Under other conditions, Ziantha thought
fleetingly, she would have watched about her with wondering eyes.
She was doing what no other, not even the Zacathans with all their
learning, had been able to accomplish, seeing a Forerunner
civilization. But all that concerned her now was her own escape
from it. It was necessary to concentrate on Wamage throughout this
journey.
It would seem he was faithful to Turan’s trust. At least
the car traveled steadily, without hindrance, first along quiet
streets and then along those filled with heavier traffic. If their
escape had been discovered they were not yet pursued.
Wamage wove a twisted way from broad avenue to cross street and
back. Ziantha had never had too keen a sense of direction; for all
she knew they could be heading directly away from their goal. And
Vintra’s memory held little of Singakok.
The lights were bright as they took a last turn coming to a
place where many cars were parked. Wamage slowed as he traversed
this line of waiting vehicles, heading on past a lighted
building.
To one side was a vast expanse lighted in part by rows of set
flood lamps. There Ziantha saw one of the aircraft come into the
light, turn rather clumsily, and rush forward, lifting after its
run into the air. It was unlike the flitters of her own world,
having fixed wings and apparently needing the forward run to make
it airborne, rather than rising straight up as was normal.
Yet the Vintra part of her cringed at the sight of it,
projecting to Ziantha a vivid and horrifying memory of death
falling in objects that exploded upon impact. Objects that came
from such a machine.
Was Turan a pilot? Vintra had no such knowledge. As Ziantha
probed she received the impression that such a skill was difficult
to learn and required long tutorage. Or was Wamage to serve them
so, accompany them on what might be a vain search? Did Turan plan
to take the other fully into his confidence? Or did he propose to
put a mind-lock on the alien and so bend him to their aid? That she
did not believe could be held for any length of time.
Wamage drove on. The lights were fewer. They now passed a line
of flyers. He circled at the end of this and stopped by one much
smaller craft.
What might have been a torch flashed in the night. Wamage turned
off the lights of the ground car and leaned out of the window to
call softly:
“Doramus Su Ganthel?”
“To answer, Commander!” came swift answer.
“You have done well.” Turan spoke for the first time
since they had left the palace. “My thanks to you, battle
comrade.”
“It is in my mind that perhaps I have done ill,”
Wamage replied, a tired, heavy note in his voice. “I do not
know why you must do this thing—” He had half hitched
about in his seat. “Lord Commander, this woman is your
deadliest enemy. She is Vintra who swore before the Host of
Bengaril to have your head on the tri-pole of rebel victory. Yet
now—”
“Now, by the will of Vut, she serves me as no other can.
Think you of where I have just come from, Wamage. If she wanted me
dead would I not have remained there?”
“The High Consort speaks of sorcery—”
“For her own ends, and that you also know, Wamage. Was it
not you who warned me of her, not once, but twice and more? I tell
you that when I return all which puzzles you now will be resolved.
But if I do not go—then between the High Consort and the
priests I will indeed be returned to whence I came and that with
haste.”
Wamage sighed so heavily Ziantha could hear him. “That I
cannot doubt, Lord Commander, having heard what I have heard. But
if there is a third choice—”
“For my safety, Wamage, in this hour there is not! And
above all what I must do now must be speedily done. The longer I
waste here—the more chances there are for
failure—”
He stepped out of the vehicle, and Ziantha made speed to follow
him. The waiting armsman came to them.
“At your service, Lord Commander. What is your
will?”
“To fly to the south coast where there is a place we may
not be seen. This is of high importance, and it must be done with
speed. You are a pilot?”
“Of my father’s personal craft, Lord Commander. But
a scout—I have not flown one—” He was beginning
when Turan interrupted him.
“Then you shall gather air time in one tonight. Battle
comrade”—he turned now to Wamage—“for what
you have done this night I can never give thanks enough. You have
indeed saved my life, or at least lengthened it. Let that always be
remembered between us.”
“Let me go with you—” Wamage put out a hand as
if to clutch Turan’s arm.
“I leave you for a rear guard, one to cover me. It is a
hard thing I ask of you—”
“But nothing that I will not do. Guard your back, Lord
Commander!”
Ziantha was aware he watched her as he delivered that
warning.
“Be sure I do,” Turan answered.
They climbed aboard the strange flyer, and with the armsman for
pilot the machine came to vibrating life, swung around, and ran
along the field, until Ziantha was sure there was trouble and it
would not lift.
With a bounce it did, and she felt queasy as she never had in a
flitter. In the cramped cabin she could feel the vibration through
her body. And it seemed to her that flying in this Forerunner world
was a more rigorous experience than she had been accustomed to.
