“If you cannot help me, do you know of any who can?” Lydryth demanded, feeling the hope that had sustained her for the past months draining away, leaching the life and color from the entire world. “I must find someone to heal him, I must! You see, the fault for his illness lies with me…. We were searching for my mother, whom he loved more than…” Sobs choked her then, and she turned away, shamed that the witch had seen her so undone.
But the woman no longer seemed aware of her presence at all. Stumbling, shoulders sagging, Lydryth blindly followed the young witch out of the room.
They threaded the dim corridors, their feet whispering against the stone flags. Slowly, the songsmith regained her control, blinking back the tears that had threatened… but her pack seemed doubly heavy, and the harp within its case made a sad, muted sound as it brushed the wall. What shall I do? Lydryth wondered numbly. Where can I go? The thought of returning home to Kar Garudwyn empty-handed was intolerable, yet her mind envisioned as an alternate naught but years of hollow wandering in alien lands.
She rounded the last comer before the entrance portal, only to nearly trip over the girl who had been guiding her. “Quietly!” the witch whispered, glancing fearfully around. “In here, we needs must talk.”
A chill hand came out of the silver-grey robe to grab Lydryth’s sleeve, drawing her into a darkened room. After a moment, the songsmith made out dusty barrels and boxes surrounding them. Some kind of a storeroom.
The minstrel watched as the young witch peered carefully out of the entrance, making sure they had gone unobserved. Then the girl shut the door and touched nnger to a candle she produced from the sleeve other robe. A spark flared; then the taper was alight. In the flickering dimness, they stared at each other.
“What’s to do?” Lydryth began, only to have the girl lay finger to her lips in a signal for whispers.
“Quiet!” the witch cautioned. “Listen a moment. I know of a place where you may find help in your quest, songsmith.”
Two
Lydryth stared down into the witch’s face, scarcely daring to believe that here might be one who could actually guide her in finding what she sought. “Where?” she demanded, finally. “Where can I find help for one who has been mind-blasted by ancient Power?”
“There is a place of learning,” the girl said. “Old . perhaps older than Es Citadel itself. There are ancient records there, and some of them deal with healing. I have heard of legends that speak of healing stones, and a red mud that conquers even the gravest of injuries. Perhaps you can find the location of such cures in those records.”
“Where?” The songsmith’s question came with sharp impatience. “Where lies this stone? Where rests this mud?” “I know not. Escore, perhaps . . . Much that we thought legend only has been proven real since the Tregarths discovered that ancient land from which the Old Race once fled, if the tales be true. At this place of ancient learning, you may well find answers.”
“I am no scholar,” Lydryth murmured doubtfully.
“But the ones who live there are, and they will aid you; they have little else to do. There is a chance you may find a mention of a cure written there, on some tattered scroll.”
“A chance,” Lydryth repeated, her mind racing. “A bare chance, seemingly.”
“You do not appear to me to be one who can afford to overlook any possibility, no matter how small,” the witch retorted.
Lydryth sighed. “You are right. What is this place?”
The other raised a cautioning hand. “Not so fast. If you aid me, I will tell you when we reach our destination. Will you swear by Blessed Gunnora, whose amulet you wear, that you will keep faith if I help you?”
Lydryth started, her hand going to the breast of her jerkin, where the amulet lay hidden. “How do you know what I wear concealed?” she asked, eyeing the younger woman suspiciously, striving to read her features in the dim light.
“My Power may be small, but it is sufficient to sense that you wear Gunnora’s symbol on your breast,” the witch snapped impatiently. “But that is not the important thing, here. Will you swear to aid me, in return for my help?”
“What aid do you seek?”
“Your assistance in escaping from the Citadel, then from Es City, and returning to Kastryn, the village of my birth. When we reach there, I will reveal to you the name of the place of ancient learning, and tell you how to reach it. Kastryn, you will find, is on the road to your eventual destination.”
Lydryth gazed at the young woman, her eyes searching that narrow, pointed-chinned face. There was beauty there, though it appeared worn, fined-down, as if, despite the girl’s youth, she had suffered much. “I might be able to discover the whereabouts of this ‘place of ancient learning’ without your aid,” she said, slowly, “now that I know what manner of place to inquire about. If people live there, someone, somewhere, will know of it.”
The witch bit her lip, her control slipping. “I have been a fool,” she whispered, in a voice edged with desperation. “I was not brought up to be a mistress of intrigue and am bluntspoken by nature. You are right. If you ask long enough among the learned scholars of Es, you will find one who knows of the existence of Lormt, and where it lies. Go, then. I wish you success on your quest.”
She turned away, her slight shoulders drooping beneath the grey robe.
The songsmith felt sympathy stir within her, as she remembered her own despair at the thought of being kept here in this ancient stronghold by these hungry, hollow-eyed women. She reached out to put a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Wait. Tell me more. You are one of them-why do you wish to leave?”
The witch did not turn or look up. “I am one who was forced to the test, just as you were, today,” she said, dully. “But for me the stone glowed-only a spark, but the witches are desperate.”
“I could see that. Why are they so?”
“They have been forced to watch their control of this land slowly slip from them into the hands of others-Koris and his Lady Loyse, Simon Tregarth (whom they have hated ever since he took one of their number to wife) and his lady, Jaelithe. So any girl-child showing a trace of the Power, they take, in an attempt to rebuild their numbers.”
The young woman’s voice trembled. “I’d escaped the testing for two years, because I was sole support and nurse for my widowed mother. Then she died, so the next time the witch came to Kastryn, I needs must lay finger to her stone. It sparked, so they took me, brought me here … began to teach me.”
“Magic?”
“As much as I could learn, which was little enough. I am not a dullard, but my heart and will are drawn elsewhere-I possess neither the desire nor the gift to become mistress of more than a few minor illusions, plus some healcraft and herb-lore! However, these other women, to them Power is all-meat, bread, drink and breath itself! I cannot expect you to understand, songsmith, but I can never be as they are-never!”
Lydryth recalled her own childhood, spent in a stronghold steeped in sorcery. … It had permeated the very air she breathed, and to the others around her, using magic was as natural as that breathing itself. Only she had possessed none of the ability-she, who had taken after her father. Her father, racked by the backlash of near-forgotten Power . . .
A surge of sympathy for the young woman before her made Lydryth’s throat tighten. “I understand,” she told the witch softly, “more than you can know.”
The girl’s voice broke. “And the worst of it all is, they took me without even leaving me time to send a message to Logar!”
“Logar?”
The girl turned back to face her questioner. In the candlelit dimness, her eyes sparkled, as if she were struggling to hold back tears. “Logar is my betrothed. He rides with the Borderers. The fangs of the Hounds have been partially drawn, but Alizon is still a dagger that pricks Estcarp’s side. Their remaining Hounds are wilier than ever as they slink forth to harry our northern border. Thus, each young man who is whole and able must serve with those who patrol that border for a space of three years. Logar’s time was up last month-by now he must be home, only to find me gone!”
Her mouth quivered, then tightened grimly. “We swore that when he returned, we would be wed. And I want nothing more from life than to be with him! But Logar cannot free me-for him to dare the Citadel would mean his death. But I am afraid that he might try such a foolhardy move … so I must escape, before he can!”