On she went because there was laid upon her a command she could not disobey and her faint fear subsided. Rather she sped her steps with a growing excitement, knowing a need to reach whatever nameless goal called her.
Still the path ran straight and she walked it, the walls tall beside her. There was no change in this half-alive world into which she had been wafted—or summoned. Only there was a need which she must assuage, though the manner of that service was still hidden from her.
Her feet hardly seemed to touch the ground, it might be that her will alone, or that which had sent her, bore her forward—the walls skimming past. Thus, at length, she came abruptly forth from that silt. In her now the beat of the great heart was so attuned to her own that it strengthened her. There was no fatigue of body, no stiff ache in her limbs. She was tireless.
The country into which Thora advanced was sharply etched in a strange fashion, degrees of dark, some more, some less, marked its features. Some splotches tossed branches as she was borne by them. The silver trace on the ground had vanished abruptly upon her coming into the open. Yet there was still a trail—
Thora shaped an impulse born of her will, centering on the land ahead—questing—drawing upon all she could summon. Now there sprang up on the black of the earth faint traces of silver, these shaped like the prints of naked feet. She hovered over them, unaware any more of her own body, coasting above the surface of the ground where they were set. Each was apart from the next as if they measured the stride of a man walking steadily, with a purpose. Following them she spun on into heavy darkness.
The girl was no longer aware of the heartbeat, but her excitement grew as she longed for clearer sight, a better knowledge of the land she traveled. On ran the footprints. He who had left them might have been sent to march across the world unendingly.
Thora wanted to be done with trailing—to come face to face with what lurked in this dark world. She hurled herself on, whipped by that desire.
Since the ceasing of the heavy beat, this had become a silent world. But now she became aware of another sound. Those wind-tossed branches did not sigh nor rustle, there were no calls of any bird or insect. Only, from afar, came a thump which was not that of the heart she had sensed as one with her. No, this was a drum beating with a sharp tap which stirred through the velvet darkness until she could believe its harshness made evil patterns in the air. And that troubling awoke once more her fear so she could no longer skim along, trusting the country. Rather she peered at every clump of the black, waiting for something to rise from ambush.
The dark land was coming alive, bringing alarm and the stench of peril. Now the wind carried the rotten sweetness of decay. There was death—or something worse than death ahead. Thora could not retreat, for it was toward that center of evil the footsteps she must follow marched so resolutely.
Rising from the black plain was an even denser mass—if there could be gradations of black. In this place the girl discovered that the very negation of light did possess subtle changes. The mass ahead was too regular in shape to be a hillock—nor was it a forest—
From within it came that clamor of drum or drums. The sounds they gave forth became one deep voice crying aloud, a second higher in tone, answering, with now and then a sharp rattling.
Into that mass the tracks disappeared. And into it, Thora, unable to control her going, flew after. There was an utter and complete lack of all sight for a long moment. She was stifled, buried, gasping—as if she had been flung, helpless, into a pit in the earth with sour soil heaped above. Her heart fluttered, pushed with effort, to keep life in her.
She burst out of that dark into a blaze of light which seemed blinding. At the same time the stench of old evil choked her, and a pain she could not understand made her writhe. Her answering scream was suppressed, she lacked the power to loose sound from her throat. Thus she hung in torment until she sensed that this was an assault, not upon her body (if she still had one), but rather on the core of life within it.
There came into her mind, raggedly and at first without her conscious will at all, the things she had learned. Her defenses stiffened, so slowly that she might be building a wall, stone by patiently laid stone. Still she fought and at last surrounded herself with a sphere of hard-held power. It was not enough merely to weave that for her protection—she must reach out beyond that—So had she been sent here to do.
Thus, as if she did have eyes which had to adjust to the glare after the long dark journey, she looked about her. She might be swimming in a sea of blood, for about her was a scarlet haze as thick as a fog. There were no prints to guide her. Only that faint pull. Very warily she allowed herself to be drawn along. She sent forth a probe—
Whatever she must do here must be quickly accomplished, for the threat grew ever stronger, pressing in upon her hard-held armor. To seek at the same time weakened her even more.
She followed the probe. The mist thickened and the chatter of the drums was savage—a pain through her whole person. Down in the heart of that mist shown a spark—the sign of another life force. That—that was the goal towards which she had been drawn. She gathered her strength, flashed towards it.
It was as if she looked from a high window into a cavernous room. The outer limits of its walls were so far removed they were totally hidden. But directly before her was a sharpetched scene, vivid and alive.
Thora had found the drums and there were indeed two of them. One towered so high that he who played it must stand and lift his hands well above waist level to bring the polished bones which were his sticks down upon its painted surface. The second drummer squatted on his heels, because his instrument was a wide bowl, and the ragged edges of the skin drawn tightly across it were ringed with gleaming teeth.
