“I do not wear their talisman, but it may be that they can control me still,” he warned her. “If so, can they reach you through me?”
“I do not know. I have learned so little! It is like trying to shape fire with my two hands! But this we can do—”
Again a snapping—even more sharp than that break which had come between him and the shadow shape of Aldis.
“Jaelithe!” he shouted soundlessly. But this time—no reply.
* * *
* * *
11 KOLDER KIND
SIMON LAY very still, sweating now. For this was no half-trance of his own willing. He was motionless in bonds he could not see, his body held by another’s will. Then she stood there, clear to the sight, at the foot of the bed, watching him in the level measurement which held no hint of whether she was friend or foe, or merely neutral in this war.
“They have come,” she said, “to answer the call of their woman they have come.”
“Kolder!” Simon found that he could use his tongue and lips if not the rest of his body.
“The dead ones who serve such,” the Torwoman qualified. “Listen, man who obeys Estcarp, we have no quarrel with the witches. Between them and us there is neither friendship nor enmity. We were here when the Old Race came and built Es and their other dark towers. We have been rooted here for long and long, a handful of people who can remember when man was not the ruler of earthside, not even ones who lived widely. We are of those Volt gathered and set apart to learn his wisdom.
“And we want no dealings with those outside Tormarsh. You have come to trouble us with your wars which are no concern of ours. The swifter you are gone from us, the better served we shall be.”
“But if you do not favor the witches, then why do you favor Kolder? Kolder hungers for rule over all men—and that includes the race of Tor.” Simon retorted.
“We do not favor Kolder, we only ask that we be left to our own mysteries without troubling from beyond the marsh rim. The witches have not threatened us. This you call Kolder has shown us what will happen if we do not yield you to them now. And so it is decided that you go—”
“But Estcarp would defend you against Kolder—” Simon began until she smiled a small, cold smile.
“Will they, with aught save good wishes, Warder of the Border? There is no war between us, but they fear the marsh as a place of ancient mysteries and strange ways. Would they fight to save it? I think not. Also they have no men to throw into such a battle now.”
“Why?” She seemed so certain that Simon was startled into a rough demand.
“Alizon has risen. Estcarp needs must throw all her armies northward to hold the marches there. No, we make the best bargain for us.”
“And so I am to be delivered to the Kolder.” Simon strove to keep his voice even and emotionless. “And what of Loyse? Do you give her also into the hands of the worst enemy this world has ever known?”
“The worst?” the Torwoman echoed. “Ah, we have seen many nations rise and fall, and in each generation there is a powerful enemy to be faced, either with victory or defeat. As for the girl—she is part of the bargain.”
“She is also Koris’, and I think you will discover that that has a meaning when it comes to extracting a price for such bargaining. I have seen the price he took from Verlaine and from Kars. Volt’s gift drank deep in both those holds. Your marshland will not turn him back when it comes to his hunting.”
“The bargain is made,” her tone was more remote than ever. Then her hands came up in a swift gesture and her fingers moved. Not to shape Jaelithe’s symbol of power, but still in an airborne sketch which had meaning.
“So you deem this Koris will come hunting for vengeance here?” she asked. “This pale-faced girl means so much to him?”
“She does, and those who have harmed her have need to fear.”
“Ah, but now he must ride to hold back Alizon. It will be many days before he shall have time to think of aught else. Or perhaps he will find an end to all questions and desires among the border hillocks.”
“And I say to you, lady, that Volt’s gift shall yet swing in Tormarsh if you do as you have said.”
“If I do, March Lord? I have naught to say in the yea and nay of such bargainings.”
“No?” Simon put all the skepticism he could muster into that. “And I say that you are not the least of those among the Tor born.”
She did not answer for a long moment, her gaze steady upon him.
“Perhaps once I was not. Now I do not raise my voice in any council. I wish you no ill, Warder of Estcarp. And I think that you mean no ill to me—or any of us. But when need drives, we obey. This much I shall do for you, since the maid is favored by he who was once lord of Gorm. I shall send a message forth to Es that those there may know where you have gone and why. If then they can move to aid you, perhaps it will not go so ill. More than that I am sworn not to do.”
“The Kolder come for us here—how?” Simon demanded.
“They come—or at least their servants come—up the inner river in one of their ships.”
“But there is no river linking Tormarsh with the sea!”
“No outer one,” she agreed. “The marsh drains under ground. They have found that way to us, they have already visited us by it before.”
By submarine down an underground river, Simon faced that. Even if the promised message reached Es in time to send a small force to the rescue, they could not ferret out the enemies’ pathway, or help the prisoners borne so along it. The Guard of Estcarp would not be the answer.
“If you would truly favor us to the point of sending any message,” Simon told her, “then send it not to Es but to the Lady Jaelithe.”
“If she is your wife, then she is no witch, nor can she do aught to aid you.” The Torwoman stared at him again with curiosity which Simon thought dangerous.
“Nevertheless, if you favor us in so much—then send.”
“I have said that I will send, if you wish it. To the Lady Jaelithe it shall be. Now, they come to take you hence, March Lord. If you survive this captivity, remember that Tormarsh is old, there is that within it which has stood long without being stamped into the bog with those who know its ways. Do not think that what is here can be easily swept aside.”
“Say that rather to Volt’s gift and he who bears it, lady. From Kolder’s fingers few escape. But Koris lives, and rides, and hates—”
“Let him ride and hate and show Volt’s gift to Alizon. There is the need for action there. Odd, March Warder, there is that in you which does not align itself with your words. You speak as one who resigns himself to fate, yet I do not believe that is so. Now—” Once again she sketched a sign in the air. “The gate is open and it is time you go.”
What happened then was beyond any description Simon was ever able to give. He only knew that one moment he was in the doorless cell, and the next, still helpless in whatever hold they had upon him, he was in the open on the bank of a dark lake where the water was thick and murky, with a threatening look to it.
There was the murmur of voices about and behind him, the Torfolk were gathered there, men and women. And a little apart the smaller group of which Simon was an unwilling part.
Aldis, a look of confidence and expectancy on her face, Loyse, standing so stiffly that Simon guessed she was held in the same immobile spell as himself, and two of the Tormen. There was also a fifth from beyond the marsh boundaries.
No Kolder—at least not the Kolder such as he had seen in Gorm. Of middle size, face round and dark of skin, a kind of tan-yellow unlike any Simon had seen in this world, though they had found representatives of unknown races among the dead slaves in Gorm. He wore a tight-fitting one-piece garment of gray, like the Kolder dress, but his head was bare of any cap though he had a silvery disk resting under the fringe of his thin, reddish hair at the temple.