“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?