Warlock by Andre Norton

“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.

“The stone,” she spoke aloud, not using mind-touch lest she disturb his concentration, “it is coming to life!”

“Then we must be near—” His voice was very low, hardly above a whisper.

But if the sea covered—

Ziantha moved closer to the vision port, tried to see ahead. The sun’s reflection from the waves was strong but— A dark shadow, rising from the sea!

“Turan, an island!”

The flyer circled it. What Ziantha could see was forbidding; jagged spires of rock, no vegetation. Where could they land? Had this been a flitter of their own time and world they would need only a reasonably open space to set down. But she had seen the take-off of these ancient machines and knew they required much more.

As Turan circled he spoke:

“It is larger than I expected. Either the report was wrong, or more of it has arisen since the first upheaval.”

“Look!” Ziantha cried. “To the south—there!”

A stretch of great blocks of masonry locked together, stretching from the cliffs of the inner portion of the island out into the waves. Those dashed against it, leaving it wet with spray. It might have been a pier fashioned to accommodate a whole fleet of vessels.

“Can you land on that?”

“There is one way of proving it.” And it would seem Turan was desperate enough to try.

This time Ziantha did shut her eyes as he banked and turned to make the run along that strange sea-wet roadway, if road it was. She felt the jarring impact of their first touch, the bumps and bounces as they hurtled along a surface that was plainly not as smooth as it had appeared from the air. Then the vibration of the motor died. They came to a stop without crashing against a rock or diving headlong into the waiting waves.

When she dared to look she saw the vision port wet with spray. The flyer rocked slightly under the pound of water, diffused though that was by the time it reached them. They were safely down.

“Turan!” She glanced around. He had slumped in his seat. She caught his shoulder, shook him. “Turan!”

He turned his head with painful slowness. There was the starkness of death in his eyes.

“I cannot hold—much longer— Listen, open your mind!”

Stiff with fear, she dropped the focus-stone into her lap so that no emanation of that could befog reception for her and leaned forward, set her hands on either side of his head, held it, as if he were some artifact she must read for her life’s sake.

Information flooded into her mind—all that he had picked up from the armsman, how to fly them away when what she had come to do was finished, and what she must do afterward if she were successful here.

She accepted this. Then she protested:

“Hold fast! You must hold fast. For if you cannot—then—”

To be entrapped here forever! In a way that was worse than death. Or would death free him when it took back the body it had never fully released to life? Ziantha did not know. All she was sure of was that she could not allow him to die here. That she must, if she could, not only find the key for her return, but also for his.

She leaned closer to him, and instinct moved her to another kind of touch, one that carried in it the seeds of vigorous life as her kind knew it. As her lips met his cold, flaccid ones, she willed her energy into him.