Her boots trod on softness—bodies? She stumbled, was jerked up and ahead. In a daze of pain she followed. For how long she did not know nor care—all she wanted was relief from the agony in her head.
Cool wind on her face, allaying that agony a little. Then she toppled forward into space, struck against earth, only to slide into complete darkness.
Thora stood at a clearly marked crossroads where three well-worn paths met. Standing at their centerpoint, stark and grim, was a hewn form so long settled there that its feet had become one with the earth itself. Around it grew a long hedging of tall plant stalks, withered and dead, as if the carven countenance above had blasted them out of life.
Fungi clung to the statue itself, loathsome yellow-green patches like the markings of a fell plague. The face, with blind blank eyes, bore across it, from forehead to sharp, out-pointing chin, a crack, distorting even more the malice and hatred suggested by that carving.
This—this was the Dark Side of the Mother—that part of HER which took pleasure in slaying. So was this representation of HER ever set at ill-famed crossroads. There followed a stirring among the dead weeds, as from there emerged grey things with bared fangs. These were not common rats, but rather huge monsters of their species. Dappled they were with scabs and sores, and their eyes were afire with greed and hunger as they pattered towards Thora.
She strove to lift spear, knife. But her arms were weighted; she could not stir.
Still within her was life and to her could come death—perhaps not of the body, but of that which was there encased during this lifetime. Thora cried out, a mindless, wordless scream, as the first of the rats sprang.
Light lanced from the right-hand pathway. Along that beam of light sped things fashioned of pure flame, white as the Mother in the full glory of Her High Nights. These leaped into the air, some hurtling straight towards the statue, others at the foul flood of rats.
From where they struck came bursts of pure light. That did not sear Thora’s eyes. Rather it was warmth, healing, soft—caressing—
The rats the lance light touched—were not! Where it fastened on the statue there was born a glow which ate up the patches of foul lichen, producing a silver shining. The eyes in the face were no longer blankly dead—they had become pure and glowing moon gems—larger and more beautiful than any the girl had ever seen.
That scar crack drew together, and now lips which were no longer dull stone, curved into a faint smile. The beam of light down which the sparks raced still held. Along it moved another, taller, manlike, wearing a cloak of deep green, which flapped and flared about his body as he moved. Only there was a haze which helmeted his head, hid his features.
There was no crossroads, no statue. She was staring up at a sky where dark clouds massed, and on her face was a pelt of rain which came in slanting waves to fold about her. Dull pain still held in her head and when she turned that a fraction it stabbed more sharply.
Kort’s head loomed into her range of sight. He stooped to set his teeth in her jerkin, taking so tight a grip that she felt the score of his fangs on her skin. A claw hand joined, and then another, to catch at her shoulders. Together the hound and Malkin dragged her over rough ground, jolting so painfully she cried out.
Now there was an overhang of stone above her. The rain no longer soaked her body. Thora drew a deep breath and raised a hand feebly, striving to urge Kort to loose her. But he had already done so. Sitting back on his haunches he looked down into her face. Malkin moved to her other side. Thora realized that the sleeve of her jerkin was torn and that her left arm now lay across the furred one’s knee, Malkin was spreading on a bloody wound there some of Thora’s own healing salves.
So clear had been her vision of that other-where, that Thora, when she could brace herself up on one elbow and look out of the shallow cave her companions had found, searched for the statue, the crossroads. However, what lay beyond was wild country with no suggestion that anyone had ever passed this way before.
Malkin, having finished tending Thora’s wound, leaned forward. Her eyes did not blaze now, but still they compelled in a way which made Thora meet that gaze squarely. She felt giddy, as if for a breath or two she had been whisked across a gulf at the bottom of which lay nothingness. Then once more she was at the crossroads, though seemingly held at a point in the air above it. She saw a dim form in the place where she herself had once stood—a form which rippled and wavered. Once again the rats emerged from the weeds, crouched to spring.