“It is fortunate, Lord Commander,” their pilot said,
“that these scouts have instant clearance from the field with
no questioning by the control tower. Else—”
“Else we would have had a story for them,” Turan
said. “Now we can rather plan on landing. Listen well, for
much depends upon this. You must set us down in a place as near to
the sea as you can take this flyer. And it must be done with as
little chance of discovery as possible. We are seeking a source of
power, something which lies on an island and to which we have a
single pointer. With this—with this—” Turan had
hesitated and then began again, “I can promise the future
will be changed.”
But he did not say whose future. Ziantha smiled in the dark.
Turan’s—the real Turan’s influence must be
great—or had been great that he could bind these two men to
his purposes. Though Wamage had had his doubts. Perhaps a sensitive
in this civilization where the power was apparently so little known
could apply pressure without even realizing it. Though she knew
that if there was need she could control the armsman for a short
time as she had Wamage.
“There is the Plateau of Xuth, Lord Commander. It—it
has such an evil reputation that not many seek it out, not since
the days of Lord Commander Rolphri, though that is all
countryman’s talk—”
Countryman’s talk, maybe—Ziantha caught a hint or
two of what lay in his mind as he spoke—but he believes it
holds a threat. I pick up fear which is not of other men but of
something strange. If Turan caught that also he would seem to
discount it, for he replied promptly:
“Xuth is to our purpose. You can pilot us
there?”
“I believe so, Lord Commander.”
“Well enough.” Turan had edged a little forward in
his place. He was intent upon what the armsman was doing, and
Ziantha knew that he was striving to pick up from the other the art
of flying this ancient machine.
Had the alien mind-patterns been easier to contact he would have
had no difficulty. But having to make allowances for constant
disruption of mind-touch, his concentration must be forced to a
higher level. Without his asking she began to feed him power, give
him extra energy. Nor did she cease to marvel at his great
endurance.
They did not speak again. Perhaps their pilot thought they
slept. Once or twice they saw the riding lights of what must be
other aircraft, but none came near, nor did there appear to be any
pursuit. However, doubt nibbled at Ziantha’s confidence.
Surely they could not have got away from Singakok and the High
Consort as easily as this!
The night sky grayed; they were coming into day. Dawn and then
the full sunrise caught them. For the first time in hours the
armsman spoke:
“The sea, Lord Commander. We turn south now to
Xuth.”
Turan was half collapsed in his seat. Ziantha regarded him with
rising concern. His look of fatal illness was heightened by the
sunlight. Could he last? And this was so faint a hope they
followed— She fought the fear that uncoiled within her, began
to seep coldly through her body.
“Xuth, Lord Commander. I can set down, I think, along this
line.”
In spite of her resolution Ziantha closed her eyes as the nose
of the flyer tilted downward and the machine began a descent. It
seemed so vulnerable, so dangerous, compared to the flitters that
she could only hope the pilot knew what he was doing and they were
not about to crash against some unyielding stretch of rock.
The machine touched ground, bounced, touched again with a jar
that nearly shook Ziantha from her seat. She heard a gasp from
Turan and looked to him. The gray cast on his face was more
pronounced; his mouth was open as if he were gasping for breath.
Although the flyer ran forward, the pilot’s tension suggested
he was fearing some further peril.
They stopped and the pilot exhaled so loudly she could hear him.
“Fortune has favored us, Lord Commander.”
Ziantha looked out. Ahead was only emptiness, as if they were
close to the edge of some cliff, a deduction which proved true as
they climbed out into a brisk, whipping breeze and the full sun of
midmorning.
Beyond, Ziantha could hear the wash of sea surf, though there
was more distance between the shore and the flyer than she had
earlier believed. The pilot had landed on what was an amazingly
level stretch of rock running like an avenue between tall monoliths
and crags of rock.
There was no vegetation to be seen, and those standing stones
were of an unrelieved black, though the surface on which they stood
was of a red-veined gray rock. A sudden sobbing wail brought an
answering cry from her, as she whirled about to face the direction
from which that had come.
“Wind—in the rocks,” Turan’s voice,
strained but no longer only a gasp.
But she wondered. Her sensitive’s reaction to this place
was sharp. As the armsman had hinted—there was evil here. She
would not want to touch any of those strange black rocks, read what
they held imprisoned in them. For there was such a sense of the
past here—an alien past—as one might gather from the
walls of a tomb, entirely inimical to all her life force. Those
were not just rocks, standing upright because wind and erosion had
whittled them so. No, they were alien, had been placed there for a
purpose. Ruins—a long vanished city—a
temple—Ziantha did not want to know which.
There were birds with brilliant yellow wings flashing in the
sunlight out over the sea. But none approached the cliff edge, nor
were there any droppings from roosts among the near stones, as if
living things shunned Xuth. Ziantha probed Vintra’s memory
and received a troubled response. Xuth—yes, it had been known
to the rebel. But only as a legend, a haunted place wherein some
defeat of the past had overturned all rule and order and from which
had sprung many of the ills of this world, ills which had festered
until this latter-day rebellion had burst in turn.
