and its heavy hilt struck my sister’s skull. She fell, to be trampled by those she rode among.
Once more the sand fountained and cleared. I stood before the Dark Tower and from it ran Kaththea and this time I knew that she was not one of the enemy, but fleeing from them. But I saw the darkness wreathe about me. Blinded, I thrust out as if I fought with what I could not see. Kaththea, running to me for protection, was again cut down. Then the mist went and I was left alone to face my deed.
Loskeetha released my hands. “Three futures—yet the same ending. You see that, but—listen well to this—not the decisions upon which it is based. For each of those comes from other happenings.”
I awoke from my daze. “You mean it is not the last act, not my strokes, that really kill Kaththea, but other things done or undone, which lead to that point? If those are not done, or undone, then Kaththea will not—will not—”
“Die at your hands? Yes.”
It was my turn to catch at her wrists. But under my fingers those smooth stone bracelets turned seemingly of their own accord to break my grip.
“Tell me! Tell me what to do?”
“That is not my magic. What I can see, that I have shown you.”
“Three futures, and they all end so. Can there be a fourth—one in which all goes well?”
“You have choices; make the right ones. If fortune favors you—who knows? I have read the sands for men in the past and one or two—but only one or two—defeated the fates shown them.”
“And . . . suppose I do nothing at all?” I asked slowly.
“You can slay yourself with that blade you seem so ready to use upon your sister. But I do not think you have so reached the end to all hope as to do that, not yet. But, save for that, you will still have choices to make in each moment’s breath, and you cannot help the making of them. Nor will you know which are wrong and which are right.”
“I can do this much. I can stay away from the Valley and the Dark Tower. I can find a place in this wilderness and stay—”
“Decision—there is a decision,” Loskeetha said promptly. “Every decision has a future. Who can guess how it will be twisted to lead you to the end you fear. But, I am wearied, Kemoc Tregarth. No more can I show you, so . . .”
She clapped her hands together and that sharp sound echoed and reechoed in my ears. I blinked and shivered in a sudden blast of cold. I was on a mountainside. Below me was the cliff of red and black. It was raining and the wind was rising, and it was close to night. Shaken, hungry, cold and wet, I wavered along. Then there was a dark pit to my right and I half stumbled, half fell into a shadow cave. I crouched there, dazed.
Had there been a Loskeetha at all? And what of the three futures she had shown me? Decisions, each putting thread into a pattern. If she had really shown me the truth, how could I defeat fortune to build a fourth future?
I fumbled in my supply bag and brought forth some crumbling journey cake, ate it bit by bit to fill the aching void in my middle. I had chosen to eat. I had chosen to take refuge in this cave; had either choice led me a single step closer to one of the three futures?
Two had come at the Dark Tower, one in the Valley. Could I believe that if I stayed away from both those sites I could stave off or change the future? But, I did not even know where lay the Dark Tower. Suppose I blundered along among these hills and came across it unawares? The one decision I thought I could be sure of was not to return to the Valley.
Yet Loskeetha said small things could alter all.
I folded my arms across my knees and buried my face upon them. Was Loskeetha right? Could Kaththea’s only safety lie in my turning my sword against myself?
In two of those futures Kaththea had been one of the forces of evil. In the Valley she killed her friends. In the Dark Tower it was my life she threatened. In the third, she fled, while I was the one bewitched. In two out of three Kaththea was no longer my sister, but a dark one. Was I betraying all I loved best in Kaththea by trying to save her body?
Decisions! Loskeetha had said one man, two, had defeated the possible futures. But if one did not know which decision—
I rolled my head back and forth across my arms. My thoughts beat in my brain. What if Loskeetha was not what she seemed, but another of the defenses Dinzil set up to protect his back trail? I had seen hallucinations wrought by the Witches of Estcarp; I had been duped by them. Loskeetha could be such an illusion, or the scenes she showed me illusion. How could I be sure?
My head ached as I leaned back against the wall of the cave. Night and the rain made a dismal curtain. Sleep . . . if I could sleep. Another decision—leading where? But sleep I must.
IT WAS AN ill sleep, haunted by fell dreams, so that I roused sweating. Yet, in spite of my efforts, I would sleep again, only to face more monstrous terrors. Whether those were born of my own imagination or the pall which lay over the cave land, I did not know. But when I awoke with an aching head, which spun when I moved, in the gray morn, I still had not made my big decision. Stay here, imprisoned by my own will, until life left me. Dare to go ahead, with belief in the rightness of my cause to arm me with courage against the futures Loskeetha had shown me. Which?
If there was evil abroad in Escore, then there was also good. I thought on that dully. But to what force could I appeal now to my arming?
There were Names from petitions made in Estcarp. But such appeals were very old and had lost their meaning for most men. We had come to look to our own strength and the backing of the Wise Women for our salvation.
I still wore a sword; I had skill in its use. I had my Borderer’s knowledge of war. But to me at that moment these seemed as nothing at all. For what I would go up against now was not to be vanquished by steel. So, what had I left? Scraps of ancient wisdom culled at Lormt, but so tattered by the passing of ages as to be no shield.
And always in my mind were the three pictures Loskeetha had shown me.
