“Something of that, but more of this, in the eyes of all we are green youths. As Anghart said, they will expect us to engage in some rash action and that they will be prepared to counter. But—”
His eyes were now agleam. “Do not say of yourself again, brother, that you do not think deeply. You are right, very right! We are but children in their eyes, and good children accept the dictates of their elders. So we play that role. Also—” He hesitated and then continued, “There is this—we can learn more of this trade they have bred us to—this use of arms against a pressing enemy—and in addition seek learning in other directions—”
“If you mean the Power, we are men, and they hold it is for the use of women only.”
“True enough. But there is more than one kind of Power. Did our father not have his own version of it? The Witches could not deny that, though they would have liked to. All knowledge is not bound up in their own tight little package. Have you not heard of Lormt?”
At first the name meant nothing to me. And then I recalled a half-heard conversation between Dermont and one of the men who had been with him since he had fled Karsten. Lormt—a repository of records, ancient chronicles.
“But what have we to learn from the records of old families?”
Kemoc smiled. “There may be other material there of service to us. Kyllan,” he spoke sharply, as one giving an order, “think of the east!”
I blinked. His command was foolish. East—what was east?—why should I think of the east?
East—east—I hunched my shoulders, alerted by an odd tingle along the nerves. East—There was the north where lay Alizon ready to spring at our throats, and south where Karsten now worried our flanks, and west where lay the ocean roamed by Sulcar ships, with any number of islands and unknown lands beyond the horizon’s rim, such as the land where Simon and Jaelithe had found the true Kolder nest. But to the east there was only a blank—nothing at all—
“And tell me the why of that!” Kemoc demanded. “This land has an eastern border too, but have you ever heard any speech of it? Think, now—what lies to the east?”
I closed my eyes to picture a map of Estcarp as I had seen it many times in use in the field. Mountains—?
“Mountains?” I repeated hesitantly.
“And beyond those?”
“Only mountains, on every map nothing else!” I was certain now.
“Why?”
Why? He was very right. He had maps showing far north, far south, beyond our boundaries, in every detail. We had ocean charts drawn by the Sulcar. We had nothing—nothing at all for the east. And that very absence of fact was noteworthy.
“They cannot even think of the east,” Kemoc continued.
“What!”
“It is very true. Question anyone, over a map, of the east. They cannot discuss it.”
“Will not, maybe, but—”
“No.” Kemoc was definite. “Cannot. They are mind-blocked against the east. I am ready to swear to that.”
“Then—but why?”
“That we must learn. Do you not see, Kyllan, we cannot stay in Estcarp—not if we free Kaththea. The Witches will never allow her out of their hold willingly. And where could we go? Alizon or Karsten would welcome us—as prisoners. The House of Tregarth is too well known. And the Sulcarmen would not aid us when the Witches were our enemies. But suppose we vanish into a country or place they refuse to admit has existence—”
“Yes!”
But it was so perfect an answer that I mistrusted it. Behind the smiling face of fortune often hides the cracked countenance of ill luck.
“If there is a block in their minds, there is a reason for it, a very good one.”
“Which I do not deny. It is up to us to discover what it is, and why, and if it can be turned to our purpose.”
“But if them, why not us—?” I began, and then answered my question with another: “Because of our half-blood?”
“I think so. Let us go to Lormt and perhaps we’ll have more than one explanation.”
I got to my feet. Suddenly the need to do something, for positive action, was plain to me. “And how do we manage that? Do you suppose that the Council will allow us to roam about Estcarp under the circumstances? I thought you had agreed that we should be obedient, return to the company, act as if we acknowledged defeat.”
Kemoc sighed. “Do you not find it hard to be young, brother?” he asked. “Of course we shall be watched. We do not know how much they suspect that we are bound to Kaththea in thought contact. Surely our bolting here at her message will tell them something of that. I—I have not reached her since.” He did not look to me to see if I could give a different report. It had never been put into words with us but we all knew that between Kemoc and Kaththea the communication ties were far more secure; it was as if the time gap between our births had set me a little apart from the other two.
“Kemoc—the tower room! Where our mother—” Remembrance of that time when I had been a part of a questing was not good, but I would will myself into that joyfully if it would avail us now. Only he was already shaking his head.
“Our mother was an adept, with years of use of the full Power behind her. We have not the skill, the knowledge, the strength for that road, not now. But what we have we shall build upon. As for Lormt—well, I believe that willing can also open gates. Perhaps not yet—but there will be a road to Lormt for us.”
Was it a flash of foreknowledge which made me correct him?
“For you. Lormt is yours, I am sure, Kemoc.”
We did not tarry at Etsford; there was nothing any longer to hold us. Otkell had commanded the small force to escort the Lady Loyse to South Keep. And not one among the handful of retainers left there had the authority or reason to stay us when we announced our return to our company. But as we rode the next day we were at work inwardly—striving to communicate, to speak by thought, with a determination we had never really given to such exercises before. Without guidance or training we struggled to strengthen what talent we had.
And during the months which followed we kept at that task which was hidden from our camp fellows. But hide it we were sure we must. No effort on our part ever awoke a response from Kaththea, though we were informed that she had entered the completely cloistered dwelling of the novices of the Power.
Some side issues of our talent did manifest themselves. Kemoc discovered that his will, applied to learning, could implant much in his memory from a single listening, or sighting, and that he might pick out of other minds such information. The questioning of prisoners was increasingly left to him. Dermont may have guessed the reason for Kemoc’s success in that direction, but he did not comment upon it.
While I had no such contribution to make to our mountain missions, I was aware, slowly, of another reach of whatever lay within me that was an inheritance from my parents. And this took the form of kinship with animals. Horses I knew probably as no other warrior of the forces. The wild things of the wilderness I could draw to me or send on their way merely by concentrating upon them. The mastery of horses I put to good use, but the other was not a matter of much moment.
As to Kemoc’s desire to get to Lormt, there seemed to be no way to achieve that. The scrimmages along the border grew in intensity and we were absorbed into the guerrilla tactics. As the outlook for Estcarp grew darker we were all aware that it was only a matter of time before we would be fugitives in an overrun land. Koris did not recover swiftly from his wounding, and when he did, he was a maimed man, unable to again raise Volt’s Axe. We heard the story of how he made a mysterious trip into the sea cliffs of the south and returned thereafter without his super weapon.
From that moment his luck was left behind also, and his men suffered one defeat upon the heels of another.
For months Pagar played with us, as if he did not want to quite deliver the finishing blow, but amused himself in this feinting. There was talk of Sulcar ships departing with some of the Old Race aboard. Yet I am sure that what really delayed the final push of our enemies was their age-old fear of the Power and what might chance should the Witches loose on them all that might be so aimed. For no one, even among us, knew exactly what the Power might do if a whole nation of Witches willed it into action. It might burn out Estcarp, but it could also take with it the rest of our world.