Now she tested not Vintra’s memory but her own talent. So
much could influence that. Not only the weather, emotions, the very
geography of the site, but also subtle emanations of her
surroundings. Would that very ancient evil, which was like a faint,
sickening odor in the nostrils, work to combat what she must
do?
Keeping well away from any contact with the rocks, Ziantha went
on toward the sound of the sea, coming out on a ledge that
projected like the beginning of a long-lost bridge over the surf
which constantly assaulted the wall below. There was no sign of any
beach; the meeting of cliff and water displayed wicked teeth of
smaller rocks, around which the sea washed with intimidating
force.
But here, on this prong, she was free of the darkness the black
monoliths radiated. If there was any place from which she could
search the sea it was here where the spray rose high enough in the
air to be borne inland, leaving a spattering of moisture along the
ledge.
Having won freedom from that other influence, Ziantha felt she
dared not return to it. Here and now she must make her attempt to
find their guide.
“Here,” she mind-sent. “There is too much
residue of some old ill among the stones. I can only do this thing
free of them.”
“I am coming—”
She turned to watch him moving slowly, with such care as if he
must plan and then enforce each movement of his body, none of which
were instinctive now. He had waved back the pilot who remained by
the flyer. And when he reached her his head was up, his eyes steady
and clear.
“You are ready?”
“As much as I shall ever be.” Now that the final
moment before carrying out her decision had come she wanted to flee
it. She had used the focus-stone to its full power before, and it
had brought her here. When she used it again—where would it
take her? And would the change be as entire, as binding, as it now
was? She had the gem in her hand, but before she looked into it,
surrendered to the talent, Ziantha made a last appeal.
“Anchor me. Do not let me be lost. For if I
am—”
“We both are.” He nodded. “I shall give you
all I have to give, be sure of that.”
“Then—” she cupped the stone between her
hands, raised it to her forehead—
The sea, the pound of the sea—wild, raging—the
devouring sea! Around her the tower room trembled, the air was
filled with the thunder of the waters. The anger of the sea against
Nornoch. Would these walls stand through this storm? And if they
did—what of the next and the next—?
Ziantha—no, who was Ziantha? A name—a faint flash of
memory to which she tried to cling even as it vanished, as a dream
vanishes upon waking. D’Eyree!
“D’Eyree!” her voice rang above the clamor of
the storm, as if she summoned herself from sleep to face what must
come.
She raised her hands uncertainly before her. Surely she should
have been holding something—on the floor—look! The
urgency, the fear of loss gripped her, sent her to her knees, her
hands groping across the thick carpet.
Her every movement brought a clash, a jangling from the strings
of polished shells which formed her skirt, just as they fashioned
the tight, scant bodice which barely covered her flat breasts. Her
skin—green, pale green, or gold—or blue—no, that
color came from the scales which covered her, like small dim jewels
laid edge to edge.
She was D’Eyree of the Eyes. The Eyes!
No longer did she run her hands across the floor in vain search.
She had had such a foolish thought. Where would the Eyes be but
where they had always rested since the Choosing made her what she
was? She raised her fingers now to touch that band about her
forehead with the two gems she could not see, only feel, one above
each temple, just as they should be. How could she have thought
them lost?
She was D’Eyree and—
She was—Ziantha! A flooding of memory, like a fire to
cleanse the mist in her mind. Her head snapped up and she looked
around at strangeness.
The walls of the oval room were opaline, with many soft colors
playing across them, and they were very smooth as might be a
shell’s interior. The carpet on the floor was rusty red, soft
and springy with a strange life of its own.
There were two windows, long and narrow slits. She went hastily
to the nearest. She was Ziantha—no, D’Eyree! The
Eyes—they fought to make her D’Eyree. She willed her
hands to pull at the band that bound them to her head. Her fingers
combed coarse hair like thick seaweed but could not move that
band.
Ziantha must hold to Ziantha—learn where Nornoch might
be.
She looked out, ducking as spray from the storm-driven waves
fell salty on her face. But she glimpsed the other towers; this
portion of Nornoch was guardian to the land behind, where she was
warden.
Only, the sea was winning; after all these centuries it was
winning. Her people held this outpost, and when the Three Walls
were breached, when the sea came again—they would be swept
away, back and down, to become, if any survived, what they had once
been; mindless living things of the under-ooze. But that—that
would not be! Not while the Eyes had a voice, a mind! Six eyes and
their wearers—one for each wall still.
