She was Orsya, but why she had brought me from the islet, and from what danger we fled, I had no idea. The furred owner of the house waddled to a hole and, ducking into it, was gone. Orsya turned her attention to me.
“Let me look upon your wound.” It was an order rather than a request, but one I obeyed. For the raging pain Dahaun’s treatment had reduced was fast returning, and I wondered how much more I could stand.
The Krogan girl brought out a knife and cut more of my breeches and the bandage I had knotted tighter. Though the light of our refuge seemed twilight to me, it apparently served her adequately. She examined my wound intently.
“It is better than I had hoped. The woodswoman knows her herbs,” was Orsya’s comment. “While her roots and leaves would not heal it, yet the poison has eaten no deeper. Now let us see what can be done.”
I had raised myself on my elbows to watch her. Now, with a palm flat against my chest, she pushed me flat again.
“Rest—do not move! I shall speedily return.”
As the animal, she crawled through that mud arch and I was left alone. The light-headedness which had come and gone upon the islet plagued me, and with it the pain in my thigh was a fire charring to the bone.
It seemed a very long time before she came back, and I needed all my small remaining stock of fortitude to endure it. I knew that I had a fever and it was increasingly hard to keep in touch with the world about me.
Orsya bent over my wound again; her touch was at first sheer agony as she coated torn flesh with a soft, wet substance she took from a shell box. Then a coolness spread from that coating, soothing, turning the torn flesh numb. Three times she spread the coating, each time waiting for a short interval before she applied the next layer. Then she put over it some wide leaves.
When she had finished she raised my heavy head and urged into my mouth some globules that burst as I bit down on them, filling my mouth with a salty, bitter fluid.
“Swallow!” she commended.
In spite of my distaste, I did, though it was faintly nauseating and left my throat feeling raw. Water from a shell cup followed, before she settled me back on an improvised pillow of reeds scraped up from the floor.
I slept then, my last waking memory that of seeing Orsya curl up at the other side of the house. She held something between her hands; whatever that object was, it gave off flickers of light which ran hither and thither across the walls, for what purpose I could not guess.
When I awoke again I was alone. But my head was clear and the pain in my wound was only a suggestion of ache. Suddenly I wanted out—into the clear, clean air which did not carry the animal smell, wanted out enough so that, if I still had my sword, I might have been hacking at the walls which pent me there.
Only, when I tried to sit up, I discovered that the plaster Orsya had put on my thigh was now a great weight, its surface under my exploring hands, seemingly as hard as stone. It tied me as efficiently where I was as if she had left me in dungeon chains. But I did not have long to fret about that, for she crawled in from the tunnel, carrying something wrapped in a net.
For a moment she eyed me appraisingly. “It is well,” she commented. “The poison no longer fills you. Now, eat, and so grow strong, for danger stalks this land, with net and spear, to take you.”
Her net bag she put down and opened to show small leaf-wrapped parcels in it. Hunger—yes, I was hungry—with the hunger that follows involuntary fasting. I glanced at the parcels and knew I would not question flavor, nor source, that only the substance interested me.
There were small slivers of white meat, moist, and I believe, raw. Over these she scattered a flour-like dust from another packet. I ate eagerly, and found it good, where I had been prepared to overcome repugnance because of my need. There were four or five things which might have been roots, peeled and scraped, which had a sharp flavor, a little biting to the tongue. When I had finished, Orsya folded away the net.
“We must talk, man from over-mountain. As I have said, you are not free from danger—but very far from safety. At least, beyond these walls you are. The Valley is far from here. Also, those who rode with you believe you dead.”
“How did I get to that island?”
She had brought out a comb and drew it through her cloud of hair, smoothing and parting those filmy locks with a kind of unconscious sensual pleasure.
“Oboro was sent to take you, or one of you. The People—the Krogan as you earth walkers call us—are very frightened; and fear has made them angry against those they believe have brought them danger. No longer may it be in this land to answer no war horn except one’s own. You and Ethutur came to Orias and asked for our aid. But other, and greater, lords had come before you. After you were gone they sent such messengers as we did not dare to deny hearing.
