Andre Norton - Web of the Witch World

“What?”

“By right of marriage you are now Duchess of Karsten, 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 monster’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 successfully be tracked by the Sulcarmen who counted the ocean their true home.

But suppose that Kolder could be tracked? The Sulcarmen 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 barriers 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 because 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 reply.

“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, sending 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 engaged in some struggle. Simon remembered the scars and mud smudges he had seen on its sides. An underground passage by river might not be too accommodating. 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 should be sighted, or otherwise detected by the Kolder? An engagement 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 wave of confidence. But Simon could not match that, he could only see every pointed reef ahead and no discernible course among them.

THE ROOM was low and long, dark save where the shutters 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 cruiser 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 reaction.

“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 something 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 turmoil 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 believe 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 conceded. “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 outlander 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 Sulcarkeep 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 knowingly 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 conferred 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.”