She leaned against the slit, a hand to each side of it, fighting
for calm. Bringing all the power which was D’Eyree’s by
both inheritance and training to subdue this stranger in her mind,
she put her—it—away and concentrated on that which was
her mission, to will the walls to hold, to be one with the
defense.
Think of her wall, of how the creatures, the Lurla, had built it
and the two others from secretions of their own bodies over the
centuries, of how those creatures had been fed and tended, bred and
cherished by the people of Nornoch to create defenses against the
sea. Will the Lurla to work, now—will!—will!
She was no longer even D’Eyree; she was a will, a call to
action so that creatures stirred sluggishly began to respond. Ah,
so slowly! Yet they could not be prodded to any greater efforts or
speed.
Secrete, build, strengthen—that Nornoch not yield! Move,
so that the waves do not eat us into nothingness again. The
Eyes—let the power that is in the Eyes goad the Lurla to
awake and work.
But so few! Was that because, as D’Fani said, her people
had dared turn away from the old ways—the sacrifices?
Will—she must not let her thoughts, her concentration stray
from what was to be done. Lurla—she could see them in her
mind—their sluglike bodies as they crawled back and forth
across the wall which was her own responsibility, leaving behind
them ever those trails of froth that hardened on contact with the
air and steadily became another layer within the buttress
foundations of the Three Walls, the towers. Stir, Lurla! Awake,
move—do this for the life of Nornoch!
But they were more sluggish than they had ever been. Two dropped
from the walls, lay inert. What was—? D’Eyree raised
her hands from the walls, pressed her palms to the Eyes, feeling
their chill.
Awake, Lurla! This is no time to sleep. The storm is high; do
you not feel the tower shake? Awake, crawl, build!
Lurla—it was as if she raised her voice to shriek that
aloud.
The sea’s pound was in her ears, but fainter, its fury
lessened. Then D’Fani was wrong; this was not one of the
great storms after all. She need not have feared—
“Ziantha!”
There was no window through which she looked. She was in the
open with a bird’s screams sounding above the surf. And
before her, hands on her shoulders (as if those hands had dragged
her out of the time and place that had been), Turan.
She wrested herself from his grip to wheel about on the rock,
face out over the waves, straining as if she could from this point
catch a glimpse of Nornoch, learn whether its towers, the Three
Walls, were still danger-wrapped, if the Lurla had been kept to
their task.
No, that was all finished long ago. How long? Her talent could
not answer that. Perhaps as many years stood now between
D’Eyree and Vintra as between Vintra and Ziantha. And that
number her mind reeled from calculating.
Only now she knew where Nornoch lay, if any of Nornoch still
survived. That much they had gained. She pointed with an outflung
hand.
“Over sea—or under it—but there!” She
spoke aloud, for the burden of weariness which followed upon a
trance lay on her. And she allowed Turan to take her hand, draw her
back to the flyer.
As if their coming was a signal, the armsman came out of the
cabin. Beneath his close-fitting helmet hood his face was
anxious.
“Lord Commander, I have had it on the wave-speak. They are
using S-Code—”
Vintra’s memory identified that for her and, lest
Turan’s memory no longer served him, Ziantha supplies what
she knew by mind-touch. “A military code of top
security.”
“The rebels—” Turan began.
But the armsman shook his head. “Lord Commander, I was com
officer for my unit. They hunt you and—they have orders to
shoot you down!”
There was a look of misery on his young face, as if the first
shock had worn off so he could believe, even if he did not
understand.
“Zuha must be desperate,” Ziantha commented.
“It does not matter. Only time matters,” Turan
returned. “Battle comrade, here we must part company. You
have served me better than you will ever know. However I cannot
take you with us farther—”
“Lord Commander, wherever you go, then I shall fly
you!” His determination was plain.
“Not to Nornoch—” what made Ziantha say that
she did not know.
His head jerked around. “What—what do you know of
Nornoch?”
“That it holds what we seek,” she answered.
“Lord Commander, do not let her! Nornoch—that is a
story—a tale of the sea that sailors have used to frighten
their children since the beginning. There is no Nornoch, no
fish-people, except in evil dreams!”
“Then in dreams we must seek it.”
The armsman moved between them and the cabin of the flyer.
“Lord Commander, this—this rebel has indeed bewitched
you. Do not let her lead you to your death!”
Tired as she was Ziantha did what must be done, centering her
power, thrusting it at him as she might have thrust with a
primitive spear or sword. His hands went to his head; he gave a
moaning cry and stumbled back, away, until he wilted to the ground
well beyond the wing shadow of the flyer.
“Ill done,” she said, “but there was naught
else—”
“I know,” Turan said, his voice as flat, sounding as
tired as she felt. “We must go before he revives. Where we go
we cannot take him. You are sure of the course?”
“I am sure,” she answered steadily as they climbed
into the cabin.
