Web of the Witch World
A Witch World Novel by Andre Norton
Version 1.0


I        GAUNTLET THROWN

IN THE NIGHT there had been storm with great gusts of
angry wind to batter ancient walls, aim spear-thrusts of
rain at the window slits of the chamber. But its violence
had been reduced to a sullen mutter outside the South
Keep. And Simon Tregarth had found that mutter sooth-
ing.

No, this was no troubling of nature—the raw nature
men must fight and subdue for his own survival. It was
a very different unease he felt as he lay in the early
morning, awake and aware as a sentinel listening to
sounds beyond his post.

Chill sweat gathered in his armpits, beaded dankly
on his slightly hollowed cheeks and square jaw. Gray
light overtook the room shadows, there was no sound,
but-

His hand went out tentatively before he consciously
thought. Nor did he entirely realize that he was yielding
to an emotion which he still found new and hard to
understand. This was an instinctive appeal for comrade-
ship and support against—what? He could set no name
to the uneasiness which held him.

Fingers met warm flesh, cupped on soft skin. He
turned his head on the pillow. The lamp was unlit, but

there was wan light enough to see his bedfellow. Open,
watchful eyes met his fearlessly, but their depths were
shadowed by a twin to the anxiety growing in Simon.

Then she moved. Jaelithe, she who had been a witch
of Estcarp, and was now his wife, sat up abruptly, the
black silk of her hair pulling from beneath his cheek to
cloak her shoulders, her hands folded over her small
high breasts. She no longer gazed at him, but searched
the room, open to their sight since the midsummer mild-
ness had led to the bed hangings being looped up for
the free passage of night breezes.

The strangeness of that chamber came and went for
Simon. Sometimes the present was a dream, ill-rooted
and illusory, when he thought of the past. At other times
it was the past which had no part of him at all. What
was he? Simon Tregarth—disgraced ex-army officer, a
criminal who had fled the vengeance of wolves beyond
the law, who had taken the final step of the perfect es-
cape known to that evil world—the "gate." Jorge Pe-
tronius had opened it for him—an age-old stone seat
rumored to take any man daring enough to sit in it to a
new world, one where his talents would make him at
home. That was one Simon Tregarth.

Another lay here and now in the South Keep of Est-
carp, March Warder of the south, sworn to the service
of the Women of Power; he had taken to wife one of
the feared witches of the age-sombered land of Estcarp.
And this was one of the times when the present annulled
the past—when he crossed a border he could not de-
scribe into a firmer union with the world he had so ab-
ruptly entered.

Sharp as any sword thrust into his flesh was that throb,
breaking through his momentary wonder concerning him-
self and what he was doing here. He moved as quickly
as Jaelithe had earlier, sitting up so that their shoulders
brushed, and in his hand was a dart gun. But even as
Simon brought that out from under his pillow, he knew
the folly of his action. This was not a call to battle, but

a clarion summons far more subtle and, in its way, more
terrifying.

"Simon—" Jaelithe's voice was shaken, higher than
usual and a little unsteady.

"I know!" He was already sliding over the edge of
the wide bed, his feet meeting the first step of the dais
which supported it above the floor of the chamber, his
hands reaching for the garments left on the chair be-
yond.

Somewhere—either in the pile of the South Keep or
near thereto—was trouble! His mind was already busy
with the possibilities. A raid by sea from Karsten? He
was certain no party from the duchy could have won
through the mountains, not when all that country was
patrolled by the Falconers of the heights and his own
Borderer companies. Or was it some slash-and-go attempt
on the part of Alizon, operating by sea? Their sullen
unrest had been apparent for months. Or—

Simon's hands did not slack speed in pulling on boots
or fastening belt, though his breath came a little faster
as he thought on the third and worst possibility—the
chance that Kolder was not crushed, that the evil—alien
to this world in the same way he was alien—stirred again,
moved, lapped closer to them.

In the months since that ruthless enemy had struck
and been repulsed, since the Kolder stronghold on the
island of Gorm had been taken and cleansed and their
supported rising in Karsten failed, they had gone. Noth-
ing stirred from their dark hold of Yle, though none of
the Estcarp forces could break through the barrier which
locked that cluster of towers from approach by sea or
land. Simon, for one, did not believe that the defeat in
Gorm had finished the Kolder threat. That would not be
done with until the aliens were traced to their overseas
stronghold and the nest there destroyed with the vipers
in it. Such a move could not be made as yet—not while
Karsten smoldered to the south or Alizon remained a
battle hound hardly in check in the north.

He was listening now, not only with the sense he
could not have named which had warned him out of
sleep, but with his ears for the warning tocsin on the
tower above. The Borderers who manned this keep
were not to be taken unawares. Surely by now the alarm
should be booming, vibrating through the stone of the
walls!

"Simon!" The summons was so sharp and imperative
that he swung around, weapon once again in his hand.
Jaelithe's face was pallid in this half-light, but her lips
were unnaturally tight against her teeth. It might have
been fear which lighted her eyes so—or was it? A soft
crimson robe was clutched about her, held negligently
by one hand. She had not put her arms into its wide
sleeves and it dragged along the floor as she came around
the end of the bed to him, walking stiffly as if in her
sleep. But she was awake, very much awake, and that
was not fear moving her.
"Simon—I—I am whole!"

It hit him, worse than the summons, with a hurt which
registered deep, and which would grow and hurt the
more; he sensed this fleetingly. So—it had meant that
much to her? That she felt herself maimed, lessened
by what had been between them. And another part of
Simon, less troubled by emotion, arose to defend her.
Witchdom had been her life. As all her sisterhood she
had had pride of accomplishment, joy in that usage;
yet she had willingly set aside, so she thought, all that
when she had come to him, believing that in their
uniting of bodies she would lose all which meant so
much to her. And his second thought was so much the
better one!

Simon held out his hand, though he longed to take
her wholly into his arms. And her new joy which blazed
from every part of her, as if a fire were lit deep within
her skin, bones, and flesh, warmed him also as their
clasp went tight, fingers locking about fingers.
"How—?" he began, but she interrupted him.

"It is with me still—it is! Oh, Simon, I am not only
woman, but also witch!"

Her other hand dropped its hold on her robe so that
the folds collapsed on the floor about her feet. Her
fingers went to her breast, seeking what she no longer
wore—the witch jewel she had surrendered at her wed-
ding.

A little of that bright look faded as she realized she
no longer possessed that tool through which the energy
which filled her now could work. Then, with her old-
time quick reaction to fact, she broke clasp with Simon
and stood, her head slightly atilt, as if she too, listened.

"The alarm has not sounded." Simon stooped to gather
up the robe and wrap her in it.

Jaelithe nodded. "I do not think this is an attack. But
there is trouble—evil—on the move."

"Yes, but where—and what?"

She still stood in the attitude of one listening, but
this time Simon knew that she did not hear audibly,
but sensed some wave reaching directly to her mind. He
felt it, too, that uneasiness which was fast heightening
into a push to action. But what kind of action, where,
against who, or what?

"Loyse!" A whisper. Jaelithe whirled and made for
the coffer which held her clothing. She was dressing
with the same haste as Simon had. But not in the robes
of her household faring. What she burrowed deep to
find was the soft leather which went under chain mail,
the clothing of one riding on a foray.

Loyse? Simon could not be so sure, but he accepted
her word without question. There were four of them,
oddly assorted—four fighters for the freedom of Est-
carp, for their own freedom from the evil which Kolder
had sown so far in what had once been a fair world.
Simon Tregarth, the alien from another world; Jaelithe,
the Witch of Estcarp; Koris, exiled from. Gorm before
its fall into darkness, Captain of the Guard and then
Seneschal and Marshal of Estcarp; and Loyse, the Heiress

of Verlaine, a castle of wrecker lords on the coast. Flee-
ing a marriage with Yvian of Karsten, she had brought
Jaelithe out of Verlaine, and together they had wrought
subtly in Kars for the undoing of Yvian and all that he
stood for. Loyse, wearing hauber, carrying sword and
shield, had joined in the attack on Gorm. And in the
citadel of Sippar had pledged herself to Koris. Loyse,
the pale, small girl who was indeed a warrior strong
and brave beyond most counting. And this sending
dealt with danger for Loyse!

"But she is at Es Castle—" Simon protested, as he
pulled on mail to match that which now clinked softly
in Jaelithe's hands. And Es Castle was the heart, if the
enemy had dared to strike there—!

"No!" Again Jaelithe was positive. "There is the sea—
in this there is the sea."

"Koris?"

"I do not feel him, not in this. If I only had the
jewel!" She was tugging on riding boots. "It is as if I
tried to track a drifting mist. I can see the drift, but
nothing is clear. But Loyse is in danger and the sea is
part of it."

"Kolder?" Simon put into words his deepest fear.

"No. There is not the blankness of the Kolder wall.
But the need for help is great! We must ride, Simon-
west and south." She had turned a little, her eyes now
focused on the wall as if she could really see through
it to the point she sought.

"We ride." He agreed.

The living quarters of the keep were yet silent. But
as they sped together down the hallway to the stair
they heard the sounds of the changing guard. Simon
called, "Turn out the Riders!"

His words echoed hollowly, but carried, to be an-
swered by a startled exclamation from below. Before
he and Jaelithe were halfway down the stairs, Simon
heard the piping of the alert.

This garrison was well prepared for sudden sallies.

Through spring and summer the alarm had sounded
again and again to set the Borderers loose along the
marches. Those who made up the striking force Simon
commanded were largely recruited from the fugitive
Old Race. Driven out of Karsten when the massacre
orders of Kolder were given, they had many causes to
hate the despoilers and murderers who now held their
lands and who came, in quick stab raids, to try the de-
fenses of Estcarp, the last home of that dark-haired, dark-
eyed race who carried ancient wisdom and strange blood,
whose women had witch power and whose men were
dour, stinging wasps of fighters.

"No beacon, Lord—"

Ingvald, Simon's second in command from the old
days' when they had fought, rode and fought again in
the high hills, waited him in the courtyard. It was Jae-
lithe who answered.

"A sending, Captain."

The Karstenian refugee's eyes widened as he looked
at her. But he did not protest.

"An attack here?"

"No. Trouble west and south." Simon made answer.
"We ride fast—with half a troop. You remain in com-
mand here."

Ingvald hesitated as if he wished to argue that, but
he did not speak except to say, "Durstan's company has
the hill duty for this day and are ready to ride."

"Good enough."

One of the serving women ran from the hall behind
- them, holding a platter covered with rounds of journey
bread, new from the oven and each bearing a smoking
slice of meat. Behind her pounded a kitchen lad with
filled beakers slopping their contents over his hands as
he came. Jaelithe and Simon ate as they stood, watching
the troop check mounts and supply bags, ready weap-
ons, for the move out.

"The sender!" Simon heard a small, pleased laugh
from Jaelithe.

"She knows! Had I but my jewel in again, we could
dismiss her to other duties."

Simon blinked. So Jaelithe, even without her jewel,
had communicated with the young witch who was their
link with Estcarp command. The warning must even
now be on its way to the Guardians' Council. In turn
Jaelithe might be able to hold that communication as
they rode, stretching it to report.

He began to consider the terrain west and south-
mountains, the broken foothill country, and sea coast to
the west. There were one or two small villages, market
centers, but no other keep or castle. There were also
temporary guard points, but all were too small, too far
within Estcarp's own territory to house sending witches.
So hill beacons passed warning. And there had been no
such beacon lighted.

What was Loyse doing there? Why had she come forth
from Es Castle and ridden into that wilderness?

"Brought by trick." Jaelithe was reading his surface
thoughts again. "Though the manner of the tricking I
cannot tell you. The purpose I think I can guess—"

"Yvian's move!" It was the most logical answer to any
action against the heiress of Verlaine. By the laws of
Karsten she was Yvian's wife, through whom he could
claim Verlaine—though he had never set eyes on Loyse,
nor she on him. Get her under his hand and the bar-
gain Fulk had made for his daughter would be com-
pleted. Karsten was in uproar by all reports. Yvian, the
mercenary who had won to power by might of arms,
was facing the bared teeth of the old nobility. He would
have to answer their hostility firmly or his ducal throne
would crumble under him.

And Loyse was of the old blood; she could claim kins-
rights with at least three of the most powerful houses.
Using her as a tool Yvian's own ability could accomplish
much. He had to put Karsten in order in a hurry.
Though Simon knew that Estcarp had no intention of

carrying war beyond her own borders—save in the di-
rection of the Kolder—Yvian would not believe that.

The Duke of Karsten must rest very uneasy, knowing
that his massacre of the Old Race gave more than a little
reason to center the vengeance of the witches upon
him. And he would not believe that they did not intend
to attack him. Yes, Loyse was a weapon and a tool Yvian
must be wild to get within his two hands for use.

They rode out of the keep at a purposeful trot, Jae-
lithe matching Simon's pace in the lead, Durstan's twenty
men providing a competent fighting tail. The main road
ran to the coast, perhaps four hours ride away. Before
the fall of Sulcarkeep, the traders' city under Kolder
attack, this had been one of the trade arteries of Est-
carp, linking half a dozen villages and one fair-sized
town with that free port of the merchant-rovers. Since
Sulcarkeep had been blasted into rubble nearly a year
ago the last despairing gesture of its garrison, taking
with it most of its enemy, the highway had lost most of
its traffic and the signs of its disuse were visible, save
where the patrols worked to keep it free of fallen trees
and storm wrack:

The troop clattered through Romsgarth, a central gath-
ering point for the farms of the slopes. Since it was
not market day their swift passage awoke interest from
the early stirring townsfolk and there were calls of in-
quiry as they passed. Simon saw Durstan wave to the
town guard, and knew they would leave a watchful and
ready post behind them. The Old Race might be des-
tined to go down to defeat, their neighbors snarling at
their borders. But they would take a large number of
those enemies with them in the final battle. And that
knowledge was one of the things which kept Alizon
and Karsten from yet making the fatal move of out-
right invasion.

Some leagues beyond Romsgarth Jaelithe signaled a
halt. She rode barehead, her helmet swinging at her
saddle horn. And now she turned her head slowly from

right to left, as if she could scent the path of the quarry.
But Simon had already caught the trace.

"There!" The sensation of danger which had been
with him since waking focused unerringly. A track split
south from the main road. Across it lay a fallen tree and
that trunk bore fresh scars on its bark. One of the troop
dismounted to inspect.

"Scrapes of hooves—recent—"

"Infiltrate," Simon ordered.

They spread out, not to use the artery of the half-
closed path, but working in through brush, among trees.
Jaelithe took up her helmet.

"Make haste!"

This ground was right for ambush; to run into attack
was the choice of a fool. But Simon nodded. What had
brought them here was building to a climax. Jaelithe
pressed heels to her mount, jumped the log, headed
down the path with Simon spurring to catch up with
her again. To any watcher it might seem they were alone,
his men remained behind.

The wind in their faces was sea-scented. Somewhere
ahead an inlet in the coast waited. Was a ship there—to
make a quick pickup and then to sea—to Karsten?
What had brought Loyse into such danger? He wished
for the Falconers and their trained birds to spy on what
lay ahead.

Simon could hear the rustling advance of his men—
they would certainly not go unheralded in this country.
His mount flung up its head and neighed—to be an-
swered from ahead. Then they came out in an open
pocket of meadow sloping gently to beach in a cove.
Two horses grazed there, saddles empty. And well out
stood a ship, its painted sail belly-rounded by the wind,
it was far beyond their reaching.

Jaelithe dismounted, ran towards a splotch of color on
the beach and Simon followed her. He stood looking
down at a woman. Her face was oddly blank and calm,
though both her hands were tight upon the blade which

had been driven into her. To Simon she was a stranger.

"Who?"

Jaelithe frowned. "I have seen her. She was from
across the mountains. Her name—" From storehouse of
memory she produced it in triumph. "Her name was
Berthora and she once lived in Kars!"

"Lord!"

Simon looked to where one of the troop beckoned.
He went to see what was mounted on the very edge of
the wave-lapped shore. A spear driven deep into the
sand so that it stood uprightly defiant held a mail gaunt-
let. He did not need any words of explanation. Karsten
had been and gone, and wanted that coming and going
known. Yvian had declared open battle. Simon's hand
closed upon that gauge and pulled it loose.

2        BORDER FORAY

THE RAYS of the lights centered on the glittering thing
in the middle of the board, making it seem to ripple
with a mindless life of its own. Yet it was but a glove,
sweat-stained leather palm down, mailed back up.

"She left two days ago, but the why no one can say—"
Bleak voice from which the fellowship had chilled away,
leaving only grim purpose. Koris of Gorm stood at the
end of the table, leaning forward, his hands so tight
about the haft of his war ax that his knuckles were
sharp ridges. "Last eve—last eve I discovered it! By
what devil's string was she tolled here?"

"We can take it," Simon replied, "that this is Karsten's

doing and the why we can guess." More "whys" than
one, he thought, and meeting Jaelithe's gaze, knew that
she shared that guess or guesses. With Koris so emo-
tionally involved this kidnaping would upset the deli-
cate balance of Estcarp defense. Not even witch power
was going to keep the young seneschal from Loyse's
trail, at least not until he had a chance to cool off and
begin to really think again. But had that ship borne
away Jaelithe would he, Simon, have been any the
different?

"Kars falls." A simple statement, fact when delivered
in that tone of voice.

"Just like that?" Simon retorted. For Koris to go whirl-
ing over the border now with such a force as he could
gather in a hurry was the worst stupidity Simon knew.
"Yes, Kars falls—but by planning, not by attack without
thought behind it."

"Koris—" Jaelithe's long-fingered hand came out into
the light which had gathered about Yvian's battle gage,
"do not lessen Loyse!"

She had his attention, had broken through to him
when Simon had failed.

"Lessen her?"

"Remember Briant. Do not separate those in your
mind now, Koris."

Briant and Loyse—again she was right, his witch-
wife; Simon gave respect where it was due. Loyse had
ridden as the blank-shield mercenary Briant, had lived
with Jaelithe in Kars, keeping watch in the very maw
of the enemy, just as she had stormed into Sippar. And
as Briant she had not only won free of Verlaine, but
brought the captive Jaelithe with her at the beginning
of her adventure, when all the might of that castle and
its lord had been arrayed against her. The Loyse who
was also Briant was no helpless maiden, but had a mind,
will, and skills of her own.

"She is Yvian's—by their twisted laws!" Koris' ax
moved into the light in a sweeping arc which bit deep,

severing the stuff of the gauntlet as if it had been fash-
ioned of clay.

"No—she is her own until she wills it otherwise,
Koris. What manner of mischief was wrought to get her
into their hands, I do not understand. But that it can
hold her I doubt. However, think on this, my proud
captain. Go you slashing into Kars as you wish, and she
will then be a weapon for Yvian. The Kolder taint still
lies there—and would you have her used against you as
they can do?"

Koris' head turned to her, he looked up to meet her
gaze as he must always do from his dwarfish height. His
too-wide shoulders were a little hunched, so that he had
almost the stance of an animal poised for a killing leap.

"I do not leave her there." Again a statement of fact.

"Nor do we," Simon agreed. "But look you—they will
expect us to be after such bait, and the trap will be
waiting."

Koris blinked. "So—and what then do you urge? To
leave her wrest herself free? She had great courage—
my lady—but she is not a witch. Nor can she, one
against many, fight a war on her own!"

Simon was ready. Luckily he had had those few hours,
before Koris and his guard had come pelting into the
keep, to do some planning. Now he slapped a parch-
ment map down beside the ax head still dividing the
severed gauntlet.

"We do not ride directly for Kars. We could not reach
that city without a full army and then we needs must
fight ah" the way. Our van will enter the city at Yvian's
invitation."

"Behind a war horn?" Koris demanded. "Shape chang-
ing—?" He was not so hostile now, beginning to think.

"After a fashion," Simon told him. "We move here ..."

There was a risk. He had been considering such an
operation for weeks, but heretofore he had thought the
balance against it too great. Now that they needed a lever
against Karsten it was the best he could think of.

Koris studied the map. "Verlaine!" From that dot he
glanced at Simon.

"Yvian wants Verlaine, has wanted it from the start.
That was partly his reason for wedding Loyse. Not only
does the wreckers' treasure stored there beckon him—
remember his men are mercenaries and must be paid
when there is no loot in prospect—but that castle can
also give him a raiders' port from which to operate against
us. And now, with the loot from the Old Race ex-
hausted, he will need Verlaine the more. Fulk has been
very wise, not venturing to Yvian's territory. But sup-
pose he would—"

"Trade Verlaine for Loyse! You mean that is what we
shall do?" Koris' handsome face was frown twisted.

"Allow Yvian to believe he is going to get Verlaine
without any trouble." Simon put together the ideas he
had been holding in mind. As he spoke Koris' frown
faded, he had concentration of a general picking at a
piece of strategy seeking weaknesses. But he did not
interrupt as Simon continued adding the facts which his
scouts had garnered to the reports of the Falconers, lac-
ing the whole together with his knowledge of such war-
fare from the past.

"A ship on the rocks will bring them out to plunder.
Fulk will have a guard still in the castle, yes. But they
will not be watching the ways within his own walls
which he does not know. Those were Loyse's ways and
my lady knows them. A party coming down from the
mountains will burrow in thus, and the heart of the keep
is ours. We can settle then with those combing the
shore for loot."

"It will take time—and a storm—at the proper day
and luck—" But Koris' protests were feather-light and
Simon knew it. The seneschal would agree to his plan;
the danger of a head-long storming into enemy territory
was past. At least as long as Koris could be occupied
with Verlaine.

"As for time," Simon rolled up the map, "we have

been moving to this goal for a day or more. I have sent
a message to the Falconers and they have infiltrated
the peaks. There are Borderer scouts who know every
trail in that cutback, and Sulcarmen will man one of
the derelicts from Sippar harbor. With new sails it will
ride well enough, the water-logging setting it deep
enough in the waves to seem full cargoed, and it can
bear merchant symbols of Alizon. The storm—"

Jaelithe laughed. "Ah, the storm! Do you forget that
wind and wave are liegemen to us, Simon? I shall see to
wind and wave when the hour ripens."

"But—?" Koris looked up at her again in open ques-
tion.

"But you deem me now powerless, Koris? It is far
otherwise, I assure you!" Her voice rang out joyfully.
"Let me but claim back my jewel and you shall have
the proof of that. So, Simon, while you ride for the
border and your spider's web about Fulk's hold, I will
speed to Es Castle and that which I must have again."

He nodded. But deep within him that faint pain
pricked once again. She had laid aside the jewel for him
—seemingly with joy and content. Only now that she
knew she was not bereft of what she thought she had
lost, that sacrifice no sacrifice at all, she had put on once
again that old cloak to cover the inner places she had
revealed to him. And between them was the shadow of
division. A chill grew from his fear. Would that division
grow stronger—perhaps into a wall? Simon thrust the
thoughts away; there was Verlaine to consider now.

Simon sent out the summoning—not by hill beacon
which would alert any Karstenian spy in the heights—
but by witch sending where it was possible, by rider
where it was not. The hill garrisons were thinned—here
five men, there ten or a dozen. And those so chosen
rode in small parties into the mountains as if on routine
patrol, to keep apart until the final word.

Koris dealt with Anner Osberic whose Sulcar mer-
chant-raiders had homed to Es Port now that their coast

keep was lost. There was a move to take over Gorm as
a base. But as yet men shunned that tragic isle in the
bay with its haunted city of Sippar, where the citadel
left by the Kolder was sealed under the will of the
Guardians of Estcarp, lest the outland knowledge of the
enemy be ill-used. Osberic's father had died at Sulcar-
keep, his hate for the Kolder and all their ilk ran sea-
deep and harsh as any storm, and his knowledge of wind
and wave, while not that of a witch, was great. If he
could not control storms, he could ride them. And he
and his men had been demanding action against the
enemy. This dangerous game with a wreckers' castle for
the bait would please them greatly.

The plan was in motion, all they needed was an agreed
striking time. Simon lay flat on a crag ledge. The day
was gray, but no fog spoiled his watch of the rounded
walls, the two sky-arching towers which were Verlaine.
He cupped in his hand one of Estcarp's equivalents of
field glasses, a lens of transparent quartz. Down in that
gazing oval was tiny, but very distinct and clear, one of
the claw-shaped reefs which harvested the sea for the
wreckers. Anner would put his pseudo-merchantman on
course to crack up on that reef, about mid-point—far
enough from the castle to draw the men well away from
the walls, but not so far as to suggest danger in garner-
ing the wreckage.

The gray sky, the moist air, warned of a storm. But
they needed a controlled fury to work on time schedule.
Simon continued to check the terrain before him via
glass, but his thoughts strayed. Jaelithe had gone to Es
Castle and the Guardians, alive and vibrant in her exul-
tation over her discovery that as a witch she had not
been rendered impotent. But since then, no word from
out of the north that bore any news of her, none of
that mental touch Simon had come to expect as a tie
between them. Almost he could believe now that those
weeks in South Keep had been a dream, that he had
never held the fulfillment of desires he had never real-

ized existed within him, until they had become wrapped
in flesh and blood in his arms; he now knew a place
which was beyond earth and stars, beyond self, when
another shared it.

And that chill fear which had been only a spark in
the beginning grew, that wall he sensed took on solid
shape. So that he must strive to keep his thoughts away
from that path lest he, too, as Koris might, go storming
away from duty to seek her.

Time was short, very short. This night, Simon thought,
as he slipped the seeing stone back in his belt pocket,
this night ought to see their move. Before she had left
him Jaelithe had laid the knowledge of the underground
ways into his mind. Last night he, Ingvald and Durstan
had descended into the cave which was the beginning of
those passages, gazed unwillingly at the ancient altar
there, raised to gods long since vanished with the dust
of those who had worshiped them. They had felt also
that throat-choking residue of something which still hung
there, which fed upon Simon's own gift of extra-sense,
until he had to impose iron control on his shaking body.
More than one sort of power had been in use on this
somber continent of an old, old world.

He slipped down from the crag now, made his way
to the pocket where three of the Borderer scouts and a
Falconer sat cross-legged, as if they would warm them-
selves at a fire they dared not light.
"No word?"

A foolish question, Simon thought, even as he asked
 it. He would have known it if she were here. But the
boy in the leather and mail of the scout force came
lithely to his feet to answer.

"Message from the seneschal, Lord. Captain Osberic
has the ship readied. He will loose her on signal, but
does not know how long the wind will serve."

Time . . . Simon tried to gauge the wind, though
he did not have any sea knowledge. If Jaelithe did not
come—then still they must move and risk the greater

peril inherent in a true storm, with no aid of witch-
craft. It must be tonight, or no later than tomorrow.

A sharp bird call and the black-and-white falcon that
was ears and eyes for Uncar spiralled down to settle on
its master's fist.

"The seneschal comes," Uncar reported.

Simon had never understood the tie between man
and bird, but he had long ago learned that such reports
were accurate and that the hawk range of the Falconers
was far more effective than any human scouting in these
heights. Koris was on the prowl, and this time Simon
would have to agree with the other's urging to move.
But where was Jaelithe?

In spite of his ungainly body Koris moved with the
economy of action marking an experienced fighting man.
The huge ax he had taken from the hand of legendary
Volt in the bird-god's hidden tomb was muffled in a
riding cloak, but he wore his winged helmet and came
armed for battle. That handsome face, so ill supported
by his misshapen body, was grimly alight as Simon had
seen it before upon occasion.

"This night we move! Anner says that wind and wave
favor us. He can not promise so later." He hesitated and
then added in a lower voice, "There is no word from
the north."

"So be it! Pass the signal, Waldis. At dusk we move."

The boy disappeared arrow-swift between the rocks.
Uncar's lean face showed within the narrow opening of
his bird-head helm.

"The rain comes. It will favor us that much more.
At dusk, March Warder—" Hawk on wrist he followed
Waldis, to bring up his men.

There was no true sunset; the gathering clouds were
far too heavy. And the wave action was stronger. Soon
Osberic would loose his bait ship. The wreckers had
three watch points—two on the reef and one on the
center tower of the hold; all would be manned in ill
weather. Those on the reef need not be feared, but the

sentry post on the tower also overlooked those fields
through which the attackers must move. And though
they had marked every bit of cover on that approach,
Simon was worried. An early rain would give them cover.

But the storm winds came before the rain. And they
had only the dusk to cloak them as the line of Borderers
and Falconers sifted down to the entrance hole, climbed
into the dark beneath. There was a sudden gleam and
Simon heard an exclamation from Koris.

The blade of Volt's ax shone with light. And Simon
sensed a stir of the force from the crumbling altar, the
rising of an energy beyond his ability to describe, but
one he feared.

"A battle light!" Koris' humorless laugh followed. "I
thank you, Volt, for this added favor!"

"Move!" Simon ordered. "You do not know what may
wake here with that blade!"

They found the entrance to the passage quickly. There
was a tingling in Simon's skin, his hair lifting despite the
weight of his helmet, answering the electricity in this
place. Here the walls were slimed with oily streaks of
moisture which shown in their journey lights, and a
moldering, rotten stench thickened as they went. Un-
derfoot, the flooring vibrated to the pound of rising
waves not too far away.

A stair before them, where silvery trails crossed" and
recrossed the stone, as if giant slugs had made highways
there for countless generations. Up and up, all Jaelithe's
knowledge of these passages was gained during her flight
through them. Loyse had discovered and used them for
her purposes, and Simon wished he had her direction
now. But he must be certain of his goal and not explore.
They would emerge in the tower chamber which had
once been Loyse's; from there they could spread to take
Fulk's hold—always providing the bulk of his garrison
were occupied elsewhere.

The steps rose endlessly, and then Simon's counting
ceased. There were still steps ahead, but this landing had

counted out correctly for the door. And he could see the
simple latch which held on this side. Luckily, the builder
who had devised these ways had not concealed such
catches. He bore down and a five-foot oval swung away.

Even here they had to use journey lights for the room
was dark. A canopied cavern of a bed faced them. There
was a chest at its foot, another under the window slits
outside of which howled storm wind.

"Signal!" Simon need not have given that order. One
of Koris' guard had leaped on the chest, his arm up to
thrust open the covering on the slit. Then the beat of
the vibration pattern winked through all their journey
lights, as it would through Anner Osberic's if he were
in position. The ship would be released. Now they had
only to wait until the alarm of her coming would awake
the castle.

But that waiting was the worst for all of them, keyed
to action as they were. Two small parties, one under
Ingvald, and one of Falconers under Uncar's command,
went back to the wall ways to explore. Uncar reported
another door giving upon an empty sleeping chamber,
providing a second exit.

Still time dragged and Simon mentally listed the
many things which might go wrong. Fulk would be
prepared for invasion from without. He had his scouts,
as they had discovered in the pass. But this passage had
never been discovered as far as Loyse knew.

"Ahhhh—" Someone nearby breathed a sigh of relief,
which was swallowed in a blast of brazen clamor from
just above their heads, startling them all.

"That is it!" Koris caught at Simon's shoulder and then
pushed past him to the door of the chamber. "The
wreck tocsin! That will shake these rats out of their
holes!"

3        BLACK NIGHT

PATIENCE. Long ago Loyse had learned patience. Now
she must use it again as a weapon against fear and the
panic which was chill in her, a choking band about her
throat, a crushing weight upon her. Patience—and her
wits—that was all they had left her.

It was quiet enough in this room where she had been
left to herself at long last. There was no need to rise
from the chair and try the window shutters or the door.
They had even stripped the bed curtains from their
supports. Lest she try some mischief against herself, she
supposed. But it had not come to that yet; oh, no, not
to that. Loyse's lips shaped a shadow smile, but the
glint in her eyes was not that of amusement.

She felt very faint, and it was hard to think clearly
when the room spun in dizzy side-slips from time to
time. Nausea had racked her on board the coasting ship-
then she had not eaten for a long time.

How long a time? She began to reckon childishly on
her fingers, turning them down in turn, trying to put
a memory to each. Three, four, five days?

A face etched on her mind for all time—the dark-haired
woman who had come to her in Es Castle in the early
morning with a tale. What tale?

Loyse fought for a clear memory of that meeting.
And the fear cloud grew thicker as she realized that
this was no mental haziness bom of nausea and shock,
this was a blocking out which had no connection with
her body or emotions. There had been a woman—Ber-
thora! Loyse had a flash of triumph when she was able

to set name to the woman. And Berthora had brought
her out of Es Castle with a message.

But what was that message and from whom? Why,
oh, why had she been so secretive about riding forth
from Es with Berthora? There were fleeting memories
of a wood road, and a storm—with the two of them shel-
tering among rocks while rain and wind made fury in
the night. Then, a meadow sloping to the sea where
they waited.

Why? Why had she remained there so calmly with
Berthora, feeling no uneasiness, no warning! Ensor-
celled? Had she been power-moved? But no—that she
could not believe. Estcarp was friend, not enemy. And
now that Loyse pieced together these ragged tatters of
memory, she was very certain that Berthora had moved
in haste and as a fugitive in enemy territory. Did Kar-
sten also have its witches?

Loyse pressed her hands against her cheeks, cold
flesh meeting cold flesh. To believe that was to negate
all she knew of her own land. There were no witches
in Karsten since the Old Race had been three times
horned, outlawed to be killed on sight. Yet she was
certain, just as certain, that she had been spellbound,
spell-led, to that meeting with the ship from the south.

There was something more—something about Berthora.
She must remember, for it was important! Loyse bit
her knuckles and fought her queasiness, the haze in
her mind, fought grimly to remember. At last she
achieved a bit of a picture . ..

Berthora crying out—first in entreaty, and then in
despairing anger—though it was her tone rather than
her words that Loyse recalled. And one of those from
the ship striking at her with a callous casualness. Ber-
thora stumbling back, her hands on the sword which
had given her death, so fast upon that blade that its
owner could not pull it free. Then an order, and an-
other man bending over Berthora, fumbling in her rid-

ing tunic, bringing forth a hand clenched about some-
thing, something Loyse had not seen.

Berthora had delivered her to Karsten, and had been
paid with death. But to aid in that delivering Berthora
had had some weapon beyond Loyse's knowledge.

How it had been done must not concern her now.
That it was done . . . Loyse forced her hand down
from her mouth, made it rest on her knee. She was in
Kars, in Yvain's hold. If they had sought her in Est-
carp, were seeking her now, they could only conjure as
to where she had been taken. As for plucking her forth
again— It would take an army to break open Karsten,
such an army as Estcarp could not put in the field.
Loyse had listened enough to the councils of war to
know just how precarious was the Old Kingdom. Let
them strip the country to invade Karsten and Alizon
would snap down from the north.

In Verlaine once she had been one against all the
might of Fulk, with no friend within that sea-pounded
pile. Here she was one against many again. If she did
not feel so sick and dizzy she could think more clear-
ly! But to move made the floor under her dusty riding
boots heave and roll as had the deck of the coaster.

The door opened and a flare of a hand lamp struck
at her through the dusk, blinding her so that she must
squint up at those who stood there. Three of them,
two in the livery of ducal servants, one holding the
lamp, the other a tray of covered dishes. But the third,
that slender figure with a scarf about head and shoul-
ders in masking concealment-
Putting down lamp and tray on the table the serv-
ing women left, closing the door behind them. Only
when they had gone did that other come into the full
light, twitch aside her veiling to view Loyse eye to eye.
She stood taller than the heiress of Verlaine, and her
figure had a delicate grace Loyse could not claim. She
wore her fair hair looped in intricate plaiting, the whole
snooded in a gem-spangled net. And there were more

jewels at her throat, her girdle, braceleting her arms
above the tight fabric of her sleeves, ringing each fin-
ger. As if she had set out the wealth of her gem
caskets with purpose to overawe the beholder. Yet,
looking beyond all that glitter to her calm eyes, her
serene expression, Loyse thought such a gesture could
only be a screen. The wearer of that wealth might do
it because it was expected of her, not because she
needed support of her treasures at this meeting.

