Web of the Witch World - Andre Norton

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 Estcarp 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 weapons 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 welcomed 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 before 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 machines? Of course Koris was entirely right in this matter. 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. Simon went straight to the nearest. But this was simple—there was no need to worry about getting it into action 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 conning a detailed chart. Simon slipped the last fitting into 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 distance as the flyer took off. Simon adjusted the controls. Yle, he was bound for Yle—a task of importance waiting him. The barrier could not hold much longer; there had been too many calls upon the central energy. Sooner 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 backward 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 worthless 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 Simon 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 sickness 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 walking 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 trouble 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 outside the cabin as if in fear. And she was right—this was some devilment of those hags. But they could not control 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 shriller 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.