Andre Norton - Web of the Witch World

“I do.”

She lay on the bunk in the small cabin to which the captain had shown her. It was hot and close and the mail shirt constricted her breathing. But Jaelithe strove to set aside all outward things, to build in her mind the picture of Simon. There were many Simons and all had depth of meaning for her, but it was necessary to forge those into one upon which to center her call.

But—no answer . . . She had been so sure of instant contact that that silence was like an unexpected blow. Jaelithe opened her eyes and gazed up at the roofing of the ship’s timbers so close above her head. The Wave Cleaver was truly cleaving waves and the motion about her—perhaps that was what broke the contact or kept her from completing it.

“Simon!” Her call searched, demanded. She had had long years of training as a witch, to center and aim her power through that jewel which was the badge of her office. Was this fumbling now because she must do it all without a tool, with the skepticism of those she had long revered eating at her confidence?

She had been so sure that morning when she had had that sending concerning Loyse and when she had ridden to Es with that flaming desire to be one of the Power again—only to find doors and minds closed against all her knocking. Then, because she had been so sure she was right, she had gone apart, as dictated by her past training, to study this thing, to strive to use it. And when she had had the tidings that Simon had acted against all nature, she had guessed that the Kolder blight had touched him, then she had used that new power, little as she knew about it, in the fight for Simon which dropped him into the forbidden tangle of Tormarsh. After that, she had tried again with purpose. But were the Guardians right, was this new thing she thought she had found merely the dying echo of the old power, doomed to fail?

Simon. Jaelithe began to consider Simon apart from a goal at which to aim thought. And from the fringe consideration of Simon she looked inward at herself. She had surrendered her witchdom to Simon when she wedded him, thinking this union meant more to her than all else, accepting the penalty for that uniting. But why then had she been so eager to seize upon this hope that her sacrifice had been no sacrifice at all? She had left Simon to ride to Es, to best the Guardians and prove that she was not as others, that she was still witch as well as wife. And when they would not believe, she had not sought out Simon, she had kept to herself, intent upon proving them wrong. As if—as if Simon was no longer of importance at all! Always the power—the power!

Was that because she had known no other force in her life? That what Simon had awakened in her was not lasting emotion, but merely a new thing which had been strange and compelling enough to shake her from the calm and ordered ways of her kind, but not deep enough to hold her? Simon—

Fear—fear that such reasoning was forcing her to face something harsh and unbearable. Jaelithe concentrated again on Simon: standing so, with his head held high, his grave face so seldom alight with any smile—and yet in his eyes, always in his eyes when they met hers—

Jaelithe’s head turned on the hard pillow of the bunk.

Simon—or the need to know that she was still a witch. Which drove her now? As a witch she had never known this kind of fear—not without—but within.

“Simon!” That was not a demanding summons for communication; it was a cry born of pain and self-doubt.

“Jaelithe . . .” Faint, far off, but yet an answer, and in it something which steadied her, though it did not answer her questions.

“We come.” She added as tersely as she could what she had done to further his plan for tracking.

“I do not know where we are,” he made answer.

“And I can hardly reach you.”

That was the danger: that their bond might fail. If they only had some way of strengthening that. In shape-changing one employed the common linkage of mutual desire to accomplish that end. Mutual desire—but they were only two. Two—no. Loyse—Loyse’s desire would link with theirs in this. But how? The girl from Verlaine had no vestige of witch power. She had been unable to perform the simplest spells in spite of Jaelithe’s coaching, having the blindness in that direction which enfeebled all but the Old Race.

But shape-changing worked on those who were not of the Old Race; it had once worked on Loyse in Kars. She might not be able to pull on the power itself, but it could react upon her. And was this still the power?

Without answering Simon Jaelithe broke the faint link between them, set in her mind instead the image of Loyse as she had last seen the girl weeks ago in Es and using that as anchorage she sought the spirit behind the picture.

Loyse!

Jaelithe had a blurred, momentary glimpse of a wall, a scrap of floor, and another crouching figure that was Simon! Loyse—for that single instant she had looked through Loyse’s eyes!

But possession was not what she wanted, contact rather. Again she tried. This time with a message, not so deep an identification. Foggy, as if that wisp of tie between them fluttered, anchored for an instant, and then failed. But as Jaelithe struggled to make it firm, it did unite and become less tenuous. Until it held Loyse. Now for Simon—Groping, anchorage! Simon, Loyse—and it was stronger, more consistent. Also—she gained direction from it! What they had wanted from the first—direction!

Jaelithe wriggled from the confines of the bunk, kept her footing with the aid of handgrips as she sought the deck. There was wind billowing the sails, the narrow knife of the bow dipped into rising waves. The sky was sullen where the sun had gone, leaving only a few richly colored banners at the horizon.