Now her hand, with its glinting burden, advanced
and she picked up the lamp to hold it higher, facing
Loyse with a measuring look which stung, but under
which the girl sat unmoving. She could not match the
other's beauty. Where this one was golden-haired, Loyse
was bleached to fading; where this one was all grace,
not studied but instinctive, Loyse was awkward angu-
larity. Nor could she pride herself as to wit, for the
Lady Aldis was noted for her astute moves in the murky
waters of Yvian's court.

"You must have more to you than appears," Aldis
broke the silence first. "But that lies far buried, my
lady duchess." The sober appraisal of that speech be-
came mockery at its close.

Lamp still in hand, Aldis swept a curtsy which
made her skirts swing in a graceful swirl not one wom-
an in a hundred could have equaled. "My lady duch-
ess, you are served—pray partake. Doubtless the fare
upon which you were forced to break your fast of late
has not been of the best."

She returned the lamp to the table and drew up a
stool, her manners a subtly contemptuous counterfeit
of a servant's deference. When Loyse neither moved
nor answered, Aldis set forefinger to lip as if puzzled,
and then smiled.

"Ah—I have not been named to your fair grace, have
I? My name is Aldis, and it is my pleasure to welcome
you to this, your city of Kars where you have long

been awaited.  Now, does it please you to dine, my
lady duchess?"

"Is it not rather your city of Kars?" Loyse put no
inflection into that question, it was as simply asked as
a child might do. She knew not what role might aid
her now, but to have Yvian's mistress underrate his un-
willing wife seemed a good move.

Aldis' smile grew brighter. "Ill-natured tittle-tattle,
gossip, such as should never have reached your ears,
my lady duchess. When the chatelaine is missing, then
there needs must be someone to see that all is done
mannerly, as our lord duke would wish. I flatter my-
self in believing that you shall find little here, your fair
grace, that must be changed."

A threat—a warning? Yet if either, most lightly de-
livered in a tone which gave no emphasis. But Loyse be-
lieved that Aldis had no intention of yielding what
power she had here to a wife married for reasons of
state.

"The report of your death was a sad blow to our
lord duke," Aldis continued. "Where he was prepared
to welcome a bride, came instead an account of an
open tower window, a piece of torn robe, and the sea
beneath—as if those waves were more welcome than
his arms! A most upsetting thought to haunt our lord
duke's pillow by night. And how greatly relieved he
was when came that other report—that Loyse of Ver-
laine had been bewitched out of her senses by those
hags of the north, taken by them as hostage. But now
all is well again, is it not? You are in Kars with a hun-
dred hundred swords to keep a safe wall between you
and the enemy. So eat, my lady duchess, and then
rest The hour is not far off when you must look your
best to ravish the eyes of your bridegroom." The mock-
ery was no longer light—cat-claws unsheathed to tear the
deeper.

Aldis lifted the covers from the dishes on the tray
and the odor of the food turned Loyse's emptiness into

a sudden pain. This was no time for pride or defiance.

She smeared her hand across her eyes as might a
child who is come to the end of a crying bout, and
got to her feet, clutching at the bed post to steady her
steps. A lurch brought her to the table edge and she
worked her way along the board to drop onto the stool.

"Poor child! You are indeed foredone—" But Aldis
made no move to approach her and for that Loyse was
thankful. A small part of her resented fiercely that the
other watched while she had to use both hands to
bring a goblet to her lips; her weakness was a betrayal.

But Aldis did not matter now. What did was restor-
ing the wavering strength of her body, clearing her
head. That Aldis had come here might in turn lead to
something. Though Loyse could not yet see the advan-
tage in the visit.

Warmth from the liquid she swallowed spread through
her; the surface fear ebbed. Loyse put down the gob-
let. She did not want a wine-born muzziness clouding
her thoughts. Now she pulled a bowl of soup to her
and began to spoon it up, the savor of it reaching her.
Duke Yvian was well served by his cooks. Against her
will Loyse relaxed, relished her supper.

"Boar in red wine," Aldis commented brightly. "A
dish you shall find often before you, lady; since our
gracious lord relishes it. Jappon, the chief cook, has a
master hand for it. My lord duke expects us to mark
his likes and dislikes and be attentive to them."

Loyse took another sip of wine. "Vintage of a good
year," she commented, striving to hold her voice to the
same even lightness. "It would seem that this lord duke
of yours has also a palate. I would have believed tav-
ern wine more to his taste, since his first man draughts
came from such casks—"

Aldis smiled more sweetly. "Our lord duke does not
mind allusions to his somewhat—shall we say—irregular
beginnings. That he won Karsten by the might of his
sword arm—"

"And the backing of his blank-shields," Loyse cut in
blandly.

"And the loyalty of his followers," Aldis agreed. "He
feels pride in that fact and often speaks of it in com-
pany."

"One who climbs to heights must beware of the foot-
ing," Loyse broke a slice of the nut-flour bread in twain
and nibbled its crust.

"One who rises to heights makes very sure that the
footing on that height is smoothed," Aldis countered.
"He has learned not to leave aught to chance, for For-
tune is fickle."

"And wisdom must balance all swords," Loyse replied
with a hill proverb. The food had drawn her out of her
misery. But—no over-confidence. Yvian was no stupid
sword swinger, easily befooled. He had won Karsten
by wits as well as fighting. And this Aldis— Walk soft-
ly, Loyse, walk softly, beware of every leaf rustle.

"Our lord duke is paramount in all things, with sword,
in the council chamber and—in bed. Nor is his body
misshapen—"

Loyse hoped her sudden freeze had gone unnoted,
but she doubted that. And Aldis' next oblique shaft con-
firmed that doubt.

"They speak of great deeds done in the north, and
that a certain misborn, misshapen churl who swings a
stolen ax there led the van—"

"So?" Loyse yawned and then yawned again. Her
fatigue was not pretended. "Rumor always wags a wide
tongue. I have eaten; is it now permitted that I sleep?"

"But, my lady duchess, you speak as one who con-
siders herself a prisoner. Whereas you are paramount
lady in all Kars and Karsten!"

"A thing I shall keep in mind. But still, that thought,
as uplifting as it is, gives me not as much joy as some
rest would do. I bid you good eve, my Lady Aldis."

Another smile, a tinkle of laughter, and she did go.
But nothing covered the sound Loyse listened for—the

scrape of key in lock. Paramount lady she might be
in Kars, but this night she was also prisoner within
this chamber—and the key lay in other hands. Loyse
sucked her lower lip against her teeth as she consid-
ered what that might lead to.

She gave the room a measuring survey. The uncur-
tained bed, as was usual in a room of state, stood on a
two step dais above the flooring. There were windows
in two walls. But as she loosed the inner shutters of
one after another, she discovered beyond a netting of
metal mesh through which she might thrust her fin-
gers to the second joint, but no farther to freedom.

There was a chest against the far wall, wherein lay
some garments she did not examine past the first glance.
But she was still tired, her whole body ached to stretch
out on the bed. There was one more task she set her-
self to, and it was one which left her weak and trem-
bling. Sleep she must, but no one would come upon
her unawares, for the table was now an inner barrier
across the door.

Though she was so tired she felt that it would re-
quire a vast effort to raise her hand to her head, sleep
did not come as Loyse lay there, staring up into the
rafter frame which had supported canopy and curtains.
She had not turned down the lamp and that made a
fine glow by which she could see every part of the
chamber.

In the past she had known a similar disquiet—strongest
of all in that temple or shrine of the forgotten race
where the hidden passages of Verlaine opened to the
clean sky. The hidden ways of Verlaine . . . For a mo-
ment it was as if their dankness, the acrid odor of them,
was about her now. Witchcraft! You could sniff it when
you had known it before. Loyse's nostrils pinched as
she drew in a deep lungful of air. After all, she did
not know all the secrets of Estcarp—and once before she
had had a part of one here in Kars, while she and
Jaelithe had fished in many pools for such scraps of

information as might aid the northern cause. So there
could still be agents of the Guardians hereabouts.

The girl's hands balled into the covers on either side
of her thin body. If she only had a measure of their
power! If she could loose a sending now—to be picked
up by a receptive, friendly mind! She willed that fierce-
ly, crying soundlessly—not really for help, but for a
steadying sense of companionship. She had been alone
once, but then had come Jaelithe, and Simon, the tall
stranger whom she had instinctively trusted and—and
Koris. A faint flush warmed her cheeks as she remem-
bered Aldis' sneers. Misborn, misshapen. Not true—nev-
er true! Mixed blood, yes—so that he united two strains
to his own despite—the squat, powerful body of his Tor
mother's kin, the handsome head of his noble Gorm fa-
ther. But above all men the one her heart fixed upon
from the day she had found him with Simon, wearing
blank-shield disguises, outside the gate here in Kars,
drawn by Jaelithe's sending.

Drawn by a sending . . . But she could not send!
Once more Loyse fought her inner barrier, striving to
break through. For there was the scent of witchcraft
or at least of some other thing hereabouts. She was so
sure of that! It roughened her skin, made her alert,
waiting.

Loyse slipped from the bed, went to set her hands
on the table across the doorway. Her arms straightened,
she was pushing at that barrier. But something in her
still unlulled, still awake, battled against that compul-
sion to do this.

She backed away to the foot of the bed, facing the
door. The key clicked, the latch loosed. The heavy slab
swung back. Aldis again! For a moment Loyse relaxed.
Then she stared into the other's face. It was the same,
exactly the same, feature by lovely feature. Yet—no!

And how it had changed she could not tell. There
was even a little mocking smile still playing about those

generously curved lips, the same expression on the fair
face. Only Loyse knew, with every inch of her, that this
was not the Aldis she had seen before.

"You are afraid," Aldis' voice, also. Exact—yet—no! "You
have a right to fear, my lady duchess. Our lord duke
does not like to be crossed. And you have played him
several ill turns. He must make you truly his wife, you
know that, or his purpose will not be served. And I
do not think you will relish the manner of his wooing.
No, I do not believe you shall find him a gentle lover
willing to sue for your accord in the matter! Because
you are in some ways a trouble to me, I shall allow
you this much, my lady duchess."

Flashing through the air to land on the bed by her
right hand—a dagger, More a lady's toy than the belt
knives she had worn sheathed at her own hip, but still
a weapon.

"A sting for you," the Aldis who was not Aldis con-
tinued, her voice falling to a soft murmur so that now
Loyse could hardly understand her words. "I wonder
how you will choose to use it, lady duchess, Loyse of
Verlaine, in one way—or another?"

Then she was gone. Loyse stared at the heavy wood
of the now closed door, wondering how she had van-
ished so swiftly. As if she had been a thing without cor-
poral body—an illusion.

Illusion! The weapon and defense of a witch. Had
Aldis indeed ever stood there? Or was this some move
on the part of an Estcarpian agent who could only aid
Yvian's captive in so much? But she would not nurse
that thread of hope unduly.

Loyse turned to look at the bed, more than half ex-
pecting to find the blade gone, an illusion. But no. It
lay there and under her hand it was solid, the whole
slim length of it to needle point. The girl brought it to
her breast, fondled it from simple cross hilt to that
point. So she was to use it, was she? On whom? Yvian

or herself? The choice had not seemed to matter to
Aldis, or the semblance of Aldis, who had brought it
to her.

4        FULK AND-FULK!

SIMON STOOD on the mid-step of the stair listening. Be-
low was the din of battle where the forces of Estcarp
mopped up the main hall. The loud "Sul! Sul!" of the
Sulcarmen echoed faintly to him. But he strained to
hear something else, movement above. He had not been
mistaken, of that he was sure. Somewhere ahead on
this narrow stair was Fulk. And the cornered lord of
Verlaine had the advantage of anyone who dare fol-
low him to his last stand.

There! Scrape of metal on stone? What sort of a
surprise was Fulk preparing for his pursuers? Yet Fulk,
above all, they must take in order to carry out their
plan for Karsten. And time worked against them as
Fulk's ally.

Simon edged on, his left shoulder pressed to the wall.
So far their plan was working. The wrecked ship on
the reef had opened Fulk's shore gates, sent out his
men, centered the attention of the keep there. So that
the invaders had nearly occupied the hold before the
castle garrison was aware of their move.

But that had not led to quick surrender; rather the
wreckers fought as men must who have no escape be-
hind, and an unforgiving enemy before. Only because
Simon had been sent spinning out of one swirling seg-
ment of the hall battle had he seen the flight of the

tall man, his helm gone so that his red-gold mane iden-
tified him. Unlike Fulk of all the legends Simon had
heard, this skulker did not seek to rally his men, take
the lead in the next furious drive against the Border-
ers. Instead he had dodged, ran, sought this inner stair.
And Simon, still with head ringing from the blow which
had shaken him out of the press, followed.

Again, metal on stone. He was very sure of it. Some
other weapon more forceful than sword or ax being
readied? The stair took an abrupt turn to the right just
beyond, a yard-square landing was all he could see, the
step up the other angle hidden. There was a globe
light burning, but pallidly.

The light flickered. Simon drew a quick breath. If
the lamp was on the verge of failing . . . But the flick-
ering followed a pulsating pattern, almost as if its pow-
er had been sapped at regular intervals. Simon took
another step, and another—the third would bring him to
the landing and so exposed to what might be waiting
on the other flight of stairs.

Flicker, flicker—he found himself counting those blinks.
And now he was sure that each drained energy. Simon
had never learned the secret of the globe lamps, they
could be governed in intensity by tapping on wall
plates set below each one. But as far as he knew the
globes themselves never had to be renewed, and no
one in Estcarp had been able to explain how they
worked. Set in these castle piles ages ago their secret
was forgotten.

Flicker again. Now the light was much dimmer. Si-
mon whirled about the angle of the stair, his back to
the wall, his dart gun ready. Four, six steps up and
then the smooth forward run of a narrow corridor. At
the top of those steps a barricade, stuff hastily dragged
from rooms above. Was Fulk lying in wait to pick off
the first to disturb that erection of stools and a table?

Somehow Simon was worried. Fulk's actions were so
contrary to all he had heard of the coast-lord. These

were the moves of a man trying to buy time. Time for
what? All Fulk's forces were engaged below; he could
not be attempting to assemble a relief. No, he was
striving to get out himself! Why he was so certain of
that Simon did not know, but he was convinced it was
so.

Did Fulk know of an inner wall passage, was he
hunting the exit now? No more sounds except that the
muffled clamor from below lessened, the last of Fulk's
men must be cut down.

The blink, blink of the light grew feebler. Then he
did hear a faint sound, and fighter's instinct sent him
scrambling down the stair angle. The white flash of
an explosion! Simon, blinded by that glare, almost lost
his footing. He rubbed his eyes.

Light, but no sound at all. Whatever force had been
unleashed there was new to him. Now trails of smoke,
acrid and throat rasping. Simon coughed, fought to
see, but his eyes were still dazzled by the flash.

"Simon! What is here?"

Pound of feet on the stair. Simon caught a hazy
glimpse of a winged helm.

"Fulk," he answered. "Up there—but watch—"

"Fulk!" Koris' long arm was out, solidly against the
wall, supporting Simon. "But what does he up there?"

"What mischief he can, lord." More steps on the stair
and Ingvald's voice to identify them.

"He is late to our meeting," Koris commented.

"Do not rush in—" At last he was able to see again.
But the light globe was now far sped. Simon slipped up
on the landing, forestalling Koris. The flimsy barrier was
gone. Some charred bits of wood, a drift of ash and
stains on the wall marked its site.

No sound, no movement from the hall or from the
doors opening into that way. Step by step Simon ad-
vanced. Then he heard a small scuffling from behind
the first door. Before he could move the great ax of
Volt swung down to hit that barrier. The door gave

and they looked into a room, the window facing them
was open, a trail of rope hung out of it, anchored within
by the weight of a chest.

Koris laid the ax on the floor and set his hands to
the rope. All the strength of his great shoulders and
arms went into an upward pull as Simon and Ingvald
moved to the window.

The night was dark, but not too shadowed to hide
the scene below. That rope, meant to drop Fulk to a
lower roof, was now ascending, even with Fulk's weight
upon it, past the point where the wrecker lord would
dare leap free. Only-
Simon saw the white  oval  which  was  Fulk's  face
turned up to him.  The dangling man,  coming up to
their waiting grasp through a series of pulls by Koris,
deliberately loosened his hold on that line. He screamed
aloud, a dreadful cry, as if he were protesting against
his own action. Had he, until that last second, really
believed he had a chance to land safely? But when
he crashed down he lay there. An arm was lifted and
fell again.

"He is still alive." Simon reached for the rope. He
did not understand the need which moved him now,
but he must look upon Fulk's face.

"I must go down," he added as the rope end whipped
in the window and he sat about making it fast to his
own waist.

"There is more in this than seems?" Koris asked.

"I believe so."

"Then down with you. But take care, even a broken-
backed serpent wears fangs in its jaws. And Fulk has
no reason to let his enemies live after him."

Simon scrambled through the window slit, swung out
as they lowered him down. His feet touched the sur-
face of the lower roof. As he threw off the loop, the
rope whipped aloft, and he went to that crumpled
figure.

His journey light showed the sprawled body clearly.

And, as Simon went down on his knee he saw that, in
spite of his injuries, Fulk of Verlaine still lived. By some
chance the wrecker lord's head turned with infinite and
painful effort so that the eyes could meet his gaze.

At that moment of meeting Simon's breath expelled
in a hiss. He wanted to cry aloud his repudiation of
what he saw there. Pain, yes—and hate. And something
which was beyond both pain and hate—an emotion which
was not of mankind that Simon knew. He said it aloud:
"Kolder!"

This was Kolder, the alien menace in the face of a
dying man. Yet Fulk was not one of the "possessed,"
the walking dead men whom Kolder used to fight its
battles, the captives sapped of soul, made to cup with-
in their bodies some enlivening power which clean hu-
manity shrank from. No, Simon had seen the "pos-
sessed." This was something else again. Because what
had been Fulk was not totally erased; that part which
bore pain and hate was growing stronger, and that
which was Kolder faded.

"Fulk!" Koris had dropped to the roof, come with a
loping stride to join Simon. "I am Koris—"

Fulk's mouth worked, twisted. "I die ... so will
you ... bog-loper!"

Koris shrugged. "As will all men, Fulk."

Simon leaned closer. "And as will those who are not
men also!"

He could not be sure that that remnant of fading
Kolder understood. Fulk's mouth worked again, but this
time all that burst from his lips was blood. He strove
to raise his head higher, but it fell back, and then
his eyes were blank of all life.

Simon looked across the body to Koris. "He was
Kolder," he said quietly.

"But no—not possessed!"

"No, but still Kolder."

"And of this you are sure?"

"As sure as I am of my own mind and body. Kolder
in some manner, but still Fulk also."

"What then have we uncovered here?" Koris was al-
ready visualizing horrors beyond. "If they have other
servants among us beside the possessed—I"

"Just so," Simon replied grimly. "I would say that the
Guardians must know of this and that speedily!"

"But the Kolder can not take over any of the Old
Race," Koris observed.

"So we shall continue to hope. But Kolder was here,
and may be elsewhere. The prisoners—"

Again Koris shrugged. "Of those there are not too
many, perhaps a dozen after that last battle in the hall.
And they are mainly men-at-arms. Would Kolder pick
such for its servants, save as possessed? Fulk, yes—he
would be an excellent piece on their playing board.
But look you at these and then tell us—if you can."

Sun was a thick bar across the table. Simon fought
the need for sleep, finding in his smoldering anger a
good weapon in his struggle. He knew her, this gray-
robed woman with her hair netted severely back from
her rather harsh features, the cloudy jewel, which was
her badge of office and sword of war, resting on her
breast, her hands  folded precisely before  her.   Knew
her, though he could not give her a name—for no witch
within Estcarp had a name. One's name was one's most
private possession. Give that too lightly to the play of
many tongues and one had delivered one's innermost
citadel into possible enemy hands.

"This then is your only word?" He did not try to
modify his hardness of voice as he demanded that.

She did not smile, no expression troubled her calm
gaze.

"Not my word, March Warder, nor the word of any
one of us, but the law by which we live. Jaelithe—" Si-
mon thought he detected a hint of distaste in her

voice   as   she   spoke   that   name—"made   her   choice.
There is no returning."

"And if the power has not departed from her, what
then? You cannot say that it is so by merely speaking

words!"

She did not shrug, but something in her pose gave
him the feeling that she had so dismissed his speech
and his anger. "When one has held a thing, used it,
then its shadow may linger with one for awhile, even
though the center core of it be lost. Perhaps she can
do things which are small shadows of what once she
could work. But she cannot reclaim her jewel and be
again one of our company. However, I think, March
Warder, you did not summon a witch here merely to
protest such a decision—which is none of your concern."
It snapped down, that unbreakable barrier between
the witches and those outside that bond. Simon took
tight rein on his temper. Because, of course, she was
right. This was no time to fight Jaelithe's battle, this
was a time when a plan must move ahead.

He spoke crisply, explaining what must be done. The
witch nodded.

"Shape-changing—for who among you?"
"Me, Ingvald, Koris and ten men of the Borderers."
"I must see those who you would counterfeit." She
arose from her chair. "You have them ready?"
"Their bodies—"

She displayed no change of countenance at that in-
formation, only stood waiting for him to lead the way.
They had laid them out at the far end of the hall, ten
men selected from among the slain, led by the broken-
nosed, scarred leader of the last defense who wore the
insignia of an officer. And, a little apart, Fulk.

The witch paused by each in that line, staring in-
tently into the pale faces, fitting them into her mem-
ory, with every mark of identification. This was her
particular skill, and while any of her sisterhood could
practice shape-changing upon the need, only one ex-

pert in the process could attempt such with the actual
features of a man. instead of just a general disguise.

When she came to Fulk her survey was much longer
as she stooped low, her eyes searching his face. From
that lengthy examination, she turned to Simon.

"Lord, you are very right. There was more in this
man than his own mind, soul, thoughts. Kolder—" The
last word was a whisper, a husky sound. "And being
Kolder, dare you take his place?"

"Our scheme depends upon Fulk entering Kars," Si-
mon returned. "And I am not Kolder—"

"As any other who might be Kolder would detect,"
she warned.

"That I must risk."

"So be it. Bring your men for the changing. Seven and
three. And send all others from the hall, there must be
no disturbing this."

He nodded. This was not the first time he had
known shape-changing, but then it had been a hurried
grasping for quick disguise to get them out of Kars.
Now he would be Fulk and that was a different thing
altogether.

As Simon summoned his volunteers, the witch was
busied with her own preparations, drawing on the
Stone flooring of the hall two five-pointed stars, one
overlapping in part the other. In the center of each she
placed a brazier from the small chest her Sulcar es-
cort had carried in for her. And now she was care-
fully measuring various powders from an array of small
tubes and vials, mixing them together in two heaps
on squares of fine silk which had lines and patterns
woven into their substances.

They could not strip the bodies, lest the stains and
rents betray them. But there was plenty more clothing
within the castle, and they would use the weapons,
belts, and any personal ornaments the dead had worn,
to finish off the picture they must present. This was
heaped together waiting the end of the ceremony.

The witch cast her squares of silk into the braziers
and began a low chant. Smoke arose to hide the men
who had stripped and were now standing, one on
each star point. The smoke mist was thick, wreathing
each man so that he could not believe that there was
anything outside the soft envelope about him. And the
chanting filled the whole world, as if all time and space
trembled and writhed with the rise and fall of words
none of them could understand.

As slowly as it had come the smoke mist ebbed, re-
luctantly withdrawing its folds, returning once again
to the braziers from which it had issued. And the
aromatic scent which had been a part of it left Simon
lightheaded, more than a little divorced from reality.
Then he felt the chill air on his skin, looked down at
a body strange to him, a heavier body with the slight
beginning of a paunch, a feathering of red-gold hair
growing on its skin. He was Fulk.

Koris—or at least the man who moved from Koris'
starpoint was shorter—they had selected their counter-
parts from men not too afar from their own physical
characteristics; but he lacked the seneschal's abnormal
breadth of shoulder, his long dangling arms. An old
sword slash lifted his upper lip in a wolfish snarl,
enough to show a toothprint white and sharp. Ingvald
had lost his comparative youth and had fingers of gray
in his hair, a seamed face marked by many years of
evil and reckless living.

They dressed in clothing from the castle chests,
slipped on rings, neck chains, and buckled tight the
weapons of dead men.

"Lord!" One of the men hailed Simon. "Behind you—
it fell from Fulk's sword belt. There."

His pointing finger indicated the gleam of metal.
Simon picked up a boss. The metal was neither gold
nor silver, but had a greenish cast and it was formed
in the pattern of an interwoven knot of many twists
and turns. Simon searched along the belt and found

the hooks where it once must have been fastened,
snapped it back into place. There must be no change
in Fulk's appearance, even by so small an item.

The witch was returning her braziers to the chest.
She looked up as he came to her, studying him nar-
rowly, as an artist might critically regard a finished
work.

"I wish you well, March Warder," she told him. "The
Power be with you in full measure."

"For those good wishings we thank you, lady. It is
in my mind that we shall need all such in this ven-
ture."

She nodded. Koris called from the door. "The tide
changes, Simon, it is time we sail."

5        RED MORNING

"SIGNAL FLAGS!" One of the knot of men at the prow of
the coaster, now being worked by sweeps up the golden
river in the early morning, nodded to the flutter of
colored strips from a pole on the bank beside the first
wharf of Kars.

He who wore a surcoat gaudily emblazoned with a
fish, horns on snout and sloping, scaled head against a
crimson square, stirred, his hand going to his belt.

"Expected?" He made an important question of that
one word.

His companion smiled. "For what we seem, yes. But
that is as it should be. It remains to be seen now whether
Yvian is ready to welcome his father-in-law per ax with
kindness or the sword. We walk into the serpent's open

mouth, and that can snap shut before our reinforcements
arrive."

There was a low laugh from the third member of the
party. "Any serpent closing his jaws upon us, Ingvald,
is like to get several feet of good steel rammed up
through its backbone! There is this about blank shields
—they are loyal to the man who pays them, but remove
that man and they are willing to see reason. Let us deal
with Yvian and we shall speedily have Kars thus!" He
held out a brown hand, palm up and slowly curled fin-
gers inward to form a fist.

Simon-Fulk was wary of Koris' impetuous estimate of
the odds. He did not underrate either the seneschal's
fighting ability nor his leadership, but he did question
this feverish drive which kept the other at the prow of
the coaster all the way up river, staring ahead as if his
will could add to their speed. Their crew were Sulcar-
men who, as merchants, had made this run before and
knew every trick of inducing speed, all of which they
had brought into action since they had entered the river's
mouth.

In the meantime, the main force of the Estcarpian
invaders were coming down through the foothills, ready
to dash for Kars when the signal came and that signal
. . . Simon-Fulk, for the dozenth time since they had
boarded the coaster, glanced at the tall basket cage now
draped in a loose cover. In it was the Falconer's addi-
tion to their party. Not one of the black-and-white hawks
which served the tough mountain fighters as scouting
eyes and ears and battle comrades—trained not only to
report, but also to fly at the enemy in attack, but a bird
which could not be so easily recognized as belonging to
Estcarp's allies.

Larger than those hawks which rode at Falconer sad-
dle bows, its plumage was blue-gray, lightening to white
on the head and tail. Five such had been discovered
overseas by Falconers serving as marines on Sulcar ships.
And these had been bred and trained now for three

generations. Too heavy to serve as did the regular hawks,
they were used as messengers, since they had a homing
instinct, and the ability to defend themselves in the air.

For Simon-Fulk's purpose this bird was excellent. He
did not dare take one of the regular hawks into Kars,
since only Falconers used those birds. But this new
breed because of its beauty would catch the attention,
and it had been trained to hunt, so that Yvian would
welcome it as a gift.

Ten men, a bird and a whole city against them. This
was a wild and foolish expedition on the face of it. Yet
once before four of them had invaded this same Kars
and had come out with their lives and more. Four of
them! Simon's hand slipped back and forth along the
ornaments on Fulk's belt. Three of them now—himself,
Koris and somewhere, hidden in those buildings, Loyse.
But the fourth? Do not think of her now. Wonder why
she had not returned, why she had allowed him to hear
secondhand from the witch at Verlaine that her mission
had failed. Where was she—nursing that hurt? But she
had accepted the cost of marriage between them, had
come to him first! Why—

"We have welcomers, Lord!" Ingvald drew Simon's
attention to the here and now.

A file of men at arms, surcoated alike with the badge
of Yvian—a mailed fist holding aloft an ax—were on the
wharf. Simon's fingers closed on his dart gun, the edge
of his cloak discreetly veiling that movement. But on a
barked order from their officer the waiting squad clapped
their bared hands together and then raised them for an
instant, palm out and shoulder high, the greeting of a
friendly salute. Thus they were welcomed to Kars.

There was another turn out of barehanded, saluting
troops at the citadel gate. And, as far as they had been
able to judge on their march through the city, life in
Kars flowed smoothly, no sign of unease.

But when they had been ushered with the formality
of court etiquette into the suite of chambers in the mid-

bulk of the citadel, Simon beckoned Ingvald and Koris
to a bowed window. The seven they had brought with
them from Verlaine remained by the door. Simon indi-
cated them.

"Why here?"

Koris was frowning. "Yes, why?"

"Bottle us all up together," Ingvald suggested. "And
if such handling gives us warning, they apparently do
not care. Also—where is Yvian, or at least his constable?
We were escorted by a sergeant-at-arms, no one of higher
rank. We may be in guests' quarters, but they skimp
badly on the courtesy."

"There is more wrong than insult for Fulk in this."
Simon pulled off the dead man's ornate helm and leaned
his head against the wall where a breeze ruffled the
heavy forelock of red-gold hair which he had borne from
the shape-changing. "To pen us together is a security
move. And Yvian has no reason to honor Fulk. But here
there is more—" He closed his eyes, tried to make that
mysterious sixth sense deliver other than just the warn-
ing which had been growing stronger every step he took
into the enemy's hold.

"A sending—there is a sending?" Koris demanded.

Simon opened his eyes. Once a sending had brought
him into Kars, a dull pain in his head which marched
him, hot, cold, hot, down streets and alley ways to Jae-
lithe's lodging. No, what he was feeling now was not the
same as that. This—it drew him forward, yes—but that
was not all. He tingled with a kind of anticipation, such
as one felt on the verge of taking some irrevocable step.
But also it was not altogether concerned with him. Rather
as if he now moved on the edge of some action;
brushed by it, but not the true focus point.

"No sending," he made belated answer. "There is
something here on the move .. ."

Koris shifted the ax on which he leaned. Volt's gift
was never far from his hand. But for his entrance into

Kars it had been disguised with leaf foil and paint into
the ornament weapon of a lord's constable.

"The ax grows alive," he commented. "Volt—" His
voice sank to a whisper which could not reach beyond
the window bay. "Volt guide us!"

"We are in the main block," he added more briskly,
and Simon knew that Koris was reviewing mentally the
plan of Kars' citadel as they had learned it from reports.
"Yvian's private chambers are in the north tower. The
upper corridor should have no more than a pair of guards
at its far end." He moved towards the door of their own
suite.

"How so?" Ingvald looked to Simon. "Do we wait or
move now?"

They had planned to wait, but this compulsion Simon
could sense . . . Perhaps the bold move was the right
one.

"Waldis!" One of the men in Verlaine livery looked
up alertly. "We have need for a sack of the bird's grain;
it was forgotten in the ship—you seek to send a messen-
ger for it."

Simon pulled aside the covering of the hawk's basket.
Those bright eyes, not golden as was usual in that breed,
but dark, regarded him intently, having in them a meas-
ure of intelligence—not human kind—but yet intelli-
gence. He had never given the bird more than passing
heed before, but now he watched it closely as he put
hand to the fastening of its prison.

The feathered head turned, away from him, to the
door of the room, as if the white one also listened, or
strove to hear what could not be picked up by any ear.
Then the curved beak opened and the bird uttered a
piercing scream at the same moment Simon caught it
too—that troubling of the very air about them.

Koris stared at Volt's gift. The shallow disguise of foil
could not hide the gleam of the ax head, not brilliant
as from sunlight on the burnished metal, but as if the

weapon had, for an instant, held fire in its substance.
And as suddenly that flash was gone.

The wide, white wings of the hawk fluttered and for
the second time the bird screamed. Simon unlatched the
cage door, held out his wrist and arm as a bridge. The
weight of the bird was a burden, it could never have
been carried so, but he held steady as it emerged. Then
it fluttered over to perch on the back of a chair.

One of the Borderers held back the door and Waldis
came in. He was breathing in great panting gasps and his
sword was in his hand, the point of it dripping red.

"They have gone mad!" he burst out. "They are
hunting men through the halls, cutting them down—"
It could not be Estcarp forces; they had not yet
flown their signal! Nothing to do with them—unless
something had gone widely wrong. Ingvald caught the
boy's shoulder, drew him closer to Simon.

"Who hunts? Who fights?" he demanded harshly.
"I do not know. All of them by their badges are the
duke's  men.  I heard one shout to get the duke—that
he was with his new wife—"

Koris' breath hissed. "I think it is time to move." He
was already at the door. Simon looked to the bird man-
tling on the chair back.

"Open the window casement," he ordered the nearest
Borderer. He was being rushed, but that turmoil inside
him was a sense of time running out. And if there was
already trouble within the citadel they had best make
use of that. He motioned and the hawk took off, out
through the window, setting a straight course for those
waiting. Then Simon turned and ran after Koris.

There was a dead man lying face up at the end of
the hallway—his face gone loose and blank. And he wore
no mail, but the tunic of some official by its richness,
the small badge of Yvian's service on one shoulder. Ing-
vald paused by the body long enough to point out a
small rod of office, broken in two as if the dead had

used it in a futile attempt to ward off the blow which
had cut him down.

"Steward," the Borderer officer commented. But Simon
had noted something else, the inset belt about the other's
loose over-robe. Three rosettes, each set with a small
wink of red gem in their heart. But where the fourth
should have been to complete a balanced pattern was
another ornament, a twined and twisted knot, the same
as on the belt taken from Fulk, which he, Simon, now
wore. Some new trick of fashion or—?

But Koris was already well up the stairs leading to
the next floor, the path which would take them to Yvian's
apartments and Loyse—if they were lucky. This was no
time to speculate about belt ornaments.

They could hear uproar now, distant shouting, the
clash of arms. Clearly an all-out struggle of some kind
was in progress.

A shout from above, demanding. Then the thud of
hollow sounding blows. Simon and Koris burst almost
together from the stairwell to see men trying to force
the door at the far end of the corridor. Two swung a
bench as a battering ram, while others of their fellows
stood, weapons in hand, waiting for the splintering bar-
rier to give.

"Yaaaah—" No real war cry, but a shattering scream
of rage, out of Koris, as if all the impatience and frus-
tration in him was boiling free. With a feline leap he
was halfway along the hall. Two of the Karstenians heard
him, turned to face this new attack. Simon shot and
both went down, one after the other, the darts finding
marks. He was never good in cut-and-thrust melee, hav-
ing come too late to the learning of sword play, and the
niceties of ax attack were not for him. But there were
few among either the Guard of Estcarp or the Borderers
who could equal his marksmanship with dart gun.

