So, at least it could be walked upon. Yet the wall which guarded it to the south had been set there with purpose. Whether this was the domain of Loskeetha, I did not know. But it looked promising.
I had ventured onto the sand, and stepped out of the storm into an unnatural complete dryness, with but a single stride.
I belted on my sword. There was a sharp turn to the north just ahead; both the cliff and the wall which paralleled it angled so I could not see what lay beyond. The wall was rough rocks. They varied in size from large boulders at the base, to quite small stones atop. They had been fitted together cunningly and with such care that I do not believe I could have put the point of my knife into any of the cracks.
At that angle I turned, to find myself looking down into a basin. The wall did not descend, but ran on to enclose three sides of that hollow, while the cliff formed the fourth. Not too far ahead was a sharp drop from the level on which I stood to the bottom. What lay therein drew my eyes. It was floored with sand: this was of a blue shade. Out of it arose rocks, solitary and rough shaped, they were set in no pattern I could follow, but the sand about them had been marked with long curving lines in and around the rocks.
As I continued to look at it, I had an odd sensation. I no longer surveyed rocks set in sand. No, I hung high above an ocean which assaulted islands, and yet never conquered those outposts of land. Or—yes, now I looked down, as might a spirit in the clouds, upon mountains which towered high above a plain; but the plain which supported their roots was a misty nothing . . ..
This was a world, but I was mightier than it. I could stride from island to island, giant tall and strong, to cross a sea in steps. I was one who would use a mountain for a stepping stone . . . I was greater—taller, stronger—than a whole world . . .
“Are you, man? Look and tell me—are you?”
Did it ring in my ears or my head, that question?
I looked upon the islands in the sea, the mountains on the plain. Yes, I was! I was! I could set my boots there and there. I could stoop and pluck land from out of the sea and hurl it elsewhere. I could crumble a mountain with my heel.
“You could destroy then, man. But tell me; could you build again?”
My hands moved and I looked from the mountains and the islands to them. My left one moved easily, fingers curling and uncurling. But the right with its scar ridge, its stiffened bones . . .
I was no godling to remake a world at my fancy. I was a man, one Kemoc Tregarth. And the madness passed from me. Then I looked at the rocks and the sand and this time I held to sanity and forced upon my mind the knowledge of what they were and what I was.
“You are no giant, no godling then?” The voice out of nowhere was amused.
“I am not!” That amusement stung.
“Remember that, man. Now, why come you to disturb my days?”
I searched that valley of rocks and sand, to see no one.
Yet I knew I was not alone.
“You—you are Loskeetha?” I asked of the emptiness.
“That is one of my names. Through the years one picks up many names from friends and unfriends. Since you call me that, the Mosswives must have said it to you. But I repeat; man, why come you here?
“The Mosswife Fubbi—she said you might aid me.”
“Aid you? Why, man? What tie have you with me—kinship? Well, and who were your father and mother?”
I found myself answering the invisible one literally. “My father is Simon Tregarth, Warden of the Marches of Estcarp, my mother the Lady Jaelithe, once of the Wise Ones.”
“Warrior-witch, then. But neither kin to me! So you cannot claim favor because of kinship. Now, do you claim it by treaty? What treaty have you made with me, man out of Estcarp?”
“None.” Still I searched for the speaker and irritation grew in me that I must stand here being questioned by a voice.
“No kin, no treaty. What then, man? Are you a trader, perhaps? What treasure have you brought me that I may give you something in return?”
Only stubbornness kept me there as a voice hammered each point sharply home.
“I am no trader,” I answered.
“No, just one who sees himself as a giant fit to rule worlds,” came back in scornful amusement. “Welladay, since it has been long since any have sought me for advice, that is what you really want; is it not, man? Then perhaps I should give it free of any ties, to one who is not kin, nor ally, nor is ready to pay for it. Come down, man. But do not venture out on that sea, lest you find it more than it seems, and you, less than you imagine yourself to be.”
I advanced along the edge of the drop and now saw that there were holds for hands and feet which would take me to the floor of the basin. In addition, below was a path of lighter-hued sand, hugging the wall, which could be followed without stepping onto the blue.
So I descended and went along that path. Its end was a cave which might have been a freak of nature, but she who had her being there had made use of it for her own purposes. Its entrance was a crack in the cliff wall.
I called it cave, though it was not truly that, for it was open far above to a sliver of sky. Then I faced the source of the voice.
Perhaps Loskeetha and the Mosswives had shared a common ancestor long ago. She was as small and withered looking as they, but she did not go cloaked in a growth of hair. Instead what scanty locks she had, and they were indeed thin and few, were pulled into a standing knot on top of her head, held by a ring of smoothly polished green stone. Bracelets of the same were about her bony wrists and ankles. For her clothing she had a sleeveless robe of some stuff which resembled the blue sand, as if the sand indeed had been plastered on a pliable surface and belted about her.
Very old and very frail she looked, until you met her eyes. Those showed neither age nor weakness, but were alive with that fierce gleam one sees in the eyes of a hill hawk. They were as green as her stone ornaments and, I will always believe, saw farther and deeper than any human eyes.
“Greeting, man.” She was seated on a rock and before her was a depression in the sand, as if it cupped a pool of water, that held blue sand like unto that about the rocks in the outer basin.
“I am Kemoc Tregarth,” I said, for her calling me “man” seemed to make me, even in my own eyes, less than I was.
She laughed then, silently, her whole small, wizened body quivering with amusement.
“Kemoc Tregarth,” she repeated, and to my surprise her hand rose to her head in a gesture copying a scout’s salute. “Kemoc Tregarth who rides—or now walks—into danger as a proper hero should. Yet I fear, Kemoc Tregarth, that you shall now find you have gone well along a path which will prove to be your undoing.”
“Why?” I demanded of her bluntly.
“Why? Well, because you must decide this and that. And if you make the wrong decision, then all you wish, all you have been, all you might have been, will come to naught.”
“You prophesy darkly, lady—” I had begun when she drew herself more erect, and sent one of those disconcertingly piercing glances flashing out at me.
“Lady,” she mimicked. “I am Loskeetha, since that is the name you have hailed me by. I need no titles of courtesy or honor. Mind your tongue, Kemoc Tregarth; you speak to such as you have not fronted before, witch-warrior son that you be.”
“I meant no disrespect.”
“One can excuse ignorance,” she returned with an arrogance to match the arrogance of the Wise Ones when dealing with males. “Yes, I can prophesy, after a fashion. What would you of me, a telling of your future? That is a small thing for which to come such a wild way, for there is but one end for any man—”
“I want to find my sister.” I cut through her word play. “I traced her to a rock wall and Fubbi said she passed within, or through that, and a blind spell was laid there.”