“There exists a great force here,” she said then. “It awakens all that is in tune with Power.” In her other hand she swung forward her flower-studded wand. I saw that each of the flowers, widely open, produced a wan circle of light. “Even though Mother Moon reaches not into the earth, yet her Power is fed here. Long ago there must have walked some in this way who knew the moon calls and used them.”
That she was not alarmed awakened still more strongly my own fear for her. I tried to express the fear by voice, forgetting that I had only the gutturals of the cat to make myself heard. Again she must have read my thoughts.
“No, Kethan. I do not deny that this Wise Woman of yours has sorcery beyond my knowing. But also, I do not believe that she reckons that I, in turn, can summon some that may, in turn, be strange to her. I have been well taught.
“When I was still so young a child that my speech was not plain, I saw beyond the barriers of men. My mother, reading the fire and the water, knew that I had in me talent, and one that differed from her own. However, that is not a fact to be amazed at. For my mother is a Witch of the Green Way and my father once was a Wererider.” She said that as proudly as one who recited a listing of blood-kin heroes in some Keep.
“My mother, knowing that I would be a worker of force, took me to the Fane of Neave. Those who serve there weighed my talent and said that I would be a Moon Drawer. Thus, when I was somewhat older, I went to join those of Linark. There I learned much. From my mother and my father still more when I returned to Reeth. For long ago there was Moon Magic at Reeth and the stirrings of it were still alive when my mother and father discovered the Tower and took it for their dwelling.”
Her words came easily. She might have been speaking to some friend as they walked across any open field. Still we were going farther and farther into the depths of the earth, to face a Power that I believed greater than my race had ever tested before.
I had been right in my guess. The snow cat had been a Wererider. But why was he not then at the Gray Towers?
“My mother,” the girl beside me continued, perhaps because again she had read my thought question, “was a Bride of the Dales. Have you not heard that tale, Kethan? It is so famous a one that songsmiths have already worked it into the Chronicles.”
Yes, that I had heard. The Wereriders had been among those exiled from Arvon when the struggle of the Elder Lords came to an end. Far were they sentenced to wander, and to be homeless, until there were certain changes in the star readings. Then they might ask to return.
South to the Dales they had gone. Later, when there had come a war of men against men—long before I was born—they had made a pact with the men of the Dales, the ones who had taken over our deserted lands. They served beside the Dalesmen, driving the invaders of High Hallack to the sea, or slaying them.
In exchange for their services, the Wereriders had stated a price, that when the war was done and High Hallack victorious, they would receive from the Dales Lords maids to be their brides.
Thus in the Year of the Unicorn, thirteen such maids were brought to the border of the Waste. They chose among the Wereriders and so came into Arvon and to the Gray Towers. But that there had been a Witch among them—that part of the tale was new to me.
“They did not know my mother was of Witch blood. She was taken as a child from overseas, found captive on a ship of the invaders and fostered by a Dales Lord. But the talent lay in her. That caused trouble among the Riders, for they feared to bring one of Power among them.
“They strove to lose her in the Other World, yet there she and my father fought a battle and won, so returning to their bodies here. However, thereafter, my father would not dwell in the Gray Towers, for he liked not what the Riders had done in their fear. So he and my mother found Reeth—or rather they were told of Reeth. Thus the Star Tower came to be our abiding place. Of Reeth we have made a place where the Green and the Brown Magic are entwined, to stand as a stronghold against the creep of the Shadow.
“But now Arvon is again troubled. There is talk of Gates about to open, exiles to return. Not all of them are like the Riders, willing to accept peace. Lately the Riders themselves have sent messengers to my father, saying the day comes when they shall be summoned to defend their lands. Not yet has he answered them fully. I think in him kin-ties pull one way, his old anger another. Until he settles that struggle within himself he cannot say he will do this or that. But Reeth’s hold on him is, we hope—my mother and I—greater than one of memory—since much of that was unhappy. Reeth has a place, so our foreseeings show, an important place in Arvon. Long was it forsaken, but now it lives, and, within it, the force of that life grows!”
As she continued, I could almost see through the complete dark the rise of the Star Tower walls, smell the scent of the herbs that made the garden around it. My longing to be there once again was like a pain.
“Yes,” she said, and I felt that she sensed the longing. “Reeth is like a warm hand, to cup protectingly around one. Still it is what we do that makes the hand endure.”
My mind turned to what I now did and I was sickened. I strove to halt my body, I fought against the compulsion Ursilla had laid upon me. To play Ursilla’s foul game, with the Moon Witch as a part of it—no, that I could not allow!
I snarled and spat. My limbs would not answer the commands of Kethan—the pard was Ursilla’s thing! Again the Moon Witch’s hand rested on my head. I could not reassure her, yet she strove to reassure me! And she could not possibly understand to where I took her, what might await her there.
“Kethan.” Her words took on the solemnity of a chant. “My name—it is Aylinn, my mother is Gillan, my father, Herrel.”
It took a full instant out of time for me to realize what she had done. By naming herself and the two from the Tower, she had claimed a kind of kinship. For a name is the inner core of a man when the Power is in use. And to grant that knowledge to another is the fullest trust one may bestow.
“You should not!” I protested.
“Ah, but I have!” There was something akin to laughter in her reply. Not the horrible laughter of Ursilla’s triumph, but rather the joyful note one hears among happy friends. The sound of it warmed me as no fire had ever done. For, though many in Car Do Prawn could claim me as kin, there had been none I could name in return as friend. Those of the Star Tower were as cup-companions and shield-mates.
“This is a long way,” Aylinn commented, as one who was now a little shy and would speak of matters less close.
“I do not know how long,” I returned.
While she had told me of herself I had not been aware of the crushing darkness. Now it wrapped us about as if to smother us in its heavy folds. I wished that I had counted the ramp ways when I had come up so I knew how far we needed now to descend. But then I had been driven by a single thought—to reach what Ursilla had sent me for.
Down and down. The glow of my companion’s kilt and pendant remained alight but showed little beyond the portions of her own body against which they rested. Still, any light in this place brought with it a measure of comfort for those who were bred for the surface of the world and not its depths.
At last we reached the floor. I turned left, to head out into the center of the cavern, for it was my belief that the circle of globe-faced figures must form the center. Far ahead there was a faint speck of light in that direction.
The cord of force that had guided me back tightened. I thought Ursilla was aware we came, and I warned my companion of that fact.
“In truth she must know.” Aylinn’s answer was tranquil. “She already moves to meet us. However, Kethan, what she does not know is that Gillan and Herrel have broken the force barrier above and are now following.”
How could she tell that?
Again the sensation of soft laughter. “Kethan, for purposes of the Power we have been one in minds and hearts several times over. Any part knows when the whole is near—”