“What does she mean?” I appealed to Kemoc.
“A Familiar’s birth,” he replied. His face was as set as it had been on that ride to bring Kaththea forth from the Place.
“A Familiar?” I did not yet know what he meant. What was a Familiar?
Kaththea raised her hands and took Kemoc’s wrists so that she could set aside his grasp on her chin. She did not look at me when she answered, but at him as if she would impose her will so that he could not deny her desire.
“I must make a servant, Kyllan. One which will explore not this country as we see it, walk it, sense it, but who can return to the past and witness what chanced here and what can be done in the present for our preservation.”
“And how must she do this?” Kemoc burst out hotly. “As a woman gives birth to a child, so must she in a measure create a being, though this will be born of her mind and spirit, not her flesh! It can be a deadly thing!”
“All birth lays a risk on someone,” Kaththea’s quiet tone was in such contrast to his anger that it carried more emphasis. “And—if you are both willing—I shall have more than myself to call upon. Never before in Estcarp have there been three like us—is that not so? We can be one after a fashion when there is need. What if we now unite so and will with me—will not the risk be so much the lessened? I would not try this alone, that I swear to you in all truth. Only if you will consent freely and willingly to my aid will this be my path.”
“And you think that there is a true need for such an act?” I asked.
“It is a choice between walking into a pit as blindly as I crossed the mountains, or going clear-eyed. The seeds of all perils which lurk here were sown in the past, and time has both nourished and mutated them. But should we dig up those seeds and understand the reason for their sowing, then we can also take guard against the fruit they have borne through the years.”
“I will not!” Kemoc was vehement.
“Kemoc . . .” She had not loosed her hold on his hands, and now she spread out the scarred and stiff-fingered one, smoothing its ridged flesh. “Did you say ‘I will not’ when you went into the fight wherein you got this?”
“But that was far different! I was a man, a warrior—it was my strength against that of those I faced—”
“Why count me as less than yourself?” she countered. “Perhaps my battles may not be fought with dart gun and sword blade, but I have been under as severe a discipline these six years as any warrior could ever know. And I have in that time been set against such enemies as perhaps you cannot even conceive. Nor am I saying now in false confidence that I can do this thing alone—I know that is not the truth. I am bidding you to a fight, to stand with me, which is an easier thing than willing you to stand aside and do nothing while watching another take risks.”
His set lips did not relax, but he did not protest again, and I knew that she had won. Perhaps I had not fought on his side because I did not know the danger into which she would venture, but my ignorance was also trust in her. At moments such as these she was no young girl: instead she put on such a robe of authority that the matter of years did not mean much and she was our elder.
“When?” Kemoc surrendered with that word.
“What better time than here and now? Though first we must eat and drink. Strength of body means backing for strength of mind and will.”
“The drinking is easy, but the eating . . .” Kemoc looked a little brighter, as if he had discovered in this mundane need an argument for abandoning the whole project.
“Kyllan will provide.” Again she did not look at me. But I knew what must be done. And this I had never tried before, save when I had approached it with the Torgians.
When one has even a small share of talent or reflection of the Power, one also knows that there are bounds set upon its use. And to willfully break one such for one’s own benefit exacts a price in return. Never since the time I had first learned I could control the minds of beasts had I ever used that to facilitate hunting. I had not sent the Torgians away into peril when I had dispatched them from our camp. Several times I had deterred wild things from attacking or trailing men. But to summon a creature to death for my profit. I sensed, was one of the forbidden things.
But now that was just what I must do, for the good Kaththea would accomplish. Silently I took upon myself the full responsibility for my act, lest the backlash of this perversion of the Power fall upon my sister’s sorcery. Then I set myself, intently, to seek and draw the food we must have.
Fish and reptiles, as I had long ago learned, had minds so apart from human kind that they could not be compelled to action—though, in the case of some reptiles, a withdrawing could be urged. But a mammal could be so brought to us. Prong-horns could swim . . . Mentally I built up as vivid a picture of a prong-horn as memory and imagination combined could create. Holding such a picture then, I cast out my thin line, seeking contact. Never before I tried to do this thing, for I had dealt with beasts directly under eye, or knew, from other evidence, were nearby. This seeking for no particular animal, but only one of a species, might fall.
But it did not. My spinning thought made contact—and instantly I impressed will, needing to move swiftly to control the animal. Moments later a young prong-horn leaped down the river bank in full sight. I brought it out into the flood at the same angle we had used so that the current would bear it to the islet.
“No!” I forbade Kemoc’s use of his gun. The kill was my responsibility in all ways; none of the guilt must go to another. I awaited the animal I had forced to swim to its death, and all I could offer it was a quick, clean end.
Kaththea watched me closely as I dragged up the body. Out of my troubled mind I asked her:
“Will this in any way lessen the Power?”
She shook her head, but there was a shadow in her eyes. “We need only strength of body, Kyllan. But yet. . . you have taken upon yourself a burden. And how great will be your payment, I cannot reckon.”
A lessening of my talent, I thought, and put it to mind that I must not trust that in any crisis until I was sure of the extent of my loss. Nor did I take into consideration that this was not Estcarp, that those rules which conditioned witchery in that land might not hold here where the Power had been set adrift into other ways.
We made a fire of drift and ate, forcing ourselves past the first satisfying of hunger, as flames must consume fuel for some necessary degree of heat.
“It is near to night.” Kemoc thrust a stick which had spitted meat into the heart of the fire. “Should this not wait upon daybreak? Ours is a force fed by light. Such summoning at the wrong time might bring instead a Power of the dark.”
“This is a thing which, begun at sunset, is well begun. If a Familiar be sent forth by the mid-hour of the night, it may rove the farther. Not always are light and dark so opposed, one to the other,” Kaththea returned. “Now listen well, for once I have begun this I cannot tell you aught, or explain. We shall clasp hands, and you must join minds as well. Pay no heed to anything my body may do, save do not loose our hand clasp. Above all, no matter what may come, stay with me!”
We needed to make no promises as to that. I feared now for her, as Kemoc did. She was very young, for all her seeress training. And, though she seemed very sure of her powers, yet she might also have the overconfidence of the warrior who has not yet been tried in his first ambush.
The clouds which had overhung the day lifted at sunset, and my sister drew us around to face those brilliant flags in the sky, so that we could also see the mountains over which we had come into this haunted land. We joined hands and then minds.