The flash of light followed and along it sped the sparks. But these were clearer now—smaller than Malkin, yet their brilliance was wrought into the forms of the furred ones.
From this height Thora perceived the source of that beam. A sword planted point down in the earth, its pommel a crystal. It pulsated with light, sending the beam. From behind the weapon moved a human form, distorted somewhat as if she viewed it through eyes which were not really hers.
She saw the high-held head—no haze to conceal it now. Human—a man—young and yet not young—ageless. There was a cap of short dark hair above a wide brow, and in that hair was entwined a crooked circlet of the Lady’s own silver—as if a briary branch had been wreathed and then hardened into metal. Along it showing the soft sheen of moon gems. His flesh was moon-white also—heavy brows and long lashes so overhung his eyes that those might have been mask-hidden. There were sharp lines about nose and mouth, giving him a resolute and commanding countenance.
Along the beam he went and—
The vision broke for the second time. She was looking at Malkin. The furred one moved her mouth convulsively, her tongue twisted in and out, while her eyes blazed with such fire that Thora almost expected real flames to issue from them.
“Who—?” Thora must have an answer. It was very true that the Mother spoke to her Chosen in visions, though almost always those were deliberately sought after ceremonies and fasting. That she had just been given one, when she was no full priestess, nearly violated everything she had been taught. “Who—” she began again, “is he who walks in the sword light?”
Malkin’s hands pressed tightly against her small, down-covered breasts. Her tongue curled, straightened again as might a lashed whip. Still her eyes blazed.
“Maaakilll—” The effort had been great but she had said the word at last.
“Makil?” Thora tried to repeat it carefully.
Malkin nodded violently. Her hands fluttered and she pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. To Thora’s astonishment she saw slow drops of moisture slide from under them down the furred cheeks. Malkin was crying!
The girl sat up in spite of the pain in her head, the twinge in her arm. She reached out to take those claws into her own fingers, hold them close.
“Who—?” She began and then changed her question. “What is Makil?”
Malkin pulled one of her hands from Thora’s grasp and patted the cloak which was never far from her.
“Maaakillll!”
Thora knew the possible power of that symboled cloak. He who would wear such was near to a full priest, if not equal to her own Three-In-One. But the Hunter, in spite of his being the Winter King, never claimed such power. She had never heard of any man who followed the deep rituals. And that vision—surely that had been in another world, one in which the Mother reached, yes, but perhaps only in HER darker aspect. Still the sword holder had brought light into darkness there. No man could do that—!
The girl felt a flash of anger. Still she dared not deny the vision. To do that was to deny the very power which was the core of her life. She longed for clearer communication with Malkin. Though this Makil meant so much to the furred one he was plainly not of her own species. What was the tie between the two?
Malkin fought for speech again. She had freed her other hand and now she pointed to her own breast.
“Maaakill—Malllkinnn—” she held up two of her very slender fingers pressed tightly one to the other, “Ssssistterrr — shadowww — fam — familiarrr!”
Thora gasped. Old lore—legends—stirred deep in her mind. Only—she stared into Malkin’s eyes. Familiars—those were of the Dark Path!
Perhaps the other was able to grasp the girl’s thought, for Malkin shook her head violently. Her fingers moved now in the age-old sign of warding off evil and her mouth twisted as it had before she spat upon the wearer of the red cloak.
Before Thora knew what she would do the furred one flung herself at the girl, jerked at the belt of her breeches, drawing those down to expose the moon gem. Malkin’s claw fingers hooked about that—then deliberately she brought it so into her palm and closed her hand upon it, her eyes on Thora’s.
As carefully as she had caught it up, she let it go again and then turned up, into Thora’s full sight, her own hand so that the girl could see there was no mark or weal upon it.
“Seee—noooo—hurrrttt—” she said with a kind of defiance and a touch of anger.