“We want none of your wars; do you understand? None!” Her mind touch was a ringing shout in my brain. “Leave us to our lakes and pools, our rivers and streams. Leave us in peace!”
“Yet Oboro caught me—”
For a moment she did not answer, but busied herself ridding one long strand of hair of a tangle, as if that was the weightiest act in all the world. But I guessed that she hid behind her comb and combing as one might cower for refuge under the spreading limbs of a welcoming tree.
“You called upon water to war with the Thas—loosed one of the ancient weapons the Krogan once built for a lord long since dead. Now the Thas, and those who sent them, cry out upon my people, saying that in truth we have secretly allied ourselves to you. Those sent among us to see we do not do such a thing, they will take toll—”
“But why was I captured?”
“You are one of those who began the troubling, one who helped to loose the flood. You were wounded and so easy to capture,” she replied frankly.
Suddenly I discovered that I was watching the rise and fall of that comb in her hair with a serious attention which woke an uneasiness in me. Reluctantly, and that reluctance alarmed me even more, I looked away from her, fixing my eyes on the dome wall above her head.
“So Oboro thought me easy prey—”
“Orias ordered that one of you be taken, if it were possible. He might use such a prisoner as a peace-offering to those. And mayhap, if he drove a good bargain, free us from their notice.”
“But if it meant so much to your people, why did you rescue me?”
Her comb was still now. “Because what Orias ordered would bring trouble also. Perhaps worse trouble in the end. Is it not the truth, that you spoke and one of the Great Ones answered?”
“How—how did you know that?”
“Because we are who we are, man from over-mountain. Once, very long and long ago, we had ancestors who were of your breed. But those chose to walk another road, and from that walking, little by little, were we born. But powers shaped us, and once we answered to their pull and sway. So when one of the Great Ones stirs, then all like unto us in this land know it. And if you are one who will be answered, then you might loose upon us worse than those can summon in their turn.”
“But Orias did not think so?”
“Orias believes what he was told—that only by chance did you hit upon some spell which moved a long closed gate. His informer also said better give you unto those who can force you to put such a key into their hands.”
“No!”
“So say I also, man from over-mountain.”
“My name is Kemoc.”
For the first time I saw her smile. “Kemoc, then. No, if you have such a spell, I would rather have it serve those you company with in the Valley, than others. Thus did I come to take you from the island.”
“And this?” I looked about me.
“This is a winter dwelling for the aspt. Since they are of the rivers, so are they biddable when we approach them properly. But time passes and powers walk. I do not think it will be much longer that you dare an overland trip to the Valley. It is whispered that the Shadow forces will soon have that under siege.”
I rapped my hand against the stone-hard covering of my wound. “How long must I be tied here?”
Again she smiled and put away her comb. “For no longer than is needed to chip you free, Kemoc.”
Chip she did, hammering with stone and the point of her knife. I thought that what she had plastered on me and left to dry must be the same healing mud as had brought my brother back from the edge of death. For when the last shards fell away there was no wound, but a half-healed scar seam, and I could move the limb with ease.
She took me out through the underwater tunnel and we sheltered warily in a thicket of reed growth, rooted where the water swirled. It was early morning and a mist clung to the surface of the river. Orsya sniffed, drawing deep breaths into her lungs and expelling them slowly, as if in that way she tested for some message which eluded me.
“The day will be fair,” she announced. “That is good—clouds favor the Shadow; sun is the enemy to those.”
“Which way do I go?”
She shook her head at me. “Way we go, Kemoc. To let you blunder helplessly in this land is to pick a possel from its shell and throw it to a vuffle. We go by water.”
Go by water we did, first swimming with the current of the river, and then against the push of ripples in a smaller side stream to the south. Although the land seemed open and smiling under the sun, yet I paid close attention to all Orsya’s directions. We lay in a reed bank once—she underwater, I with a hollow reed in my mouth for air—while a small pack of Gray Ones lapped water and growled to one another within arm’s touching of our hiding place.