Both drummers were entirely naked, their skin bleached as white as if they were growing things which had fought for life in a place where no sun ever shone. The hair on their painfully lean bodies was straggly and also near-white, caked with filth, which also smeared and stained their skins. Their eyes were turned a little upward and had no pupils, but were yellowish balls—they must be blind. While their heads and bodies swayed as they kept at the broken rhythm which made their drums seem to talk to one another—or to something which was not of human kind.
Before the drums lay a prisoner. There Thora saw the flash of light which had guided her. She dropped her probe, realizing that such could reveal her presence to her own peril. Stretched on the pavement lay a man also bare of body. His chest arched with every breath, as if he fought for air, while around him were filaments of black cords which had their birth in the drums—curling up, weaving about his flesh. These grew ever darker and thicker, though sometimes they slipped when on that laboring breast the flare would brighten—fighting their power.
This captive was not pale of skin like the drummers. Sun had touched him to a deeper brown, and his hair was a shining cap. Thora knew him for one of the valley men.
Yes, he was still fighting with all the strength he could summon, against what they would do with him. As if a finger touched Thora’s mind, opening thus a door she had not known existed, she understood what they would do and what he fought against. The talking drums—if they wove well their spell—would encase him wholly, even as certain insects wove coccoons about their own bodies—then issue forth in time quite changed in form for the rest of their lives. So he would come out of the drum weaving different—different and utterly vile!
The drummers were tireless, the prisoner had been drawn nearly to the end of his supply of strength, using to the full every defense he knew. There would come a time very soon when the last flicker of that power would die and he would lie full within the net—to become a thing which could be turned against those of his own blood.
Thora had been summoned to this battle—but not as a spectator. About her the field of protective force she held so desperately quivered. How long she might keep that intact the girl dared not even guess. What was demanded of her? She strove to free he
rself of the compulsion which held her. This was no war of hers—
Only, even as that denial crossed her consciousness, she knew shame. Different powers might they own, this helpless man and she, but there was a single goal—when evil roved abroad both of them held to the path of Light.
Slowly, because she was so aware of the danger of what she did, Thora fumbled to fashion a weapon which was the only one she could use here. She held to the force of her mind the image of her throwing spear—its point blazing with silver fire—that of the Lady—cold flame—the more deadly.
There was no throwing stick to hurl it, she could put no force of arm in what she would do—only her own will and determination. Thora poised her thought—hurled it with all her strength, though her web of protection withered and was like a tattered cloak, no good against what gathered here.
She forced herself to think of nothing but the spear—the silver point. Down she sent that, straight at the taut skin of the taller drum. She could not see any weapon, she could only believe it existed. There was a flash of light before the blind drummer. The tight skin burst, became shriveled rags. He was thrown back as the drum overturned, rolling to one side, to strike full upon the shoulder of the seated drummer, knocking him in turn face down upon his own instrument.
The spear was gone—Thora could not summon that again. Yes—there was the knife! That knife which had been so long in the possession of believers that it must have gathered to it greater power. Thora readied her picture of that, forced what remained of her energy into it, sent its point at the smaller drum where the player struggled to hold the bowl straight. Again came a flash—a breaking.
Thora was whirled about, driven as a leaf, powerless to combat the second surge of released power—unseeable but deadly. She fought to pull about her the remnants of her earlier protection. Only she was swept along by the force, borne away from the drummers, not knowing whether her aid had helped the prisoner or not.
Deaf, blind, helpless-borne—even her thoughts churned and broken— The dark held her—it was seeping into her—cutting her off from the living world. She held onto life by the smallest thread, felt herself twisted this way and that, as if a greater force strove so to break that frail hold. She would not be bested! Not yet—not here! She would hold!
Power, a crushing force lashed out, wrapped around her, drew her from the maelstrom which had caught her. Once more she was in motion. Yet she also knew that what drew her was not the same force which had guided her to the drummers, though it was darkly malific.
Sight returned. She flew along between high pointed arches. Beneath her on square pillars torches burned with an oily smoke from where they were thrust into rings of rusty metal. These gave but limited light. Nothing moved here. Only for a moment did she see that chamber or hall. Then what held her gave a sharp upward jerk.
Thora arose—passing through stone as if that were but illusion. Illusion? Illusions were known to all. There were ways to break the hold of such. Her thought fastened desperately on that hope. This was an illusion—it had to be!
But were they also illusions—the three whom the compelling force brought her to confront? In a circle of dark they stood plainly forth because their cloaks gave a shimmering burst of color—red cloaks on which crawled and spun, as they flung their arms wide to show the inner, symboled lining, the vilest of signs. They knew she was there—they had found her.
Somehow that very belief steadied Thora. These Dark ones had expected something—someone—else she sensed. They were not prepared for her. Therefore, perhaps just perhaps—she had some small advantage.
The two outer of the trio wore their hoods well pulled down over their heads so she could see little of their faces, only a slice of chin—with skin as pallid as that of the drummers. As the drummers they were also nude of body, but across their skins were marks which enforced those symbols on their cloaks—on the breast above the heart—encircling their loins. And those marks glistened—blood might be oozing out to keep them brilliant.