4
Thora’s tongue swept over her lower lip. No legend—the truth! For let any one of the Dark lay hand so upon a gem which was worn by one of the Lady’s own Chosen and there would follow blighting, and a blasting fire. Whatever Malkin might be she did not give homage to Set or any follower of His.
“Not the Dark,” Thora agreed. “Then where is Makil?”
Malkin’s shoulders hunched, her indignation was gone. Once more moisture gathered in her eyes. It was plain that the furred one had lost him who had such a close bond with her.
“Where did you lose him?” Thora asked carefully. She had never tried to discover before from whence Malkin had come, or why she had been left, a wounded prisoner, in the trading station.
“Seeeleeep — darrrk — waakke — Maaakil — gonnne — Hunt—” She caught the cloak to her, hugging its folds tightly.
“Sssseett ones coommeee— Taaakke — Hold — Maaakill Coommme — gettt — theyyy catchh — tryyy sooo—” She struggled to form the words, while flecks of foam gathered in the corners of her wide mouth, spun by her effort.
Thora tried a guess. “Some of the Dark Path took you—would use you as bait to catch Makil?”
Malkin gave a cry of excitement and triumph, nodding her head so vigorously that the brush of her hair floated even more widely about her head. She started to gesture now, as if the struggle to talk was too much for the explanation she needed to make. With motions she suggested tying something about her ankle, then pointed to a tree outside their present cave. Her claws flickered as they moved to suggest others in hiding about that.
“Noooo coomeee. Ssseettt waiiite—” Now she made her fingers walk across the ground. Those of one hand representing newcomers, while others fled. With the second group she made again the gesture of loosening her ankle—then she wilted dramatically to the ground, pantomiming one wounded and ill.
Again Thora guessed. “Traders came along, found you. But why did the traders then leave you alone afterwards?”
Malkin flipped up the edge of the cloak to display its embroidered symbols. She indicated one of the designs—that for the Hunter. Yes, a trader would know but little of the Mysteries, and he would be ready to abandon one who might be connected with a Power he did not understand.
“Fammmiliarr—knoowww sooo—”
Thora could readily understand that. If the men who found Malkin knew certain old tales, their reaction would be close to hers only moments earlier. They would have feared the furred one as they would any they deemed to be of the Dark. They would not kill her, for they would have reason to believe that they would then bring after them any spirit which was human-tied. So they simply left her to the spirits to live or die as those decreed. Yes, that all fitted well together. Though Thora still could not understand this use of familiars, for it was not a part of any ritual of which she had ever heard.
Still this land was very wide. Even traders who traveled far did not know what might lie on the other side of the mountains which were yet some tens of days travel to the west. There might well be places where the LADY had taught her Chosen different ways of life and power—different, but not evil because of that difference. Malkin had clearly proven herself to be of the Light by holding the moon gem.
Which left the rest of the puzzle—what had happened to this Makil? If he were the man she had seen in the vision (and somehow she did not doubt that he was), he was also plainly one who held and used Power. Perhaps he could even stand before the Three-In-One as an equal, strange though that seemed. He was a Chosen, of that she was sure. And if those of the Dark were attempting to entrap him (as they seemed to have used Malkin to do) then that meant there was here some active struggle between the Dark and the Light—no symbolic one such as the ancient ritual told of—rather one with force and purpose. It was said that the Lady wove the lives of her people as if they were threads in cloth, twisting one strand with the other to form a design which only Her eyes might see. Thora shivered.
Surely—surely she herself could not be a strand pulled loose from one portion of a pattern to be set elsewhere! She had thought that the raid which had set her wandering had been one of the chances of life. There were always a certain number of homesteads threatened or plundered when winters had been lean. Of late the sea wolves had ventured farther and farther westward: that the Craig dwellers had learned from the traders.
They had raided so often along the shores that men no longer built there, but headed inland for peace. Such groups of refugees had passed at time through Craig lands—going farther west to claim unused valleys and build lost fortunes anew.