Under other conditions, Ziantha thought
fleetingly, she would have watched about her with wondering eyes.
She was doing what no other, not even the Zacathans with all their
learning, had been able to accomplish, seeing a Forerunner
civilization. But all that concerned her now was her own escape
from it. It was necessary to concentrate on Wamage throughout this
journey.
It would seem he was faithful to Turan’s trust. At least
the car traveled steadily, without hindrance, first along quiet
streets and then along those filled with heavier traffic. If their
escape had been discovered they were not yet pursued.
Wamage wove a twisted way from broad avenue to cross street and
back. Ziantha had never had too keen a sense of direction; for all
she knew they could be heading directly away from their goal. And
Vintra’s memory held little of Singakok.
The lights were bright as they took a last turn coming to a
place where many cars were parked. Wamage slowed as he traversed
this line of waiting vehicles, heading on past a lighted
building.
To one side was a vast expanse lighted in part by rows of set
flood lamps. There Ziantha saw one of the aircraft come into the
light, turn rather clumsily, and rush forward, lifting after its
run into the air. It was unlike the flitters of her own world,
having fixed wings and apparently needing the forward run to make
it airborne, rather than rising straight up as was normal.
Yet the Vintra part of her cringed at the sight of it,
projecting to Ziantha a vivid and horrifying memory of death
falling in objects that exploded upon impact. Objects that came
from such a machine.
Was Turan a pilot? Vintra had no such knowledge. As Ziantha
probed she received the impression that such a skill was difficult
to learn and required long tutorage. Or was Wamage to serve them
so, accompany them on what might be a vain search? Did Turan plan
to take the other fully into his confidence? Or did he propose to
put a mind-lock on the alien and so bend him to their aid? That she
did not believe could be held for any length of time.
Wamage drove on. The lights were fewer. They now passed a line
of flyers. He circled at the end of this and stopped by one much
smaller craft.
What might have been a torch flashed in the night. Wamage turned
off the lights of the ground car and leaned out of the window to
call softly:
“Doramus Su Ganthel?”
“To answer, Commander!” came swift answer.
“You have done well.” Turan spoke for the first time
since they had left the palace. “My thanks to you, battle
comrade.”
“It is in my mind that perhaps I have done ill,”
Wamage replied, a tired, heavy note in his voice. “I do not
know why you must do this thing—” He had half hitched
about in his seat. “Lord Commander, this woman is your
deadliest enemy. She is Vintra who swore before the Host of
Bengaril to have your head on the tri-pole of rebel victory. Yet
now—”
“Now, by the will of Vut, she serves me as no other can.
Think you of where I have just come from, Wamage. If she wanted me
dead would I not have remained there?”
“The High Consort speaks of sorcery—”
“For her own ends, and that you also know, Wamage. Was it
not you who warned me of her, not once, but twice and more? I tell
you that when I return all which puzzles you now will be resolved.
But if I do not go—then between the High Consort and the
priests I will indeed be returned to whence I came and that with
haste.”
Wamage sighed so heavily Ziantha could hear him. “That I
cannot doubt, Lord Commander, having heard what I have heard. But
if there is a third choice—”
“For my safety, Wamage, in this hour there is not! And
above all what I must do now must be speedily done. The longer I
waste here—the more chances there are for
failure—”
He stepped out of the vehicle, and Ziantha made speed to follow
him. The waiting armsman came to them.
“At your service, Lord Commander. What is your
will?”
“To fly to the south coast where there is a place we may
not be seen. This is of high importance, and it must be done with
speed. You are a pilot?”
“Of my father’s personal craft, Lord Commander. But
a scout—I have not flown one—” He was beginning
when Turan interrupted him.
“Then you shall gather air time in one tonight. Battle
comrade”—he turned now to Wamage—“for what
you have done this night I can never give thanks enough. You have
indeed saved my life, or at least lengthened it. Let that always be
remembered between us.”
“Let me go with you—” Wamage put out a hand as
if to clutch Turan’s arm.
“I leave you for a rear guard, one to cover me. It is a
hard thing I ask of you—”
“But nothing that I will not do. Guard your back, Lord
Commander!”
Ziantha was aware he watched her as he delivered that
warning.
“Be sure I do,” Turan answered.
They climbed aboard the strange flyer, and with the armsman for
pilot the machine came to vibrating life, swung around, and ran
along the field, until Ziantha was sure there was trouble and it
would not lift.
With a bounce it did, and she felt queasy as she never had in a
flitter. In the cramped cabin she could feel the vibration through
her body. And it seemed to her that flying in this Forerunner world
was a more rigorous experience than she had been accustomed to.
