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.
11
Ziantha wanted to close her eyes as Turan brought the flyer’s engines to life and headed toward the sea. Would the craft lift into the sky, or would they lose altitude and be licked down by the hungry waves below? That he had learned all he could from the pilot, she knew, but his first flight alone might be his last. They were out—over the water—and for a heart-shaking moment, Ziantha thought they had failed. Then the nose of the flyer came up. There was a terrible look of strain on Turan’s gaunt face, as if by will alone he lifted them into the sky.
She held the focus-stone cupped in her hands, ever aware of the thread of force which pulled. But where lay the other Eye now? Beneath the ocean where they could not find it?
She concentrated on that guide, being careful, however, not to let the stone draw her into a trance. And to keep that delicate balance of communication between the focus and the retention of her own identity was exhausting. Also her strength of body was beginning to fail. She was aware of hunger, of thirst, of the need for sleep, and she willed these away from her, employing techniques Ogan had long drilled into her to use her body as a tool and not allow its demands to rise paramount.
How far? That was of the greatest importance. The flyer might not be fueled for a long trip. And if they could not land when they reached their goal—what then?
Ziantha kept her mind closed, asked no questions of Turan, knowing that his failing strength was now centered on getting them to their goal. And her part was that of guide.
Time was no longer measured. But the girl became aware that that thread which had been so slight on their setting forth from land was growing stronger, easier to sense. And with that realization her confidence arose. The stone was growing warmer, and she glanced at it quickly. Its brilliance had increased and it gave off flashes of light, as if it were a communication device.