Without their shore prey the raiders had taken to rivers—for they were always a water people. Also they could be sure that any good sized river would sooner or later have a settlement on its banks. So they had come by stealth and the Craigs had fallen. For raiders were warriors and those of the land, while they were skilled hunters, were not slayers of men.
It had seemed ill-fortune and not by direct cause that she had so been set adrift. Now Thora was led to wonder. Her meeting with Malkin—the discovery of that underground storage place, the fact that among the old dead there had lain one who served Set’s Power—was all this part of a new weaving?
The vision—that she must hold in mind as the priestesses did any true dream, think upon it carefully. What she had seen was not concise fact, but rather a suggestion of powers at war and a clear message that she was part of the struggle. Though it would seem that Malkin’s Makil was strong enough to stand against Dark Forces.
“You seek Makil?” she asked.
Malkin sketched helplessness. Then once more she fell to stroking the cloak—all which she had left of the one she longed to be with. Thora sighed. She looked out into the rain. Kort had brought in her pack. He must have gone back into the darkness of the slit and dared face again the danger there to drag it along.
She was tired, hungry, but they were in the open once more and she felt free. Thora dragged the pack to her and began hunting food and water, setting a pannikin out where the steady fall of rain filled it. They drank their fill. The furred one then poured what was over into the trail bottle. She refused the meat the girl offered, drawing instead on one of the vials she had brought out of the storage place, licking at its contents.
Thora would have liked a fire but decided against the comfort of that in unknown territory. So at last they curled up together as far back in the cave as they could squeeze, Kort being gone, Thora guessed to his own hunting. Malkin lay with her head on a double fold of the cloak, the rest pulled about her. Thora watched her settle so with sleep-weighted eyes, wondering if she herself was about to be haunted by some dream vision. She had had enough of those—hopefully for this—or perhaps many other days.
She awoke with the feeling that something waited—some action was demanded of her. Though, if she had dreamed again, no memory remained to guide her. The rain had stopped, yet still there was a massing of clouds that promised more. Again she wished for a fire, yet knew that was folly.
Kort, his
coat plastered with mud and water, trotted out of the brush, a rabbit dangling from his jaws. He brought that to Malkin and so they ate. Then Thora climbed a small hillock to see what might lie beyond.
No sign here of any road, still they were on the edge of open country and to travel across that would make them highly visible. She caught sight of willow and other growth bordering what might be a broad river and there were large animals, a herd of them splashing along the edge of the stream.
Now she looked to Kort and made the hand signal which would bring an answer if man were near. The hound continued to lick at one foot to clear mud from between his claws. But he barked once, so assuring her that the land over which he had ranged was clear of her own kind. Still she hesitated—since she had fled the Craigs she had been ever wary of open country.
Returning to the shallow cave she undid her bundles. The poorly dried meat had a bad odor. Though she hated to waste food she dumped that out of the hide which she had scraped and rescraped several times over. Her boots were wearing thin and if they found a safe place to camp awhile she must see to the repairing of them with several thicknesses of hide for new soles.
Repacking her gear Thora settled the familiar burden on her shoulders. Malkin had in turn replaced the vials within the cloak and rolled that into a tight pack. Though the furred one still limped, it was apparent that her injury was healing well. She no longer needed Kort for support, but she retained the spear-staff.
Thora looked back once into the dark throat of the cut from which they had won out of the dark. There was no sign there of any door or opening made by man. Her memory of the fight in the dark was such that she wanted no further exploration there. But she did find, huddled against a rock by the entrance, a creature which brought a lurch of fear to her heart. This was a huge rat such as had crawled from around the feet of the statue in her vision.
It had died snarling, its throat a red ruin. She could believe Kort had tossed it so. Meat eater he was, but such a kill as this was too unclean to tempt him. Nor did she see that it had been disturbed by any of the scavengers which were quick to gather to any kill.