"Yaaaaah!" Koris overleaped the first body, fenced the
other toppling man with a shoulder. Now Volt's gift
was doing bloody work with those at the battering ram.

Taking no heed for his back, Koris brought the ax
down upon the door, and then sprawled forward as
whatever bar had held it gave way. The swirl of Bor-
derers had overtaken the remaining Karstenians, passed
on after a moment of tight fast work, leaving only dead
and dying behind.

Koris was already across the room, now snatching at a
hanging to uncover a second and narrower stair. He
seemed so sure of his objective that Simon followed
without question. Another hall above and, halfway down
it, a patch of yellow. Koris grabbed at that, and the folds
of a travel cloak billowed out. He tossed it from him as
he turned to face the only closed door.

There was no bar here. The first peck of the ax
sent it crashing open and they looked into a bed cham-
ber where the bed stood denuded of curtains, its cov-
erings ripped and torn, sliding to the floor in an omi-
nously stained muddle. The man whose fingers were
still tightly clawed into those coverlets lay face down.
But his legs moved feebly as they watched, striving
perhaps to lift him again. Koris stalked forward and put
hand to the hunched shoulder, rolled him over.

Simon had never seen Yvian of Karsten, but now he
did not mistake the harsh jet of chin, the sandy brows
which were a bushy bar across the nose. The sleekness
of soft living had not altogether wiped away the forceful
mercenary who had fought battles to become my lord
duke.

He wore only a loose over-robe which had fallen apart
at Koris' handling so that the powerful body, seamed
with old scars, was bare, save for a wide, wet, red
band at his middle His breath came in great sobbing
gulps, and with every moment of his arching chest, that
band grew wider.

Koris kneeled beside the duke, so that he could look
into Yvian's face, meet his eyes.

"Where is she?" It was asked with no outer heat,

merely a determination to be answered. But Simon
doubted if any words could now reach Yvian.

"Where—is—she?" Koris repeated. Under his hand
the ax moved, catching light from the window, reflecting
it into Yvian's face.

It seemed to Simon that the dying man's attention
was not for his questioner, but rather centered on that
uncanny weapon, long since fashioned by a non-human
smith. Yvian's lips moved, shaped a word, and then a
second audible enough—

"Volt—" He made an effort which was visible, looking
from the ax to him who held it. And there was a kind
of puzzlement in his eyes. Koris must have guessed the
source of that for he leaned the closer to speak.

"Volt's ax—and I am he who bears it—Koris of Gorm!"

But Yvian's only answer was a ghostly grin, a stretch
of lips which matched the slash of his death wound.
He struggled to speak a moment later.

"Gorm, is it? Then you will know your masters. I wish
them well—hell-cat—"

One hand freed its hold on the covers and he struck
up, his closed fist merely touching Koris' jaw before it
fell limply back, that last effort having carried him over
the final border into the waiting dark.

Save for Yvian they found these chambers bare, nor
were the other two entrances unbarred. Koris, who had
led that whirlwind search, came back wide-eyed.

"She was here!"

Simon agreed to that, but Yvian's dying words were
in his mind. Why had the duke spoke of "your masters"
and connected that with Gorm? For Estcarp he would
more rightly have said, "your mistresses." All Karsten
knew that the council of witches ruled the north. But
Gorm had had grim masters—the Kolder! Someone had
started the fighting here, and it had not been Estcarp
work. Loyse was gone; Yvian given his death wound.

But they had little time to search farther. A band of
the duke's guards came seeking their commander and

the Borderer needs must fight their way to make a stand
elsewhere.

It was late night and Estcarp was indeed in Kars,
when Simon slumped in a chair and chewed at a strip
of meat, trying to listen to reports, to assess what had
been done here.

"We cannot continue to hold Kars," Guttorm of the
Falconers slopped wine from a bottle into a cup, his
hand shaking with fatigue. He had led the vans which
had cut their way in from the north gate and he had
been ten hours at the business of reaching where he
now sat.

"We never intended to do so," Simon swallowed his
mouthful to answer. "What we came here to do—"

"Is not done!" The full thud was Koris' ax punctuating
his speech, haft butt against the floor. "She is not in the
city, unless they have hidden her away so that even the
witch can not sense her, and that I do not believe!"

Ingvald settled a slinged arm with a grimace of pain.
"Nor do I. But the witch says there is no trace. It is
as if she never was—or now is—"

Simon stirred. "And there is one way of hiding which
blanks out the power—"

"Kolder," Koris replied evenly. Simon thought that he
already had accepted that dour possibility.

"Kolder," Simon agreed. "What have we learned from
our prisoners—that suddenly, "shortly after dawn yester-
day, within the citadel some of the officers were given
messages, all purporting to come from the duke, all
definitely ordering them to quietly assemble the men
under their command and then move in on each other!
Each commander was told that one of his own fellows
was the traitor. Could anything cause greater confusion?
Then, unable to reach Yvian, even when they were be-
ginning to realize their orders were wrong, the fighting
became more intense as the rumor spread that Yvian
had been killed by this one or that."

"A cover, and none of our doing," Guttorm stated, "it
was only Yvian's own force involved."

"A cover," Simon nodded. "And the only act which
might be so covered was Yvian's death. With his forces
sadly split, too broken to organize a hunt for any mur-derer"

"Maybe not just Yvian," Koris broke in, "maybe also—
Loyse!"

"But why?" Frankly that puzzled Simon. Unless—his
tired mind moved slowly but it moved—unless Kolder
wanted her for bait.

"I do not know, but I shall find out!" Once more the
butt of Volt's gift struck the floor with emphatic force.

\
6        DUCHESS OF KARSTEN

LOYSE SAT on the wide bed with her knees drawn up,
her arms clasped around them, her eyes for that naked
blade resting before her. What was Aldis' purpose? It
could not be that the duke's mistress thought she would
lose her power over Yvian. His need for Loyse was one
of expediency only. And Aldis who had ruled him so
long would not be easily unseated.

But—Loyse's tongue tip ran along dry lips as she
remembered. When Jaelithe had been a seeress in Kars
months ago, Aldis had come to her secretly, to buy a
spell to keep Yvian truly hers. And she must have be-
lieved in the necessity and efficiency of that or she
would not have come. Then, in that later battle of wills
—when the Guardians had used the most potent sendings

they could conjure—Aldis (by image) had been the
target of Jaelithe's attack. By all the arts of Estcarp cer-
tain temporary commands had then been planted in her
to use her influence upon Yvian to further the witches'
desires.

Now Loyse could not reconcile this present Aldis with
the one she had so long thought upon. This Aldis would
not have sought out Jaelithe, save for a contest of
strengths. Had that been the real purpose of that visit
to the witch of Estcarp? No! Jaelithe's own power would
have revealed to her any such plan behind Aldis' seek-
ing. She had then come honestly for her love potion.

And it was the truth that Aldis had been put under
control for a period at the battle of wills before the
taking of Gorm, even though that had been done from a
distance and through images only. A failure there, too,
Jaelithe would have known immediately.

Loyse gnawed on her lower lip and continued to stare
at the dagger. She herself had failed in meeting with the
duke's leman—she had been too assured when she should
have been simple and bewildered. Somehow she had
been turned inside out, assessed, by opposition she
must respect—or fear? Aldis was not Aldis as she had
expected her to be. And now, Aldis was playing some
game of her own, in which she considered Loyse to be
a piece to be moved at her pleasure.

Patiently the girl fought down both hot anger and
the tinge of fear which followed the facing of that fact.
Ostensibly she had been brought out of Estcarp be-
cause she was Yvian's wife by ax marriage. What did
Yvian gain by her coming? First, what he had wanted
from the beginning—Verlaine with its sea-bought treas-
ure, its fortress, its lower harbor which, with the reef
knowledge of its men, would give him a fine raiding
port from which to prey on Estcarp.

Second, she was of the old nobility, and perhaps that
fact might reconcile the aloof houses to Yvian. The tales
out of Kars were that he desired to cut old ties with

the mercenaries, establish his ducal throne more firmly
by uniting with the rulers of the past.

Third—Loyse hugged her knees more tightly—third,
her flight from Verlaine, her joining with his enemies in
Estcarp, must have been a goad to personal anger and a
wound to his self-esteem. And—those few hints from
Aldis—perhaps he chewed now upon the fact that she
had sworn betrothal with Koris, that she preferred the
outcast of Gorm to the Duke of Karsten. Her lips curled;
as if there could be any question between them! Koris
was . . . Koris! All she had ever wanted or could want
in her life!

Three reasons to bring her here, yet behind them she
sensed a shadowy fourth. And, sitting there in the gray
of dawn, Loyse tried to summon it into the open. Not
Yvian's reason, but Aldis? And why she was sure of that
she could not have told either, but that it was true she
had no doubt at all.

What could be Aldis' reason? To bring her here,
frighten her with those threats of what Yvian had in
mind for her—and then deliver into her hand a weapon.
So that she might turn that against herself, thus disposing
for all time of a rival? A surface reason that, but one
which did not quite fit. So that Loyse might turn this
length of fine polished metal against the duke when he
would have his will of her? But Yvian was Aldis' hold
on what she wanted—personal power within the duchy!
At any rate Aldis' gift must be considered carefully.

Loyse slid from the bed and went to throw open
the window shutters, allowing the wind to sweep across
her face, freshen her dully aching head. She thought
that it might be mountain wind, though it must have
crossed long leagues to be from there. There was a harsh
strength to it which she needed to beat against her now.

Somewhere they must be on the move—Koris, Simon,
Jaelithe. Loyse did not doubt in the least that they
were seeking her. But that they could reach into Kars
she did not think possible. No—once more her future

depended upon her own resources and wits. She went
back to the bed and took up the dagger. Aldis' gift
might be in some way a trap, but Loyse knew relief as
her fingers closed about the weapon's chill hilt.

Her eyelids were heavy, she dropped back against the
bed. Sleep . . . she must have sleep. The table across
the door once more? But she could not summon the
energy to pull away from the bed and place it so. With
the mountain freshening the room she slept.

Perhaps it was those months she had spent campaign-
ing in the border mountains, the need to be alert even
in sleep, which had given her that guardian sense. Some-
where in the depths of exhaustion a warning sounded,
so that Loyse was out of slumber and awake, though she
lay for a long moment with closed eyes—listening, striv-
ing with every part of her to learn what chanced.

The faint protest of a hinge—the door! Loyse jerked
upright amidst the tumbled covers of the bed. There
was morning sun from the window she had left open.
The rest of the room was dusky with shadows to which
her eyes were more accustomed than were those of the
man who entered.

Loyse scrambled to the side of the bed, plunged
down, ignoring the dais steps, and put the wide ex-
panse of that massive piece of furniture between her
and the invader who had turned his back almost con-
temptuously as he put the key to lock, this time on the
inner side of the door.

He was big—as tall as Simon—and his width of shoul-
der was not lessened by the folds of his loose bedgown.
Big and probably as strong as Koris into the bargain. As
he turned to face her with that assured leisureliness,
she saw he was smiling a little. And to her mind it was a
very cruel and evil smile.

In a way he was like Fulk, but with her father's vivid
red-gold coloring blurred into drabber sandiness, the
clean cut features coarsened, a scar seam along his jaw

line adding an ugly touch. Yvian the mercenary, Yvian
the undefeated.

Loyse, her back now against the stone wall, thought
that Duke Yvian no longer believed that defeat could
ever touch him. And that complete self-confidence was
in itself a daunting thing to face.

He crossed, with no hurry, to the end of the bed and
stood watching her, his smile growing broader. Then
he bowed with a mockery bolder than that Aldis had
used.

"We meet at last, my lady. A meeting too long de-
layed—at least I have found it so."

He surveyed her with some of the same contempt
Fulk had used to batter her in the past.

"A whey-faced stick indeed." Yvian nodded as if con-
firming a report. "You have naught to pride yourself
upon, my lady."

To answer—would that provoke him into action? Or
could silence be a small defense? Loyse wavered be-
tween two courses. The longer he talked, the more of
a breathing space she had.

"Yes, no man would choose you for your face, -Loyse
of Verlaine."

Was he trying to goad her into some protest or reply?
Loyse watched him narrowly.

"Statecraft," Yvian laughed, "statecraft can drive a man
to many things which would otherwise knot his stomach
in disgust. So I wed you and now I bed you, lady of
Verlaine—"

He did not lunge for her as she feared he might, but
advanced deliberately. And Loyse, edging away from him
along the wall, read his reason in his eyes. The chase
and the capture—that inevitable capture—would provide
him with amusement. And, she thought, he would pro-
long his pursuit of her, savoring her fear, faint hopes
born from continued evasion, as long as he wished. Then
when he tired, the end would come—at his time and on
his terms!

So much would she humor him. With the agility she
had learned among the Borderers Loyse leaped, not
for the locked door as Yvian might have anticipated, but
for the surface of the bed. He had not expected that
and his clutch at her fell far short. She sprang again,
aided in part by the elasticity of the hide lashings which
supported the mattress. Her hands caught the cross ties
meant to hold the canopy of state and hangings. Some-
how she pulled herself up, perched there, drawing sob-
bing breaths from the effort which left her momentarily
weak, but well above Yvian's reach.

He stared at her. No laughter, no smile now. His eyes
narrowed as they must through the visor of his war
helm as he looked out upon a battle.

No more talking, he was all purpose. But Loyse
doubted if he could climb to rake her down. His weight
must be almost double hers and the dusty strips on
which she crouched were already creaking when she
shifted position. After a long moment Yvian must have
agreed on that. His fists closed about a heavy poster of
the bed and he began to exert strength against that.
Wood creaked, dust sifted into the air. The breath came
out of Yvian's chest in heavy grunts. He had been sof-
tened by good living, but he still had the frame of a
man who had killed more than one in camp wrestling.

The post was yielding and now he pulled at it with
short jerks, right and left, loosening it in the bed frame
while Loyse's frail perch shook back and forth under
her, and only the finger-whitening grip she kept on the
timbers held her safe. Then, with a splintering crack,
the post broke forward and Yvian stumbled back. Loyse
was thrown toward the floor. And the man who had
regained his balance with a swordsman's quick double
step was waiting for her, the grin back on his sweating
face.

She threw herself sidewise as she came and this time
she had Aldis' gift ready. Her shoulder met the standing
post of the bed painfully, but, even as she cried out,

Loyse slashed with the dagger at the hands reaching to
crush her. Yvian snarled and dodged that stab. His robe
caught in the splintered end of a broken cross piece
which sagged across the bed and for a vital second he
was a prisoner. He kicked at the girl viciously, but
Loyse scrambled to put the bed again between them.

Yvian jerked his arm free. There was a moist white
fleck at the corner of his now pinched lips and his
eyes . . . Loyse held the dagger breast high and point
out, her left arm still numb from the blow against the
post. If she had been hampered by skirts she could never
have kept out of his hands, but in riding clothes she
was limb free and as agile as any boy. Sword play she
knew in part, but knife fighting was an unlearned art.
And she was facing a man not only proven in battle, but
lessoned in every kind of rough-and-tumble known to
blank shields.

He snatched up a draggled sheet from the bed and
snapped it at her viciously as a drover would snap a
whip. The edge cut her cheek, brought a second cry
of pain out of her. But though she gave ground, she
did not drop her weapon. Again Yvian lashed at her, and
followed that by a lunge, his arms out and ready to en-
gulf her wholly.

It was the table which saved her then. She half fell,
half slipped about its end, while Yvian came up against
it, talcing the full force of that bruising meeting on his
thigh, the jar of it slowing him. He found the loose
robe hampering and suddenly stopped, fumbling with
its belt, striving to throw it off.

His eyes widened, set in a stare aimed across Loyse's
hunched shoulder. That device was so old—Loyse's
mouth twisted wryly—did he think to catch her in so
simple a net? So thinking she was unprepared for the
fierce grip which caught her upper arm, pulling her
back. There was a strong musky scent, a softness of silken
robe against her wrist. Then a white hand slipped down

her arm, twisted the knife from Loyse's hand as if she
had no strength at all.

"So you had not the nerve to kill." Aldis' voice. "Well,
let one who has use this!"

Yvian's amazement was now a black scowl. He stood
away from the table to take a quick stride forward. Then
he stumbled, gathered balance and came on, in spite of
the steel in his middle, the stain growing on his robe.
His hands clutched for Loyse. She summoned up the
last of her strength to thrust him away. Surprisingly
that shove from her made him stagger back and fall
against the bed, where he lay tearing at the covers.

"Why—?" Loyse looked at Aldis where she now stood
bending over Yvian, watching him with a compelling
intentness as if willing him to show any remaining signs
of opposition. "Why—?" Loyse could get out no more
than that one word.

Aldis straightened, went to the half-open door. She
paid no attention to Loyse, her attitude was one of lis-
tening. Now the girl could hear it, too—a pounding
somewhere below, muffled shouts. Aldis retreated with
swift running steps and her hand was again about Loyse's
wrist, but this time not to disarm but to pull the girl
with her.

"Come!"

Loyse tried to free herself. "Why?"

"Fool!" Aldis' face was thrust close to hers. "Those
are Yvian's bodyguards breaking in below. Do you want
them to find you here—with him?"

Loyse was dazed. Aldis had thrown the knife which
had wounded the duke, and his bodyguard were striving
to force their way into his chambers. Why and why and
why? Because she could read no meaning into any of
this, she did not resist again as Aldis dragged her to the
door. The Karstenian's whole body expressed the need
for haste, the unease. And to know that Aldis shared
fear made it worse for Loyse. To know the enemy was

one thing, to be totally caught up in chaos was infi-
nitely worse.

They were in a small hall and the shouting below
was louder. Aldis pulled her on into the facing chamber.
Long windows opened upon a balcony and Loyse caught
glimpses of luxurious furnishings. This must be Aldis'
own room. But the other did not pause. Onto the bal-
cony they went and there faced a plank set across to a
neighboring balcony on the opposite wall. Aldis pushed
Loyse against the railing.

"Up!" she ordered tersely, "and walk!"

"I cannot!" The plank hung over nothingness. Loyse
dared not look down, but she sensed a long drop.

Aldis regarded her for a long moment and then brought
her hand up to her breast. She gripped a brooch there
as if gaining by that touch additional strength to rule
Loyse by her will.

"Walk!" she snapped again.

And Loyse discovered that it was as it had been with
Berthora, she was not in command of her body any
more. Instead, that which was she appeared to withdraw
into some far place from which that identity watched
herself climb to the plank and walk across the drop to
the other balcony. And there she remained, still in that
spell, while Aldis followed. The Karstenian pushed aside
their frail bridge so that it fell out and down, closing
the passage behind them.

She, did not touch Loyse again, there was no need
to. For the girl could not throw off the bonds that held
her to Aldis' desire. They went together through an-
other room and then into a wider chamber. A wounded
man crawled there on his hands and knees. But, his
head hanging, he did not see them as Aldis swept her
captive on, both of them running now.

Loyse saw other wounded and dead, even the swirl
of small fighting groups, but none took any notice of
the two women. What had happened? Estcarp? Koris,
Simon—had they come for her? But all those they saw

locked in combat were Karsten badges, as if the forces
of the duke had split in civil war.

They reached the vast kitchens, to find those de-
serted, though meat crackled on the spits, pots boiled
and pans held contents which were burning. And from
there they came through a small courtyard into a garden
of sorts with straight rows of vegetables and some trees
already heavy with fruit.

Aldis pulled the long skirt of her outer robe up over
her forearm as she ran. Once she stopped when a tree
branch caught in her jeweled hair net, to break it, but a
portion of the twig still stuck out of the net. That she
had a definite goal in mind Loyse was sure, but what it
might be she did not know until they were splashing
among reeds at the borders of a stream. There was a
skiff there and Aldis motioned to it.

"Get in, lie down!"

Loyse could only obey, the wash of water wetting
through her breeches, over the tops of her boots. Aldis
scrambled in and the skiff rocked with her movements
as she huddled beside Loyse, pulling over the both of
them a musty smelling strip of woven rushes. Moments
later Loyse felt the boat move ahead, they were being
pulled along by the current, probably toward the river
dividing Kars.

The smell of the matting was faintly sickening, and
the water washing in the bottom of the boat had a swamp
stench to it. Loyse longed to lift her head and breathe
clean air again. But there was no disobeying Aldis' or-
ders. Her mind might rage, but her body obeyed.

As the skiff bobbed on Loyse heard sounds which
meant they had reached the river. Now where was Aldis
going? When she had ridden with Berthora she had ac-
cepted all their actions as right and normal, had been
so ensorcelled that she had not feared or understood
what she was doing. But this time she knew that she
was under a spell which would make her do just as

Aldis wished. But why—why for everything which had
happened to her?

"Why?" Aldis' voice soft close to her ear. "You ask
why? But now you are duchess, my lady, all this city,
all the countryside beyond is yours! Can you under-
stand what that means, my little nothing out of nowhere
at all?"

Loyse tried, she tried very hard to understand but
she could not.

There came a hail and Aldis sat up, the matting falling
away so that the river air was on them. The rounded
side of a ship rose not too far away, and Aldis was reach-
ing for a rope tossed to them from that vessel.

7        THE HIGH WALLS OF YLE

SIMON SAT in the bowed window, his back to the room
and those it held. But he could hear—the panther-pacing
of Koris, the men reporting, receiving orders, depart-
ing again. This was the nerve center of the Estcarpian
invasion force and beyond was the city they had taken
in an audacious leap and so precariously held. That they
continued to so hold it was rank folly, but whether
Koris could be made to accept that truth Simon had
some doubts. If the seneschal's present mood continued
he might try pulling apart the very stones of the build-
ings, searching for what he would not admit was gone.

Could he blame Koris for this present single-minded-
ness which was like to imperil their whole cause? Ob-
jectively, yes. A half year ago Simon would have wit-
nessed but not understood the torment which tore the

younger man now. But since then he had taken to him-
self his own demons. Perhaps he did not snarl and pace,
pounce upon all comers with a demand for news.

However their cases differed in this much: Koris had
been bereft by the enemy of what he had come to
treasure most; Jaelithe had gone from Simon by her
own will, gone and not returned. And by that he was
forced to gauge the depth of the rift which had opened
between them. Would she have been content had she
not awakened to that shadow of power days ago? Or
had that return in part of what she had once had
brought home to her the loss as she had not realized
it, even when she surrendered her jewel upon their
marriage? Simon fought his own thoughts, strove to
batter them away and consider the problem at hand—that
Kars was theirs for a space, that Yvian lay dead, and
that Loyse was gone, and no man they had captured
knew the manner of her going.

Estcarp and Kars—the problem to hand—and Koris not
able to think straight while in his present mood. Si-
mon came away from the window, to step in the path
of Koris' pacing and catch the other's arm.

"She is not here. So we look elsewhere. But we do
not lose our heads." Simon put snap in that with a pur-
pose, trying to make his voice serve as might a slap
across the face of a man caught in hysterical shock.

Koris blinked, broke Simon's hold with a roll of shoul-
der. But he had stopped pacing, he was listening.

"If she had run—" he began.

"Then perhaps she would have been seen," Simon
agreed. "Think now: why would she have been taken?
We come to this place and find that mischief was made
among the duke's men. And that purpose could have
been the death of Yvian or—"

"Some other reason." The voice made them both turn
to face the witch who had ridden in with the Border-
ers. "For another reason," she continued, almost as if she
were clearing her thoughts by putting them into words.

"Do you not see, my lord captains, with Duke Yvian
dead, his duchess has some claim to Karsten, especially
since Loyse is of the old nobility and those clans would
rally behind her. They would put her in rule so that
they might use her as a shadow screen to cover their
own power. This was all done by purpose, but whose
purpose? Who is missing—from among the slain, from
your prisoners? It would be better not to ask who is
dead and why, but who is gone, and the why of that?"

Simon nodded. Good sense—bring Loyse to Kars, con-
firm her before the duchy as Yvian's consort—with Yvi-
an, perhaps, knowing only a portion of that and be-
lieving that portion to be his own plan—and then, dis-
pose of Yvian, use Loyse as a puppet to establish an-
other rule. But which one of the nobles had so devi-
ous a mind, such a smoothly running organization as to
make it work? As far as Borderer intelligence knew
and that was, or Simon had thought it was, very thor-
ough, there was none among the five or six leading
families who had either the courage or the ability to
set such a complicated plot in action. Yvian would
not have trusted any of the once powerful clans to the
point that any of their members could have operated
so freely within his citadel. And Simon said as much.

"Fulk was not wholly Fulk," the witch replied. "There
may be those here who are not wholly what they seem!"

"Kolder!" Koris pounded the fist of one hand into
the open palm of the other. "Always Kolder!"

"Yes," Simon replied wearily. "We could not believe
that they would give up the struggle with the fall of
Sippar, could we? Manpower—or its lack—did we not
long ago think that perhaps their greatest weakness?
It may be that they can no longer process their pos-
sessed armies—at least not here—that what we cap-
tured at Gorm has seriously weakened them. If that be
so, they may have decided to substitute quality for
quantity in their forces, taking over key men—"

"And women!" Koris interrupted him. "There is one

whom we should have found here that we have not seen—

Aldis!"

The witch was frowning. "Aldis answered to the send-
ing in the Battle of Power before the assault on Gorm.
It may be that thereafter she had no place in Kars."

"There's one way to find out!" Simon strode to where
Ingvald sat at a table recording data on a small voice
machine the Falconers had brought, a refinement of
those carried by their hawks on aerial scouts.

"What mention has there been of the Lady Aldis?"

Ingvald half smiled. "More than a little. Three
times those messages which set these wolves at each
other's throats were delivered by that lady. And she,
being who she was in Yvian's confidence, they took her
words as sober truth. Whatever coil was woven here
that one had a hand deep in its spinning."

The witch had followed Simon across the chamber
and now she rubbed her hands together, between their
palms the smoky gem of her profession.

"I would see the private chamber of this woman,"
she said abruptly.

They went in a body—the witch, Simon, Koris, and
Ingvald. It was a dainty bower and a rich one, opening
from the same upper hall as that room in which they
had discovered the dying Yvian. At the room's end
long windows opened upon a balcony and the wind
stirred the silken curtains of the bed, fluttered a lace
scarf drifting from a chest. There was a musky scent
which sickened Simon and he went to the open win-
dows.

The witch, her gem still tight between her palms,
walked about the room, her hands well out from her
at breast level. What she was doing Simon could not
guess, but that it had serious meaning he knew. Those
hands passed over the bed, down its full length, swept
across the two chests, the mirrored toilet table with its
assortment of small boxes and vials carved from pol-
ished stones. Then, in mid-passage over that array,

the clasped hands hesitated, poised hawk fashion, and
came down in a swoop, though nothing lay below
that Simon could see.

She turned to face the men. "There was a talisman
here—a thing of power which had been used many
times—but not our power. Kolder!" She spat that in
disgust. "It is a thing of changing—"

"Shape-changing!" Koris cried. "Then she who seemed
to be Aldis might not be her at all!"

But the witch shook her head. "Not so, lord captains!
This is not the matter of shape-changing which we
have long used, this is a changing within, not with-
out. Did you not tell me that Fulk was not Fulk, and
still not completely possessed? He was different in that
he fled battle where once he would have led his men
to the end. But he ran to protect that which was in
him, choosing to fall at the last to his death rather
than be taken by you while it was a part of him. So
will this woman be. For it is firm in my mind that she
also carries that inside her which is from Kolder."

"Kolder," Koris repeated between set teeth. Then his
eyes went wide and he said that word with a different
inflection altogether. "Kolder!"

"What—?" Simon began, but Koris was already con-
tinuing.

"Where is the last stronghold of those cursed man
stealers? Yle! I tell you—this thing which was once Al-
dis has taken Loyse and they head for Yle!"

"That's only guessing," countered Simon. Though, he
added silently, it was a logical guess. "And even if you
are right, Yle's a long way from here, we have good
chance to intercept them." And so an excellent reason
for prying you out of Kars before disaster is upon us,
again he added mentally.

"Yle?" The witch visibly considered that.

Simon waited for an added comment. The witches
of Estcarp were no mean strategists, if she had some
contribution to make it would be to the point and

worth listening to. But, save for that one word, she was
silent. Only her gaze went from Koris to Simon and
back as if she saw something that neither man could
sense. However, she did not speak, and there was no
chance of getting it from her by questioning, as Si-
mon knew of old.

That Koris might be right they had proof before
moonrise. Not wishing to linger in Kars, the raiders
had withdrawn to the ships in the harbor, commandeer-
ing transports to take them west to the sea. The sullen
crews worked under the guard of Estcarpian forces
with a Sulcar commander in each ship.

Ingvald led the rearguard onto the last of the round-
bellied merchant vessels and stood with Simon, look-
ing back at the city where the whirlwind, partly of
their making, had hit a day earlier.

"We leave a boiling pot behind us," the Borderer
commented.

"Since you are of Karsten, would it have been more
to your mind to stay to tend this pot?" Simon asked.

Ingvald laughed harshly. "When Yvian's murderers
fired my garth and sent their darts into my father and
brother, then did I swear that this was no land of
mine! We are not of this new breed in Kars and it is
better for us that we ride now with Estcarp, since we
are of the Old Race. No, let this pot be tended now by
who wills. I hold with the Guardians in the thought
that Estcarp wants no land or rule beyond her own
borders. Look you—do we strive to make Karsten ours
now? Then we needs must stamp out a hundred rebel
fires down the full length of the duchy. And to do that
we should strip the northern keeps. For that Alizon
waits—

"We have rid this city of Yvian, the strong man who
crested its rule for long. Now will there be five, six
of the coastwise lords tearing at each other's flanks to
take his place. And, so embroiled, they will have no

mind to trouble the north for a space. Anarchy here
serves our cause better than any occupation force."

"Lord!" Simon turned as the Sulcar captain of the
ship came up. "I have one here with a story. He thinks
it worth selling, perhaps he is right."

He shoved forward a man wearing the grimed and
stained clothing of a common sailor, who promptly bent
knee in the servility of Yvian's enforcement.

"Well?" Simon asked.

"It is thus, lord. There was this ship. She was a
coaster, but not of the usual order. Her men, they
did not go ashore, though she was dock set for two
days, maybe three. And they sent no cargo to the
wharves, nor did they ride hold-filled when they came
in. So we watched her, m' mate and me. And we saw
naught, save that she was so quiet. But when the fight-
ing started in the city, then she came to life. The
men, they take out their sculls and cast off. But so
did a lot of others, so that was not so different. Only
all the others they kept goin' once they started—"

"And this ship did not?" Simon could not see the pur-
pose, but he had confidence enough in the Sulcar cap-
tain's recommendation to listen the tale out.

"Just to over stream—" The sailor nodded to the op-
posite bank of the river, keeping his eyes respectfully
on the deck planking. "There they sat on their sculls
while the rest of those on the run headed up river.
Then there was this boat, a small skiff just drifting
along—like lost from a tow. But they did some fast
sculling to get it on the port side where it was hid.
And it didn't come out again. Only after that they
were on the move, headin' downstream instead of up."

"And you thought that odd?" Simon prompted.

"Well, yes, seein' as how your men were coming from
that direction. O' course most of them were ferried across
the river by then and hittin' the city. Maybe those oth-
ers—they thought a try at gettin' back down to the
coast was better than headin' inland on the river."

"Picked someone up from the skiff," Ingvald said.

"So it would seem," Simon agreed. "But who? One
of their own officers?"

"This skiff now," the Sulcar captain took a hand
in the questioning, "who did you see aboard her?"

"That's what makes it so queer, sir. There weren't
nobody. Course we did have no seein' glass on her, but
all that showed above the gunnel was a piece of reed
mat. There weren't nobody rowing or even sittin' up
in her. Was they anybody on board, they was lyin' flat."

"Injured in the fighting?" Ingvald speculated.

"Or simply in hiding. So this ship then headed for
the seacoast. down river?"

"Yes, lord. And that there's queer, too—how she went,
I mean. They was men standin' to her sculls right
enough—only they was like makin' a play of it, just
like the current was runnin' so fast they didn't need
to do any more'n maybe just fend her off from some
sandbank now and then. There's a current here, sure,
but not as strong as that. You need scullin' if you want
to make time and the wind's in the wrong quarter—
which it was then. But they was makin' time—good time."

The Sulcar captain looked across the bowed head of
the seaman to Simon. "I do not know of any way save
sculls or wind to move in the river," he reported. "If
a ship has such a method of travel, then that kind of
ship I have not seen before, nor have any of my broth-
ers. The wind and oars we know, but this is—magic!"

"But not of the Estcarpian kind," Simon replied.
"Captain, make signal to the seneschal's ship. Then
put me aboard her with this man also."

"Well, Captain Osberic," Koris turned to the Sulcar
fleet commander when the story had been repeated
to him, "is this a tale poured from some wine bottle,
or could it be true?" That he wanted to believe that it
was true, had already fitted it into his own quest,
was apparent to them all.

"We know of no such vessel—that this man saw what

he has told us, yes, that I believe. But there are ships
which are not ours."

"This was no submarine," Simon pointed out.

"Perhaps not, but as they seem to copy now our shape-
changing, perhaps Kolder might give another cover-
ing to a vessel as well. Perhaps in the confusion exist-
ing along the river while we were setting our men
across, they took a chance on betraying their alien-
ness to gain time they believed they needed."

Koris slipped the haft of Volt's gift up and down in
his hand. "Down river to the sea, then to Yle."

Only perhaps, Simon wanted to remind him. If the
ship, small as it must have been to resemble the river
craft, was really more than it seemed, it could be head-
ing to Yle—or even overseas to the Kolder nest which
lay no man knew where.

But Koris had already made up his mind. "The
fastest ship you have, Osberic, our men for the sculls
if need be. We're going after."

Only if the ship was ahead of them, it had made
good use of its long head start. With night a wind
came to fill the sail Osberic had set, and they slipped
along at as smart a clip as any river vessel knew, not
needing scull labor. Behind them the string of trans-
ports was nosing into the northern shore, to disem-
bark the raiders who would ride for the border, leav-
ing chaos behind them. Only Osberic's chosen ship and
two others, with Sulcar crews pursued the river chase.

Simon had some hours of sleep, his cloak about him,
the discomfort of Fulk's mail still heavy on his limbs.
They had rid themselves of their shape-changed dis-
guises, but the borrowed weapons and clothing they
still wore. His sleep was uneasy, full of dreams 'which
fell to fragments each time he awoke, though he was
plagued with the thought that they were important.
And at last he lay watching the stars, listening to the
wind, and now and then the murmur of some Sulcar
man on duty. Koris lay an arm's length away and Si-

mon thought that perhaps fatigue had struck at last
and the seneschal slept.

Yle—and Kolder. There would be no turning Koris
aside from Yle—short of putting him in bonds by force.
Yet, there was taking Yle either. Had they not bit again
and again on that hard nut these past months? They
had won into Gorm because chance had taken Simon
as a prisoner into that stronghold and made him aware
of certain chinks in Kolder armor. But then Kolder had
been confident, almost contemptuous of its opponents
with their vulnerability to Kolder might.

