“What you wish to see as well as I,” he replied. “I do not fight blind when there is a chance of seeing openly.”
“You shall see,” she cackled. “Oh, yes, you shall see!”
Kelsie swung about where she stood and began carefully to examine the vegetation on each side, turning slowly. So grotesque was that growth and in such tangle anything might be creeping upon them now unseen until it reached the very edge of the open space. That they were now bait she firmly believed.
But as the minutes passed, her heart beat slowly. She could see nothing moving and the growth remained the same. Nor did anything come out of the river. Wittle spoke first.
“They know how helpless we are,” she said grimly, “why trouble themselves with us?”
“Balance,” Yonan said firmly. “Balance. In the heart of their own holding there is this.” With his sword he pointed to the star about them. It seemed to Kelsie that she could smell the fragrant freshness of the illbane combating the stench of the growth.
A tendril of haze snaked out from that murk which clothed the stream. It was almost like the weighted line Yonan had used to bring down the birds in his hunting, but this was aimed at them. It curled like the lash of a whip through the air. But when it reached the star it snapped back.
Wittle again made that harsh sound which was her laughter. “Do you think that is all they have to send against us?” she demanded.
Yonan did not answer. He had stooped and picked up one of the small stones which studded the sand at his feet. Now he blew upon it and then spat, rubbing the moisture into it with his thumb. Having done so he rubbed the stone three times against the Quad iron of his sword hilt and called upon a name Kelsie had heard him summon before.
“Ninutra!”
Out toward the questing tongue of haze he hurled the stone. It passed through that arm of mist and that lifted for a moment so that Kelsie saw the stone fall into the red river. The liquid there roiled, churned, droplets arose to sprinkle the vegetation which straightway fell into a black liquid rot. And the mist snapped back toward its source.
“Child’s play!” Wittle said. “And who is Ninutra? Some Old One long since gone?”
“If she has gone,” he replied, “then she has left certain strengths behind her. I serve a Lady who is her chosen voice in the here and now. And—”
“Look!” Kelsie interrupted him.
From out of the river where the stone had fallen there arose something which chilled and sickened her. Perhaps once it had had life—it must have had—but this was the worst of death’s decay incarnate. Half-skeleton, half-boiled and seared flesh, it was tossed ashore as if the river itself had so sent one of its slaves to dispute with them. Was it a man—or had it been a man? Kelsie wanted to close her eyes, to refuse to look upon it but she could not.
Slowly, clumsily it got to its feet and for the first time turned the blob of its head in their direction. Kelsie cried out. Those swollen, bloated features were ones she knew—Yonan’s!
She heard him whisper from beside her. “Urik—NO!” While Wittle seized upon her jewel and cried out “Make-ease!”
The half-eaten away features of the thing writhed and changed—now the girl saw Dahaun wasted and blasted, and alter her Simon Tregarth. While from her companions, she heard other names given to that nightmare.
It tottered on legs which were bare bone, heading for the star. Kelsie gripped the jewel and in her mind refused any belief—this could not be true. It was not true! Even as the thing became Yonan once more she cried out:
“No—it is not true!”
Yonan—that was no longer Yonan, nor Dahaun, nor the eldest of the Tregarths. It was her own blasted face which crowned the shambling figure.
14
It wavered to and fro on its bony feet as it continued to advance and Kelsie cowered back, though Wittle’s hand shot out and caught at her before she stepped outside the star.
“Illusion!” croaked the witch, though Kelsie saw her straight mouth twitch as if she barely stifled some cry of her own. “They play with illusion!” She held out her hand, pointing her gem toward the thing from the rivulet.
There was no bright sword thrust of power as there had been on other occasions, only a small diffusion of a bluish haze clinging around the stone itself. And still the horror came ahead. Yonan raised his sword to ready. But the thing had reached the edge of the star and shifted from one foot to another as if it were faced by an impassable barrier.
“Ah—” the sound came from Wittle like a long drawn out sigh of relief. “By so much the old knowledge holds—by so much!”
The shambling figure turned first right and then left as if trying for a free path to reach its prey. It seemed to Kelsie that it grew more solid and real every moment. It was still her own face that it half wore, though she believed now that it showed another countenance to each of the two with her. There was a wavering, the thing swayed back and forth and then plunged forward as if some giant hand aimed at its back had sent it so to confront them. It fell across one of the points of the star and there was a blast of light which left Kelsie blinded, then with blurred sight.
Where the figure had fallen there was a stinking mass of stuff which still moved feebly as if the force which had given it pseudo life still urged it on. Then it crumpled away to black ash. But it had been the key to unlock the ton Yonan had erected and Kelsie felt the chill of the utter dark through which she had once passed sweep in over that break point. Though she could see nothing, that cold clung to her, Crapping her in and she felt a viscid stuff netting her prisoner. Wittle’s arm with the hand which held her jewel heat at the air and Yonan slammed out with his sword hilt, the blade gripped with his fingers. All to no purpose.
Kelsie was motionless. That invisible web had her entirely in its power now, she could not even move a finger across the surface of her own jewel. She saw Wittle’s arm tall to her side as if struck down by some heavy blow, Yonan’s reversed sword play fail. They were all caught by what had won through the boundaries of the star. Then, against her will and by no action of her own, the hand which held the chain of her jewel began to quiver and shake. However, her fingers locked on the links did not move. Hack and forth, more and more wildly shook her hand, the gem swung but it did not fall, nor did it part company with her flesh. She had a sudden mind picture of the jewel flying out to land in the red rivulet and being overwhelmed, that if she would save her life this is what must happen. Then over that slid another picture, the young witch who had died on the hillside, her lips shaping her own forbidden name as she gave that to Kelsie. With her was another head also, that of the wildcat, its lips drawn back in a full snarl, daring McAdams, ready to spend its life for its kits and freedom.
Around and around whirled her arm and the pain of those wild swings which pulled at her muscles grew more intense. There was also a twisting now, a pulling. And still the chain clung to her as if it were a part of her own flesh and nothing would take it from her unless the enemy, whoever or whatever that might be, would scrape that from her bones. Twice she cried out against sudden shocks of pain, in spite of her promise to herself that she could and would endure.
She could see both Wittle and Yonan. They stood statue stiff and neither of them appeared under attack. Did what assailed them believe that she was the weakest of their company, the only most likely to give way? Somewhere under the fear which had held her since that creature had come out of the mist anger stirred. That emotion grew as the assault upon her doubled in its fury.
Deliberately now she summoned up the picture of the young witch who had died. She could not call upon Wittle—perhaps she was held now against a similar attack—but she was trained, one with her stone as Kelsie did not feel herself to be. As the cat had faced McAdams so did she snarl and stand trying to wrest from that other power the control over her own body.