He who stood between the two was not masked, the hood of his cloak was folded back upon his shoulders. His face was that of a young man, save that across the skin wove a thousand small wrinkles. The youth might be a mask, cracking with time’s passing to show the age beneath. His hair was pale yellow and he wore it short, though not cropped into a cap as did the valley men. Rather it grew in tight, sculptured curls.
His eyes were dark—so dark and sunk beneath the arch of his brows that they might not be there at all—only pits in his face. Between them his nose was a sharply defined beak, save that it possessed thick nostrils turned upward. While his mouth stretched too wide to be wholly that of any man—thick lipped—showing the points of two fangs on the drooping lower stretch of red.
It was the face of a monster—it was also the face of one who had for long, very long, commanded power. That power appeared now to stream forth, creating a cloud about him. He turned his head a fraction from one side to the other, and there was something in the gesture which made Thora guess that, while he sensed her presence here, he could not see her as she saw him.
10
Though his two companions kept their arms outstretched, baring the symbols on the interior of their cloaks and those painted on their own bodies, the hoodless man now tossed the edges of his single garment over his shoulders, brought his hands into the air to begin, with swift, sure strokes, drawing the invisible upon the invisible. Only what he produced was becoming visible in thin, scarlet lines—
Thora experienced a tightening about her body. (But did she possess a body here?) At least there was some container for her spirit which acted in that fashion and was now growing heavier, dragging her, she believed, into a form with which this Dark One could easier deal.
Against the Dark stood the Light. She could not easily call upon the Lady in the very heart of enemy domain (of that she was also certain), or use the same tactics which had defeated the drums. No—she must fasten on something greater—more powerful than any vision of spear or knife. Fasten upon that which only the Lady might lay hand on—
The girl strove to shut out sight of the Dark One, thrust aside the fear that he was about to entomb her in a form he could deal with. A disc of silver white—the Moon at its full when it hung above a sacred grove at that time when the Mother’s powers waxed the strongest, could that be summoned—to fight?
One of the priest’s white hands twisted sharply at the wrist, bent back in a way which certainly he had not willed. Across his knuckles flashed a white spark, even such as had flickered on the breast of the prisoner before the drums.
The man’s thick lips pulled back in such a snarl as Kort’s. His other hand slapped at that spark as if he strove to banish an insect.
Moon—the full moon!
Thora did not have her gem to pull its rays, to hold its power. Yet she had indeed counterattacked this Dark Lord. In the very heart of his own citadel (for Thora was sure that was where she now was) the force of his Enemy had struck—if only for an instant.
Thus heartened Thora threw at him a vision of the Lady’s Lamp—the full orb of silver.
His snarl held just as she held with desperation to that mind vision. Surprise had won the girl an earlier fraction of easement. Now he would bring to bear the full force of his power. Against that Thora would be but a leaf in a storm. She could only, as that other captive had done, fight as long as there was any energy left in her.
Hopelessly, she faced the Dark One, tried to build to aim—to summon—only to have it slip away—
Until—
Thora flinched as if a knife had entered her body, aimed by a foeman she had not known was there. Save she realized in a second that this new force had not come to harm, to drain. Instead there fed into her such a welling spring of power that she did not know if she could contain or master it. Mentally she envisioned herself now standing in a sacred grove, her hands up and out, her fingers pointing at the Dark Lord heart-high. She could not see such hands in
truth, she dared not even break the gaze of her eyes upon his face for fear she might weaken that which was feeding through her.
Sparks danced in the air, to become larger, fuller. These were those same creatures of light she had run along the beam cast by the sword in her earlier vision. They hurled themselves at the Dark Lord.
Even if he might be blind to the nature of the attack, he felt the force of it. He staggered, half-fell against the body of his companion on the right, so that that man, plainly astounded, had to steady his master.
Out of Thora continued to leap those things born of light. There were fewer of them now, she could Feel the ebb of strength which fed them. The Dark Lord straightened, threw off the support of his follower.
Only his short loss of control brought about Thora’s release. She was out of that chamber as if awakening from a dread dream. Here was thick dark again. Still, in this crawled no evil. Once more began the beating of that great heart which moved the world, and she rested, feeling its comfort, slipping away from what had been great danger into—
She opened her eyes wide. Here was no dark. Tall gleaming stones stood sentinel. Kort pushed against her whining. His tongue swept across her cheek. Above was not the clouded night sky but the grayness of dawn. However what she saw was not Kort’s anxious eyes, not the stones, nor anything else but the hilt of a sword held over her—the single great gem in it flaming high. From that radiated warmth, life, a strong barrier against all evil.
“You had no right to send her so!”
Did she hear those words with the ears of her body, or had they flowed into her mind, meaning without sound?
“She was not sent. There was that in her which awoke to Karn’s need and she answered.”
“And was near taken for it!”
“She professes to be one who follows the true path—”