The enemies' defeat in Sippar would have taught
them a lesson. Had in this much—that there was now
an invisible barrier about Yle by both land and sea—a
barrier nothing, not even the power of the witch probe,
could pass. For months Yle had been sealed. If the gar-
rison of that stronghold came or went, it was by sea,
and not on the surface of that sea. The Kolder ships
were submarines, three such had been taken at Gorm.
But—

Simon knew again the doubts which had moved him
months earlier when he had stood before the Council
of Guardians and had given the opinion they had asked
for: leave the things found at Gorm alone, be very
careful of the alien secrets lest they unleash something
they could neither understand nor control. Had he been
wrong then? He wavered now. Yet something inside
him still argued firmly that he was right, to use Kolder
means was to deliver oneself in part to the enemy.

That the witches were exploring the finds on Gorm
slowly, carefully, Simon knew. And that did not dis-
turb him, for they would use every possible safeguard,
and their own power was a barrier which Kolder recog-
nized. But to put into the hands of others those ma-
chines ...

Yet they might have a way there of breaching Yle
now. Simon had thought of it before, but never, not
even to Jaelithe, had he put that thought into words.

It might be that he alone could once more crack
the shell of a Kolder fortress. Not via submarine—he had
not the knowledge for that, and they had not yet dis-
covered what motive force propelled those ships, un-
less it could be the mental power of the Kolder lead-
er who had died with the metal cap on his head, fail-
ing his men at the last. No, not under the sea, but
through the air. Those flyers lined up on the roof top
in dead Sippar—they might be the key to Yle. But to
mention that to Koris would be the rankest folly.

8        PRINT OF KOLDER

"IT is LOCKED tight—" The curved blade of Volt's gift
bit into the thick green turf viciously as Koris would
have used it against the enemy. They stood on the
heights looking across the seaward valley to Yle.

Gorm had been ravaged from the people of this
time and world. But in Yle the Kolder had built on
their own. One would, Simon thought, have expected
them to raise towers and walls of metal. But they had
used the stone common to Estcarpian architecture, the
only difference being that buildings throughout the
witch land were old, old with the seeming of having
been born from the very bones and flesh of the earth
which based them, rather than built by men. And this
Yle, for all its archaic stone, was new. Not only new,
but divorced from the soil and rock about it in a way
Simon could feel, but not put into words. He believed
that even if he had not known that this was a Kolder

hold, he would have realized that it was not of Est-
carp or any neighbor nation.

"There was a door there—" Koris pointed with his ax
to the face of the now smooth wall below and a little
to the right. "Now even that is gone. And no one can
get an ell closer than that stream in the valley."

The barrier, much like the one which had kept all
intruders out of Gorm, held them now from any closer
investigation of the alien pile. Simon stirred uneasily.
There was a way. That kept nibbling at his mind
through the days since they had left Kars, until he was
at war with himself.

"They must enter or leave under the sea, as they did
in Gorm."

"So do we turn our backs now and say we are
beaten; Kolder has won? That I do not say, not while
breath fills my lungs and I have arm strength to swing
this!" Once again the ax sliced turf. "There is a way-
there must be!"

What pushed Simon then to say what he had sworn
to himself that he would not? But the words almost
spoke themselves.

"There might be a way—"

Koris whirled, his ungainly body in a half crouch as
if he fronted an adversary in a duel.

"By sea? How can we—?"

Simon shook his head slowly. "Remember the fall of
Sulcarkeep," he began, but Koris took the words from
him.

"By air! Those flying ships at Sippar! But how can
we use them, not knowing their magic." His bright
eyes demanded things of Simon. "Or do you know
that magic, brother? In your tales of your own world
you have spoken of such as an aid in your wars. To
turn their own weapons against this scum—aha—that
would be a good hosting! Aiiiii!" He tossed the great ax
into the air and caught it by the haft, his head up so

that the sun struck full on his face. 'To Gorm then—for
these flying ships!"

"Wait!" Simon caught at Koris' arm. "I am not even
sure we can fly them."

"If they can be flown to crack this viper den, then
we shall do it!" Koris' nostrils were pinched, his mouth
a forbidding seam above the grim line of his jaw. "I
know that to use alien magic is a chancy thing, but
there comes a time when a man grasps all or any weap-
ons to give him aid. I say we go to Sippar and get
what we must have."

Simon had not been back to the horror which was
Gorm's chief city for months. He had had no desire
to be one of those who had combed the buildings which
were tombs for the deluded islanders who had wel-
comed Kolder to aid in a dynastic battle. Simon had
had enough of Gorm and Sippar in the fighting which
had driven Kolder from that snug nest.

Today he discovered that there was another reason
beside those old horrors which moved him to hatred
for the halls of Sippar. He stood again in what had
been the control chamber of that strange network, where
the gray-clad Kolder officers had sat at their tables be-
fore their installations, all governed by the capped
leader, thinking out—Simon was sure—the orders which
had motivated all life within the captured citadel. For
moments out of time he himself had shared the thoughts
of that leader and so learned the source of Kolder—that
these aliens like himself had come through some weird
door in space and time to this world, seeking a refuge
from disaster at their heels. Yes, he had shared the
thoughts of Kolder, and now as he stood there again,
once more that scrap of another's memory seemed
twice as vivid, as real as if even here and now they
were joined mind to mind—though that other mind had
been many months dead.

But it was not only with the Kolder that Simon
had shared in this hall. It was here that the witch of

Estcarp with whom he had shared many ventures had
laid aside her jewel, given into his keeping her life,
by her standards, when she had spoken her name—that
most intimate possession which must not be yielded to
another lest power be passed to that other, power over
one's innermost self. Jaelithe—

Simon waited for the familiar stab of hurt to follow
fast on the heels of memory. But this time it was not
so sharp, rather as if between them hung a softening
shield of indifference. The Kolder memory was far the
keener, and Simon knew, with unease, that Jaelithe's
defection had not troubled him with the same urgency
since he had come out of Kars. Yet—yet they had held
a good thing between them, a true thing—or so he had
believed. And the loss of that left a wound which might
heal in time, yet the scar would not vanish.

Why? The witch had been explicit at Verlaine. For
Jaelithe, no return was allowed. Did she hate him now
so that she could not bear to see him? No message
even. Kolder! Now was the time to think of Kolder
and the confounding of that chill evil, and not of things
broken past the mending. Simon concentrated on Kolder.
"Simon!" Koris called from the doorway. "The sky
ships—they are as we left them."

Ships for the invasion of Yle. Why had he ever
thought it wrong to use their own weapons against the
enemy? Why did he see danger lurking in the alien ma-
chines? Of course Koris was entirely right in this mat-
ter. To crack the shell of Yle what better hammer than
those its builders had devised?

They climbed to the roof where stood the flyers. Two
had been in the process of being repaired, parts and
tools still laid out by workmen who had vanished. Si-
mon went straight to the nearest. But this was simple-
there was no need to worry about getting it into ac-
tion again. One did this and this, tightened this . . .

He was working with confidence, some part of his
brain directing every movement of his hand, as if con-

ning a detailed chart. Simon slipped the last fitting in-
to place, then climbed into the cockpit, thumbed the
starter button, felt the vibration purr. It was all right,
he could lift.

A shouting below, loud, and then dying into the dis-
tance as the flyer took off. Simon adjusted the controls.
Yle, he was bound for Yle—a task of importance wait-
ing him. The barrier could not hold much longer; there
had been too many calls upon the central energy. Soon-
er or later the barbarians would breach it. The pound
of the power of these cursed hags would then shake
the walls down.

Cursed hags? Yes, tricky, evil all of them! Wed a
man and then walk away from him without a back-
ward look, deeming him too stupid to hold to. Hag—hag!

Simon made a song of that word as he flew over
the waters of the bay. Gorm—they had lost Gorm.
Perhaps they would lose Yle—for now. But the plan was
working. Ah, yes, just let the gate be opened and the
great energy tapped, then these stupid savages, those
hags would meet with a reckoning! Sippar's fall would
be nothing to what would happen in Es. Push here,
pull there, move a savage to action, ring in the hags
with trouble. Win time—time was what was needed-
time for the project at the gate.

So give up Yle now if need be. Let the barbarians
believe they had won again, that Kolder was driven
away. But Kolder would only withdraw to its source,
to wax stronger again—then to move, renewed, straight
into the heart of opposition—Es itself!

Simon blinked. Under his confidence, this new and
heady knowledge of what was to be done and why,
there was a writhing discomfort, as if a fighter held
down a still struggling opponent he could not quite
master. Ah, there was Yle. And they would be waiting.
They had known, they had summoned—and now they
waited!

His hands moved on the controls though he was not

really conscious of any need for those movements.
Flashes inland—the barbarian forces. His mouth
shaped a sneer. All right, let them have their worth-
less triumph here. By the time they broke in with the
aid of the hags there would be nothing left worth the
gaining. Down now; he must set down on this roof.

The landing gear touched cleanly. For a moment Si-
mon looked about dazedly. This—this was Yle! How had
he come here? Koris, the forces . . . His head turned-
no, this was true, no dream. He sat alone in a Kolder
flyer from Sippar! There was pain in his head, a sick-
ness in his middle. His hand fell from the controls, his
fingers without his orders went to Fulk's sword belt,
touched a boss there, began to trace its curves and
indentations.

Yes, this was Yle and his task was only beginning.
They were coming now, those he must take from this
place before it fell to the hags and their savages. A
square opened in the roof and from that emerged a
rising platform bearing two women. That one—she would
give the orders—she was the one who had worked
so ably to further the plan in Kars. And the one walk-
ing under full control by her side—she was the pawn
to be played!

Simon pushed open the cabin door and waited, still
in the pilot's seat. Loyse—again that stir under the
surface within him, but less now, more easily pushed
aside. She was staring at him, her eyes wide and wild,
but she was under control, they would have no trou-
ble with her. Already she had settled as ordered in
the seat behind him. Now that other—Aldis. Aldis?

"To sea."

He did not need that order from her. Simon was
pricked by irritation. He knew as well as she where
they must fly. They spiralled into the air.

Odd. Mist growing thicker. Aldis leaned forward
from beside her charge, eying that gathering cloud out-
side the cabin as if in fear. And she was right—this was

some devilment of those hags. But they could not con-
trol the flyer, nor turn him from his course, even though
they could bewilder his eyes . .. his eyes . . .

Simon stared. Something white moving on the
course of the flyer, keeping pace effortlessly, a little
above and ahead. Of course, that was his guide—just
keep with that and he need not worry about the mist.
They flew on but there seemed no end to the fog
which enclosed them. The hags fought hard, only they
could not control the flyer. Men they might bend to
their purposes but not machines, never the machines!
With machines one could be sure—be safe!

The mist was more than blinding, it was confusing,
too. Perhaps it was not wise to stare into its eddying
mass. But if he did not he would lose sight of that
white guide. . . . What was it! Simon could not make
it out clearly, always some tendril of the mist blurred
its outline when he stared intently.

On and on. In the mist time was distorted, too. Some
more of their so-called "magic." Ah, they were artful
in deceit all those witches!

"What are you doing?" Aldis leaned forward, her
gaze now on one of the dials among the controls.
"Where are we going?" Her voice was louder and shrill-
er with that second demand.

"What is ordered." Simon was again irritated by the
necessity for answering her. She had done good work,
this female, but that was not to say that she had any
right to question him, his competence, his actions.

"But this is not the course!"

Of course it was! He was obeying orders, following
his guide. How dared she say that?

Simon looked down at the dial. Then his hand went
to his head. Dizzy—he was dizzy. No need to look at the
dials—just follow the white guide, that would make
all right. "Be quiet!" he flung at the woman behind
him.

But she would not. Now she pulled at bis arm. "This

is not the way!" She screeched that until her voice
hurt his ears. His seat behind the controls was too
cramped to let him turn far. But he thrust at her with
his right hand pushing her back and away.

She fought back, striving to get at him, her nails
raking at the flesh across the back of his hand, and he
feared to lose course, have the white guide hidden by
the thick enclosure of the mist. A back-hand push
made her gasp and flinch and Simon's attention was
again for that half-seen thing ahead.

Only now he did see it fully—just for an instant. A
bird—a great white bird! A white bird! He had known
a white bird before—and the mist left his mind. The
white hawk, that trained messenger they had carried
into Kars—into Kars ....

Simon twisted, a small choked cry forced out of him.
Kolder! Kolder influenced thoughts, leading him— He
stared down at his hands on the controls, totally igno-
rant now of what they must do, of how to keep the
flyer aloft. Panic was a sharp, sick taste in his mouth.
Somehow he had been used. His left hand groped
down hunting—hunting what? Fascinated Simon watched
that movement he had not consciously willed. The fin-
gers touched Fulk's belt, slipped swiftly along to that
entwined knot of green metal which did not match
the other bosses. That!

Now he did use his will to pull his hand away—a strug-
gle which left him sweating. He turned his head. Al-
dis' hands were tight to her breast, she eyed him with
a dark hate, but under that—was it fear?

Simon caught one of her slim wrists, pulled her hand
away from what it sought to conceal. Her other hand
clung the tighter, but he caught a glimpse of glinting
green. Whatever strange talisman had been Fulk's,
Aldis wore its match. His own hand jerked, twitched,
he could hardly keep it away from the belt ornament.

Under them the flyer lurched, dived through the
mist. If he did not replace his hand he would not be

able to pilot them safely, that much Simon guessed.
But he would also return to the bondage which had
made him serve Kolder. To crash might mean all their
deaths. To accept Kolder control at least postponed
that for a space, and time might fight on his side. Si-
mon no longer resisted. His fingers flashed to the in-
tricately carved bit of metal, traced its pattern.

He was—where? What had happened? Tricks, the
hag tricks—they had befuddled him. No more, no more
of those!

A scream—not from any human throat. Coming straight
at the cabin window, as if to fly into his face, that
bird, its cruel beak open. Simon's hands flew to the
controls in reflex action, striving to pull under that de-
termined attack. Out of the curls of mist a shadow—a
red shadow which took on too much substance. The
flyer sideswiped that, the machine spinning from im-
pact. Aldis' screams were louder and shriller than the
hawk's. Simon cursed as he fought for control. They
were still airborne but he could not bring them up,
gain any altitude. Sooner or later they were going to
land and the best he could do was to try to touch-
down under power.

Simon fought the stubborn machine for that slim
chance. They struck, a surface still hidden in a blind-
ing mist—bounced—set down again. Simon's head hit
the cabin wall and he was not truly aware when they
were still, the flyer tilted at an angle, nose down. Mist
pushed exploring fingers through the door, now cracked
open. And with it came a rank stench, the smell of
swamp, overpowering with stagnant water and rotting
vegetation. Aldis pulled herself up, looked about, drew
a deep, explorative breath of that exhalation of decay.
Her head turned as if impelled by some impulse and
her hand stirred on the Kolder token.

She leaned forward, but quickly halted that as the
flyer rocked. Her hand caught at Simon, pulled off his

helm. With a tight finger hold in his thick hair she
dragged his lolling head back.

There was a trickle of blood on his left temple, his
eyes were closed. But the fact that he must be uncon-
scious seemed to make no difference to the woman.
Her grasp on his hair held his head as close to her
lips as she could manage. And now she spoke—no
words of Karsten, nor of the older dialect of Estcarp—
but a series of clicking sounds, more the beat of metal
against metal than any human speech.

Though his eyes did not open, his head moved. He
pulled feebly against her hold, but she did not yield
to his struggle. For the second time she repeated her
message. Then she waited. But he did not rouse. When
Aldis released her grip his head fell forward on his
chest.

The woman gave an exclamation of irritation. She
strove for a view outside and was rewarded by sight-
ing the twisted skeleton of a long dead tree, its bro-
ken branches hung with wisps of pallid moss swaying
in the wind. The wind was also driving out the mist,
clearing a view which did not lead one to optimism.

Green-scummed water in pools, from which a wood
of dead trees protruded, as might skeleton hands raised
in threat to the sky, bloated growths anchored to the
trees. As she watched, one of those came to life, an
obscene lizard-like thing of splotched skin and toothed
jaws crawling towards the flyer.

Aldis' hand pressed tight against her mouth. She
was trying to think. Where could they be? This coun-
try was beyond her knowledge and the knowledge of
those she served. Yet, her head again turned to
the right—they were here—or one who served them
was. And that meant help. Her hands cupped about
the token, she bent all her forces into a summons.

9         TORMAN'S LAND

SIMON OPENED his eyes. The pain in his head seemed
one with the greenish light about him. He moved and
what supported him responded by rocking in a way
which was a warning even his dimmed consciousness
could understand. He looked up—to face nightmare!

Only the transparent shell of the cabin window kept
that toothed horror from him. Its claws raked the surface
of the flyer as it lumbered across the nose of the machine.
Unable to move Simon followed that slow progress with
his eyes. It had some vague resemblance to a lizard,
but its bulk and awkward movements were unlike the
eagle litheness of those creatures as he had seen them
in his own world. This thing had a leprous, warty skin,
as if it had been striken by some foul disease. Now and
then it paused to view him, and there was a malignity
in those large whitish eyes which gave terrifying pur-
pose to its deliberate advance.

Simon turned his head with care. The door was open,
sprung by the crash. A few more feet, and a little
maneuvering by the lizard thing, and it would achieve
its goal. He moved his hand by inches, drew the dart
gun from his belt holster. Then he remembered the
women. With all the care he could muster, Simon
changed position, the flyer rocking. The lizard hissed,
seemed to spit. A milky liquid hit the cabin window,
trickled down its cracked surface.

He could not see Loyse who was immediately be-
hind him. But Aldis sat there, her eyes tightly closed,
both hands again over the Kolder talisman, her whole

tense position testifying to intense concentration. Simon
dare not move far enough to reach the door. The flyer
seemed balanced on some point and it dipped nose
down at any change of the distribution of weight within.

"Aldis!" Simon spoke loudly, sharply—he must break
through the web she had woven about herself. "Aldis!"

If she did hear him the urgency of his voice meant
nothing. But there was a breathy sigh from behind him.

"She talks with them," Loyse's voice, a shadow of
sound, worn and weary.

Simon caught at the hope it gave him. "The door—can
you reach the door?"

Movement and again the flyer rocked. "Sit still!" he
ordered. And then saw that the movement, as danger-
ous as it had been, had aided them in this much, the
lizard thing was slipping, despite all its efforts, down
the inclined slope of the flyer's nose. Its claws could
not dig into the sleek stuff of the machine's surface.

It opened its" mouth and gave voice to a hooting honk
as, still scrabbling for a foothold, it went over the edge.
On the ground, if the swamp surface could .be termed
"ground," it might yet find its way to the open door.
Simon thought he dared not delay.

"Loyse," he said quickly, "move as far back as you
can—"

"Yes!"

The flyer rocked. But the nose was rising, he was
sure of that.

"Now!" From the tail of his eye Simon caught a
glimpse of hands in action. Loyse was adding to his
instructions with an idea of her own as she gripped Aldis
by the shoulders and dragged her back in turn. Simon
slid along the seat, his hand now on the edge of the
open door. But he could not get in the right position
to exert much strength and he could not bring it closed.

The flyer rocked violently as Aldis struggled in Loyse's
hold, lying back upon the girl who had her in a fierce

clutch. Simon struck and the Kolder agent went limp,
her hands falling away from the enemy talisman.

"Is she dead?" Loyse asked as she pulled from be-
neath the limp weight of the other woman.

"No. But she will not trouble us for a space. Here—"
Together they pushed Aldis to the back and that
change of weight appeared to establish the flyer so that
it no longer swung under them, providing they moved
cautiously. For the first time Simon had a chance to
survey what lay beyond, though he kept watch on the
door, his gun ready.

The half-immersed, dead wood, the scummed pools,
and weird vegetation—this was like nothing he had seen
before. Where they were he had no idea, nor could he
tell clearly how they had come here. The stench of the
swamp was in itself a deadening thing which clogged
lungs and added to the pain in his head.

"Where is this place?" Loyse broke the silence first.
"I don't know—" Yet far in the back of memory there
was something ... A swamp. What did he know of a
swamp? Outside the moss on the long dead trees stirred
with the dank wind. There was a rustling in a clump of
pointed reeds. Reeds . . . Simon frowned with pain and
the effort at remembering. Reeds and scummed pools
—and a mist—those he remembered from far away and
long ago. From his own time and world? No-
Then all at once for a second or two he was an earlier
Simon Tregarth, the one who at dawn had come through
a gate onto a wild moor under the rain. The Simon Tre-
garth who had run with a fugitive witch before the
hounds of Alizon hunters—and they had skirted just
such a bog while the witch had appealed to its in-
dwellers for aid, only to be refused. So they needs must
cut across the edge of the swampland and find else-
where a refuge. The Fens of Tor! Forbidden country
which no man save one had been known to enter and
return from again. And that man had fathered Koris of
Gorm. He had brought his Torwoman out and held her

to wife, in spite of his people's hatred and fear of such
blood mixing. But the heritage he had so left his son
had been sorrow and loss. Tor blood did not mix, the
Tor marshes were closed to all outsiders.

"Tor—the Fens of Tor," Simon heard Loyse gasp in
answer.

"But—" She put out her hand. "Aldis was calling for
aid. And yet Tor does not mix with outworlders."

"What does anyone know of the secrets of Tormarsh?"
Simon countered. "Kolder has entered Kars, and I will
swear that it walks elsewhere, as in Alizon. Only the
Old Race cannot accept the Kolder taint and know it
instantly for what it is. That is why Kolder fears and
hates them most. Perhaps in Tormarsh there is no such
barrier to mingling."

"She called. They will answer—and find us here!"
Loyse cried.

"That I know." To go out into that swamp might well
mean death, but it held also a thin promise of escape.
To remain pent in the crashed flyer would lead but to
recapture. Simon wished that his head did not ache,
that he knew only a little of where they lay in the
swamp. They might be only yards away from the border
through which he and Jaelithe had fled. The trees, he
decided, provided their best road. For all those winch
still stood, or leaned, an equal number lav prone, their
length in a crazy pattern furnishing at least a footway
over the treacherous surface.

"Where will we go?" Loyse asked.

It might be folly to head into the unknown, but still
every nerve in Simon screamed against remaining to be
picked up by any force Aldis might have summoned.
Slowly he unhooked that belt with its betraying boss.
The long dagger and dart gun he would need. He looked
at Loyse. She wore riding clothes, but had not even a
knife at her belt.

"I do not know" he replied to her question. "Away
from this place—and soon."

"Yes, oh, yes!" Carefully she edged about Aldis, bal-
anced to look out the door. "But what of her?" Loyse
nodded to the unconscious agent.

"She remains."

Simon looked out below. There were tufts of coarse
grass crushed beneath the flyer. The machine had landed
on the edge of what might be an islet of solid ground.
So far, so good. The grass had been flattened enough so
that he thought they need not fear any life lurking in it.
Wherever the lizard thing had gone, it had not yet ap-
peared near the door. Simon dropped out, his boots
sinking a little into the footing but bringing no ooze of
water. Holding out his hands to Loyse, he eased her
down and gave a little push towards the rear of the flyer.

"That way—"

Simon pulled at the door, setting the flyer to rocking.
But the jammed metal gave as he exerted his full
strength. That would shut Aldis in and—well, he could
not leave even a Kolder-ruled woman to the things which
made this foul country their home and hunting ground.

The ridge of ground on which they had crashed ran
back, rising higher. But it was only an island, giving
root room to the grass, a bordering of reeds, and some
stunted brush. On three sides were murky pools—or
perhaps only one pool with varying shallows and deeps.
The water was scummed, and where cleared of that
filthy covering, an opaque brown beneath which any-
thing might lie in cover. As far as Simon could see the
best path out still remained via the sunken tree lengths.
How waterlogged and rotted those were was now a
question. Would they crumple under the weight of those
using them as bridges? There was no way of knowing
until one tried.

Simon kept the dart gun, but he handed the knife to
Loyse.

"Do not follow on any log until I have already cleared
it," he ordered. "We may be only going deeper into this
sink, but I do not propose to try the water way."

"No!" Her agreement was quick and sharp. "Take
care, Simon."

He summoned up a tired smile which hurt his bruised
face. "Be very sure that this is advice I shall hug to me
now."

Simon caught a branch of a moss-wreathed tree which
stood at the edge of the grass plot. A measure of the
ancient bark powdered in his grip, but there remained
still a hard core firm to his testing. Holding to that, he
swung out, to land on the first of the logs. The wood
did not give too much, but bubbles arose in the water,
breaking to release so vile a stench that he coughed.
Still coughing he worked his way along to a mass of
upended   roots   where   he   rested.   Not   that   the   mere
walking of that way was fatiguing in itself, but the tension
in his body had stiffened his joints to make every effort
twice  as  hard.  To  climb  over  the  roots,   find  footing
again beyond was a task which sapped his strength yet.
more. He stood there, to watch Loyse come the path
he had marked, her pale face set her body as stiff as his.
How long did it take, that crisscross trailing from log
to log? Twice Simon looked back, sure that they must
have  come  some  distance,  only  to  see   the   flyer  still
far too close to hand. But at last he did leap to another
grass-covered ridge, hold out his hands to Loyse. Then
they sat together, shivering a little, panting and rubbing
the hard muscles of their legs which seemed to have
locked during that ordeal.
"Simon-"

He glanced at the girl. Her tongue moved across her
lips as she stared at the stagnant water.

"The water—it can not be drunk—" But that was not
a statement, it was a question, a hope that he would
say she dared. His tongue moved in his own dry mouth
as he wondered how long they would be able to stand
up to temptation before they were driven by thirst to
scoop up what could be rank poison.
"It is foul," he replied. "Perhaps some berries—or a

real spring later on." Very pallid hopes, but they could

help to stave off temptation.

"Simon—" Resolutely Loyse had raised her gaze from
the slimy pool, was gazing back over the path they had
come. "Those trees—"

"What about them?" he asked absently.

"The way that they grew!" Her voice was more ani-
mated. "Look, even with those that have fallen, you
can see it! That was no grove! They were planted—in
lines!"

He followed her pointing finger, studied the logs, the
few trunks still standing. Loyse was right, they were not
scattered. When they had been rooted firmly they had
stood in two parallel lines—marking some long lost road-
way? Simon's interest was more than casual, for that way
ended at the islet where they rested.

"A road Simon? An old road? But a road has to lead
somewhere!" Loyse got up, faced away from the trees at
the island.

It was little enough to cling to, he knew. But any
clue which might be a signpost in this unwholesome bog
was worth following. A few moments later in a line from
the trees Simon came upon evidence to back their
guess. The coarse grass was patchy, rooted only here
and there, leaving bare expanses of stone. And that
Stone was smoothed blocks, laid with a care for the join-
ing of one to the next—a pavement. Loyse stamped
upon it with the heel of her boot and laughed.

"The road is here! And it will take us out—you shall
see, Simon!"

But a road has two ends. Simon thought, and if we
have chosen to go the wrong way this could be only
leading us deeper into Tormarsh, to confront what or
whom dwells there.

It did not take them long to cross the ridge of higher
ground come once more to where water spilled across
a dip. But on the other side of that flood stood a tall stone
pillar, a little aslant as if the boggy ground had yielded

to its weight. On top of that was a ragged tangle of
vine, the loops of which drooped in reptilian coils about
a carven face.

The beaked nose, the sharply pointed chin, small,
overshadowed by that stronger thrust above it, the whole
unhuman aspect—

"Volt!" So had that mummy figure they had chanced
upon in the sealed cliff cavern appeared in those few
minutes before Koris made his plea and took from its
dried claws of hands the great ax. What had the seneschal
said then? That Volt was a legend—half-god, half-devil
—the last of his dead race, living on into the time of
human man, giving some of his knowledge to the new-
comers because of his loneliness and his compassion. Yet
here had once been those who had known Volt well
enough to raise a representation of him along some high-
way of their kind.

Loyse smiled at the pillar. "You have seen Volt. Koris
has told me of that meeting when he begged of the
Old One his ax and was not denied. There is none of
the Old One lingering here, but I take his stone as a
good omen, not one of ill. And he shows us that the
road runs on."

There was still that stretch of water ahead. Simon
searched the bank of the island and found a length of
branch. Stripping away its rotten parts for a core tough
enough to serve his purpose, he began to sound that
waterway. Some inches of ooze and then solid stone,
the pavement ran on. But he did not hurry, feeling for
each step before he took it, having Loyse follow di-
rectly behind him.

Below the pillar bearing Volt's head the pavement
emerged on the higher land once more, and as they
went, that strip of solid surface grew wider, until Simon
suspected that this was no small islet but a sizable stretch
of solid ground. Which would provide living space, and
so they could not fear discovery by the Tormen.
"Others have lived here." None of the vegetation grew

tall and Loyse pointed out the blocks of stone which
vaguely outlined what had once been walls, stretching
away from the road into spike-branched brush. One
building? A town or even the remains of a. small city?
What pleased Simon most was the density of the growth
about those blocks. He did not believe that any living
thing, save a very small reptile or animal, could force a
path through it. And here, on the relative open of the
ancient road, he could see any attacker.

The road, which hitherto ran straight, took a curve to
the right and Simon caught at Loyse to bring her to an
abrupt halt. Those blocks of stone, which had elsewhere
tumbled into the negation of any structure, had here
been moved, aligned into a low wall. And beyond that
wall grew plants in rows, the tending of watchful culti-
vation plain to read in the weedless soil, the staking of
taller stems.

It seemed that here the sunlight, pale and greenish
within the swamp world, focused brighter on the plants
where buds and blossoms showed as patches of red-
purple, while winged insects were busy about that flow-
ering.

"Loquths," Loyse identified the crop, naming a plant
which was the mainstay of Estcarp weavers. Those pur-
ple flowers would become in due time bolls filled with
silken fibers to be picked and spun.

"And look!" She took a step closer to the wall, indi-
cating a small hollow niche constructed of four stones.
In that shelter stood a crudely-shaped figure, but there
was no mistaking the beaked nose. Whoever had planted
that field had left Volt to protect it.

But Simon had sighted something more—a well-trod
path, which was not a part of the old road, but ran away
from it to the right, winding out of sight on the other
side of the field wall.

"Come away!" He was sure that they had made the
wrong choice, that the road had brought them into
Tormarsh and not toward its fringe. But could they re-

trace their trail? To return to the vicinity of the flyer
might be going directly into enemy hands.

Loyse had already caught his meaning. "The road
continues—" Her voice was lowered to a half whisper.
And the way ahead did look rough and wild enough to
promise that it was no main thoroughfare for those of
Tor. They could only keep on it.

There were no more fields walled and planted. And
even those scattered blocks of ruins disappeared. Only
the fact that now and then they spotted a bare bit of
pavement told them the road still existed.

But their earlier thirst was now more than discom-
fort, it was agony in mouth and throat. Simon saw Loyse
waver, put his arm about her shoulders to steady her.
They were both staggering when they reached the road's
end—a stone pier which extended into a hellish night-
mare of quaking mud, slime and stench. Loyse gave a
cry and turned her head against Simon as he wrenched
them both back and away from that waiting gulf.

10        JAELITHE FOUND

"I CAN GO no farther ..."

Simon  kept  Loyse  on  her feet with   an  effort;   her
stumbling had become a weaving he could barely sup-
port. The sight of the quagmire beyond the road's end
had sapped all her strength.

He was hardly in better case himself. The need for
water, for food, racked him. And he had kept the girl
on her feet only because he was sure that if they gave
way now they might never be able to go on again.

Being so lightheaded Simon did not see the first of
those balls which had plopped to the ancient roadway
and burst to release a cloud of floury particles. But the
second fell almost at their feet, and he had caution
enough left to stagger back from it, dragging Loyse with
him.

But they were ringed in, the dusty puffs rising and
melting into a thin wall about them. Simon held Loyse
against him, his dart gun ready. Only one could not
fight a cloud rising sluggishly. And he had no doubt that
this was a deliberate attack.

"What—?" Loyse's voice was a hoarse croak.

"I don't know!" Simon returned, but he knew enough
not to try to cross the line of the cloud.

So far these flaky particles had not reached towards
the two they confined. And they arose straight from the
broken balls from which they had issued as if still
attached to those sources. They were not so thick that
Simon could not see beyond. Sooner or later someone
would come to the sprung trap-then would be his turn.
There was a full clip of the three-inch needle points in
his dart gun.

Now the cloud began to move. Not in at them but
around, speeding in that circling until Simon could no
longer distinguish particles but saw only an opaque milky
band.

"Simon. I think they are coming!" Loyse pulled a
little away, her hand was on knife hilt.

"So do I."

But they were to be given no chance at defense.
There was another dull popping sound. A ball from which
the circle would not let them retreat, fell, to break. From
this came nothing they could see. Only they wilted, to
lay still, their hands falling away from the weapons they
never had a chance to use.

Simon was in a box and the air was driven from his
lungs. He could not breathe—breathe! His whole body
was one aching, fighting desire for breath again. Simon

opened his eyes, choking, gasping in pungent fumes
which arose from a saucer being held by his head. He
jerked away from that torment and found he could
breathe now, just as he could see.

A wan and murky light came from irregular clusters
on the walls well above where he lay. Stone walls, and
the damp and chill of them reached him. He looked to
the one who held that saucer. In the pallid light per-
haps details of features and clothing were not too clear,
but he saw enough to startle him.

Simon lay on a bed for this other sat on a stool and
so was at eye level. Small, but still large-boned enough
to appear misshapen, too long arms, too short legs. The
head, turned so that the eyes met his. Large, the hair
a fine dark down, not like hair at all. And the features
surprisingly regular, handsome in a forbidding way, as
if the emotions behind them were not quite those of
Simon's kind.

The Torman arose. He was quite young, Simon
thought; there was a lank youthfulness about his gangling
body. He wore the breeches-leggings such as were
common to Estcarp, but above them a mail jerkin made
of palm-sized plates laid scallop fashion one over the
other.

With one more measuring stare at Simon the boy
crossed the room, moving with that feline grace which
Simon had always found at odds with Koris' squat frame.
He called, but Simon heard no real words, only a kind
of beeping such as some swamp amphibian might voice.
Then he completely vanished from Simon's sight.

Although the room had a tendency to swing and
sway Simon sat up, steadying himself with his hands. His
fingers moved across the bed coverings, a fabric fine
and silky to the touch. Save for the bed, the stool on
which the young Torman had sat, the room was empty.
It was low of ceiling, with the massive beam across its
middle forming a deep ridge. The lights were clustered
haphazardly about. Then Simon saw one of them move,

leave a cluster of three and crawl slowly to join a single-
ton!

Though the stone walls were damp and chill, yet the
swamp stench did not hang there. Simon got warily to
his feet. The radiance of the crawling lights was dim, but
he could see all four walls. And in none was there any
opening. Where and how had the Torman left?

He was still bemused over that when, a second or so
later, he heard a sound behind. To turn quickly almost
made him lose his balance. Another figure stood on the
far side of the bed, slighter, less ill-proportioned than
the boy, but unmistakably of the same race.

She wore a robe which gleamed with small fiery glints,
not from any embroidery or outer decorations, but from
strands woven into the cloth itself. The down which
had fitted the boy's head in a close cap, reached to her
shoulders as a fluffy, springing cloud, caught away from
her face and eyes by silver clasps on the temples.

The tray she held she put down on the bed for lack
of table. Then only did she look at Simon.

"Eat!" It was an order, not an invitation.

Simon sat down again, pulling the tray to him, but
still more interested in the woman than what rested on
its surface. The paleness of the light could be deceiving
but he thought that she was not young. Though there
was no outward signs of age such as might appear among
his own kind. It was rather an invisible aura which was
hers—maturity, wisdom, and also—authority! Whoever
she might be, she was a woman of consequence.