“It is fortunate, Lord Commander,” their pilot said,
“that these scouts have instant clearance from the field with
no questioning by the control tower. Else—”
“Else we would have had a story for them,” Turan
said. “Now we can rather plan on landing. Listen well, for
much depends upon this. You must set us down in a place as near to
the sea as you can take this flyer. And it must be done with as
little chance of discovery as possible. We are seeking a source of
power, something which lies on an island and to which we have a
single pointer. With this—with this—” Turan had
hesitated and then began again, “I can promise the future
will be changed.”
But he did not say whose future. Ziantha smiled in the dark.
Turan’s—the real Turan’s influence must be
great—or had been great that he could bind these two men to
his purposes. Though Wamage had had his doubts. Perhaps a sensitive
in this civilization where the power was apparently so little known
could apply pressure without even realizing it. Though she knew
that if there was need she could control the armsman for a short
time as she had Wamage.
“There is the Plateau of Xuth, Lord Commander. It—it
has such an evil reputation that not many seek it out, not since
the days of Lord Commander Rolphri, though that is all
countryman’s talk—”
Countryman’s talk, maybe—Ziantha caught a hint or
two of what lay in his mind as he spoke—but he believes it
holds a threat. I pick up fear which is not of other men but of
something strange. If Turan caught that also he would seem to
discount it, for he replied promptly:
“Xuth is to our purpose. You can pilot us
there?”
“I believe so, Lord Commander.”
“Well enough.” Turan had edged a little forward in
his place. He was intent upon what the armsman was doing, and
Ziantha knew that he was striving to pick up from the other the art
of flying this ancient machine.
Had the alien mind-patterns been easier to contact he would have
had no difficulty. But having to make allowances for constant
disruption of mind-touch, his concentration must be forced to a
higher level. Without his asking she began to feed him power, give
him extra energy. Nor did she cease to marvel at his great
endurance.
They did not speak again. Perhaps their pilot thought they
slept. Once or twice they saw the riding lights of what must be
other aircraft, but none came near, nor did there appear to be any
pursuit. However, doubt nibbled at Ziantha’s confidence.
Surely they could not have got away from Singakok and the High
Consort as easily as this!
The night sky grayed; they were coming into day. Dawn and then
the full sunrise caught them. For the first time in hours the
armsman spoke:
“The sea, Lord Commander. We turn south now to
Xuth.”
Turan was half collapsed in his seat. Ziantha regarded him with
rising concern. His look of fatal illness was heightened by the
sunlight. Could he last? And this was so faint a hope they
followed— She fought the fear that uncoiled within her, began
to seep coldly through her body.
“Xuth, Lord Commander. I can set down, I think, along this
line.”
In spite of her resolution Ziantha closed her eyes as the nose
of the flyer tilted downward and the machine began a descent. It
seemed so vulnerable, so dangerous, compared to the flitters that
she could only hope the pilot knew what he was doing and they were
not about to crash against some unyielding stretch of rock.
The machine touched ground, bounced, touched again with a jar
that nearly shook Ziantha from her seat. She heard a gasp from
Turan and looked to him. The gray cast on his face was more
pronounced; his mouth was open as if he were gasping for breath.
Although the flyer ran forward, the pilot’s tension suggested
he was fearing some further peril.
They stopped and the pilot exhaled so loudly she could hear him.
“Fortune has favored us, Lord Commander.”
Ziantha looked out. Ahead was only emptiness, as if they were
close to the edge of some cliff, a deduction which proved true as
they climbed out into a brisk, whipping breeze and the full sun of
midmorning.
Beyond, Ziantha could hear the wash of sea surf, though there
was more distance between the shore and the flyer than she had
earlier believed. The pilot had landed on what was an amazingly
level stretch of rock running like an avenue between tall monoliths
and crags of rock.
There was no vegetation to be seen, and those standing stones
were of an unrelieved black, though the surface on which they stood
was of a red-veined gray rock. A sudden sobbing wail brought an
answering cry from her, as she whirled about to face the direction
from which that had come.
“Wind—in the rocks,” Turan’s voice,
strained but no longer only a gasp.
But she wondered. Her sensitive’s reaction to this place
was sharp. As the armsman had hinted—there was evil here. She
would not want to touch any of those strange black rocks, read what
they held imprisoned in them. For there was such a sense of the
past here—an alien past—as one might gather from the
walls of a tomb, entirely inimical to all her life force. Those
were not just rocks, standing upright because wind and erosion had
whittled them so. No, they were alien, had been placed there for a
purpose. Ruins—a long vanished city—a
temple—Ziantha did not want to know which.
There were birds with brilliant yellow wings flashing in the
sunlight out over the sea. But none approached the cliff edge, nor
were there any droppings from roosts among the near stones, as if
living things shunned Xuth. Ziantha probed Vintra’s memory
and received a troubled response. Xuth—yes, it had been known
to the rebel. But only as a legend, a haunted place wherein some
defeat of the past had overturned all rule and order and from which
had sprung many of the ills of this world, ills which had festered
until this latter-day rebellion had burst in turn.
