Warlock by Andre Norton

“If you have any charts as a guide we might make sure.” Ziantha remembered her success with the star charts.

“Those are what I—we—must locate and speedily. As I say, I cannot much longer spar with the priests and keep out of their Tower of Vut. And even if their sensitives are of the lowest grade they might discover the Turan who returned is not what they believe. Then Zuha could well raise the cry of sorcery against us both and gain her wish to see the last of her Lord Commander forever. We have very little time—”

She looked at him and nodded. Vintra’s body served her well, and to look in the mirror reassured her that she was alive. But, Turan, with those deep-closed wounds, that gray face—he was suspect, and she marveled he had managed so well this long.

9

The need for haste was so great it was as if someone trotted on their heels, urging them in whispers to run—run. She had found an undertunic, such as Zuha wore, in one of the chests and bundled over it a longer, semitransparent robe. She now caught that up in both hands to free her feet as they sped along a corridor that Turan said linked the women’s quarters with his own.

Though once or twice they heard the sound of conversation or movement in rooms they passed, no one came into the hall. And, as far as mind-touch reported, they passed unseen. She could hardly believe fortune was favoring them so much.

If any record of Turan’s voyage existed, that might be found among his private accounts. But to seek blindly was to waste their precious time. It would require both their talents, one to keep sentry, the other to sift out knowledge, as she had in Jucundus’s apartment.

It was difficult to remember now that she was not only on an alien world, but in a time so far lost to her own that this city, these people were not even legends. Ziantha felt no wonder, only the driving need to escape, to find again her own place, dangerous though it might be. For those dangers were familiar, and now they seemed, by comparison, not to be perils at all, but a well-settled pattern of life. It is the unknown that always carries with it the darkest fear.

“Here—” Turan was at a door, waved her to him.

“Records?” She looked around her for something familiar. Even if it might be the very ancient scrolls of actual writing she had seen in a museum.

“For secrecy perhaps, or even because of custom they were kept thus.”

He had gone to a cabinet and now brought forth bunches of short cords, knotted together at one end, the rest flapping free. Along each of these many lengths were spaced beads of different shapes and colors. Ziantha stared. To her these made no sense. Records—kept by beads knotted at irregular intervals on bits of cord? That was a device she had never heard of. She looked to Turan, unable to believe that he meant what he said.

As he ran his fingers along the cords, he paused to touch a bead here and there.

“A memorization device. In our time this would be used by a very primitive tribe that had not yet mastered the art of writing in symbols. Yet it can be a personal code, locked for all time. Apparently very secret records are kept here in this fashion. Each type of bead, each knotting, whether it be a finger width less or more from the next, has a meaning. The keeper of such can sit in the dark and ‘read’ these by running them through his fingers.”

“If they are Turan’s, then you should be able—”

He shook his head wearily. “I have only very fleeting touch with Turan’s memories, and those grow less and less. I—I dare not use too much of my power; it is needed to control this body.”

So he was admitting that he was having trouble with the Turan shell? Ziantha put out a hand, stirred the mass of cords. If they were in code, a code known only to him who had devised them, it would require intense concentration to gain anything from them.

Compared to this, dealing with the sealed tapes in Korwar was play for a beginner. For the tapes had been clearly inscribed by one of her own species. An alien code, devised by an alien— Well, since this key was the only one offered them she must try.

“You hold watch then?”

At his nod, she took up the nearest assortment of cords. They were silken soft, and the beads glinted blue, white, and vivid orange-scarlet. She slipped the packet back and forth through her fingers.

Emotion—hate—a vicious and deadly hate, as sharp and imperiling in its intent to threaten her reading as if the cords had taken on serpentine life and struck at her. With a little cry, she threw the bunch from her.

“What is it?”

Ziantha did not answer. Instead she held her hand palm down over the whole collection. Not quite touching, but in her mind seeking what source had broadcast that blast that had met her first probe.

“These—these have been recently handled, by some one who was so filled with hate and anger that emotion blankets all. Unless I can break that I can do nothing.”

He lowered himself wearily onto a bench, leaned his head back against the wall, his eyes closed. And without the life of his eyes—Ziantha shuddered, would not look at him. It was as if a dead man rested there. How long could he continue to hold Turan in this pseudo-life?

“Who is responsible? Can you learn that?”

She took up again the first collection. Strong emotion could fog any reception of impressions, and she was already handicapped by trying to read alien minds. She wadded the beads and cords into a packet, held that to her forehead, trying to blot out all else but the picture she must have.

Zuha—yes, there was no mistaking the High Consort. But there was another influence. The girl tried for a name, some identification which perhaps Turan could recognize in turn. Zuha’s hate, her frustration—those were so strong a wave that they were as blows against her, yet she probed.

“Zuha,” she reported. “But there is another, some one behind Zuha. They came here seeking knowledge they did not discover. Zuha was very angry; she needed something she wanted desperately to find here. She—I think that she took some of these with her—the ones she believed important.”

“If we can find no chart soon . . .” His thought trailed away.

Time—she could not defeat time. Ziantha tossed the cord bundle back with the others. Had she hours, perhaps days, she could sort through these. There must be another way, for she did not have those hours or days. She need only glance at Turan to know that.

An island risen from the sea, and on it somewhere a twin to the stone, an equal focus piece. Their piece tied to it, and they, apparently, tied to the first. If they could not release those ties, Turan would die again, and so would she—at the hands of Zuha—and no pleasant death.

One could believe that some essence of personality survived the ending of the body. Those with the talent were sure of that. But inbred in their varied species was so firm a barrier against their body’s dismissal that they could not face what man called “death” without that safety device of struggle for existence taking over control. She would not accept the fact that she, Ziantha, was going to come to an end in this world which was not hers, any more than she believed that her companion could likewise surrender.

An island from the sea, and a stone found there— The girl strode back and forth, thinking furiously, before the bench on which Turan had half collapsed. There was one way, but she could not do it here. Not in the midst of enemies when at any moment those who had no reason to wish either of them life could come in upon them. But where?

Ziantha paused, looked around, tried to be objective. She had Vintra’s memories to call upon and she did that recklessly. These people had aircraft. There was a landing port outside the city where such were kept. If Turan could pilot one—if they could first reach that landing port—commandeer one of the craft— Too many ifs, too many things that might stand between. But it was her—perhaps their—only hope.

She dropped down beside Turan, took his cold hand to hold between her two warmer ones, willing strength back into him. He opened his eyes, turned his head toward her.

Again that ghastly smile came. “I endure,” he said, as if he not only meant to reassure her, but himself. “You have thought of something—what? I would think clearer but I must hold on, and at times that takes all my power.”