He took both hands to raise the beaker of liquid to
his lips. It was without any ornament, that wide-mouthed
cup, and he thought it was of wood. But its satiny sur-
face and beautiful polish made it a thing of beauty.

The contents were water, but water in which some-
thing had been mixed. This was not ale or wine, but an
herb drink. At first the taste was bitter, but then that
sharp difference vanished and Simon drank eagerly, rel-
ishing it the more with every mouthful he sipped.

On a plate of the same shining, polished wood, were
cubes of a solid, cheese-seeming substance. As the drink,
they had a wry taste upon the first bite, and grew more
savory later. All the time Simon ate the woman stood
watching him. Yet there was an aloofness about her; she
was doing her duty by feeding one whom she found
unacceptable. And Simon began to prickle under that
realization.

He finished the last cube and then, his faintness gone,
he got to his feet, favored the silent watcher with much
the same bow as he would have used to greet one of
the Guardians.

"My thanks to you, lady."

She made no move to pick up the tray but came for-
ward, around the end of the bed, so that a large cluster
of the crawling lights revealed her more clearly. Then
Simon saw that the lights were indeed crawling, break-
ing up their scattered companies to gather along the
beam overhead.

"You are of Estcarp." A statement and yet a question
as if, looking upon him, the woman doubted that.

"I serve the Guardians. But I am not of the Old
Blood." His appearance, Simon decided, was what puz-
zled her.

"Of Estcarp." Now it was a statement. "Tell me, witch
warrior, who commands in Estcarp—you?"

"No. I am Border Warder of the south. Koris of Gorm
is marshal and seneschal."

"Koris of Gorm. And what manner of man is Koris of
Gorm?"

"A mighty warrior, a good friend, a keeper of oaths,
and one who has been hurt from his birth." From whence
had come those words for his use? They were not
phrased to match his thinking, yet what he had said was
the truth.

"And how came the Lord of Gorm to serve the
witches?"

"Because he was never truly lord of Gorm. When his

father died his stepmother called in Kolder to establish
the rule for her own son. And Koris, escaping Kolder,
came to Estcarp. He wishes not Gorm, for Gorm under
Kolder died, and he was never happy there."

"Never happy there— But why was he not happy?
Kolder was a kindly man and a good one."

"But those of his following would never let Koris for-
get he was—strange . . ." Simon hesitated, striving to
choose the right words. Koris' mother had come from
Tormarsh. This woman could even be kin to the senes-
chal.

"Yes." She did not add to that but asked a very dif-
ferent question. "This maid who was taken with you,
what is she to you?"

"A friend—one who has been with me in battle. And
she is betrothed to Koris who seeks her now! If there
was any advantage to be gained from the thread of con-
nection between the seneschal and the marsh people,
then Loyse must have it.

"Yet they say she is duchess in Karsten. And there is
war between the witches and those of Karsten."

It would seem that Tormarsh, for all its taboo-locked
borders, still heard the news from outside the swamp.

"The story is long—"

"There is time," she told him flatly, "for the telling
of it. And I would hear."

There was a definite order in that. Simon began, cut-
ting the tale to bare outline, but telling of the ax mar-
riage made for Loyse in Verlaine's towers and all that
happened thereafter. But when he spoke of the ship-
wreck on the coast and how he, Koris, and two survivors
of the Guard, had climbed to discover themselves in
the long-lost tomb of Volt, where Koris had boldly
claimed Volt's ax from the hands of the mummified dead,
the Torwoman halted him abruptly, made him go into
details. She questioned and requestioned him on small
points, such as the words, as well as he could remem-
ber, that Koris had used when he asked the ax of Volt,

and how that ax had been taken easily, with the long
dead body crumbling into dust once the shaft had been
withdrawn from the claw hands.

"Volt's ax—he bears Volt's ax!" she said when he  was
done. "This must be thought upon."

Simon expelled his breath in a gasp. She was gone—
as if she had never stood there, solid body on solid
pavement. He took two strides to the same spot where
she had been standing only an instant earlier, drove his
boot down in a stamp which proved the footing as solid
as it looked. But—she was gone!

Hallucination? Had she ever been here at all? Or was
this one of those mind-twisting tricks such as the
witches played? Shape-changing—that was as eerie in it-
way as this instant vanishing. So this could be another
form of magic, with its own rules, simple enough when
one was trained by those rules. And not only the Tor-
woman practiced it, for the boy had winked out in just
the same way. But to those who did not know the trick,
this room or others like it would continue to be prison
cells.

Simon returned to the bed. The tray with its beaker
and plate still rested there. That much was real. And the
fact that his hunger and thirst was gone, that he felt
strong and able again—that was no hallucination.

He had been captured and imprisoned. But he had
also been fed, and so far he had not been threatened.
His dart gun was gone, but he had expected to be dis-
armed. What did these marsh dwellers want? He and
Loyse had come into their territory by accident. He
knew that they resented all trespassing bitterly, but
were they fanatical enough on that subject to hold the
innocent equally guilty with any determined invader?

Did they close their borders to everyone? Simon re-
membered Aldis, her hands tight upon the Kolder talis-
man, so deeply sunk in her voiceless call for aid that she
was unaware of action about her. She must have ex-
pected such aid—so Kolder crawled somewhere in Tor-

marsh as evilly as the lizard thing had crawled upon the
flyer.

Kolder. To those of witch blood Kolder was a void,
noticeable in its presence because of that void. In the
times past he, too, had known Kolder by sensing it—
not as a void but as a waiting menace. Could he pick
up the canker now the same way?

Simon set the tray on the stool, stretched himself once
more on the bed, closed his eyes, and set his will free.
He had always had this gift of foreseeing, in part a limp-
ing gift, not to be disciplined into any real service. But
he was sure that since he had come to Estcarp that gift
had grown, strengthened. Jaelithe—the twist of pain
which always came now with the thought of Jaelithe.
She had used the symbols of power between them twice
and those had glowed in answer. So that she had hailed
him as one of her kind, then . . .

Now, though he intended to go hunting for the can-
cer of Kolder, rather did his mind return again and
again to Jaelithe, to pictures of her. First, as he had
seen her fleeing in rags with the hounds of Alizon bay-
ing on her trail, then as she had ridden in mail and war
helm to Sulcarkeep when Kolder had made its first foul
move in the present war. Jaelithe, kneeling on the quay
of that fortress, breathing witchery into the scraps of
sail for the vessels they had hastily whittled from wood,
tossing those crude ships into the sea, so that a mighty
fleet moved out through the cloaking mist to confound
the enemy. Jaelithe acting as a sorceress and reader of
fortunes, brewer of love potions in Kars, when her sum-
moning had brought him across many miles to her aid.
Jaelithe, shape-changed into a hideous hag and riding
in company over the border to rouse Estcarp for war.
Jaelithe in Gorm, telling him in her own way that that
way was also his from then on. Jaelithe in his arms, be-
ing one with him in a way no other woman had ever
been before, or would ever be again. Jaelithe excited,
bright-eyed, that last morning, in the belief that her

witchcraft had not gone from her at all, but that she was
all she had been. Jaelithe—gone from him as if she used
the traveling magic of these Torfolk.

Jaelithe! Simon did not cry that aloud, but inside of
him it was one great shout of longing. Jaelithe!

"Simon!"

His eyes snapped open, he was staring up into the
gloom, for the crawling lights had returned to their
scattered clusters along the walls.

No, that had not come in any audible voice. Breathing
fast, he closed his eyes again. "Jaelithe?"

"Simon." Firm, assured, as she had ever been.

"You are here?" He thought that, trying to shape the
words clearly in his mind as a man might fumble about
in a foreign tongue of which he knew little.

"No—in body—no."

"You are here!" he replied with a conviction he could
not explain.

"In a way, Simon—because you are—I am. Tell me,
Simon, where are you?"

"Somewhere within Tormarsh."

"So much is already known, since we are aware that
your flyer dropped there. But, you are no longer Kolder
ruled."

"Fulk's belt—one of the bosses on it—their planting."

"Yes, it opened a gate for them. But you were never
so much theirs that we could not alter their spell a little.
That is why you did not fly seaward at their bidding,
but inland. Tormarsh is no ally of ours, but perhaps there
is better chance to treat with Tormarsh than Kolder."

"Kolder is here also." Simon told her what he believed
to be the truth. "Aldis called their aid, she was calling
when we left her."

"Ah!"

"Jaelithe!" That moment of withdrawal frightened him.

"I hear. But if Kolder is with you—"

"I was trying to search for it."

"So? Well, perhaps in that two may be better than

one, my dear lord. Think you on Aldis. If she moved to
Kolder, perhaps your power may move with her—to
our better knowledge."

Simon tried to picture Aldis as he had seen her last,
lying in the flyer as he pushed back the sprung door.
But he discovered that he could not 'visualize that clearly
at all. Instead he had momentary flashes of quite an-
other and nonfamiliar scene—of Aldis seated, leaning
forward, speaking eagerly to—to a blankness. And upon
that the tie, if tie it was, with Aldis snapped.

"Kolder!" Jaelithe's recognition was sharp as any
blow. "And they are on the move, I think. Listen well,
Simon. The Guardians say that my power is now only
a wisp which will fail with the passing of time, that
I have no place now in the Council of Es, But I tell you
that between us we have something mat I do not un-
derstand, for it is different than all else which I have
held in my witchhood. Therefore, though it has taken
me time to test this thing, to work with it as best I
can, I have learned that I am not able to shape or
aim it, save with you. Perhaps both of us must be
the united vessel for this new strength. Sometimes it
rages within me until I fear that I cannot hold it in
bonds. But we have so little time to learn it. Kolder.
is on the move and it may be that we cannot bring
you forth from Tormarsh before that move is made—"

"I do not wear their talisman, but it may be that
they can control me still," he warned her. "If so, can
they reach you through me?"

"I do not know. I have learned so little! It is like
trying to shape fire with my two hands! But this we
can do—"

Again a snapping—even more sharp than that break
which had come between him and the shadow shape
of Aldis.

"Jaelithe!" he shouted soundlessly. But this time—no
reply.

II         KOLDER KIND

SIMON LAY very still, sweating now. For this was no
half-trance of his own willing. He was motionless in
bonds he could not see, his body held by another's
will. Then she stood there, clear to the sight, at the
foot of the bed, watching him in the level measure-
ment which held no hint of whether she was friend
or foe, or merely neutral in this war.

"They have come," she said, "to answer the call of
their woman they have come."

"Kolder!" Simon found that he could use his tongue
and lips if not the rest of his body.

"The dead ones who serve such," the Torwoman
qualified. "Listen, man who obeys Estcarp, we have
no quarrel with the witches. Between them and us
there is neither friendship nor enmity. We were here
when the Old Race came and built Es and their other
dark towers. We have been rooted here for long and
long, a handful of people who can remember when
man was not the ruler of earthside, not even ones
who lived widely. We are of those Volt gathered and
set apart to learn his wisdom.

"And we want no dealings with those outside Tor-
marsh. You have come to trouble us with your wars
which are no concern of ours. The swifter you are gone
from us, the better served we shall be."

"But if you do not favor the witches, then why
do you favor Kolder? Kolder hungers for rule over all
men—and that includes the race of Tor." Simon retorted.

"We do not favor Kolder, we only ask that we be

left to our own mysteries without troubling from be-
yond the marsh rim. The witches have not threatened
us. This you call Kolder has shown us what will hap-
pen if we do not yield you to them now. And so it is
decided that you go—"

"But Estcarp would defend you against Kolder—" Si-
mon began until she smiled a small, cold smile.

"Will they, with aught save good wishes, Warder of
the Border? There is no war between us, but they fear
the marsh as a place of ancient mysteries and strange
ways. Would they fight to save it? I think not. Also
they have no men to throw into such a battle now."

"Why?" She seemed so certain that Simon was startled
into a rough demand.

"Alizon has risen. Estcarp needs must throw all her
armies northward to hold the marches there. No, we
make the best bargain for us."

"And so I am to be delivered to the Kolder." Simon
strove to keep his voice even and emotionless. "And
what of Loyse? Do you give her also into the hands of
the worst enemy this world has ever known?"

"The worst?" the Torwoman echoed. "Ah, we have
seen many nations rise and fall, and in each genera-
tion there is a powerful enemy to be faced, either
with victory or defeat. As for the girl—she is part of
the bargain."

"She is also Koris', and I think you will discover
that that has a meaning when it comes to extracting a
price for such bargaining. I have seen the price he
took from Verlaine and from Kars. Volt's gift drank
deep in both those holds. Your marshland will not turn
him back when it comes to his hunting."

"The bargain is made," her tone was more remote
than ever. Then her hands came up in a swift gesture
and her fingers moved. Not to shape Jaelithe's symbol
of power, but still in an air-borne sketch which had
meaning.

"So you deem this Koris will come hunting for venge-

ance here?" she asked. "This pale-faced girl means so
much to him?"

"She does, and those who have harmed her have
need to fear."

"Ah, but now he must ride to hold back Alizon. It
will be many days before he shall have time to think
of aught else. Or perhaps he will find an end to all
questions and desires among the border hillocks."

"And I say to you, lady, that Volt's gift shall yet
swing in Tormarsh if you do as you have said."

"If I do, March Lord? I have naught to say in the
yea and nay of such bargainings."

"No?" Simon put all the skepticism he could mus-
ter into that. "And I say that you are not the least of
those among the Tor born."

She did not answer for a long moment, her gaze
steady upon him.

"Perhaps once I was not Now I do not raise my
voice in any council. I wish you no ill, Warder of Est-
carp. And I think that you mean no ill to me—or any
of us. But when need drives, we obey. This much I
shall do for you, since the maid is favored by he who
was once lord of Gorm. I shall send a message forth
to Es that those there may know where you have gone
and why. If then they can move to aid you, perhaps it
will not go so ill. More than that I am sworn not to
do."

"The Kolder come for us here—how?" Simon demanded.

"They come—or at least their servants come—up the
inner river in one of their ships."

"But there is no river linking Tormarsh with the sea!"

"No outer one," she agreed. "The marsh drains un-
der ground. They have found that way to us, they have
already visited us by it before."

By submarine down an underground river, Simon
faced that. Even if the promised message reached Es
in time to send a small force to the rescue, they could
not ferret out the enemies' pathway, or help the pris-

oners borne so along it. The Guard of Estcarp would
not be the answer.

"If you would truly favor us to the point of sending
any message," Simon told her, "then send it not to Es
but to the Lady Jaelithe."

"If she is your wife, then she is no witch, nor can
she do alight to aid you." The Torwoman stared at him
again with curiosity which Simon thought dangerous.

"Nevertheless, if you favor us in so much—then send."

"I have said that I will send, if you wish it. To the
Lady Jaelithe it shall be. Now, they come to take you
hence, March Lord. If you survive this captivity, re-
member that Tormarsh is old, there is that within it
which has stood long without being stamped into the
bog with those who know its ways. Do not think that
what is here can be easily swept aside."

"Say that rather to Volt's gift and he who bears it,
lady. From Kolder's fingers few escape. But Koris lives,
and rides, and hates—"

"Let him ride and hate and show Volt's gift to Ali-
zon. There is the need for action there. Odd, March
Warder, there is that in you which does not align it-
self with your words. You speak as one who resigns
himself to fate, yet I do not believe that is so. Now—"
Once again she sketched a sign in the air. "The gate
is open and it is time you go."

What happened then was beyond any description
Simon was ever able to give. He only knew that one
moment he was in the doorless cell, and the next, still
helpless in whatever hold they had upon him, he was
in the open on the bank of a dark lake where the
water was thick and murky, with a threatening look
to it.

There was the murmur of voices about and behind
him, the Torfolk were gathered there, men and wom-
en. And a little apart the smaller group of which Si-
mon was an unwilling part.

Aldis, a look of confidence and expectancy on her

face, Loyse, standing so stiffly that Simon guessed she
was held in the same immobile spell as himself, and
two of the Tormen. There was also a fifth from beyond
the marsh boundaries.

No Kolder—at least not the Kolder such as he had
seen in Gorm. Of middle size, face round and dark of
skin, a kind of tan-yellow unlike any Simon had seen
in this world, though they had found representatives
of unknown races among the dead slaves in Gorm.
He wore a tight-fitting one-piece garment of gray, like
the Kolder dress, but his head was bare of any cap
though he had a silvery disk resting under the fringe
of his thin, reddish hair at the temple.

And the stranger was weaponless. However on the
breast of his suit there was one of those intertwined
knots fashioned of green metal, such as had been on
Fulk's swordbelt and Aldis carried.

The murmur from the Tormen grew louder, so that
individual beepings carried to Simon. For the first time
he wondered, with a small surge of hope, if the bar-
gain the woman had told him about, had been so
widely accepted as she would have him believe. Could
an appeal from him now split the ranks, give the pris-
oners a chance? But, even as Simon thought that, one
of the marsh natives, standing with Aldis, raised his
arm in a lashing motion. There was a ring of bells,
the first really melodious sound Simon had heard in
this half-drowned country. As the chain bearing those
fell again to the Torman's side there was quiet, instant
and absolute.

Quiet enough so that the disturbance in the murky
water of the lake broke in an audible bubble on the
surface. Then the water poured away as out of the
depths arose the mud-streaked surface of a Kolder un-
derwater vessel. There were scars and scrapes along its
sides as if it had found whatever passage ran this way
a difficult one. It moved without sound closer to shore.

An opening in the rounded upper surface flipped to
shore to form a platform bridge uniting land and ship.

Aldis, her eager expression now an open smile,
started along that pathway. Then Loyse, as if Aldis
pulled her by cords, followed, walking stiffly, her
whole body expressing her fear and repulsion. Simon's
turn—his muscles, his bones, his flesh, were no long-
er his own. Only his mind imprisoned in that helpless
body struggled for freedom, with defeat for the end.

He walked to that opening in the Kolder ship. Then,
still by another's will, his hands and feet found holds
on a ladder, and he descended into the space below.
But not to freedom. Loyse moved ahead and he after,
into a small cabin bare of any furnishings. They stood,
he slightly behind the girl, and heard the door clang
shut. Then and then only, did the compulsion cease
to hold him.

Loyse, with a little moan, slumped and Simon caught
her. He lowered her gently to the metal flooring but
still held her as their bodies tingled with the vibration
reaching them through the structure of the ship. What-
ever power moved the submarine was now in force;
the voyage had begun.

"Simon," Loyse's head turned so that he felt her
breath come in gasps, not far from sobs, against his
cheek. "Where are they taking us?"

This was a time when only the truth would serve.
"To where we have wished to be—though not under
these circumstances—I think, the Kolder base."

"But—" her voice quavered to a pause. When she spoke
again it was with a measure of self-control, "that—that
lies overseas."

"And we travel under water." Simon leaned back
against the wall. As far as he could see the cabin was
bare and they had no weapons. Not only that, but
there was that control over them the Kolder appeared
able to use at will, leaving all hopes of rebellion
doomed. But, perhaps there was one way ...

"They will never know where we are. Koris cannot—"
Loyse was traveling her own path of thought.

"At present Koris is occupied, they have seen to that
also." Simon told her of the invasion from Alizon. "They
plan to bay Estcarp around with snarling dogs, let-
ting her wear down her forces with such blows, none
of which will yet be fatal, but which will exhaust her
manpower and her resources—"

"Letting others do their fighting," Loyse broke in
hotly, "ever the Kolder way."

"But one which can win for them as time passes,"
Simon commented. "They have some plan for us also."

"What?"

"By right of marriage you are now Duchess of Kar-
sten, and so a piece worth controlling in this devious
game they play. I am Border Warder. They can use
me as hostage or—" He hated to put into words the
other reason which might make him valuable to the
enemy, the much more logical one.

"Or they can strive to make you one of them and
so a traitor to serve their ends among the ranks of
Estcarp!" Loyse stated it for him. "But there is one
thing we may do so that we cannot be used so. We
can die." Her eyes were very somber.

"If the need comes," Simon replied crisply. He was
thinking: the site of the Kolder base—that was what they
had long wanted to know. Not to snap off the mon-
ster's hands and arms, but destroy the head. Only, the
world was wide and Estcarp had no clues as to the
direction in which such a base lay. The Kolder use of
underwater ships meant that they could not success-
fully be tracked by the Sulcarmen who counted the
ocean their true home.

But suppose that Kolder could be tracked? The Sul-
carmen were not truly land fighters. Certainly their
raiders would be now harrying the coast of Alizon
with the hit and run tactics they had developed to a
high art, but that employment would not require the

majority of their fleet. And if that fleet were free to
track a Kolder ship, find their base—their fighting crews
would harass the enemy on their home ground until
Estcarp could throw the might of striking power against
that hold.

"You have a plan?" The fear which had shadowed
Loyse's features was fading as she watched Simon.

"Not quite a plan," he said. "Just a small hope. But—"

It was that "but" which was all important now. The
Kolder ship would have to be traced. Could that be
done by contact such as he and Jaelithe had had in
the Tormarsh village? Would the blight of those bar-
riers the Kolder had always been able to use to cloak
themselves against the magic of Estcarp sunder them
utterly? So many "ifs" and "buts" and only his scrap
of hope to answer all of them.

"Listen—" More to clear his own thinking than be-
cause he expected any active assistance from Loyse,
Simon outlined what that hope might be. She gripped
his arm fiercely.

"Try it! Try to reach Jaelithe now! Before they take
us so far away that even thought can not span that
journey. Try it now!"

In that she could be right. Simon closed his eyes,
put his head back against the wall and once more
bent his whole desire and will-to-touch on Jaelithe. He
had no guide in this seeking, no idea of how it might
be done, he had only the will which he used with
every scrap of energy he could summon.

"I hear—"

Simon's heart beat with a heavier thump at that re-

ply.
"We go ... on Kolder ship . . . perhaps to their

base. Can you follow?"

There was no immediate answer, but neither was
that snap of breaking contact which he had known
twice before. Then came her reply.

"I do not know, but if it is possible, it shall be done!"

Again silence, but abiding with Simon the sense of
union. His concentration was broken, not by his will,
nor Jaelithe's, but by a sudden lurch of the ship, send-
ing his body skidding along the cabin wall, Loyse on
top of him. The vibration through those walls was
stepped up until the vessel quivered.

"What is it?" Loyse's voice was thin and ragged once
again.

The flooring was aslant so that the sub could not be
on an even keel. And the vibration had become an
actual shaking of its fabric and frame as if it were en-
gaged in some struggle. Simon remembered the scars
and mud smudges he had seen on its sides. An un-
derground passage by river might not be too accom-
modating. They could have nosed into a bank, caught
there. He said so.

Loyse's hands twisted together. "Can they get us
loose?"

Simon saw the wide blankness of her eyes, caught
the claustrophobic panic rising in her.

"I would say that whoever captains this vessel would
know how to deal with such problems; this is not the
first time—by Tormarsh accounts—that they have made
the run." But there was always a first time for disaster.
Simon had never believed that he would reach the
point of joining the Kolder in any wish, but now he
did as he tensed at every movement of the ship.
They must be backing water to pull loose. The cabin
rocked about the two prisoners, spilling them back and
forth across its slick floor.

The rocking stopped and then the ship gave a great
jerk. Once more the vibration sank to an even purr,
they must be free and on course once again.

"I wonder how far we are from the sea?"

Simon had thought about that, too. He did not
know where Jaelithe was, how long it would take her
to contact any Sulcar ship and send it skulking after
them. But Jaelithe would be on that ship—she would

have to sail thus in order to hold the tie with him! And
they could not assemble a fleet so quickly. Suppose
that single Sulcar vessel lurking behind would be
sighted, or otherwise detected by the Kolder? An en-
gagement would be no contest at all, the Sulcar ship,
and its crew would be helpless before the weapons of
the Kolder. It was rank folly for him to encourage
Jaelithe to follow. He must not try to reach her again-
let her believe that he could not—

Jaelithe—Kolder. They balanced in his mind. How
could he have been so insane as to draw her into such
a plan?

"Because it is not rank folly, Simon! We do not yet
know the limits of this we hold, what we dare summon
by it-"

This time he had not tried to reach her, yet she
had read all his forebodings as if he had hurled them
at her.

"Remember, I follow! Find this noisome nest—and
there shall be a clearing of it!"

Confidence. She was riding high on a way of con-
fidence. But Simon could not match that, he could
only see every pointed reef ahead and no discernible
course among them.

12        SHE WHO WILL NOT WAIT

THE ROOM was. low and long, dark save where the shut-
ters were well open to the call of the sea, the light
which came over those restless waves. And the woman
who sat by the table was as turbulent within as those

waves, though she showed little outward sign of her
concern. She wore leather and mail; the chain-mail
scarfed helm, winged like that of any Borderer, sat
on the table board to her right hand. And at her left
was a tall cage in which perched a white falcon as
silent and yet as aware as she. Between her fingers a
small roll of bark rolled back and forth.

One of the witches? The captain of the Sulcar cruis-
er was still trying to assess her as he came from the
door to front her. He had been summoned from the
dockside to this tavern by one of the Borderers, for
what reason he could not guess.

But when the woman looked at him, he thought
that this was no witch. He did not see her gem of
power. Only, neither was she any common dame. He
sketched a half salute as he would have to any of his
fellow captains.

"I am Koityi Stymir, at your summoning, Wise One."
Deliberately he used the witch address to see her reac-
tion.

"And I am Jaelithe Tregarth," she replied without
amplification. "They tell me, Captain, that you are
about to put to sea on patrol—"

"Raiding," he corrected her, "up Alizon way."

The falcon shifted on its cage perch, its very bright
eyes on the man. He had an odd feeling that it was
as intelligently interested in his answer as the woman.

"Raiding," she repeated. "I come to offer you some-
thing other than a raid, Captain. Although it may not
put loot into your empty hold and it may bring you
far greater danger than any Alizon sword or dart you
may face in the north."

Jaelithe studied the seafarer. As all his race he was
tall, wide of shoulder, fair of hair. Young as he was,
there was a self-confidence in his carriage which spoke
of past success and a belief in the future. She had not
had time to choose widely, but what she had heard
of Stymir along the waterfront made her send for him

out of all the captains now in port at the mouth of
the River Es.

There was this about the Sulcar breed: adventure
and daring had a pull on them, sometimes over that
of certain gain in trade, loot in war. It was that strain
in their character which made them explorers as well
as merchant traders in far seas. And she must depend
upon that quality now to attract Stymir to her service.
"And what do you have to offer me, lady?"
"A chance to find the Kolder base," she told him
boldly. This was no time to fence. Time—that inner tur-
moil boiled in her until she could hardly control it—time
was her slave driver in this venture.

For a long moment he stared at her and then he
spoke: "For years have we sought that, lady. How
comes it now into your hands that you can speak so,
as if you held a map to it?"

"I have no map, but still a method to find it—or be-
lieve that this is possible. But time grows short, and
this depends upon time." And distance? her mind
questioned. Could Simon get beyond the reach of their
tie and she lose contact with him?

She twisted the roll of bark which had come out of
Tormarsh, which had been an argument with the
Guardians.

Her inner conflict might have been communicated
to the great falcon, for now it mantled and screamed,
even as it might scream in battle.

"You believe in what you say, lady," Stymir con-
ceded. "The Kolder base—" With his finger tip he
traced a design on the table board between them.
"The Kolder base!"

But when he raised his eyes again to meet hers there
was a wariness in them.

"There are tales among us—that the Kolder have a
way of distorting minds and so sending those who were
once our friends, even our cup-comrades, to lead us
into their traps."

Jaelithe nodded. "That is indeed the truth, Captain,
and you do well to think about such a risk. But, I am
of the Old Race, and I have been a witch. You know
that the Kolder taint cannot touch any of my kind."

"Have been a witch—" He caught and held to that.

"And why am I not one now?" She brought herself
to answer that, though the need for doing so rasped
her raw. "Because I am now wife to him who is March
Warder of Estcarp. Have you not heard of the out-
lander who helped lead the storming of Sippar—Simon
Tregarth?"

"Him!" There was wonder in the captain now. "Aye,
we have heard of him. Then you, lady, rode to Sulcar-
keep for its last battle. Aye, you have met Kolder and
you know Kolder! Tell me what you now devise."

Jaelithe began her tale, the one she had set in mind
before this meeting. When she had done the captain's
amazement was marked.

"And you think this we can do, lady?"

"I go myself to its doing."

"To find the Kolder base—to lead in a fleet upon
the finding. Aye, such a feat as that the bards would
sing for a hundred hundred years to come! This is a
mighty business, lady. But where is the fleet?"

"The fleet follows, but only one ship may lead. We
do not know what devices these Kolder have in their
below-water ship, how well they may be able to track
anything on the surface. One ship above, not too close
—that they might not suspect. A fleet could have but
one meaning for them, and then, would they know-
ingly lead us to their den?"

Captain Stymir nodded. "Clearly thought, my lady.
So then how do we bring in the fleet?"

Jaelithe lifted her hand to the cage. "Thus. This one
has been trained by the Falconers to return whence
it came, bearing any message. I have already con-
ferred with those in authority. The fleet will assemble,
cruise out to sea. When the message comes, why—then

they will move in. But this is a matter of time. If the
under-seas' ship issues from the marsh river and has
too great a lead, then I am not sure we can contact
my lord, captive in it."

"This river, draining from Tormarsh ..." It was plain
that the captain was trying to align points along the
shore to make a picture he knew. "I would guess it to
be the Enkere—to the north. We could pose as a raid-
er on the course to Alizon and so reach that spot
without raising any undue interest."

"And may we sail soon?"

"Now if you wish, lady. The supplies are aboard,
the crew gathered. We were off to Alizon today."

"This voyage may be longer; your supplies for coast
raiding are limited."

"True. But there is the Sword Bride in from the
south; she carries supplies for the army. We may trans-
ship from her if you have the authority. And that will
take but a small measure of time."

"I have the authority. Let us be about it!"

The Guardians might not believe that she would re-
tain this power of hers, but they had granted her back-
ing for now. Jaelithe frowned. To have to use one of
the Seakeep witches to transmit that request and her
message had been galling, but she was willing to face
any rebuff to gain her ends. And she had proved,
when she had used the falcon and her new percep-
tion to confuse Simon in the flyer, that she did have
something they could not dismiss as useless. Kolder
would only die when its heart was blasted. And if she
and Simon, working together, could find that heart, then
all witchdom would back them to the limit.

Captain Stymir was as good as his boast. It still lacked
several hours of nightfall when his Wave Cleaver
skimmed out of the harbor, heading towards the black
blot of Gorm and so beyond for the open sea. She had
chosen better than she knew. Jaelithe decided, when
she had picked Stymir from the four captains in the

harbor. His ship was small, but she was swift, a cruiser
rather than one of the wider-bottomed merchant car-
riers.

"You have been an opener of ways, Captain?" she
asked as they stood together by the great rudder sweep.

"Aye, lady. It was my thought to try for the far north-
had this war with Kolder not broken on our heads.
There is a village I have visited—odd people, small,
dark, with a click-click speech of their own we cannot
rightly twist tongue around. But they offer such furs as
I have seen nowhere else—only a few of them. Silver
those furs, long of hair, but very soft. When we asked
whence they came, this click-click speech folk said that
they are brought once a year by a caravan of wild
men from the north. They have other wares, too. Look
you—"

He slipped from his wrist a band of metal and of-
fered it to her. Jaelithe turned the ring about in her
fingers. Gold, but a paler gold than she had ever seen
before. Old, very old, and there was a design, so
worn that it was merely curves and hollows. Yet there
was sophistication, a degree of art in that worn design
which did not say primitive but hinted of civilization-
only what civilization?

"This I traded for two years ago in that village, and
all they could tell me was that it came from the north
with the wild men. Look you, here and here." He
touched with finger tip two points on the band, "That
is a star—very much worn away and yet a star. And on
the very, very old things of my people there are some-
times such stars—"

"Another trader of your people ages ago who made
a voyage there and returned not?"

"Perhaps. But there is also another thought. For we
have bard songs, also very old, of whence we first came
—and that there was cold and snow, and much battling
with monsters of the dark."

Jaelithe thought of how Simon had come to Estcarp,

and of that gate in another place through which the
Kolder had issued to trouble them. These Sulcarmen,
always restless, ever at sea, taking their families with
them on such voyages as if they might not return. Only
in the times of outright war were Sulcar ships other
than floating villages. Had they, too, come through
a gate which kept them searching with some hidden
instinct to find again? She gave the band back to Sty-
mir.

"A quest of value, Captain. May there be long
years for each of us for the questing we hold in our
hearts."

"Well spoken, lady. Now we are approaching the
mouth of the Enkere. Do you wish to hunt in your own
way for the Kolder water sulker?"

"I do."

She lay on the bunk in the small cabin to which the
captain had shown her. It was hot and close and the
mail shirt constricted her breathing. But Jaelithe strove
to set aside all outward things, to build in her mind
the picture of Simon. There were many Simons and all
had depth of meaning for her, but it was necessary to
forge those into one upon which to center her call.

But—no answer . . . She had been so sure of instant
contact that that silence was like an unexpected blow.
Jaelithe opened her eyes and gazed up at the roofing
of the ship's timbers so close above her head. The Wave
Cleaver was truly cleaving waves and the motion
about her—perhaps that was what broke the contact or
kept her from completing it.

"Simon!" Her call searched, demanded. She had had
long years of training as a witch, to center and aim her
power through that jewel which was the badge of her
office. Was this fumbling now because she must do it
all without a tool, with the skepticism of those she had
long revered eating at her confidence?

She had been so sure that morning when she had
had that sending concerning Loyse and when she had

ridden to Es with that flaming desire to be one of the
Power again—only to find doors and minds closed against
all her knocking. Then, because she had been so
sure she was right, she had gone apart, as dictated
by her past training, to study this thing, to strive to
use it. And when she had had the tidings that Simon
had acted against all nature, she had guessed that the
Kolder blight had touched him, then she had used that
new power, little as she knew about it, in the fight
for Simon which dropped him into the forbidden tan-
gle of Tormarsh. After that, she had tried again with
purpose. But were the Guardians right, was this new
thing she thought she had found merely the dying echo
of the old power, doomed to fail?

Simon. Jaelithe began to consider Simon apart from
a goal at which to aim thought. And from the fringe
consideration of Simon she looked inward at herself.
She had surrendered her witchdom to Simon when
she wedded him, thinking this union meant more to
her than all else, accepting the penalty for that uniting.
But why then had she been so eager to seize upon this
hope that her sacrifice had been no sacrifice at all? She
had left Simon to ride to Es, to best the Guardians
and prove that she was not as others, that she was still
witch as well as wife. And when they would not be-
lieve, she -had not sought out Simon, she had kept to
herself, intent upon proving them wrong. As if—as if
Simon was no longer of importance at all! Always the
power—the power!

Was that because she had known no other force in
her life? That what Simon had awakened in her was
not lasting emotion, but merely a new thing which had
been strange and compelling enough to shake her from
the calm and ordered ways of her kind, but not deep
enough to hold her? Simon-
Fear—fear that such reasoning was forcing her to face
something harsh and unbearable. Jaelithe concentrated
again on Simon: standing so, with his head held high,

his grave face so seldom alight with any smile—and yet
in his eyes, always in his eyes when they met hers—

Jaelithe's head turned on the hard pillow of the bunk.
Simon—or the need to know that she was still a witch.
Which drove her now? As a witch she had never known
this kind of fear—not without—but within.