Now she tested not Vintra’s memory but her own talent. So
much could influence that. Not only the weather, emotions, the very
geography of the site, but also subtle emanations of her
surroundings. Would that very ancient evil, which was like a faint,
sickening odor in the nostrils, work to combat what she must
do?
Keeping well away from any contact with the rocks, Ziantha went
on toward the sound of the sea, coming out on a ledge that
projected like the beginning of a long-lost bridge over the surf
which constantly assaulted the wall below. There was no sign of any
beach; the meeting of cliff and water displayed wicked teeth of
smaller rocks, around which the sea washed with intimidating
force.
But here, on this prong, she was free of the darkness the black
monoliths radiated. If there was any place from which she could
search the sea it was here where the spray rose high enough in the
air to be borne inland, leaving a spattering of moisture along the
ledge.
Having won freedom from that other influence, Ziantha felt she
dared not return to it. Here and now she must make her attempt to
find their guide.
“Here,” she mind-sent. “There is too much
residue of some old ill among the stones. I can only do this thing
free of them.”
“I am coming—”
She turned to watch him moving slowly, with such care as if he
must plan and then enforce each movement of his body, none of which
were instinctive now. He had waved back the pilot who remained by
the flyer. And when he reached her his head was up, his eyes steady
and clear.
“You are ready?”
“As much as I shall ever be.” Now that the final
moment before carrying out her decision had come she wanted to flee
it. She had used the focus-stone to its full power before, and it
had brought her here. When she used it again—where would it
take her? And would the change be as entire, as binding, as it now
was? She had the gem in her hand, but before she looked into it,
surrendered to the talent, Ziantha made a last appeal.
“Anchor me. Do not let me be lost. For if I
am—”
“We both are.” He nodded. “I shall give you
all I have to give, be sure of that.”
“Then—” she cupped the stone between her
hands, raised it to her forehead—
The sea, the pound of the sea—wild, raging—the
devouring sea! Around her the tower room trembled, the air was
filled with the thunder of the waters. The anger of the sea against
Nornoch. Would these walls stand through this storm? And if they
did—what of the next and the next—?
Ziantha—no, who was Ziantha? A name—a faint flash of
memory to which she tried to cling even as it vanished, as a dream
vanishes upon waking. D’Eyree!
“D’Eyree!” her voice rang above the clamor of
the storm, as if she summoned herself from sleep to face what must
come.
She raised her hands uncertainly before her. Surely she should
have been holding something—on the floor—look! The
urgency, the fear of loss gripped her, sent her to her knees, her
hands groping across the thick carpet.
Her every movement brought a clash, a jangling from the strings
of polished shells which formed her skirt, just as they fashioned
the tight, scant bodice which barely covered her flat breasts. Her
skin—green, pale green, or gold—or blue—no, that
color came from the scales which covered her, like small dim jewels
laid edge to edge.
She was D’Eyree of the Eyes. The Eyes!
No longer did she run her hands across the floor in vain search.
She had had such a foolish thought. Where would the Eyes be but
where they had always rested since the Choosing made her what she
was? She raised her fingers now to touch that band about her
forehead with the two gems she could not see, only feel, one above
each temple, just as they should be. How could she have thought
them lost?
She was D’Eyree and—
She was—Ziantha! A flooding of memory, like a fire to
cleanse the mist in her mind. Her head snapped up and she looked
around at strangeness.
The walls of the oval room were opaline, with many soft colors
playing across them, and they were very smooth as might be a
shell’s interior. The carpet on the floor was rusty red, soft
and springy with a strange life of its own.
There were two windows, long and narrow slits. She went hastily
to the nearest. She was Ziantha—no, D’Eyree! The
Eyes—they fought to make her D’Eyree. She willed her
hands to pull at the band that bound them to her head. Her fingers
combed coarse hair like thick seaweed but could not move that
band.
Ziantha must hold to Ziantha—learn where Nornoch might
be.
She looked out, ducking as spray from the storm-driven waves
fell salty on her face. But she glimpsed the other towers; this
portion of Nornoch was guardian to the land behind, where she was
warden.
Only, the sea was winning; after all these centuries it was
winning. Her people held this outpost, and when the Three Walls
were breached, when the sea came again—they would be swept
away, back and down, to become, if any survived, what they had once
been; mindless living things of the under-ooze. But that—that
would not be! Not while the Eyes had a voice, a mind! Six eyes and
their wearers—one for each wall still.