There was no rain now. Neither were there any sun banners painting the highlands of the east, rather a sullen lowering of clouds. Under that gloom the stretch of land I could see from the cave was stark and lifeless. What vegetation grew there was twisted, misshapen, faded of color. There were many outcroppings of rock. These, if one looked at them carefully, had an unpleasant aspect. It was easy to picture here a leering face, there a menacing taloned paw, a mouth with gaping, fanged jaws. These appeared to slide about just under the surface of the stone. One moment they were there, the next they were gone again—to reappear a short distance away. I wrenched my eyes from that, closed them to the gray day and tried to think. The thoughts which raced through my mind were not clear. It was as if I were in a cage and darted here and there, only to always face restraining bars.
I heard a thin wailing, such as I had heard in the stone forest where I had found Kaththea’s scarf. Kaththea’s scarf—my hand went to the front of my jerkin; its silken softness was between my fingers.
Kaththea—Kaththea thrice dead, and always by my hand. Was Loskeetha’s magic the true sight? Or, as a small, nibbling suspicion told me, was she one of the safeguards used to befog the enemy trail?
I ate more of my rations, sipped from my flask. There was very little water left in it now. A man may endure hunger longer than he can thirst. I did not know if I would have the fortitude to stay here until death sought me out.
Nor would my nature allow me to take that do-nothing path, though it might be the highest wisdom. There was in me too much of my father, and perhaps my mother, both of whom marched to meet danger, not await its coming.
At last I crawled stiffly from that hole and looked about. I remembered, or thought I did, the look of the land about the Dark Tower in those two scenes Loskeetha’s sand had painted for me. Around me now I saw no resemblance to that land. Not too far away, I could hear running water.
Danger in food, in drink, that was Dahaun’s warning. But perhaps if I were to mix this water with that still remaining in my flask the danger would be lessened. Decision . . .
I kept my head turned from the walls; the menaces which grew and dissolved there were sharper. Being sure they were illusion, I wanted none of them, lest rational thinking be disrupted.
The wailing wind in the heights tormented my ears with a keening which I would take sword-oath on were the cries of those pushed to some great extremity of terror, calling upon me for aid. Some of them seemed to be voices I knew. But, I told myself, wind around rocks can produce strange sounds.
I drew to mind odd bits of old lore. Some were of the Sulcar. It was their belief that a man would not fall in any fight unless he heard his name called aloud while the battle clamor still rang. So I found myself listening for the wind to sound some long wailing “Keeemooc.”
There had been those, such as Aidan from the outback of Estcarp (where men followed the old ways more closely), who carried talismen. He had once shown me a stone with a perfect round hole in it, saying such given to one, by a woman who cared deeply, was great protection against an ill. Aidan—I had not thought of him for years. Where was Aidan now? Had he survived the border raiding, returned to the maid who had put that stone in his hand that it would keep him safe for her?
The cut I followed turned downward, leading into a wider valley. Here was more vegetation, and the shallow waters of a river I had heard before the wind raised such a doleful lament. I looked at the water. Then, with the reflexes taught me by the border years, I dropped instantly into cover among the boulders.
Not even the wind could drown out the new cries, nor the clash of metal. There was a fierce battle going on near the water’s edge, even into the stream itself where the water was splashed high by the fighters. The Krogan had been trapped in a stream too shallow for them to swim. There were three of them, two men and a woman. Around and about them, apparently fighting on their side, were several furred creatures. Their opponents were a mixed force. I saw men, mailed and dark cloaked, striking out with steel, at the cornered Krogan. Farther upstream a squad of Thas rolled stones, and hurled earth into the water, trying to cut off more of the flow which might aid the aquatic race.
I saw one of the Krogan, his spear sheared off, collapse under a flashing blade. Then they had no hope at all, for, from the brush on the other bank, a second contingent of the enemy came. They held not swords but wands or staves, from which came flashes, not unlike the energy whips of the Green People. Animal and Krogan alike, they went down before those.
One of the swordsmen waded out into the water, kicked here and there at the bodies which were awash. Then he caught the floating hair of the woman, jerked up her head so that her face was fully exposed.
Orsya!
Still keeping that painful hold upon her hair, the man pulled her limp body ashore, dragged her out upon the sand and gravel. Those who held the wands made no move to join their allies. I saw a gesture or two pass between the parties and the wand people melted back into the brush.
The Thas came stumping down stream, uttering guttural cries, to fall upon the bodies still in the water. I have seen much brutality in war. But this was of no human knowing, yet I dared not look aside for Orsya still lay there and . . .
I do not know if the Krogan were dead when they fell. But the Thas made sure that they and their furred companions would not rise again. Having fed their fury, and yet remaining unappeased, they came to where Orsya lay, the swordsmen standing about her. He who must be the Thas leader stretched out filthy claws to hook in her garment, to draw her out to be ravaged by his pack.
But one of the swordsmen swung a blade warningly and those paws were jerked back, though the Thas chief set up a yammering which out-noised the wind, his ire plain to read.
Again that blade swung, in a wider circle, and the Thas retreated. He mouthed louder cries, spit and gnashed his teeth, spittle flying from his wide mouth to fleck the hair on his flailing arms, his protruding barrel of chest and paunch.
At some order from the leader of the swordsmen, two of his fellows advanced on the Thas. They were confident, arrogant, contemptuous, and the earth burrowers stood their ground only for a moment or two. Then, scurrying, they snatched at what lay staining the stream red, and, carrying burdens no one would wish to look upon, they retreated upstream. Still their leader walked backward, thumping his chest to add a hollow roll to his cluttering cries.