"Simon!" That was not a demanding summons for
communication; it was a cry born of pain and self-
doubt.

"Jaelithe . . ." Faint, far off, but yet an answer, and
in it something which steadied her, though it did not
answer her questions.

"We come." She added as tersely as she could what
she had done to further his plan for tracking.

"I do not know where we are," he made answer.
"And I can hardly reach you."

That was the danger: that their bond might fail. If
they only had some way of strengthening that. In shape-
changing one employed the common linkage of mutual
desire to accomplish that end. Mutual desire—but they
were only two. Two—ho. Loyse—Loyse's desire would
link with theirs in this. But how? The girl from Ver-
laine had no vestige of witch power. She had been
unable to perform the simplest spells in spite of Jae-
lithe's coaching, having the blindness in that direction
which enfeebled all but the Old Race.

But shape-changing worked on those who were not
of the Old Race; it had once worked on Loyse in Kars.
She might not be able to pull on the power itself, but
it could react upon her. And was this still the power?

Without answering Simon Jaelithe broke the faint
link between them, set in her mind instead the image
of Loyse as she had last seen the girl weeks ago in
Es and using that as anchorage she sought the spirit
behind the picture.
Loyse!

Jaelithe had a blurred, momentary glimpse of a wall,
a scrap of floor, and another crouching figure that was

Simon! Loyse-for that single instant she had looked
through Loyse's eyes!

But possession was not what she wanted, contact
rather. Again she tried. This time with a message, not
so deep an identification. Foggy, as if that wisp of
tie between them fluttered, anchored for an instant,
and then failed. But as Jaelithe struggled to make it
firm, it did unite and become less tenuous. Until it
held Loyse. Now for Simon-
Groping, anchorage! Simon, Loyse—and it was strong-
er, more consistent. Also—she gained direction from it!
What they had wanted from the first—direction!

Jaelithe wriggled from the confines of the bunk, kept
her footing with the aid of handgrips as she sought the
deck. There was wind billowing the sails, the narrow
knife of the bow dipped into rising waves. The sky was
sullen where the sun had gone, leaving only a few
richly colored banners at the horizon.

That wind whipped Jaelithe's hair about her uncov-
ered head, sent spray into her face until she gasped as
she reached the post beside the rudder where two
of the crew labored to hold the ship on course, and
Captain Stymir watched narrowly sky, wind and wave.

"The course," Jaelithe caught at his shoulder to
steady herself at an unexpected incline of the decking.
"That way-"

It was so sharp set in her head that she could
pivot in a half turn and point, sure that her bearings
were correct for their purpose. He studied her for a
second as if to gauge her sincerity and then nodded,
taking the helm himself.

The bow of the Wave Cleaver began to swing to
Jaelithe's left, coming about with due caution for wind
and wave, away from the dark shadow of the land, out
into the sea. Somewhere under the surface of all this
turbulence was that other vessel, and Jaelithe had no
doubts at all that they were going to follow the track

of that, as long as that three-fold awareness linked
Simon, Loyse and herself.

She stood now wet with spray, her hair lankly plas-
tered to her skull, stringing on her shoulders. The last
colors faded from the sky or were blotted out by the
cloud masses. Behind them even the shadow of Est-
carp's coast had gone. She knew so little of the sea.
This fury of wind and wave spelled storm, and could
storm so batter them from the course that they would
lose the quarry?

Jaelithe shouted that question to the captain.

"A blow—" His words came faintly back. "But we
have ridden out far worse and still kept on course. What
can be done, will be. For the rest, lady, it lies between
the fingers of the Old Woman!" He spat over his shoul-
der in the ritual luck-evoking gesture of his race.

But still she would not go below, watching in the
fast gathering darkness for something she knew she
would not be able to see with the eyes of her body,
making as best she could an anchor past breaking for
the tie.

13        KOLDER NEST

TIME WAS hard to measure in this ship's cell. Simon
lay relaxed on a narrow shelf bunk, but still he held
to that ribbon of communication which included not
only Jaelithe, but now Loyse in a lesser degree. Though
the girl no longer shared his quarters, she was present
in his mind.

Simon had seen none of his  captors  since, shortly

after this voyage had begun, Aldis appeared and took
charge of Loyse, leaving him alone. A second inspec-
tion of the narrow cabin had provided some amenities:
a bunk which could be pulled out and down from the
wall, a sliding shelf on which, from time to time, a
tray of food appeared—coming from the wall behind.

The food was emergency rations, he thought, thin
wafers without much taste, a small can of liquid. Not
appetizing but enough to keep hunger and thirst under
control. Otherwise there was no break in the long, si-
lent hours. He did sleep a little while Loyse took over,
holding the tie. Simon gathered that she now shared
Aldis' cabin, but that the Kolder agent was leaving her
alone, content that she was passive.

Seven, now eight mealtimes. Simon counted them
off. But that gave him no reasonable idea of the num-
ber of hours or days he had been here under the un-
changing glow of the walls. They could be feeding him
twice daily, or even once; he could not be sure. This
was a period of waiting, and to any man who had
depended most of his life upon the stimulation of ac-
tion, waiting was a harsh ordeal. Only once before had
it been so—during a year in jail. Waiting then, warped
by the bitterness of knowing that he had been duped
into taking punishment for those he hated, he had
spent that time striving to work out schemes for repay-
ment.

Now he was facing a blind future without even a
good knowledge of the nature of the enemy. All he
had was that mental picture from the past of the Kol-
der leader dying in Gorm, a narrow valley down which
strange vehicles dashed while those in them fired back
at pursuers. There had been another world for the Kol-
ders and something had gone wrong there.

Somehow they had discovered a "gate" and come
through—into this time and place, where the civiliza-
tion of the Estcarpian Old Race was on the wane, a
slow slip into the age-old dust which already rose about

Es and the villages and cities of their kind. Along the
coast—in Alizon and Karsten—a more barbaric upswing
was rooted, newer nations, elbowing aside the Old Race,
yet so much in awe of their legendary witches that
they dared not quite challenge them—not until the
Kolder began to meddle

And if Kolder was not uprooted, Alizon and Karsten
would go the way of Gorm: ingested into the horror
of the possessed. Yet Kolder played upon this older
enmity and fear to make their future victims their
present allies.

The nature of Kolder. Simon began to concentrate
upon that. Their native civilization was a mechanical,
science-based one—that fact had been amply proven by
what they had found in Gorm. The Estcarpian command
had always believed that the Kolder themselves must
be few in number, that it was necessary for them to
have the possessed captives in order to keep their
forces in the field. And now that Gorm was gone and
Yle evacuated—

Yle evacuated! Simon's eyes came open, he stared at
the ceiling of the cabin. How had he known that? Why
was he so very sure that the Kolder's only stronghold
on the coast was now an empty shell? Yet certain he
was.

Were the Kolder now drawing in all their forces to
protect their base? Kolder manpower—there had been
five left dead in Gorm, the majority in their own apart-
ments—not killed by any sword or dart, but as if they
had willed their own dying—or some animating spark,
common to all, had failed. But five! Could the death
of only five so weaken the Kolder cadre that they
would have to pull in all their garrisons?

Hundreds of the possessed had died in Gorm. And
then there were their agents in Karsten—Fulk—and the
others such as Aldis who were still alive and about their
business. Not true Kolder, but natives who had come
to serve the enemy—not as mindless possessed, but

with wit and awareness. Not one of the Old Race could
be so bent to Kolder use; that was why the Old Race
must go!

Again Simon wondered at whence that emphatic
assertion had come. They had known that the Kolder
wanted no Old Race captives for their ranks of pos-
sessed. They had suspected that this was the reason,
but now it was as clear in his mind as if he had had
it from Kolder lips.

Heard it? Did the Kolder have their form of com-
munication such as that he now held with Jaelithe and
Loyse? That thought shook him. Quickly Simon sent a
warning to she who followed and caught her unease
in return.

"We are sure of the course now," she told him.
"Break. Do not send again unless there is great need."

"Great need . . ." That echoed in his mind, and then
Simon became aware that the vibration which had been
so steady in the walls about him was muted, humming
down scale as if the speed they had maintained was
being cut. Had they reached their port?

Simon sat up on the bunk, faced the door. Would
they lock him with the same stiff control which had
kept him prisoner before? He had no weapons, though
some skill in unarmed combat. But he hardly thought
that the Kolder would try a scuffle man to man.

He was right, even as the door to the cabin opened,
the freeze was on him. He could move—by another's will
—and he did, out into the narrow corridor.

Men there, two of them. But looking into their eyes
Simon controlled a shudder only because he could not
move save an order. These were possessed, the dead
alive of the Kolder labor horde. One was Sulcar by his
fair head, his height; the other of the same yellow-
brown skinned race as the officer who had brought
Simon on board.

They did not touch him, merely waited, their soulless
gaze on him. One turned and started along the passage,

the other flattened back against the wall to allow Si-
mon by, and then fell in behind him. Thus, between
the two, he climbed the ladder, came out on the sur-
face of the submarine.

Above was an arch of rock. The water lapped sul-
lenly against a waiting quay and Simon saw here a
likeness to the hidden port beneath  Sippar,  evidently
a familiar pattern for the enemy.  Still moved by re-
mote control he walked ashore on the narrow gangway.
There  was   activity   there.   Gangs   of  almost  naked
possessed shifted  boxes,  cleared  spaces.  They  worked
steadily, as if each man knew just what was to be done,
and the quickest way of doing it.

No voices raised, no talk among the work gang. Simon
stalked stiffly behind his guide, the Sulcar bringing up
the rear, and no one looked at them. The quay was long
and two other subs nosed against it. Being unloaded
Simon noted. Signs of withdrawal from other posts?

Before them were two exits, a tunnel and a flight of
stairs to the left. His guide took that way. Five steps
and then a waiting cubby. Once they were inside the
door closed and they arose in an elevator such as had
been in Sippar.

The ride was not long, the door slid open upon a cor-
ridor. Sleek gray walls with a metallic luster to their
surfaces, outlines of doors, all closed. They passed six,
three to a side, before they came to the end of the hall
and a door which was open.

Simon had been in the heart center of Sippar and he
half expected to see here again the seated Kolder, the
capped master at a cross table, all the controls those men
had run to hold their defenses tight.

But this was a much smaller room than that. Light, a
harsh burst of it, came from bars set in the ceiling in a
complicated geometric pattern Simon had no desire to
examine closely. The floor had no discernible carpeting,
yet it yielded to cushion their steps. There were three

chairs, curved back and seat in one piece. And in the
center one a true Kolder.

Simon's guards had not entered with him, but that
compulsion which had brought him out of the submarine
now marched him forward a step or two to face the
Kolder officer. The alien's smock-like over garment was
the same gray as the chair in which he sat, as the walls
and the flooring. Only his skin, pallid, bleached to a paper
white, broke that general monotone of color. Most of his
head was covered by a skull cap, and as far as Simon
could see, he had no hair.

"You are here at last." The mumble of an alien tongue
and yet Simon somehow understood the words. Their
meaning surprised him a little, one could almost believe
that they were not captor and prisoner but two who had
some bargain in prospect and needed only to come to a
final agreement. Caution kept Simon silent—the Kolder
must reveal his game first.

"Did Thurhu send you?" The Kolder continued to
study Simon and now the other thought that there was
a spark of doubt in that question. "But you are not an
outer one!" The doubt flared into hostility. "Who are
you?"

"Simon Tregarth."

The Kolder continued to hold him with a narrowed
stare.

"You are not one of these natives." No question but an
assured statement.

"I am not."

"Therefore you have come from beyond. But you are
not an outer one, and certainly not of the true breed. I
ask you now—what are you?"

"A man from another world, or perhaps another time,"
Simon saw no reason not to tell the truth. Perhaps the
fact that he was a puzzle for the Kolder was to his ad-
vantage.

"What world? What time?" Those shot at him harshly.

Simon could neither shake his head nor shrug. But he
put his own ignorance into words.

"My own world and time. Its relation to this one I do
not know. There was a way opened and I came through."

"And why did you journey so?"

"To escape enemies." Even as you and yours did,
Simon added in his mind.

"There was a war?"

"There had been a war," Simon corrected. "I was a
soldier, but in peace I was not necessary. I had private
enemies—"

"A soldier," the Kolder officer repeated, still apprais-
ing him with that unchanging stare. "And now you fight
for these witches?"

"Fighting is my trade. I took service with them, yes."

"Yet these natives are barbarians, and you are a civilized
man. Oh, show no surprise at my guess, does not like
always recognize like? We, too, are soldiers and our war
brought us defeat. Only it has also brought us victory
in the end since we are here and we hold that which
shall make this world ours! Think you on that, outsider.
A whole world to lie thus—" He stretched forth his hand,
palm up, and then closed his fingers slowly as if he
balled something tangible within his fist. "To serve as
you will it! These natives cannot stand against what we
have to back us. And—" he paused and then added
with slow and telling emphasis, "we can use such a man
as you."

"Is that why I am a prisoner here?" Simon countered.

"Yes. But not to remain a prisoner—unless you will it.
Simon Tregarth, March Warder of the south. Ah, we
know you all—the mighty of Estcarp." His expression
did not change, but there was a sneer in his voice.

"Where is your witch wife now, March Warder—back
with those other she-devils? It did not take her long to
learn that you had nothing she cared to possess, did it?
Oh, all that passes in Estcarp, Karsten and Alizon is
known to us, to the minutest detail it is known. We can

possess you if we wish. But we shall give you a choice,
Simon Tregarth. You owe nothing to those she-devils of
Estcarp, to the wandering-witted barbarians they control
with their magic. Has not that witch of yours proved to
you that there can be no loyalty with them? So we say-
come with us, work in our grand plan. Then Estcarp
will lie open for your plucking, your terms—or strike any
other bargain you wish. Be March Warder again, do as
Estcarp wishes, until the word comes to do otherwise."

"And if I do not accept?"

"It would be a pity to waste one of your potential.
But he who is not with us is against us, and we can al-
ways use a strong back, legs, arms to labor here. You
have already tasted what we can do—your muscles do
not obey you now, and you cannot take a step unless we
will it so. This can be used otherwise. Would you care
to breathe only by our favor?"

There was a sudden constriction about Simon's chest
He gasped under that squeezing pressure and panic
awoke in him. Less than a second, but the fear did not
leave him when he was released. He did not in the least
doubt that the Kolder could do as was threatened—keep
the air from his lungs, if they chose.

"Why. .. bargain?" he gasped.

"Because the agents we wish cannot be forced. Under
such controls you must be constantly checked and
watched, you would not so serve our purpose. Accept
freely and you will be free—"

"Within your limits," Simon returned.

"Just so. Within our limits, and that will remain so. Do
not believe that you can give assent with your lips and
keep to your own purpose thereafter. There will be a
change in you, but you will retain your mind, your per-
sonality, such of your desires and wishes as fit within
the framework of our overall plan. You will not be only
flesh to carry out orders as those you term possessed and
you will not be dead."

"And I must choose now?"

The Kolder did not answer at once. Again his expres-
sion was blank, but Simon caught a faint tinge of mean-
ing in his voice—threat, uncertainty, maybe one and the
same.

"No—not yet."

He made no signal which Simon could distinguish
but the control brought him about, set him walking. No
guards this time, but they were not needed. There was
no possible way for Simon to break free, and the threat of
constriction about his chest was with him still, so that
every time he thought of that he had the need to
breathe deeply.

Down the corridor, into the elevator again. Up, an
open door; the order to move, another hall and another
door. Simon went into the room beyond and the control
was gone. He turned quickly, but the door was closed
and he did not need to try it to know that it would not
open.

The harsh, artificial light of the lower room was gone.
Two slit windows were open to the day and Simon went
to the nearest. He was in a position of some height above
a rocky coastline with a sheer descent to water. By side
glimpses he got an idea of the building; it must resemble
Yle. Not only was the window slit too narrow to climb
through, but there was no way down, save that drop
straight to the sea-washed rocks.

Simon crossed to the other window. Bare rocks again,
not the slightest sign of vegetation—rocks in wind-worn
pinnacles, in table mesas, slashed into sharp-walled can-
yons and drops. It was the most forbidding stretch of
natural territory he had ever seen.

Movement. Simon pushed forward as far as he could
in the window slit to see what moved in that tormented
wilderness of broken rock. A land machine of some sort,
not unlike a truck of his own world, though it progressed
on caterpillar tracks, which crunched and flattened the
surface at a pace, Simon judged, hardly faster than a
brisk walk. There were marks on that surface which the

machine followed. This was not the first truck which had
gone that way, or perhaps not the first trip this one had
made in the same direction.

It had a full cargo and clinging to that lashed-on gear,
were four men, their ragged scraps of clothing labeling
them slave laborers. The machine lurched and jerked
so that they held with both hands and feet. That slow
crawl inland with a cargo on board. Simon continued to
watch until the truck disappeared behind a mesa. It was
only then that he turned to examine his new prison.

Monotone color and a bed which was merely a shelf
opening from the wall and covered by a puffed, foamy
substance. Closed doors of cupboards—a whole row of
them. One upon his investigating turned down into a
table, another gave him sanitary arrangements as there
had been on the submarine. The rest remained tightly
closed. It was a room to induce boredom, Simon thought.
Perhaps its very monotony was a piece of careful con-
trivance.

But there was one thing he was sure of: this was the
Kolder base. And there was a good chance that they
might have him under some form of observation. The
fact that he had been released from control might even
be because they wished to see how he would use his
freedom. Could they suspect the tie? Was he bait in a
trap to bring in Jaelithe?

What would the Kolder give to have one of the witches
in their hands? Simon thought that under the circum-
stances they would give a great deal. Suppose that ev-
erything—everything—which had happened to him
since the awakening in Tormarsh when he had found
Jaelithe again had really been of their engineering! He
could not be sure it was not.

Yet the Kolder depended upon their machines. They
affected to despise the power. So had they any way of
detecting what Simon, Jaelithe and Loyse had woven?
To contact Jaelithe now . . . would it be right or wrong?
Betrayal or report? He had promised to let her know

when he reached the base, give her the news which
would eventually summon Estcarp. But how long would
it take to bring in that armada? And what could darts
and swords or even the power, do against the weapons
the Kolder must mount here—things which had not per-
haps been in Gorm or Yle? Should he call or stay silent?

More movement. A truck crawling back. Was it the
same vehicle he had watched depart? But that hardly
would have time to unload and this was empty.

Call—or be silent? Simon could no longer use this
useless survey of the land as an excuse for not making up
his mind. He went to the bed, lay down upon it. A
chance—but everything was a chance now, and if this was
not betrayal, then he dared not delay.

14        WITCH WEAPON

JAELITHE HAD journeyed on Sulcarships before, but never
into the void of mid-ocean. There was a vast impersonal-
ity about the sea which undercut her confidence in her-
self in a way she had never known before. Only the
knowledge that her witchdom had not been swept away
was her support. The witches had the reputation of be-
ing able to control natural forces. Perhaps on land they
could summon up a storm, a mist or weave hallucina-
tions to control the mind. But the sea was a power in it-
self and the farther the Wave Cleaver sailed the less sure
Jaelithe was.

Simon's fear that they might have awakened the sus-
picions of the Kolder, oddly enough, steadied her. Men

—even the Kolder, alien as they were—she could face
better than this rolling immensity of wind-driven wave.

"There is no land reckoned hereby on any chart."
Captain Stymir had out his rolls of sea maps.

"Have none of your exploring ships ever reached in
this direction before?" Jaelithe asked, seeing in his very
bewilderment something strange.

Stymir continued to study the top chart, tracing mark-
ings with his finger. Then he called over his shoulder,
"Pass the word for Jokul!"

The crewman who came in answer to that hail was a
small man, bent by the years, his brown face seamed and
salt-dried. He walked with a lurch and go and Jaelithe
saw his right leg was stiff and a little shorter than the
left.

"Jokul," Stymir flattened the chart with a broad hand,
"where are we?"

The smaller man's head came up. He pulled off a
knitted cap so that the wind lay over his tight braids of
faded hair, his somewhat large nose pointed into that
breeze.

"On the lost trace, Cap'n."

Stymir's frown grew the deeper. He studied the filled
sails above them as if their billowing had taken on a sin-
ister meaning. Jokul still sniffed that wind, advancing a
step or two down the deck. Then he pointed to the sea
itself.

"The weed—"

A thread of red-brown on the green, whipped up and
down with the rise and fall of the swell, trailed on near
to another patch. Jaelithe's gaze, following that, saw that
closer to the horizon there was an all red-brown patch.
And the change in the captain's expression made her
break silence.

"What is it?"

He brought his fist down with a thumping blow. "That
must be it!" His frown was gone. "This is why—the weed
and the lost trace!" Then he turned to her. "If your course

leads there, lady, then—" His hands were up and out in
a gesture of bafflement.

"What is it?" she demanded for the second time.

"The weed, it is an ocean thing, living on the surface
of the waves in these warmer waters. We have known it
long and it is common. One may find bits of it washed
ashore after any storm. But there is this about the weed
—it has been increasing and now the patches have that on
them which kills—"

"Kills how?"

Stymir shook his head. "We do not know, lady. A man
touches it and it is as if his hands are burned in a fire.
The burns spread upon his skin, his body, and after-
wards, he dies. It is some poison in the weed—and
wherever it floats we no longer go."

"But if it is in the water and you are on board ship,
do you need to fear the touch?" she countered.

"Let a ship touch it and it clings, clings and grows—
aboard!" Jokul broke in. "It has not always been so, lady,
only for some years now. So the ocean paths it takes we
must now avoid."

"Only lately," Jaelithe repeated. "Since the Kolder
have grown so bold?"

"Kolder?" Stymir stared at the floating weed in open
bewilderment. "Kolder—weed—why?"

"The Kolder ships go under the surface of the sea,"
Jaelithe pointed out. "How better could they protect
their trail than to sow trouble above where any enemy
must follow?"

The captain turned to Jokul. "The lost trace—where
did it lead?"

"Nowhere that we wished to go," the crewman an-
swered promptly. "A few barren islands which have noth-
ing. Water, food, people, even the sea birds are scarce
there."

"Barren islands? Are they not on your chart, Captain?"

He flattened out the top one again. "Not so, my lady.
But if this is the lost trace, then it may be that we cannot

follow it farther. For the nature of the weed is such that
first it appears in such strings as yonder, then in patches,
as you see farther beyond. These patches thicken, not
only in number but in depth, so that they make small
islets borne on the sea, and then larger islets, and at last,
if anyone has the folly to push in, they are a solid mass.
This, too, was not always so. The weed made islands,
aye, but not so solid—nor was it death to hunt there. I
have harvested crabs for the eating. But now no man
goes near that ocean stain. Does it not seem as blood
washing from a gaping wound? The very sign of the
death it is!"

"If one cannot penetrate so far how does one know of
these isles?"

"At first we did not know the danger. A floating ship
with dying men on her deck drifted out of the weed.
And of those who chanced upon that vessel and went
to their rescue five more died because the weed had
fastened to her hull and they had brushed against it. So
did we learn, lady. If the Kolders have indeed set this
defense about their hold, it is one we cannot face unless
we work out some plan against the weed."

The floating weed—Jaelithe had to accept their word
upon its danger. The Sulcar kind knew the sea and all
its concerns—that was their mystery. The weed . . . But
she no longer saw that trail like blood on the sea. Her
hands went to her head and she swayed at an impera-
tive summons. Simon!

Simon in the Kolder base—that way—beyond the float-
ing death. They must head into—through—that.

"Simon," her reply sought him urgently, "there is
danger between us."

"Stay off! Do not risk it."

Curtain between them now. She could not penetrate
that despite frantic efforts. Kolder curtain. Did they
know, or was that only usual precautions? Simon!

Jaelithe felt as if she had screamed that name, it was a

tearing pain in her throat. But when she opened her

eyes Stymir showed no alarm,

"What we seek lies beyond there," she said dully,
pointing to the horizon where rode the weed. "Perhaps
they also know that we come—"

"Captain! The weed!" Not a warning from Jokul, but
a cry from the mainmast lookout.

One trail—one patch. No! A dozen trails now, all
reaching out deadly tendrils for them. Stymir roared or-
ders to bring the ship about, send it backtracking. Jae-
lithe sped for the cage on mid-deck.

The great white falcon welcomed her with a scream as
she clicked open the latch of the cage. She stiffened her
arm to support its weight as it hooked its heavy claws
about her flesh and bone, sidled out to freedom. Fastened
to one of those strong legs was what she sought, a tiny
mechanism in a rod which the bird could carry with ease.
Jaelithe drew a deep breath, to steady her nerves and
quiet the racing of her heart. This was a delicate business
and she dared make no mistakes. Her finger nail found
the tiny indentation in the rod, and she pressed that in
code pattern. The bird in flight would automatically reg-
ister, on this triumph of the Falconers' devices, the course
and distance. But the tale of the weed was another mat-
ter which she must record for the Falconers to decode.
That done she carried the bird to the afterdeck, speak-
ing to it softly meanwhile. Falconers' secrets remained
secrets as far as their allies were concerned. How much
the bird  actually  understood Jaelithe  could  not  tell.
Whether it was training or bred intelligence which made
this falcon superior was a matter for argument. But that
it was their only chance to warn the fleet following she
knew.

"Fly straight, fly fast, winged one." She drew a finger
down the head as those fierce eyes met hers. "This is
your time!"

With a scream the falcon tore skyward, circled the
ship once, and then shot as a dart back towards the long-

vanished land. Jaelithe turned to the sea. The tendrils
of weed advanced, a swelling web of them reaching for
the ship. Surely, surely their rapid drawing in upon the
vessel was not natural. How could floating weed move
so swiftly and with a purpose, as she was sure was hap-
pening now. Oh, if she only had her jewel! There was
more than hallucinations to be controlled through that.
At times of great emergency it could pull upon a central
store of energy, common to all the witchdom of Estcarp,
and so accomplish tangible results.

But she had no jewel, and what she could use was
not the power she had known before. Jaelithe watched
the fingers of the weed and tried to think. It lay upon
the surface—and so far there were no thick islands such
as Stymir had feared. Under the water was safe, but the
Wave Cleaver could not go below as did a Kolder ship.

Water gave the stuff support and life. Her fingers
moved in a studied pattern on the rail before her. Jae-
lithe found herself reciting one of the first and earliest
of the spells she had ever learned: one to impress upon
a child's mind the base for all "changing."

"Air and earth, water and fire—"

Fire—the eternal opposition to water. Fire could dry
water, water could quench fire. Fire—the word lingered
with a small beat in her mind. And Jaelithe knew that
beat of old, the sign every witch waited for, the sign-
post of a spell ready to work. Fire! But how could fire
be the answer on the ocean—a weapon against drifting
weed which was poison to what it touched?

"Captain!" She turned to Stymir. He scowled at her as
if she was only a distraction in his battle to save his ship.

"Sea oil—you have sea oil?"

His expression changed to one of a man facing a hys-
terical woman, but she was already continuing.

"The weed, will it burn?"

"Burn—on the water?" His protest was halted as if a
thought struck home. "Sea oil—fire!" He connected those
with the rapidity of a man who had improvised before

in the face of danger. "No, lady, I do not know whether
it will burn—but one can try!" He shouted an order.

"Alavin, Jokul, get up three skins of oil!"

The skins of thick oil, skimmed from the boil off
langmar stems, kept for use in storms, were brought to
the deck and Stymir himself made the small cuts on
their upper surfaces before they were lowered on lines
to drag behind the Wave Cleaver. The oil began to ooze
forth some distance from the ship.

It showed as a distinct stain on the waves, spreading
as the leaking bags were rolled and mauled by the force
of the waves. When that dark shadow made a goodly
streak, one of the marines went aloft. His dart gun had
been checked by Stymir and a round dozen in the clip
load were the burst-fire type, used to set aflame an ene-
my's rigging and sails.

They watched the patch eagerly. The strings of weed
had reached it, had pushed on so that weed was dis-
colored. There was a burst of eye-searing white fire on
one of those soggy tendrils. Soaring flames licked along
the oil slick—from more than one place now as the marks-
man placed his darts.

Smoke rose in a haze and the wind drove to them a
stench to set them coughing. Flames roared higher and
higher. Stymir laughed.

"More than oil feeds that! The weed burns."

But would more than just the oil-soaked tendrils burn?
That was the important question now. Unless those
branches of weed ignited and the fire spread to the oth-
er patches, they had not gained more than a small meas-
ure of time, a very small measure.

If she only had the jewel! Jaelithe tensed, strained
against the bond of impotence. Her lips moved, her
hands cupped as if she did hold that weapon. She began
to sing. No one had ever understood why the gems
worked to focus the magic wrought by will and mind.
If their secret had once been known to her people, it
lay so far back in the dim corridor of their too-long his-

tory as to be buried in the dust of ages. The making of
the jewel itself, the tuning of it to the personality of she
who was to wear it, probably for the rest of her life, that
they could do. And the training of how to use it proper-
ly, that was also a matter of lessoning. But why it worked
so and who first discovered this means . . .

The archaic words of her chant meant nothing now
either. Jaelithe only knew that they had to be used to
raise the power within her, make it flood her body, and
then flow outward. And, though she had no jewel, she
was doing now what she would have done had it lain on
her palm, pulsating with her song.

She was no longer aware of the captain, of the crew,
even visual and tactile contact with the ship was gone.
Although no mist born of magical herbs and gums
wreathed her in as it must for the difficult raisings, Jae-
lithe was as blind as if she was so enfolded. And all the
will which seethed within her body, had been bottled
in her since she laid aside the witch gem, was thrust at
the fire, as if she held a spear within her two hands and
aimed it at the centermost point of the flames.

Those were reaching higher and higher into the sky;
then their red tips bent—not towards the ship, but away
—back at the center mass of the weed on the borders of
which they fed: Away and down. Jaelithe's chant was a
murmur of storm afar. They might have loosed a whole
shipload of oil rather than three skins. Stymir and his
crew stood agape at the holocaust spouting behind them.
A forest in full blaze could hardly have produced more
cloud-reaching tongues of flame.

There was a clap of noise and a second before they
were hardly more than conscious of the first.

Jaelithe stiffened, for a moment her voice wavered.
Kolder—Kolder devices within the weed! She aimed
her will—the fire against Kolder blankness. Were there
underwater ships slinking out to do battle? But the fire
continued to bend to her will.

Those sharp explosions were coming faster. Half the

horizon was aflame and the heat of it struck at the ship,
the stench of the burning made a gas to set them choking.
Still Jaelithe sang and willed, fought for the death of the
weed. And the weed died, shriveled, cooked, became
ash awash on the waves. Jaelithe knew a swell of triumph,
a wild joy which, in its way, could be as defeating as the
fire. She fought against that sense of triumph, beat it
down with all her might.

No more red trails across the water, the flames had
eaten those into nothingness. Now the fire fed on the
larger mass behind them. The Wave Cleaver's crew
watched as the day went and night drew in, but still there
was a distant glow along the horizon. And then Jaelithe
slumped against the rail, her voice naught but a husky
croak. Stymir steadied her while one of the men went
running for a cup of ship's wine, thin and sour, but wet
to ease somewhat the dried agony of her mouth. She
drank and drank again, and then smiled at the captain.

"The fire will eat it to the end, I think," she said in
the whisper which was the only voice left her.

"This was great magic, lady." And the respect in his
voice was that a Sulcarman kept for some great feat of
seamanship or notable stroke in battle.

"How great you do not know, Captain. The oil and
the fire darts gave it birth, but the shaping by will set it
deep. And—" She raised her empty hands and stared at
them now with wonder, "And I had no gem! I had no
gem!" She strove to stand away from Stymir and stag-
gered, as weak as one risen from a sick bed of long en-
during.

The captain half led, half carried her below, helped her
to stretch out on the bunk, where she now lay, trembling
with a terrible fatigue. She had felt nothing such as this
since her earliest days of training. But before she lapsed
into the unconsciousness which lapped about her as the
sea lapped the ship, Jaelithe caught at Stymir's hand.

"Do you now sail on?"

He studied her. "This may be only the first of their

defenses and the least. But after what I have seen—aye—
for now we sail on."

"If there is trouble—call—"

Now there was a smile about his lips. "Be very sure of
that, lady. A man does not hesitate to use a good weapon
when it lies to hand. And we still have several skins of
oil below."

He left and she pillowed her head with a sigh of half
content, too tired now to examine this new knowledge,
to taste it, feel it warm about her like a cloak against the
chill of a winter storm. She thought that her tie with
Simon had been her new skill, but it would seem there
was another—and there could be more to discover. Jae-
lithe stretched her aching body and fell asleep, smiling.

15        MAGIC AND-MAGIC

SIMON STOOD at the seaward window of his prison cell.
Along the horizon now there was no night such as hung
over the rock perch of the Kolder fortress, but a curtain
of living fire reaching from the sea to heaven, as if the
very substance of the ocean unnaturally fed that flame.
Every nerve and muscle in him wanted action. Behind
that wall of fire somewhere—Jaelithe! But there was no
tie between them. He had only her last message, which
was in part a cry for help. This was some Kolder trick.
No wooden-walled Sulcar ship could dare push through
that barrier.

Yet, there was a stir along the cliffs below, a buzz of
activity at the seashore where those who served Kolder
stood to watch the distant flames. And once Simon was

sure that he had seen a true Kolder there, gray smock,
capped head, as if what was happening out at sea had so
much import that one of the masters must see for him-
self and not depend upon reports from inferiors.

There had been activity on the land side, too. More
of the caterpillar vehicles crawled out into the wilder-
ness of the tortured rock, now with broad beams of light
fanning out before them to mark the safest path across
the rough terrain. And Simon was sure that he could
make out a haze of more light beyond, rising from be-
hind the mesa some miles away.

The Kolder were in haste. But there could be no
armada of Estcarp yet at sea. At least no fleet near
enough to threaten this keep. And the fire would hold
any off a while. So, why all this step-up? No one had
approached him since he had been sent here. He could
only watch and guess. But only one answer fitted for
Simon. The Kolder were under pressure—and time sup-
plied that pressure. Whatever they did which was so
important lay in the interior. And that could be their gate!
Did they contemplate a return to their own world? No—
the Kolder wanted power in this one, and they proposed
to gain that by the aid of superior arms, though their
numbers must be very few. So, did they wish to recruit
from beyond that gate—or bring out new weapons?

But they had been driven out of their own world.
Would they dare venture back? More likely they strove
to bring out more of their own kind.

He bent his head to rest his forehead against the cool
wall and tried again, vainly, to reach Jaelithe. The need
for knowing how she fared was as great as his desire for
action. But—Kolder blankness there ...

Loyse! Where in this pile was Loyse? As he had not
had any touch with the girl since he had been here he
did not know. Now Simon fixed his mind on Loyse,
called her.

"Here-"

Very faint, wavering, but still an answer. Simon con-

centrated until that effort became pain. Their contact
had never been clear, it was like trying to clasp in his
hands an elusive fog which weaved and ebbed, slipped
between his fingers.

"What chances with you?"

". . . room . . . rocks . . ." Contact faded, renewed,
faded again.

"Jaelithe?" He asked without much hope.

"She comes!" Much stronger, carrying conviction.

Simon was startled. How did Loyse know that? Tenta-
tively he tried again to reach Jaelithe; the barrier held.
But Loyse had seemed so sure.

"How do you know?" He made a sharp demand of that.