She leaned against the slit, a hand to each side of it, fighting
for calm. Bringing all the power which was D’Eyree’s by
both inheritance and training to subdue this stranger in her mind,
she put her—it—away and concentrated on that which was
her mission, to will the walls to hold, to be one with the
defense.
Think of her wall, of how the creatures, the Lurla, had built it
and the two others from secretions of their own bodies over the
centuries, of how those creatures had been fed and tended, bred and
cherished by the people of Nornoch to create defenses against the
sea. Will the Lurla to work, now—will!—will!
She was no longer even D’Eyree; she was a will, a call to
action so that creatures stirred sluggishly began to respond. Ah,
so slowly! Yet they could not be prodded to any greater efforts or
speed.
Secrete, build, strengthen—that Nornoch not yield! Move,
so that the waves do not eat us into nothingness again. The
Eyes—let the power that is in the Eyes goad the Lurla to
awake and work.
But so few! Was that because, as D’Fani said, her people
had dared turn away from the old ways—the sacrifices?
Will—she must not let her thoughts, her concentration stray
from what was to be done. Lurla—she could see them in her
mind—their sluglike bodies as they crawled back and forth
across the wall which was her own responsibility, leaving behind
them ever those trails of froth that hardened on contact with the
air and steadily became another layer within the buttress
foundations of the Three Walls, the towers. Stir, Lurla! Awake,
move—do this for the life of Nornoch!
But they were more sluggish than they had ever been. Two dropped
from the walls, lay inert. What was—? D’Eyree raised
her hands from the walls, pressed her palms to the Eyes, feeling
their chill.
Awake, Lurla! This is no time to sleep. The storm is high; do
you not feel the tower shake? Awake, crawl, build!
Lurla—it was as if she raised her voice to shriek that
aloud.
The sea’s pound was in her ears, but fainter, its fury
lessened. Then D’Fani was wrong; this was not one of the
great storms after all. She need not have feared—
“Ziantha!”
There was no window through which she looked. She was in the
open with a bird’s screams sounding above the surf. And
before her, hands on her shoulders (as if those hands had dragged
her out of the time and place that had been), Turan.
She wrested herself from his grip to wheel about on the rock,
face out over the waves, straining as if she could from this point
catch a glimpse of Nornoch, learn whether its towers, the Three
Walls, were still danger-wrapped, if the Lurla had been kept to
their task.
No, that was all finished long ago. How long? Her talent could
not answer that. Perhaps as many years stood now between
D’Eyree and Vintra as between Vintra and Ziantha. And that
number her mind reeled from calculating.
Only now she knew where Nornoch lay, if any of Nornoch still
survived. That much they had gained. She pointed with an outflung
hand.
“Over sea—or under it—but there!” She
spoke aloud, for the burden of weariness which followed upon a
trance lay on her. And she allowed Turan to take her hand, draw her
back to the flyer.
As if their coming was a signal, the armsman came out of the
cabin. Beneath his close-fitting helmet hood his face was
anxious.
“Lord Commander, I have had it on the wave-speak. They are
using S-Code—”
Vintra’s memory identified that for her and, lest
Turan’s memory no longer served him, Ziantha supplies what
she knew by mind-touch. “A military code of top
security.”
“The rebels—” Turan began.
But the armsman shook his head. “Lord Commander, I was com
officer for my unit. They hunt you and—they have orders to
shoot you down!”
There was a look of misery on his young face, as if the first
shock had worn off so he could believe, even if he did not
understand.
“Zuha must be desperate,” Ziantha commented.
“It does not matter. Only time matters,” Turan
returned. “Battle comrade, here we must part company. You
have served me better than you will ever know. However I cannot
take you with us farther—”
“Lord Commander, wherever you go, then I shall fly
you!” His determination was plain.
“Not to Nornoch—” what made Ziantha say that
she did not know.
His head jerked around. “What—what do you know of
Nornoch?”
“That it holds what we seek,” she answered.
“Lord Commander, do not let her! Nornoch—that is a
story—a tale of the sea that sailors have used to frighten
their children since the beginning. There is no Nornoch, no
fish-people, except in evil dreams!”
“Then in dreams we must seek it.”
The armsman moved between them and the cabin of the flyer.
“Lord Commander, this—this rebel has indeed bewitched
you. Do not let her lead you to your death!”
Tired as she was Ziantha did what must be done, centering her
power, thrusting it at him as she might have thrust with a
primitive spear or sword. His hands went to his head; he gave a
moaning cry and stumbled back, away, until he wilted to the ground
well beyond the wing shadow of the flyer.
“Ill done,” she said, “but there was naught
else—”
“I know,” Turan said, his voice as flat, sounding as
tired as she felt. “We must go before he revives. Where we go
we cannot take him. You are sure of the course?”
“I am sure,” she answered steadily as they climbed
into the cabin.