It was irking to my guide that I could not take wholly to the water as she was able, but needed air for my laboring lungs. I am sure she could have made that journey in a third less time than we took. At night we sheltered again in another river dweller’s abandoned burrow, one not finished with the skill of the aspt dwelling, merely a hole cut in the bank.
There she spoke of her people and their like. I learned that she was the first daughter of Orias’ elder sister, so by their way of ranking kinship, thought closer to him than his own children. She was more adventurous than most of her generation, having slipped away from her home on numerous occasions to explore waterways where only a few, if any, of the males had ever ventured. She hinted of strange finds in the mountains, and then said impatiently that with the coming of war such searching must be abandoned. Mention of the war silenced her and she curled into sleep.
It was midmorning before the stream we had followed dwindled to a size so we could no longer swim. Then she motioned to the heights ahead and said:
“Guide your way by that peak, Kemoc. If you take care and make haste, you will reach your Valley by sundown. I can abide for short periods of time in the open air, but not for long. Thus, this is our parting place.”
I tried to thank her. But what are adequate thanks for one’s life? She smiled again and waved. Then she splashed back into the water and was gone before I could finish what I was stumbling over to say.
Setting my attention on the peak she had pointed out I began the last stage of my journey.
THE WINGED SENTRIES of the Valley had me in view long before I sighted them. A Flannan appeared out of nowhere to coast along over my head, then was gone with beating wings. I came up, not the road entrance I had known before, but a notch between two standing stones. Back door to the Green domain this might be, but here were also inscribed the Symbols on each wall. One of the lizard folk who helped patrol the heights peered down at me, jewel-eyed.
“Kemoc!”
Kyllan came running, throwing his arms about my shoulders, mind and eyes both meeting mine. In that moment our old closeness was as if it had never been broken.
It was like unto a high feast day as they brought me to the feather-roofed houses, asking questions all the way. But what I had to tell them of Krogan enmity made them quickly sober.
“This is ill hearing!” Dahaun had poured the guesting cup for me. Now she put the flagon back on the table as if she saw some evil picture. “With the Krogan ranged against us . . . water can be a bad weapon to face. But who can be these Great Ones of the Shadow whom Orias fears so much that he tries to buy their favor with a captive? The Krogan are not a timid folk. In the past they have been friends to us. Perhaps a seeking—”
Ethutur shook his head. “Not yet; not until we can learn in no other way. Remember, those who so seek may also find themselves the sought, if they are detected and the power on the other side is equal to, or greater than, their own.”
In the first excitement of my return I had forgotten something, but no longer. Kaththea—where was my sister? I looked to Kyllan for an answer. Surely she was not avoiding me. . . ?
He was quick with reassurance. “She rode east yesterday, when we believed you dead. It was her thought to go to a place, known here, where certain forces can be tapped; and where, with her witch knowledge, perhaps she could read your fate. Believe this, Kemoc; she was sure that you were not dead. For she said that she and I would know it if your life had been taken from you!”
I dropped my head into my hands. Suddenly it became so needful that I reach her, that I sent out a call, believing that here in the protected Valley, it could cause no harm. Kyllan’s thought twined with mine, making it twofold as it went forth, joyfully seeking.
Into that seeking I poured more and more strength. I felt the tide of Kyllan’s rise with it—out and out . . . Yet there came no answer. It was not as if Kaththea was absorbed in some spell of her own, for still we would have touched her mind and been warned off. No, this was a total absence of all Kaththea meant to both of us—as total as if the walls of the Wise Women’s Secret Place had once more closed about her.
Now my spear of thought grew swifter, shot in all directions. But there was no target, only that emptiness which in itself was ominous. I raised my head again from trembling hands and looked to Kyllan, saw the grayish shade beneath the weathering of his face and knew we were united in fear.