"Aldis knows—"

Aldis! What part did the Kolder agent play in this?
And how? A trap being set? Simon asked that.

"Yes!" Clear again, and forceful.

"The bait?"

"You, me . . ." Again an ebb and when Simon tried to
pursue that farther, no answer at all.

Simon turned away from the window to look about
the room. He had investigated its possibilities when he
had been sent here. There was no change. But still he
must do something—or go mad! Somewhere there had
to be a way out of this room, a way to stop the Kolder
trap.

The cupboards which had remained obstinately shut
to his earlier search— Simon set himself to the task of
remembering all he had learned concerning the Kolder
headquarters in the heart of Sippar. He had found liv-
ing quarters there also, hidden out in them after he had
escaped the horrors of that laboratory where the pos-
sessed were fashioned from living but unconscious men.
And there also had been cupboards and drawers which
defied his opening.

But there had been one mechanical device within
the fortress which the Estcarpian invaders had learned
to use, first in awe, and then as matter-of-course: the

elevator which ran on the power of thought direction.
One designated the floor mentally and arrived there
promptly. An engine may have supplied the power,
mind supplied the directive. In fact, had not mental
control existed throughout Sippar? That Kolder leader
with the metal cap wired to the installations, whose
death had meant the death of the hold in turn—he had
been thinking life into the other world machines. So
mind ran the Kolder installations.

And in Estcarp the witches' power was really men-
tal; they could control the forces of nature by thought—
without the intermediary of the machines the Kolder
depended upon. Which meant that witch power might
be the stronger of the two!

Simon's hands balled into fists. He could not face
the Kolder with hands, he had no weapons, which left
him only his mind. But he had never tried to fight in
that fashion. Jaelithe—even the Guardians had conceded
—that he had strength in that way which no male of
this world had ever displayed. But it was a pallid thing
compared to the energy which the witches were able
to foster, trim, turn, use— And he had had no training
in its use, save that which conditions had forced upon
him these past few months.

Simon looked from his useless hands to the cabinets
in the wall. He might be battering his mind and will
uselessly against an unbreakable barrier, but he had to
do something!

So—he willed. He willed a door to open. If there was
some mechanism within which would answer to
thought, then he willed it to yield to him. He visualized
a lock such as might exist in his own world, then he
went through the steps of unlatching. Perhaps the
alien mechanism was so unlike what he thought of
that his efforts would have no effect. But Simon
fought on, until he swayed dizzily on his feet, stum-
bled to the bunk and sat there. But never did he take

his eyes from that door, from the movements of the
lock which must answer his will!

He was trembling with effort when the panel moved
and he looked into the interior of the cupboard. For
a moment he sat where he was, hardly able to be-
lieve in his success. Then he went forward on his knees,
ran his hands about the door frame. This was no self-
deceiving hallucination—he had done it!

What lay inside could not provide him with either
the means of escape or a weapon. A pile of small boxes,
which when opened held narrow metal strips coiled
into tight rolls, series of indentations along their sur-
faces making Simon believe them records of sorts. But
it was the method of lock he wanted most to see. Lying
on his back, putting his head into that cubby, using
fingers to help his eyes, Simon gained some idea of
the mechanism.

Now Simon sat up to face the second cupboard. No
exhausting struggle this time. When the second door
opened he looked in at what might be his passport
for exploration outside this room. Kolder clothing was
stored in transparent bags.

Unfortunately the owner was smaller than Simon.
When he pulled on the gray smock he found that it
did not reach far past his knees and was bindingly
tight about the shoulders. But still it might serve after
a fashion. Now—the room door.

If it just worked on the same principle as the cup-
boards— With the Kolder smock about him Simon
turned to face that last barrier. Outside the night was
solidly black, but there was a dim glow coming from
the walls. Simon thought of the lock ...

Open! Slide open!

An answering click. The portal had not rolled away
as did the cupboards, but it gave when he pushed.
With the ill-fitting clothes on him, Simon looked into
the corridor. He remembered how in Sippar a voice
had come from the air, as if his movements had been

monitored. The same could exist here, but he could not
know. He walked out into the hall, listening.

Using the elevator which had brought him here
he could return to sea level, but that would also take
him into the center of activity. What he wanted was
to be out of the hold entirely. Loyse. Frowningly Si-
mon considered the problem of Loyse. Aldis and Loyse—
the latter to be used as bait for Jaelithe. But where
in this pile could he find the girl. He dared not trust
mind contact again.

Four more doors along this hallway—it could be that
they put their prisoners close together. What had Loyse
said? ". . . room . . . rocks." Which might well mean
that her windows gave her sight of the rocky interior.
His room had been the sea and interior, but the two
rooms now to his left would have outlet only for the
rocks.

Simon tried the panel of the first door. It moved
under his touch for an inch or so and he stepped quick-
ly to the next. They did not give. He drew one fin-
ger tip along its resistance and thought. A locked door
did not necessarily mean that Loyse was behind it—a
big mistake could be made either way.

He concentrated on the lock. It was far easier now
that he had the pattern fixed. And his confidence grew.
Within the Kolder keep he was no longer a prisoner.
With that freeze they could take over his body; could
he defeat that now as he could their simpler safe-
guards? Simon did not know—nor did he long to put
that to the test.

The door moved when he tried it the second time.
Slowly he pushed it into the wall at his right. Loyse
stood with her back to him, her hands on the sill of
the window, staring out into the night. And she looked
very small and drawn together, as if hunching her thin
shoulders and stooping, made her less vulnerable to what
she feared.
In Simon's path of vision she was alone, but of that

he could not be sure. Now he attempted another use
of his new found strength, willing her to turn and
face him. There was a soft cry as she came about, as
if she could not stay her movements. Then, sighting
him, her hands came up to cover her face and she
cowered back, as if she longed to sink into the surface
of the wall.

Simon, startled by her reaction, stepped on in and
then thought of his smock. She must believe him one
of the Kolder.

"Loyse—" He kept that to a whisper, pulling off the
tight fitting skull cap of the Kolder disguise.

Simon could see the shudder which shook her, but
she dropped her hands, did look at him. Then fear be-
came astonishment. She did not speak, instead she
launched herself from the wall, running to him as she
might have run for sanctuary. Her fingers gripped the
smock where it strained over his chest, her eyes were
wide, her lips thinned against her teeth as if to choke
back a cry.

"Cornel" Simon's arm tightened about her shoulders
as he pulled her into the corridor. A moment to close
and relock the door, then to choose their way.

But all he knew of the hold were two hallways—this
one and that below leading to the room where the Kol-
der leader had interviewed him. The lower stories of
this rat-held warren must be alert and alive with those
dispatching supplies and men to the interior. His Kolder
disguise would not pass more than the most casual
glance. But, those workers on the dockside—the pos-
sessed. They had paid no attention to him and his
guards when he had landed from the ship, would they
be as unnoticing now if he and Loyse ventured among
them? And did that port have any outer door?

"Aldis!" Loyse held to his arm, both of her hands
braceleting his wrist in a fierce grip.

"What of her?" They were at the elevator, but he
could only send it and them into danger.

"She will know that I am gone!"

"How?"

Loyse shook her head. "The Kolder talisman—it is some-
how aware of me. That is how she followed the thought
path, learned of Jaelithe. She was with me when we
made contact. She has a watch on my thoughts!"

After his own experiences Simon dared not scoff at
that idea. But he could not summon the elevator with-
out better idea of where to go. There was one place-
again a gamble, perhaps the biggest of all. But if Loyse
was right and the hunt might be up almost at once,
he knew of no better battlefield.

Simon pushed the girl ahead of him. He pictured
the corridor which led to the Kolder officer and the
door closed behind him. Then he spoke to Loyse.

"Do you feel her? Can you tell when she is in con-
tact and where she is now?"

She shook her head. "No, she is part of their new
plan. They want Jaelithe—a witch. And when they found
she followed us they were excited. They knew there
was a surface ship out there but of that they were not
afraid. But something went wrong with their defense
and then they made this plan. Aldis was pleased." Loyse
was grim. "She said everything was working for them.
But why are they so excited—Jaelithe is no longer a
witch."

"Not in the manner as before," Simon told her, "but
could she have kept contact with us had she no power
at all? There is magic and magic, Loyse." But could
his magic and Jaelithe's stand against the full force of
Kolder?

A faint whisper and the door opened. Here was the
corridor he sought. He and Loyse had taken only a
few steps along it when that invisible lock caught him.
But they continued to march along, helplessly, towards
the waiting Kolder.

Helpless? Simon's mind asked. Had he not solved the
problem of the doors in the room above he might not

have had the temerity to challenge this. He was under
a compulsion controlled by the Kolder. But why could
he not master that, too? Would he have the time?

The door panel was open. With Loyse, Simon came
face to face with those who waited there. Kolders—two
of them—one the officer he had fronted earlier. The
other wore a metal cap, his eyes were closed, his head
tilted back against his chair, his whole attitude one of
deep concentration on something afar from his present
company. There were two of the possessed bearing
guard weapons, and to one side, Aldis, her attention
all for the prisoners, an alert excitement in her slightly
parted lips, her shining eyes.

The Kolder officer spoke first. "It seems that you
are more then we expected, Warder of the Marches,
and that you have certain qualities we did not take
into consideration. Perhaps it would have been better
for you if you had not. But before all else you are
going to help us now. For it also seems true that your
witch wife has not left you for good after all, but is
coming to your side in trouble, as a proper wife should.
And Jaelithe of Estcarp is of importance to us—of such
importance that we intend nothing shall go amiss in
the plans we have for her. So, let us be about the ac-
complishing of those plans."

Simon's body obeyed that other will. He turned for
the door, the two guards again before and behind him.
Then came Aldis, the whisper of her robe was unmis-
takable. The Kolder, too? Only one, he discovered as
they reached the elevator. The man in the metal cap
remained behind.

Down again. But within the bonds of the control
Simon was flexing his new sense of power, beginning
to test that compulsion as a man might chip away here
and there at some confining shell, seeking the weakest
point of its surface. By the time they had reached the
water level he was ready for his great effort; however,
he reserved that until the proper moment

The quays were now empty, the undersea vessels
there—four of them—inert, nosed against the dock as if
they were now useless. And all the laborers were gone.
But Simon's party heading on around the water came
to a slit in the rock in which steps had been chiseled
and they climbed until the air of night and the open
shore blew in on them.

Still Simon marched, and then Loyse and Aldis,
the Kolder officer to the rear. That fire which had made
a scarlet line across the horizon was gone. Though
drifts of smoke still arose to cloud the low-hanging stars.
The ground here was rough, a scrap of beach walled
with many rocks. And this was their final goal. Simon
and Loyse faced about. He could not see the guards,
but they were there.

"Now—" The Kolder officer ordered Aldis. "Use the
girl!"

Simon heard Loyse cry out in pain and terror. He
felt the brush of the mental command against his own
mind. But at that moment he also struck. Not for his
body freedom, not against Aldis or her master here, but
at the metal-capped man they had left behind. All the
will which had freed Simon from the room locked into
a single dart, thrust at the alien. If he had drawn the
right conclusions that was the proper focal point.

There was resistance—he had not expected it to be
otherwise. But perhaps the very unexpectedness of that
assault carried him past barriers too late alerted. Con-
fused thoughts, then rage, finally fear—fear and a quick
counter-attack. Only that hampered defense had come
too late. Simon hammered home his will. And—his bonds
were gone.

But still he stood stiffly, waiting....

16        GATEWAY

IT EDGED IN through the shadows, another shadow close
lying on the sea, its prow pointed for the strand just
below their stand. Now Simon could hear the faint hiss
of water on oar—no sailing vessel, but a ship's boat
making a rash touch on enemy territory. He could
make out two—three in the boat and he knew that one
was Jaelithe.

Beside him Loyse started forward as if to greet the
newcomers, her stride stiff, limited. She was under con-
trol. And Simon did not need to see what menace hid
in the shadows.

"Sul!" He gave voice to the war cry they had heard
so many times in battle and threw himself, not at the
girl, but at the watching Kolder.

The alien went down with a startled cry as Simon
closed. Then the attacker discovered that if the Kolder
used machines and possessed, they could also fight hard
to save their own skins. This was no easy knockout
but a vicious struggle with a fighter who had combat
knowledge of his own. The initial surprise of his spring
again gave Simon a small advantage which he used to
the uttermost.

How it went on the shore he did not know, all his
attention on his fight to take the most dangerous op-
ponent out of the melee. At last that body suddenly
went limp under him and he waited, his hands still
locked about the Kolder's throat, for any quiver of re-
turning energy.

"Simon!"

Through the blood which pounded against his ear-

drums he heard that. But he did not loosen his hold
on the Kolder, only turned his head a fraction to an-
swer.

"Here!"

She came over rocks and sand, only a dark shape to
be seen. Behind her moved others. But she would not
have come so unless their struggle, too, was done. Now
she was beside him, her hand touching his hunched
shoulder. There was no need for more between them—
not now, Simon thought with a rich exultation rising
within him—or ever.

"He is dead," Jaelithe said and Simon accepted her
judgment, rising from the huddled body of the Kolder
officer. For a moment he caught at her upper arms,
drew her to him in what was not quite an embrace,
which he needed to assure himself that this was no
dream but truth. And he heard her laugh, that small
happy sound he had heard before upon occasion.

"I have me a warlock, a mighty warlock lord!" Her
voice was a whisper which could not have carried far
beyond the two of them.

"And I have me a witch, lady, with more than a
little power!" Into that he put all the pride he felt.

"So having paid tribute," now her tone was light
amusement for his sharing, "we advance to realities.
What do we have here, Simon? The nest of the Kol-
der in truth?"

"How many are with you?" Simon did not answer
her question, but went to the main point.

"No army, March Warder—two Sulcarmen to row me
ashore—and these I am pledged to return to their ship."

"Two!" Simon was astonished. "But the ship's crew—"

"No. Upon them we can not depend until the fleet
comes. What is to be done here?" She asked that briskly
as if indeed she had captained in a troop of his Bor-
derers.

"Very little." His amusement was irony. "Merely a
Kolder fortress to face—and their gate—"

"Lady!" A low but imperative call from the shore.

However, before they could answer, light—an eye-
dazzling beam of it, striking to the water, lashing a
path along the waves from which steam arose.

"Back!" Simon kept his hold on Jaelithe, drawing
her with him into rocks which rose more than their
height. He pushed her to her knees with an emphatic
order, "Stay!" And ran for the beach.

The boat was still drawn up on the shingle, a body
lying by it. There were startled cries.

"Get under cover—back here! Loyse—?"

He heard her answer from the left. "Here, Simon—
what is that?"

"Some Kolder deviltry—come!"

Somehow he blundered to her, pulled her along,
heard a curse in the Sulcar tongue as other figures
followed him.

When they reached the rocky space where he had
left Jaelithe, Simon found they were a party of six,
two Sulcarmen having dragged a silent third form with
them. As one they turned to watch the stormy display on
the bay. That light, whatever it might be, cut back and
forth with the precision of a weapon designed to make
sure nothing alive remained afloat on the surface it now
lashed. Under its touch the water boiled and frothed in-
to steaming foam.

On the strand was another fire where the skiff had
caught and burned as brightly as if it had been soaked
in oil. Simon heard Sulcar curses twice as hot from
the man crouched on his right.

But Jaelithe was already speaking into his ear, her
voice raised above the crackling of the display in the
bay.

"They will come, they are coming—"

Simon caught that warning himself, a tingling in his
bones. To get away from the bay was necessary. But
where to head in this maze of broken rock? The far-

ther from the Kolder keep for now the better. Simon
said as much.

"Aye!" That was the Sulcarman beside him. "Which
way then, lord?"

Simon stripped off the Kolder smock since he lacked
a belt. "Here." He thrust the end of that into the Sul-
carman's hold. "Take off your belt, let your mate take
the end of that. Through the dark it is best we go
linked. What weapons have you?"

"Dart guns, sea swords—we are marines, Lord."

Simon stifled a sound which dared not be laughter.
Side arms—against the Kolder wealth of weapons in
their home arsenal! However, night and the rough
ground might aid the fugitives.

They moved out, Jaelithe paired with him, Loyse with
one of the Sulcar marines, and the silent Aldis with
the last. They had tied her hands, but she had not
spoken since they had brought her from the shore, only
moving at their pushing. Simon argued against the
need of taking her with them, fearing betrayal. But
Jaelithe had protested, saying she might have some use.

Their pace, of a necessity, could not be fast, but
they were well away from the shore and the burning
boat by the time they saw lights gather there, scatter
out through the rocks marking a search. Simon kept
them behind what cover he could and his precautions
proved just. For they were in a pocket between two
knife-edged, jutting ridges when that searing light burst
over their heads.

The fugitives threw themselves face down, the heat
of that ray harsh on their backs, although it whipped
well above them. Back and forth across the country-
side it played, and they cowered in the cut they had
so luckily found. Then it flared on. Simon waited. This
shift might be a device to entice them into the open.
He sat up to watch the sky, studied the path of the
ray as reflected there. At last it vanished. Perhaps
the Kolder believed them caught and cooked.

There was one direction in which the enemy would
not dare to aim that weapon—towards whatever lay be-
hind the mesa to which he had watched those cater-
pillar trucks crawl. To head for that would give them
some insurance against being wiped out. He told them
of that.

"This gate—their gate—you think it lies there?" Jae-
lithe asked.

"Only a guess, but I believe it a good one. They
are either reaching through that again, or preparing to.
For some reason they must have contact with their
home world."

"And that is where we may also find most of their
fighters." One of the Sulcarmen observed.

"It is that—or the fortress. And frankly I would rather
be in the open than in that Kolder shell again."

The Sulcarman grunted what might be an assent to
that. "Open—that is best. Ynglin, this will be a night to
notch on the sword hilt before it is done."

"The sword of Sigrod has already been well notched,"
his fellow replied. "Lord, do we also take this woman
with us?"

"Yes!" Jaelithe answered first. "She is needful to us,
how I cannot yet see—but yet she will be needful."

Simon was willing to trust to Jaelithe's instinct in
this. Aldis had not even gasped when the heat ray
skimmed so close to their hiding place. Whether the
Kolder agent was in a state of shock, or whether she
was familiar with her masters' weapons and merely
waited for nemesis to catch up with the fugitives, Si-
mon could not tell. But he felt uneasy over the talis-
man she carried and what that might do to entangle
them again.

"We should take her Kolder symbol—" He spoke that
last thought aloud.

But again Jaelithe countered with: "No—in some way
that is a key and it may open doors for us. I do not
think it will work so, save when Aldis uses it. But no

thing of power is to be lightly discarded. And I shall
know if she tries to use it, that I shall surely know!"
The confidence in her words was complete, though Si-
mon still had shadowy reservations.

Again linked together they began a slow journey,
since none of them denied the wisdom of seeking the
bottom of each cut or canyon which led in the general
direction of the ulterior. In the dark Simon was the
guide, testing and feeling for each step at times. And
their progress was painfully slow.

At intervals they rested and all of them nursed bruises,
scrapes, a cut or two, from falls and slips among the
rocks. The dawn showed them as grimed and dirty
scarecrows. But with the early light also came sound . . .
Flattened on a rock slope they could watch, over the
spine of a ridge, a crawling vehicle, its arcs of light
cutting ahead to dazzle the fugitives' eyes. Simon sighed
with relief. His worst fear had been that they were
lost in this wilderness of rock. Now he believed they
must be close to what they sought.

This crawler was returning to the keep, empty of
supplies. Supplies. Simon swallowed. Food, water—both
in this barren country would be found only in Kolder
hands. Already the need of water pressed him; it prob-
ably was as hard for the others. Five of them and a
prisoner—and there the might of the Kolder. Perhaps
it would have been simpler to invade the keep.

"Simpler—" Jaelithe's answer was almost a part of
his own flow of thought. For seconds Simon did not
realize that it was not. "Perhaps simpler, but not the
right answer."

He glanced at her where she lay, her mail clad shoul-
der nearly rubbing against his. With her helm on her
head and the loose scarf of metal links depending from
it wound about chin and throat, half her face was
veiled. But her eyes met his squarely.

"Reading of thoughts?" Again she answered an un-
voiced question. "Not quite that, I think, rather that a

similar path is followed by us both. You are aware, too,
that this is necessary for our venture. And the answer
is not safety—not for us—but something far different."

"The gate!"

"The gate," she affirmed. "You believe that these
Kolder must have something from there to aid in what
they would do in our world. That I believe also, there-
fore they must not succeed."

"Which depends upon the nature of their gate."

The one which had brought Simon into this world
had been a very simple affair—a rough stone between
pillars of the same crudely hewn substance. A man sat
himself there so—hands at his sides fitting into depres-
sions such as also cupped his buttocks. He then waited
for dawn and the gate was open. The guardian of that
way had told Simon legends in the hours he had passed
of a long night waiting for the dawn. The tales told
that this was a stone of great story: the Siege Perilous of
Arthur's use, an enchanted stone which somehow read
a man's soul and then opened to him the world in which
he best fitted.

But whatever gate had let the Kolders through to de-
file this world had not been that land. And what five
of them could do to close it, Simon had not the least
idea. Only Jaelithe was also right—this was the thing
which must be done.

They skulked along the heights as the light grew
stronger, able to follow the marks of the caterpillar
trucks below. One of the marines climbed the mesa wall
to scout beyond. The others took turns in sleeping in
a hidden crevice. Only Aldis sat, staring before her,
her hands, though bound at the wrists, resting tight
against the Kolder talisman on her breast, as if such
touch brought her strength.

She had been a rarely beautiful woman, but now
she aged before their eyes, her flesh thinning until the
bones were stark in jaw and cheek, her eyes sunken
in ridged sockets. Her tangled golden hair was as in-

congruous as a girl's wig on an old woman. Since they
had begun the march her sight had never focused on
any of them; she might have been one of the pos-
sessed. Yet Simon thought it was not the quenching
of life which made her so, but rather a withdrawal to
some hiding place deep within her, from which spirit
and life would waken when the need came.

And so, for all her present passivity, she was to be
watched—if not feared. Loyse was the watcher and Si-
mon thought she took more than a little pleasure in
the knowledge that their roles were now reversed, that
it was she who controlled, Aldis who obeyed.

Simon lay with his eyes closed, but he could not
sleep. The energy he had expended in the Kolder keep
and after, instead of tiring him, seemed to set ferment
to working. He had the sensation of one faced with a
problem, clues close to hand, and the driving need to
solve it. More used to weapons he could hold, touch,
this new ability to work mentally kept his mind rest-
less, awoke uneasiness in him. He opened his eyes to
find Jaelithe watching him across the narrow cleft in
which they sheltered. She smiled.

And for the first time he wondered a little at the
form of their meeting. That barrier he had thought so
thick, growing thicker, had vanished utterly. Had it
ever been there at all? Yes—but now it seemed as if
it had existed for two other people, not for them.

She did not touch him by hand, or mind, but sud-
denly there was a flow of warmth and feeling about
him, in him, which he had never experienced before,
though he thought he had known the ultimate in union.
And under that caressing warmth he at last relaxed,
the pitch of awareness no less, but not so taut and
binding.

Was this what Jaelithe had known as a witch, what
she had missed and then thought she had found again?
Simon understood perfectly how great that loss must
have seemed.

Scrape of boot on rock— Simon was on his feet, look-
ing to the end of the crevice. Sigrod swung down. He
pulled off his tight-fitting, crestless helm, wiped his
arm across his sweating face. His cheeks were flushed.

"They are there right enough, a whole camp of them—
mostly possessed. They have a thing set up." He was
frowning a little as if trying to find the words in his
seaman's vocabulary to best describe what he had seen.
Then he used his fingers to support description. "There
are pillars set so . . ." Forefinger pointed vertically. "And
a crosspiece—so." A horizontal line. "It is all made of
metal, I think—green in color."

Loyse moved. She jerked aside one of those hands
Aldis kept folded over her Kolder talisman, displaying
a part of the alien symbol. "Like this?"

Sigrod leaned closer, eyeing the talisman carefully.

"Aye, but it is big. Four—five men can march through
at once."

"Or one of those crawling vehicles of theirs?" Simon
asked.

"Aye, it will take one of those. But that is all there
is to it—an archway out in bare country. Everything
else well away from it."

"As if it is to be avoided," Jaelithe commented. "Yes,
they must be dealing with strange and powerful forces
here. Dangerous forces if they strive to open such a
passage."

An archway of green metal, alien technology to be
unleashed through it. Simon made his decision.

"You," he nodded to the crewmen, "will remain here
with the Lady Loyse. If we do not return within a
full day strike for the shore. Perhaps there you can
find that which will take you to sea and so escape—"

Their protests were ready, he could read them in
their eyes, but they did not attempt to deny his au-
thority. Jaelithe smiled again, serenely. Then she stooped
and touched Aldis on the shoulder.

Though she did not exert any other direction, the

Kolder agent rose in turn and moved to the end of the
crevice, Jaelithe behind her. Simon sketched a half
salute, but his words were for Loyse.

"Your part in this is done, Lady. Go with fortune."

She, too, was all protest which she did not utter.
Then she nodded.

"To you, also, fortune—"

They did not look back as they began that long tramp,
about the base of the mesa so that they might come
upon the Kolder camp from the south. The sun was
already warm on the twisted rocks about them. It might
make this land a furnace before they were out of it.
Out of it where? In hiding near the Kolder gate—or—?
Somehow Simon was now sure that the gate was not
their only goal.

17        BLASTED WORLD

THE SUN was high and, as Simon had foreseen, hot, so
that the weight of mail shirt on his shoulders was a
burden. He had twisted his Kolder smock about his
head turban-wise in place of his missing helm, but the
heat beat at his brain as he looked to the Kolder gate.
As with the Siege Perilous in Petronius' garden so long
ago, he could see nothing beyond it but the same desert
of rock. Did this one also need a certain time of day to
activate it? He judged that the gate was complete, for no
one worked there. Though men lay about the camp site
as if struck down in exhaustion.

"Simon!"

Jaelithe and Aldis were in the shadow of a rock pin-

nacle, sheltered in the only way possible from the glare
of this grim waste. The Kolder agent was on her feet,
looking not to her companions, but straight out through
the shimmering heat waves to the gate. Her hands
were again over the Kolder talisman. But her face had
come alive. There was an avid eagerness in her ex-
pression, as if all she had ever wanted lay just before
her for the taking. She began to walk forward at a
pace which quickened as she went.

Simon would have intercepted her, but Jaelithe raised
a warning hand. Aldis was out in the open now, pay-
ing no heed to the heat or the sun, her tattered robe
streaming behind her as she began to run.

"Now!" Jaelithe was running in turn and Simon
joined her.

They were closer to the gate than those in the camp,
and for part of that distance they would be screened
from sight as the Kolder party sheltered behind two
of the crawler trucks and some of the piled boxes.

It was the gate which was drawing Aldis, and,
though she had stumbled and drawn back during their
journey about the mesa, she showed no signs of fatigue
now. In fact her speed of flight was almost superhu-
man as she pulled ahead of both her pursuers.

There was a shout from the camp. Simon dared not
turn his head for they had come upon a smoothed
stretch over which Aldis sped like a winged thing. He
doubted if he could match her pace, though Jaelithe
was not too far behind her. The gate structure loomed
taller in the heat waves.

Jaelithe put on a burst of speed which allowed her
to grasp Aldis' torn robe. The fabric ripped the more
under her clutch and the other's struggles, but she
held fast, although Aldis still pulled her towards the
gate. Simon pounded up, his heart beating heavily in
his chest, unsteady on his feet from the effort.

Something crackled overhead. Only one of Aldis'
wild plunges took them out of the path of that. They

were under fire from the camp and in the open they
were easy targets. Simon could see only one possible
escape. With all his strength he threw himself against
both of the women as they struggled, and so rushed
the three of them under the crossbar of the gate.

It was plunging from midday into night in a single
instant. The sensation of venturing where his kind had
no right to go lasted for seconds which were eternity.
Then Simon fell into gloom with a lash of rain beat-
ing across his body. While overhead crackled such a
display of lightning that he was dazzled blind when
he raised his head. Jaelithe lay within the circle of his
arm and she twisted about, her cheek now close to
his.

Water washed about them, dashed into their faces
as if they lay in the bed of a swiftly rising stream. Si-
mon gasped and pulled himself up, dragging Jaelithe
along. Then she cried out something drowned by the
drumming of the storm. By a lightning flash Simon
could see that other body, the water striking against
it as it lay crosswise, damming the stream. He reached
for Aldis. Her eyes were closed, her head rolled limply.
Simon thought that he might be carrying a corpse, but
he brought her up from the bed of the rapidly fill-
ing stream.

They were in a valley between high walls and the
water was pouring down very fast. Objects bobbed on
its surface, arguing of a flash flood. Simon struggled
to the wall and eyed it for possible footholds. They
were there but to make that ascent with Aldis was a
task which exhausted them both. So that once at the
top of the rise he lay again with Jaelithe, his back to
the rain, his head pillowed on his arm as he breathed
in great sobs.

Neither of the women stirred as at last he levered
himself up to gaze about. The sky was dark and the
rain continued to pour. Not too far away loomed a bulk

promising shelter. Simon shook Jaelithe gently until
she blinked up at him.

"Come!" Perhaps she did not hear that word in the
fury of the storm but she wavered to her hands and
knees and then to her feet with his support. He got
her under cover and went back for Aldis.

It was only when he returned that Simon was aware
of the nature of their quarters. This was no rock nor
crevice cave such as they had used for refuge in the
Kolder territory, but a building. Lightning flashes re-
vealed only fragmentary glimpses of the remains. Re-
mains because in the far end of the room in which
they stood the roof was partly ripped away, the wall
had a great gash down it.

That the break was old was apparent by the strag-
gling bunches of grass which had rooted here and
there on the broken flooring. And, in spite of the fresh-
ness of the rain-filled wind, there was a musty smell
to the whole place.

Simon moved cautiously down the length of the room
to that break. There was debris on the floor, twice he
nearly lost his footing in a stumble. He trod upon some-
thing which crackled and broke under his weight, and
caught a glint of lightning flash. With his hands he felt
about, Fabric—something rotten which went to slimy
shreds, making him wipe his hands on a bunch of grass.
Then metal—a rod. Simon picked that up and came
back to the doorway where the gloom of the storm
seemed lessening, or maybe his sun-dazzled eyes were
now adapting to it.

What he held could only be a weapon, he decided.
And it bore some resemblances to the rifle of his own
world. There was a stock and a barrel. But the metal
was lighter in weight than that of any firearm he had
known.

Jaelithe had her hand on Aldis' forehead.

"Is she dead?" Simon asked.

"No, she must have hit her head when she fell. This

is the world from which the Kolders came?" There was
no fear in her voice, merely interest.

"It would seem so." One thing he was certain of:
they must not get too far from this spot, from where
they had come through the gate. To lose their way
meant perhaps no return.

"I wonder if there is any sign of the gate on this side."
As usual now Jaelithe's thoughts had followed his. "They
must have some guide if they come through and wish
to return again."

The wild storm was dying. The night-darkness which
had enveloped them when they had come through the
gate was now modified with a gray approaching dawn
light. Simon surveyed the terrain with the intentness of
a scout. This was not desert such as lay on the other side
of the gate. There were evidences of one time occupa-
tion of the country all about him, as if this had once
been thickly settled land. What he had first believed
rocky hills on the other side of the cut, turned out to be
the shells and ruins of buildings.

There was a familiarity about all this. He had seen
such before when armies had fought their ways across
France and Germany years ago. War-torn—or at least
visited by some great disaster. And sometime in the past,
for vegetation grew among the ruins, rank and high, as
if the very destruction of those buildings had provided
fertilizer for the plants and shrubs.

No sun showing yet, but the light was that of full day.
By that he could see the scars cutting deep into the
ruins, where the very ground seemed frozen in a curdled
slag, and the nightmare of his own world hovered. Atomic
war? Radioactive land? Yet on a closer inspection Simon
did not believe so. An atomic bomb would not have left
buildings still erect on the edges of those congealed
puddles, taken half a structure and spared the balance
to stand as a ragged monument. Some other weapon—

"Simon!"

He did not need Jaelithe's alerting whisper for he had

seen that movement behind a ruined wall. Something
alive, large enough to be formidable, perhaps on the stalk,
was moving in the general direction of the hideout Jae-
lithe's hand went to her belt where sword and knife still
hung. Simon looked for the weapon he had found on the
floor.

Its similarity to a rifle, in spite of its light weight, made
him consider it seriously. But the narrow opening in the
barrel puzzled him—too small to emit even the needle
darts of the Estcarpian sidearms. What had been the
purpose of that slender tube? Simon held it in firing
position. There was no trigger, merely a flat button. And,
without believing there would be any result, Simon
pressed that.

The bush on which he had sighted the alien weapon
shivered, rain water shaking from the leaves. The whole
plant quivered and it continued to quiver while Simon
watched, hardly believing what he saw. Now the limbs
bent earthward, the growth was withering, the leaves
shriveling up, the stems twisting visibly. He heard a
gasp from Jaelithe as the mass was at last still, a seared
and wrinkled lump on the ground. There had been no
sound, no visible ray—nothing, save that result of his fir-
ing the alien gun.

"Simon! Something coming—" Jaelithe looked beyond
the withered bush.

He could see nothing; but feeling—that was different
The sense of danger grew acute. Her hand touched the
arm which still supported the weapon.

"Be ready." On the words came another sound from
her throat, low—no words—just a murmur.

Cover—three good patches of cover out there. What-
ever lurked could hide in all or any. Jaelithe's purring
call was louder. He had once seen her spill a Kolder am-
bush out of hiding; was she trying the same tactics now?

The alert in him was reaching a climax. Then—

From all three covers they came, running silently.
One from behind a wall, another from a thick brush, the

last from behind a half-fallen building. They were men

—or, Simon corrected that as they came into plain sight

—they had the general appearance of men. Rags of cloth-
ing still covered parts of their bodies, but that only
added to the horror, rather than made them more hu-
man. For those bodies were thin, arms and legs showing
as bone covered with skin, no flesh or muscle under-
neath. The heads they held high on stick necks were
skulls. It was as if the ruins had given up the long dead
to stalk the living.

Simon swung up the alien rifle, swept it across that
trio. For some heart-choking seconds he thought that the
first firing had exhausted whatever strange ammunition
that weapon held. Then they halted their silent rush,
stumbling only a step or two farther. Their bodies jerked
as the bush had quivered.

They were no longer silent, instead there came a thin,
high, squealing unlike any human speech, as they
jerked and danced, until they toppled to lie still. Simon
fought down the nausea which was a bitter taste in his
mouth. He heard Jaelithe cry out, and he put his arm
about her, drawing her close so they clung together.

"So—"

Both of them were startled by the voice from behind.
Aldis, on her feet, one hand steadying her against the
cracked wall, came to the door of the building. The smile
on her face, as she looked out at the row of doubly dead
added to Simon's sickness. It accepted that scene and
was pleased by it.

"They still live then—the last garrison?" She paid no
attention to either Jaelithe or Simon; they might not
have existed. "Well, their vigil is about to end."

Jaelithe moved out of Simon's hold. "Who were these?"
She asked in a voice which demanded an answer.

Aldis did not turn her head. Still smiling, she con-
tinued to study the dead.

. "The garrison—those left to hold the last barrier. Of
course, they did not know that that was their only duty—

just to hold while the Command reached safety. They
believed, poor fools, that it was only a withdrawal to re-
form, that help would reach them. But the Command
had other problems." She laughed. "However, this is a
surprise for the Masters, for it seems they have held
longer than was expected."