That wind whipped Jaelithe’s hair about her uncovered head, sent spray into her face until she gasped as she reached the post beside the rudder where two of the crew labored to hold the ship on course, and Captain Stymir watched narrowly sky, wind and wave.

“The course,” Jaelithe caught at his shoulder to steady herself at an unexpected incline of the decking. “That way—”

It was so sharp set in her head that she could pivot in a half turn and point, sure that her bearings were correct for their purpose. He studied her for a second as if to gauge her sincerity and then nodded, taking the helm himself.

The bow of the Wave Cleaver began to swing to Jaelithe’s left, coming about with due caution for wind and wave, away from the dark shadow of the land, out into the sea. Somewhere under the surface of all this turbulence was that other vessel, and Jaelithe had no doubts at all that they were going to follow the track of that, as long as that three-fold awareness linked Simon, Loyse and herself.

She stood now wet with spray, her hair lankly plastered to her skull, stringing on her shoulders. The last colors faded from the sky or were blotted out by the cloud masses. Behind them even the shadow of Estcarp’s coast had gone. She knew so little of the sea. This fury of wind and wave spelled storm, and could storm so batter them from the course that they would lose the quarry?

Jaelithe shouted that question to the captain.

“A blow—” His words came faintly back. “But we have ridden out far worse and still kept on course. What can be done, will be. For the rest, lady, it lies between the fingers of the Old Woman!” He spat over his shoulder in the ritual luck-evoking gesture of his race.

But still she would not go below, watching in the fast gathering darkness for something she knew she would not be able to see with the eyes of her body, making as best she could an anchor past breaking for the tie.

13 KOLDER NEST

TIME WAS hard to measure in this ship’s cell. Simon lay relaxed on a narrow shelf bunk, but still he held to that ribbon of communication which included not only Jaelithe, but now Loyse in a lesser degree. Though the girl no longer shared his quarters, she was present in his mind.

Simon had seen none of his captors since, shortly after this voyage had begun, Aldis appeared and took charge of Loyse, leaving him alone. A second inspection of the narrow cabin had provided some amenities: a bunk which could be pulled out and down from the wall, a sliding shelf on which, from time to time, a tray of food appeared—coming from the wall behind.

The food was emergency rations, he thought, thin wafers without much taste, a small can of liquid. Not appetizing but enough to keep hunger and thirst under control. Otherwise there was no break in the long, silent hours. He did sleep a little while Loyse took over, holding the tie. Simon gathered that she now shared Aldis’ cabin, but that the Kolder agent was leaving her alone, content that she was passive.

Seven, now eight mealtimes. Simon counted them off. But that gave him no reasonable idea of the number of hours or days he had been here under the unchanging glow of the walls. They could be feeding him twice daily, or even once; he could not be sure. This was a period of waiting, and to any man who had depended most of his life upon the stimulation of action, waiting was a harsh ordeal. Only once before had it been so—during a year in jail. Waiting then, warped by the bitterness of knowing that he had been duped into taking punishment for those he hated, he had spent that time striving to work out schemes for repayment.

Now he was facing a blind future without even a good knowledge of the nature of the enemy. All he had was that mental picture from the past of the Kolder leader dying in Gorm, a narrow valley down which strange vehicles dashed while those in them fired back at pursuers. There had been another world for the Kolders and something had gone wrong there.

Somehow they had discovered a “gate” and come through—into this time and place, where the civilization of the Estcarpian Old Race was on the wane, a slow slip into the age-old dust which already rose about Es and the villages and cities of their kind. Along the coast—in Alizon and Karsten—a more barbaric upswing was rooted, newer nations, elbowing aside the Old Race, yet so much in awe of their legendary witches that they dared not quite challenge them—not until the Kolder began to meddle.

And if Kolder was not uprooted, Alizon and Karsten would go the way of Gorm: ingested into the horror of the possessed. Yet Kolder played upon this older enmity and fear to make their future victims their present allies.

The nature of Kolder. Simon began to concentrate upon that. Their native civilization was a mechanical, science-based one—that fact had been amply proven by what they had found in Gorm. The Estcarpian command had always believed that the Kolder themselves must be few in number, that it was necessary for them to have the possessed captives in order to keep their forces in the field. And now that Gorm was gone and Yle evacuated—

Yle evacuated! Simon’s eyes came open, he stared at the ceiling of the cabin. How had he known that? Why was he so very sure that the Kolder’s only stronghold on the coast was now an empty shell? Yet certain he was.

Were the Kolder now drawing in all their forces to protect their base? Kolder manpower—there had been five left dead in Gorm, the majority in their own apartments—not killed by any sword or dart, but as if they had willed their own dying—or some animating spark, common to all, had failed. But five! Could the death of only five so weaken the Kolder cadre that they would have to pull in all their garrisons?