Warlock by Andre Norton

“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—