How could she know all this? Aldis was not Kolder
born. In fact, as far as any knew, there were no women
at all among the Kolder. But somehow Simon did not
doubt that it had happened just as she said. Jaelithe
made a small gesture with her hand as a scout might
wave caution.

"There are more—"

Again he did not need her warning. The sense of dan-
ger had not greatly lessened. But he could sight no move-
ment about the stretch of open ground before them. And
this time Jaelithe did not strive to bring them out. In-
stead, she turned to gaze at the cut from which they had
climbed.

"They gather—but not against us—"

There was a sound from Aldis—not a laugh, but a titter
which scaled past the bounds of sanity.

"Oh, they wait," she agreed. "They have waited, a long
time they have waited. And now come those who would
hunt for us—only there will be a second hunt." Again that
titter which was worse than any cry of pain or terror.

But what she said was not insane; it made sense. The
Kolder could be coming through the gate to hunt for
the three of them. And these—these things—which lin-
gered here were gathering to meet them. Did the Kolder
know what they faced?

Simon gave a hasty glance along the edge of the drop.
To go out might make them the quarry for those who
were moving in. but only so could they see the gate in
action. And the nagging fear which had ridden him since
they had crashed through had been that return might
be denied.

There was a solid-looking base out there, perhaps it

had once supported a superstructure of which only a
single rod pointing skyward remained. With their backs
to that base they would have a vantage point from which
to watch the gate. Cradling the rifle in his arm, Simon
caught at Aldis and pulled her along, Jaelithe following
fleetly.

What Simon had believed during the storm to be a
stream bed now showed as the remnants of a pa\ed
road, half covered by falls of debris from the heights. A
stream still ran down its middle. A little to the right of
their present stand, but down on the level of the road, the
wall of the cut, on either side, had blocks of green metal
set as pillars.
"The gate," Simon said.

"And its defenders," Jaelithe added in a half whisper.
Those were to be seen now, moving along the cut. For
all their unearthly, unhuman aspect, they were setting
up an ambush with the cunning of intelligence, or what
had been born from intelligence which had once existed.
Here and there Simon marked such weapons as the one
he held in his own hands.
"They are coming through!"

There was no change in the metal pillars, no sign that
the gate was in use, until those men suddenly appeared
as if from the air itself. Possessed fighting men, yet they
showed caution as they fanned out, moved up the break.
There was no hint from those in hiding. And the con-
trolled warriors of the Kolder advanced without facing
attack. A full company of them came through, were well
along the cut from which every sign of those in ambush
had vanished. Now the nose of one of the crawlers ap-
peared, followed by the rest of its ponderously moving
bulk. One of the possessed at the controls, but beside
him a Kolder agent.

Around, from below, from across the cut, Simon sensed
that upsurge—an emotion in the air, dark and heavy.
"They hate—" Jaelithe whispered. "How they hate!"
"They hate," Aldis mimicked her tone. "But still they

wait. They have learned to wait, for that is what they
have lived to do."

A second truck crawled out of nothingness. Now the
invaders' foot force was well down the old road. This
second vehicle had a larger cabin on its body, the top of
which was a transparent dome. And in that sat true
Kolder, two of them—one wearing a metal cap.

The smoldering cloud of emotion was so strong now
Simon expected it to rise as a visible fog. But still those
in ambush made no move. A smaller party of possessed,
marched stolidly along—labor ready for the need.

Then—nothing more.

"Now!"

Sound, lower than thunder but with a bestial hate
which made it one with elements, which owed nothing
to intelligence or human understanding. The fury which
had been building boiled into action as the possessed
shivered, jerked, fell.

There was not enough room in the cut for the trucks
to turn. But the one bearing the Kolder officers re-
versed, crawled backward, so that the possessed who
followed it were crushed and broken beneath its treads.
Then the driver jerked and quivered in turn. He fell
out of sight in the cabin, yet still the truck retreated, or
strove to withdraw, though its backward run was now
far more unsteady. At last it crashed into one of the
piles of debris and slowly tilted, as the treads clawed
vainly to keep it upright.

The Kolder wearing the cap had not moved, even his
eyes remained closed. Perhaps it was his will which had
kept the truck going, even protected him and his fel-
lows now as neither seemed affected by the attack which
withered and slew those about them.

His companion turned his head from side to side,
studying the route. But no expression Simon could read
crossed his white face.

"They have what they want now," Aldis again with that

tittering laugh. "They have caught a master to give them
a key to the gate."

They had come out of hiding, those skeletons—the
bait of the Kolders drawing them free of caution. Many
of them were bare-handed as they swarmed about the
truck, strove to climb to the bubble-topped cabin.

Mewling cries—half that company fell back, their bod-
ies blackened, their limbs moving spasmodically. But still
more gathered, not quite as unwary now. Until several
came together, bearing with them a loop of metallic chain.
Three flings before it fell into position about the bubble.
Then fire ran around it in a spitting line. When that was
pulled away and they climbed again, there was no trouble.
The bubble shattered and they were at their prey.

Jaelithe covered her eyes. She had seen the sacking of
cities and the things done in Karsten when the Old Race
had been horned into outlawry. But this was something
she could not watch.

"Only one—" Aldis babbled, "he must be saved for the
key—they must have their key!"

The metal-capped Kolder hung limply in his captors'
clutches, his eyes still closed. The skeletons were gather-
ing along the cut, to form up as a grotesque demon army
behind that captive and those who held him. There were
the alien rifles among them, but others had armed them-
selves with the weapons of the possessed. And their hate
was still high and hot. Then, holding the Kolder to the
fore, they marched, as if a forgotten training was revived
in their union of purpose—for the gate.

Simon moved as the first of them stepped between
the pillars and vanished. The Kolder—now these—what
evil would be loosed in the world he had come to con-
sider his own?

"Yes, oh, yes!" Jaelithe cried. "A wind, then a whirl-
wind—and we must face the storm!"

18        KOLDER BESIEGED

ONLY THE DEAD lay in the cut, that sense of alien pres-
ence had accompanied that sinister army through the
gate. How many had been in that force? Fifty. A hun-
dred? Simon had not counted them, but he believed not
over a hundred. And what could so few do against the
entrenched might beyond? This was not to be a matter
of laying an ambush.

But the Kolder should be too occupied now to re-
member the fugitives, and this was the time to return
with the force before them.

"We go back—"

Aldis gave one of those eerie, tittering laughs. She
had crept away from them, was moving along the edge
of the ravine, looking at them over her shoulder, a sly
grin on her lips. Almost she was coming to resemble the
skeletal inhabitants of this land. The last vestiges of
beauty had been bleached from her.

"How will you go?" she called. "Door without key,
door you cannot batter down. How do you go, mighty
warrior and lady witch?"

She was running in a zigzag, fleetly, back into the
waste.

"After her!" Jaelithe scrambled by him. "Do you not
see? That talisman—it is the key—for her—for us!"

If she were right— Simon followed. Light as it was
to carry, the alien rifle was an awkward burden as they
smashed through brush. But he clung to it. In spite of
the veil of vegetation growing over the debris of the
buildings, the ruins were impressive. This had been, if
not a city, a fort or settlement of some size. And the

number of hiding places among the broken walls were
beyond counting. As he and Jaelithe burst into an open
space, Simon stopped her with an outthrust arm.

"Where?" He made the one word into a demand and
saw her gaze about with dawning comprehension. "She
might be within arm's distance or well away, but where?"
He hammered home the hopelessness of their unthink-
ing pursuit. This warren of ruins was made for endless
hide and seek.

Jaelithe raised her hands and cupped them over her
eyes, standing very still while her breathing quieted.
Simon did not quite know what she would do, but in
confidence he waited. She pivoted, part way around,
and then dropped her hands to point.

"Thus!"

"How do-?"

"How do I know? By what is not there—Kolder bar-
rier—and she wears the Kolder talisman."

A thin clue—there could be other Kolder traces in
this land. But it was the only one they had. Simon
nodded and accepted her guidance. It was a crooked
path Jaelithe set them, and it bored on into the mass of
ruins away from the cleft. Simon marked a back trail as
they went, blazing growths, or scratching stones. But
the time this chase was taking he regretted.

They came out on a large paved space, ringed by
buildings in a better state of repair than those nearer the
cut. There was a different look to these structures—not
quite the sealed appearance of the Kolder holds, yet with
some of their stark rigidity of design. Grace and beauty
in the sense his world knew them, Jaelithe's people
held, were totally foreign to the minds which had con-
ceived and built these. And any one of them might
provide Aldis with numerous hiding places.

"Where?" Simon asked.

Jaelithe put her hand on the top of a low wall which
ran about that open space. Her breath came fast and the
dark finger marks of fatigue under her eyes were plain.

They had drunk their fill of rain water in the storm, but
there had been no food for a long time. Simon doubted
if they could hold this pace much longer. And now Jae-
lithe shook her head slowly.

"I do ... not . . . know. It has gone from me—"
Her hurried breaths were close to sobs. Simon caught
her, drew her against him, and she came willingly as if
very grateful for his strength, his touch which held
comfort.

"Listen," he spoke softly, "do you think you could
sing her out, as you did in those in ambush?"

"We must. We must!" Her voice was a husky whisper
with an element of hysteria in it.

"And we can! Remember once—back in Kars when
there was need of shape-changing and you said that you
would call upon me for that which you needed to make
the ceremony a swift one? Now it will be the same: call
upon me for what you need."

She turned in his arms, though she did not step
away from him, only faced outward. And her fingers
grasped his in a grip which tightened with her need
for the effort. Once more she began to sing that song of
invocation which started as a hum and rose higher. And
Simon felt, as he had on that day in Kars, that flowing
from him, down his arms, through his hands, into her,
draining him so he used iron will to stand unmoving.

All this world became one with that sing-song, so that
he did not see the drab stones about him, nor the patches
of encroaching vegetation—only a kind of silvery sheen
which was within him and without him at once and the
same time. But there was no time either; only this—this
-this-

Then that chant which beat in his veins died, and he
saw again this deserted city. There was movement, some-
thing in the shadows. Coming into the open, crawling
. . . Aldis crawling. She did not try to get to her feet,
instead she collapsed and lay still. Jaelithe released her
hold on Simon.

"She is dead-"

Simon hurried to turn over the limp body. Blood, his
hands were wet with it, yet there was more flowing, so
much more. Her wan face was untouched but below,
the wound flowed blood.

And torn flesh was one with torn robe where she had
worn the Kolder talisman. Jaelithe cried out. But Simon
caught at one of the bruised hands which was a fist
tightened in death to still protect. He worked the rigid
fingers until he released what they had gripped to the
end of reason and life. Whatever had striven to tear from
Aldis the Kolder device had not succeeded in winning
its desire. She had lost her life in that battle, but not
what she had fought to retain. He held the talisman.

"Come." Simon stood up, his eyes searching the win-
dows, the doors, for any sign of the one or ones Aldis
had met here.

Jaelithe stooped and pulled a fold of the torn robe
across the body, veiling the ravaged face and the wound
on the breast. Then she made a sign in the air above its
quietness.

They worked their way back to the cut at the best
pace they could muster. Simon watched the back trail,
unable to believe that they would not be stalked by
whatever had killed Aldis. Had the possession of the
Kolder talisman brought on that assault? He believed that
it had, and that it might draw the same fate after them.
The possessed dead lay in the broken road. There was
no sign that anyone had passed this way since they had
left hours earlier. Only the shadows were longer, the
signs of approaching night clear.

They climbed down into the cut and stood on the
cracked surface of the road where the wrecked crawler
slewed to close it off. There were the pillars marking
the gate, the dusk making the green somber streaks.
Simon raised his hand, the palm cupping the Kolder
talisman, and Jaelithe set her hands on his shoulders,

keeping such contact with them as they approached the
gate.

Would the talisman take them past? They had been
three together when they had made the other crossing.
And the skeleton army had needed the Kolder to see
them through. Simon walked on.

He did not know what to expect, but he was not sur-
prised when the object in his hand grew cold and colder
—this was akin to the Kolder barrier against mind reach-
ing. But Aldis had not been Kolder by blood and it
worked for her.

Another step and they were both between those wall
strips. Once more the shaking, wrenching sense of be-
ing whirled into a nothingness which was highly inimical
to their kind—then through it. Simon staggered forward.
He was on his hands and knees on rock still warm from
the sun of a baking day, Jaelithe beside him.

Sunset was not complete enough to hide what lay
before them. There had been a battle here. And it had
not all been the way of the other world force as it had
on the other side of the gate. The rock was not only
heated by sun, great ribbons of black scorch lay back and
forth across the whole plain of the gate and there were
things lying there . . .

Simon wavered to his feet, stooped to bring Jaelithe
up in turn. Nothing before them moved, this had been
left to the dead. What he was going to do now might
be the wrong thing, but it was the only blow he could
see to strike for the freedom of this world against the
Kolder and what the Kolder had drawn upon this world.

He raised the alien rifle and fired whatever energy
it controlled at the base of the nearer of the gate columns.
For a moment in the half light he thought that either the
charge was exhausted or that it had no effect upon the
structure. Then came a shimmering, licking up from his
point of target, running along all that side, coming to the
bar at the top, across it, down the opposite pillar. Shim-
mering became sparkling motes drifting apart.

Simon cried out and dropped the weapon. His hand
—his hand!

The Kolder talisman which had still been in his grasp
when he fired that shot or ray fell from him, leaving his
flesh blackened and burning! It rolled out midpoint be-
tween the gate posts shimmering into nothing—to ex-
plode in a flash of green fire. But the gate was also gone
and they looked upon barren space.

Together they staggered on to where the Kolder camp
had been, where there was still a huddle of machines and
about them things neither wished to see clearer; they
were thankful the light was half cut away by the shadow
of the mesa. Simon lurched to the ground by one of the
crawlers, his hand pressed against him, much as Aldis had
always pressed the talisman to her. He was only aware of
the pain, pain mixed with a rising weakness so that he
could not think clearly, pain beyond enduring save for
the space of a breath, and another, and another—

Then the pain was not so great, or else he had become
accustomed to it, as a man might come accustomed to any
torment which lasted. He tasted water and after that a
solid substance was put between his lips and a voice
urged him to eat. How long had he been apart in that
place of pure pain? Simon did not know. But now his
head cleared and he knew that it was dark and nearly as
cold as the day had been hot, that his head rested on
Jaelithe's knee, and that she was striving to wake him,
her voice first only a low murmur and then her words
making sense.

"... coming. We cannot stay here—"
It was so good just to lie so, the fiery torment in his
hand reduced to a dull pain. Simon strove to move his
fingers  and  found  there was  a bandage  about them.
Luckily, he thought dreamily, it was his left hand.

"Please, Simon!" More than a plea—a half command.
Jaelithe's hands on his cheeks, gently moving his head
back and forth. Then her arm slipped under his neck,
striving to raise him. Simon protested.

"We must go!" She leaned closer over him. "Please,
Simon—there is someone coming!"

Memory flooded back, he sat up. The pool of shadow
which had been there when he collapsed was now inky,
all light cut off by the bulk of the mesa. He did not
question her warning as he pulled himself to his feet,
leaning on the crawler's track. For a moment he nursed
a dim hope of using the machine, then he knew that he
would not understand its controls. Once erect Simon
found himself steadier than he had first thought. He
moved out with Jaelithe, stumbling over the ruts left by
the crawlers.

"Who comes? Kolder?"

"I think not-"

"Those others?"

"Perhaps. Do you not feel it too?"

But if there was anything to be sensed in the night it
remained a secret to Simon and he said so. For the first
time in many hours he remembered those they had left
when they began this last weird adventure. "Loyse—
the Sulcarmen?"

"I have striven to reach them. But there are new forces
loosed here, Simon, things strange to me. I cannot pierce
a barrier, then—suddenly it is gone! Only to rise im-
mediately in another place. It is my thought that Kolder
fights for its life, that those who share that blood are us-
ing all weapons to their hands—some material, some out-
side our reckoning. That which came out of the wilder-
ness beyond the gate is still alive to hate, to hunt. And if
we do not wish to be caught up in this struggle we must
keep aloof. For Kolder fights that which is also Kolder, or
what gave birth to Kolder, and this is no war such as our
world has seen before."

As he moved on, Simon's strength continued to return.
Jaelithe had plundered the camp for rations; she told him
of that quietly and he felt her horror of what she had seen
on that quest. So again he drew her to him, and they
went on with his arm about her shoulders, his bandaged

hand resting on her lightly, momentarily content that
they could go thus, divided in neither mind nor body.
They were rounding the bulk of the mesa to reach
the place where they had left Loyse and the Sulcarmen
when a stone, rattling down the side of that table land,
made   Simon   sweep   Jaelithe   behind   him.   He   had
dropped the alien rifle by the gate, but he still had the
knife Jaelithe had given him. And now as he listened,
that was ready in his good hand.
"Sul—" Not a battle cry but a whisper in the dark.
"Sul!" Simon replied.

More stones fell and then a figure swung down with
the agility of a man used to making bis way about ship's
rigging.

"Sigrod," he identified himself. "We saw you come
out of nowhere back there, Lord. But there have been
demons in these hills and they destroy aught that moves,
so we dared not join you. Ynglin has the Lady Loyse in
good hiding and I have come to guide you."
"What has happened?"

Sigrod laughed. "What has not, Lord! These Kolder
pushed through that gate and were gone as if they had
used a spell for becoming nothing before a man's eyes!
Then—why, it was like all Demon Night opening. Out
came those others, marching as an army of dead risen
out of their graves to bring swords for a cause as dead
as they! They came down upon the Kolder camp and
—this is the truth I speak, I swear by the Waves of Asper
that it be sol—they looked at a man and he shriveled
up and died, as if a frost storm or a fire had shot upon
him. Witchcraft, Lady, but such as I have never seen in
Estcarp.

"They overran the camp as if those within it had not
the power to raise hand to sword or shoot a single dart.
Then there came the same lightning as strove to seek us
out when we left the shore, and that smote and smote
again, catching many of the demons and rendering them
once more of the earth. But others went on, taking with

them a Kolder, and they were traveling toward the sea.
Since then there have been strange things in that direc-
tion. Only from this height have I seen something to
sea. Lady, your sending has been obeyed—for there are
sails showing!"

Simon functioned again as a field officer. "And if the
fleet runs into that fire—" He put his worry into words.
A warning—but how could they deliver that? Would the
Kolder, if they were beleaguered in their own hold,
weaken their defense to use the lashing fire at a new, sea-
borne enemy in a three-cornered fight? And what of the
skeletons? Would it make any difference to them wheth-
er they hunted Kolder or stood up to a new foe? He
must know more of what was going on.

They held council after they joined Ynglin and Loyse
in a rock-walled cave.

"There is a way to gain the coast without too much
effort," Ynglin reported, "and I, for one, feel the safer
with water nearby. This country is too well made for the
hunting games which favor the pursuer as well as the
pursued. There have been no more fire lashings for some
time now. Also we have seen only a few of these wan-
dering bags of bones slinking about. They prowl as if they
would sniff up some trail; they do not show the fear of
broken men who run from a strong enemy."

"Maybe they have the Kolder besieged in the keep,"
Simon speculated. "If so—to go seaward might take us
into them." He tried to think. The fleet out there—no
one ever claimed that Sulcarmen were stupid. They
would not run recklessly headlong into a Kolder den,
knowing only too well the nature of the enemy and the
traps which might lie before them. But this was a good
chance, which, if handled right, might stamp out evil
once and for all.

He did not believe they could erect another gate in
a hurry, not while harassed by these creatures from their
own past. Therefore, that retreat was closed to them. A
siege. But guesses were not enough; he had to know

more and that meant seeing the site of the present ac-
tivity—the coast and the Kolder keep.

"A scout," he began, when Jaelithe spoke.

"We must go together, all of us. Also, the sea is our
answer."

Was that her thought—or his? The sea could be their
answer, giving them a chance not only to communicate
with the fleet but to scout the Kolder. Simon agreed.

They set out along the way the Sulcarmen had
marked during that time when with Loyse they had re-
mained in hiding. It was rough going and in the dusk
perhaps doubly dangerous. But night had not yet deep-
ened into full dark and they made the best time they
could. The Sulcarmen had raided the Kolder camp be-
fore Simon and Jaelithe had returned and the supplies
from there, meager as they were, gave them renewed
vigor and energy.

Simon took advantage of several rest halts to climb
above and try to sight the fleet. At his second failure he
commented on that and Sigrod chuckled.

"Aye, they are doubtless coasting. That is a raiding
trick which always serves us well. They have split the
fleet in twain, each half turning stern to the other. There
will be one scouting north and the other south to find
a landing."

Simon brightened. He knew next to nothing of naval
tactics, and his acquaintance with Sulcar fighting meth-
ods had been limited to their service ashore. But this in-
formation was helpful. If even one of those divisions now
sailing north and south could be contacted ... He began
to question the two marines. They might not be able
to reach those now heading north, but the southern half
of the fleet was headed in their own direction, and there
was an excellent possibility it could be signaled from
shore. Ynglin volunteered to try.

Then Simon went on—with the keep as his goal.

19        DRINK SWORD-UP SHIELD

"To SHAKE them out of that, Lord, you will need more
than a fleet. Such walls cannot be wished away." Sigrod
lay belly down on the rock peak beside Simon regarding
the sealed enigma of the Kolder hold.

There was movement below. Apparently those who
had come through the gate were gathered before those
unscalable, unbreachable walls, willing to wait. Though
in a matter of siege Simon thought the Kolder had all the
advantage. The force without had no supplies and this
was a totally barren land. Perhaps they believed that they
would still withdraw through the gate. How long before
they discovered that no longer existed?

Wish away walls—that comment remained in Simon's
mind. All in all, since he had been here he had seen
only four of the true Kolder—the two in the hold and
the two who had manned the crawler into ambush. And
two of those were dead. Of the others he believed that
the one in the cap with whom he had dueled long
range from the shore might serve the purpose he was
beginning to formulate. If that one still lived. But could
he be reached and how effective would such a try
be? Simon signaled a return to where they had left
Loyse and Jaelithe.

They listened to him as he not really outlined any
concrete plan, but thought aloud.

"These capped ones—they control the rest?" asked
Sigrod.

"At least they give orders and control much of the

installation, of that I am sure. The aliens brought one
with them; they used him to get through the gate."

"But he did not take them into the keep," Jaelithe
pointed out, "or they would not be down there now
with the walls held against them."

"He might have been killed in the assault on the
camp," Loyse suggested.

"And this other one, whom you fought," Jaelithe con-
tinued, "you believe that you can reach him by the
power, compel him to do your will?"

"We might," Simon corrected.

"So open the doors for those demons?" Sigrod nodded.
"But let those get within and the nut is still shelled
for our cracking. They were Kolder, too, is that not so,
Lord? Then what if we have only exchanged one set
of Kolder for another?"

"Yes," Simon admitted the justice of that. "Therefore
we hope that Ynglin will be able to bring us reinforce-
ments and we wait."

Much of this warfare with the Kolder was based
on waiting, Simon decided. And waiting was the most
tiring of all a fighting man's duties—war was full of
"hurry up and wait." He rolled over on his back and
lay looking up into what was now the thick dark of
a cloudy night sky.

"I will take the first watch, Lord." Sigrod started up
slope again. Simon grunted assent, still considering the
problem ahead, chafing because—as so much else since
he had ridden out of the South Keep weeks ago—this
must depend on chance. Could one will good fortune
or ill? His thoughts slid in another direction. Were the
old witchcraft tales of his own world true so one could
aim ill luck to strike an enemy as he might fire a
dart?

A hand on his forehead, stroking back the sweat-
dampened locks of hair which clung damply to his skin.

"Simon." She could always make of his name a singing,

an intimate reaching of one to the other. "Simon—" No
more than that, just his name.

He reached up and caught that brushing hand with
his unbandaged fingers, brought it down against his
cheek and then to his dry lips. There was no need for
any more words between them. Theirs had always been
an inarticulate love, but perhaps, Simon believed, the
deeper for its very wordlessness. And now the last
vestige of that barrier between them had vanished. He
knew that she had those depths and silences to which
she must withdraw upon occasion, that he meant none
the less to her because of those withdrawals. They
were a part of her and so to be accepted. No one could
ever occupy all of another's thoughts and emotions.
There were parts of him which would be closed to
her also. But to take without question what she did
have to give, and offer in return, freely and without
jealousy, all he had—that was what their union meant.

"Rest." Her hand went back from his lips to his head,
soothingly. Simon knew that she had matched him
thought for thought in wordless communication. His
eyes closed and he surrendered to sleep.

There was the Kolder keep, sealed as Yle had been
sealed, and from this height they could also see the
forces from the gate drawn up about it. Nothing had
changed during the night.

"They have not used the fire whip again," Sigrod
observed.

"Might not dare to so close to their own walls,"
Simon returned.

"Or else it is exhausted."

"That we cannot count upon."

"They lost a lot of the possessed back there. Too
many perhaps to try a sally. How long do you think
they will keep sitting here like this?"

Simon shrugged. Could you judge the Kolder by
any standard he knew? They might well be able to go

without food and water, to squat stubbornly at the ene-
my gates for days, weeks—

"Simon?"

Jaelithe's face was turned up to his as he looked back
and down. Her eyes were alight and there was an
eagerness in her expression,

"A sending, Simon! Our people come!"

He glanced at the sea but the bay was free of ships;
there were no sails on the horizon. Then he slid down
into the hollow behind the scout point. Jaelithe was
facing south, her head up. Loyse looked to the older
woman as she would to a beacon of hope.

"Sigrod!"

"Aye, Lord?"

"Head south. Pick up those who come. Have them
circle inland and come up behind us, so—" Simon clari-
fied his order with gestures.

"Aye!" The Sulcarman slipped away into the broken
country.

Loyse plucked at Jaelithe's mail sleeve. "Koris?" Her
- lips shaped that name rather than spoke it aloud.

There was a half smile on Jaelithe's face as she made
answer.

"That I cannot say, little sister. That Koris' ax will
swing for you—as it has swung—that is truth. But that
it will do so here, that I can not tell you."

Once more a waiting. They sipped from the water
container taken from the crawler, shared out mouth-
fuls of the dry dust which was yet food, also from the
Kolder camp. And, as the sun climbed, they continued
to wait. But the sun was battling clouds, and its glare
did not reach into their hole to scorch them. Before
midday it was blotted out entirely. Simon manned
the sentry post on the crag, seeing no change below.
The Kolder fortress remained sealed, the attackers
waited with a super or unhuman patience in their own
chosen cover.

Shortly after midday Sigrod came down through the

rocks, a tail of fighting men at his back. Mostly they
were Sulcarmen, used to shore raiding, but with them
also a scattering of hawk-headed helms marking Fal-
coners, and one party of dark-featured men who came
quickly to Simon, a hard core of his Borderers.

"Lord!" Ingvald lifted sword hilt in salute. He looked
about him at the broken terrain. "This Be a land to
favor our fighting."

"Let us hope that that is so," rejoined Simon.

They held a council of war—four Sulcar captains with
the pick of their fighting crews, the corps from the Bor-
derer guard, the Falconers, so far from their own
mountains but at home in this country like to those
peaks. And Simon laid before them the only plan which
he thought might open the Kolder keep.

"This can be done?" Captain Stymir asked, but not
as if he greatly doubted the doing. Sulcar knew too
much of the witches of Estcarp. Only the Falconers
held aloof from magic—their avoidance of women and
all the powers of women making them fear more than
accept such weapons.

"We can only try," Simon replied. He looked to Jae-
lithe now and she gave an almost imperceptible nod.

From among the outer ranks of the men came an-
other figure who had just caught up with the main
body of the troops. As those about her she was mailed
and helmed, but she also wore the gray surcoat of Est-
carp and above it rested the dull gem of witchhood.

She pushed to the fore and gazed from Simon to
Jaelithe and studied Jaelithe the longer.

"This you believe you can do?" she asked and Simon
heard a note of derision in that inquiry.

"This we can do!" Jaelithe made a ringing promise of
her answer. "We have done much else in the past
days, sister."

A frown on the witch's face. Plainly she did not
relish Jaelithe's title of kinship and equality. But she
was willing to wait, to wait for them to fail, Simon be-

lieved. And her attitude awoke in him the same defi-
ance, though perhaps not to a like degree, that Jae-
lithe's tone had made plain. Perhaps it was that de-
fiance which gave added force to his try now.

He built up his mind-picture of the room in the keep—
of the two Kolder who had faced him there. Then he
narrowed that vision to the one in the cap. His will
became a solid, thrusting thing, as tangible and dead-
ly as a dart or sword blade.

That will reached out—sought—and found! His first
fear was proven needless, the man of the cap lived.
Alive, yes, but that which had been within him was
empty—gone. Empty space could be filled for the nonce
—with purpose! Simon's will entered in, and behind that
flowed a vast building strength which fed and enlarged
and worked at one with him—Jaelithe!

Simon was no longer aware of the rocks and the
waiting men, of the witch's scornful face, even of Jae-
lithe, save as that other force which was also a part of
him. The will ran into the emptiness of the Kolder,
making him wholly theirs—as possessed as had been
the slaves he and his kind had taken from Gorm,
Karsten, Sulcar, all the other nations of this world they
strove to bring under their rule.

Somewhere within the keep the Kolder was on the
move now, answering the commands given him. A sim-
ple one to begin with: Open the close. Let in disaster.
And, being no longer Kolder but possessed, he obeyed.
Simon caught hazy glimpses of that obedience—of
hallways, rooms—once of a man who strove to stand
between and so died. But always the obedience.

Then came a final act, a picture of a board over-
hung with lights, on it many controls. And the Kol-
der's hands moved, pressed buttons, touched levers.
With his actions the defense of the keep faltered . . .
died.

Then there was a sharp darkness and nothing— Simon
recoiled from that nothingness, a cold terror gripping

him. He was out in the open under gathering clouds,
his hands clasped in Jaelithe's and the two of them star-
ing into each other's wide eyes, the horror of that last
encounter with non-being upon them both.

"He is dead." Not Jaelithe, but the witch saying that.
And she was no longer aloof, but something of that
terror was in her face. But her hand came up in a
small salute for their sharing. "You have done as you
said."

Simon moved stiff lips. "Was it enough?"

"Sul!" That cry from the spy perch. "Those demons,
they are on the move!"

They were on the move, indeed. For there was a
gap in the foundation of the keep, a break in the wall.
And into that break streamed the skeletons from the
gate world. They made no outcry, merely surged for-
ward. Half the party were through when a shield
dropped, catching two of the invaders between it and
the earth in its crushing descent. These behind aimed
their withering rifles at the lower edge, still kept from
sealing by the bodies. And the gate shivered at that
point, fell apart in jagged pieces as the rest of the skele-
tons beat upon it.

"Down and in!" One of the captains whirled his sword
over his head, answered by the full-throated, "Sul! Sul!"
of the raiders he commanded. The wave of the Estcarpian
force flowed down the slope.

It was not pretty that taking of the heart of Kolder.
And it was more a hunt than a battle. Strange weapons
slew men and skeleton alike in those narrow hallways as
they fought from room to room. But then those weap-
ons failed as if the heart of Kolder missed a beat.

And, when Simon and his Borderers, together with a
detachment of Falconers, fought their way into the room
with the control board that heart ceased altogether. For
the capped men there, six of them, died together and
the great board went dead with them.

Then the second battle began, for the skeletons from

the gate turned upon the Estcarpian men. Warriors with-
ered and died, but darts and swords could slay also.

Outside a storm raged over the barren land and in-
side, at last, that other and bloodier storm was stilled.
Men wearied and sick of killing, men dazed from the
deaths of those they held in close comrade or kinship,
men unable to believe that this was the heart of Kolder
and they had truly severed it with sword, dart and ax,
drifted one by one into the hall where were the controls.
"Kolder is dead!" Stymir tossed his ax into the air and
caught its haft, to wave it in an exultant circle. Behind
him others fired as they understood what had been
done this day—in spite of cruel losses.

"Kolder is dead!" Jaelithe echoed him. With the witch
and Loyse she had entered the hold as part of the rear-
guard. "But the evil it has sown lives still. And this—
perhaps others will rise to use this." She motioned to the
controls.

"Not so!" The witch had taken her gem from about
her throat and held it out at eye level facing the board,
"Not so, sister. Let us make sure of that!"

There was a flush on Jaelithe's usually pale cheeks as
she moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with the witch.
Together they stared at the gem. The light in the walls
had been slowly dimming, so that the chamber was
dusky instead of brightly alight as it had been when
they first found it.

But now there was suddenly bright sparkling on the
board. Sharp explosions broke the silence. The sparks
ran along the surface setting off more small explosions.
A smell of burnt insulation rose in choking puffs and
here and there the casing melted. Whatever energy the
united power of the women released, it was fast stilling
forever the controls the Kolder had used, perhaps not
only to activate this hold, but to reach overseas in that
web they had spun.

Simon said as much later when he waited with the
captains and Ingvald for the last reports from those comb-

ing the now darkening corridors and rooms of the
keep to make sure no enemy still lived.

"The web remains." The witch sat a little apart, her
face drawn and haggard from her efforts to blast the
controls. "And, while Kolder spun that web, the ma-
terials—the hates, the greeds, the envies from which it
was fashioned—were there before they gathered them
into their hands and wove them into a net to take us.
Karsten is in chaos and for a space that chaos has served
us, because it keeps the eyes of the great lords there
from looking north, but that will not last forever."

Simon nodded. "No, it will not. Into the vacuum of
no-rule will arise some leader and to him unity might
come from fixing all the attention of those who would
challenge him on a war beyond their borders."

Jaelithe and the witch agreed as one; Ingvald also.
The Sulcar captains showed interest but not greatly so.

"And Alizon?" Loyse spoke for the first time. "How
fares the war with Alizon?"

"The seneschal has raged like a moor fire into their
country. He has wrought better than even we thought
he might. But we cannot hold Alizon, seething with
hatred for us, any more than we can take Karsten under
our rule. We of Estcarp want nothing—save to be left
alone in our evening. For we know it is our evening,
sliding into a night for which comes no morning. But
these would make that a night of flame and death and
torment. No man or woman dies willingly, it is in us to
strive to hold to life. Thus if we have a night of war be-
fore us—" She raised her hand and let it fall again. "Then
we shall fight to the end."

"It need not be so!" There was that in Simon which
refused to accept her reading of the future.

She looked from him to Jaelithe, then to Loyse, Ing-
vald, the Sulcar captains. Then she smiled. "I see that it
is in you to will it otherwise. Well, Estcarp may go as
Estcarp, but perhaps it is now a field in which we sow
strange and different seed, and out of that seed may rise

a new fruit. This is a time of change and the Kolder have
only precipitated turmoil. Without the Kolder the ele-
ments remaining are those we have long known and so
we may steady the balance for a space. At least I give you
this, comrades-in-arms; this has been a quest of valor such
as shall be sung by bards these thousand years until you
would not know yourselves as the godlings you shall be-
come. We shall take our victories one by one and have
pride in them. And there will be no looking for the last
defeat!"

"But there is an end to Kolder!" Ingvald cried out.

"An end to Kolder," Simon agreed. "There are still bat-
tles ahead, as this Wise One has said—victories to be
won."

His hand went out and Jaelithe's moved to meet it. In
this hour he could not visualize defeat—or night for Est-
carp. Or anything—save what was his.