Warlock by Andre Norton

“Not this time perhaps. But if the Voice says there will be a second storm, a third—” Now D’Atey smiled. “I think after D’Huna’s report, D’Fani will have many listening to him. He may even call for a trial of power, D’Eyree. Think you well on that.”

She nodded and slipped away. D’Eyree looked once more to the sea. The Voice—had D’Fani’s brother really repaired it? Or was it, as more likely, some trick of D’Fani’s to influence the council and the people to plunge back into the old ways from which D’Gan had raised them? The Voice was set on the highest peak within the Three Walls. In the old days it had predicted accurately the coming of storms. But custom had been its conqueror. For by custom only one line of the people serviced the Voice, understood its intricate mechanism. And when the Plague of the Red Tide Year had struck, those who had understood the Voice had been, for some reason, the first stricken.

For years it had continued to operate even though those who had once tended it were gone. And the people had been lulled into believing that it was indestructible. Then it slowed, became inaccurate by days with its warnings. Finally it stopped. Though men had labored for two generations now to relearn its workings, they had been uniformly unsuccessful. The belief had been held for a long time that, like the Lurla, the Voice answered to mental control—a control inherited by the one clan that no longer existed. There were no visible focus points of communication to be discovered, nothing like the Eyes.

The Eyes—and D’Huna had surrendered hers! Perhaps she had surrendered even more as D’Atey had suggested. Of course the Lurla no longer bred as they once did. But their number had always been carefully controlled as was needful. However, suppose that a mutant strain had developed, one not so quick to answer to the dominance of the Eyes? The people had changed over the centuries since they had ventured forth step by step from the sea. They were amphibians now. But the fear had always hung over them that if they were forced out of Nornoch, which was their grip upon the land, they would lose their hard-won intelligence and revert again to sea creatures who could not think of themselves as human.

To return to feeding the Lurla on food long forbidden—could that be right? D’Gan had taught that such practices were savage, reducing those who held them to the status of one of the fanged sea raiders.

The band that held the Eyes seemed to press so tightly on D’Eyree’s forehead that it was a burden weighting her head; she could not carry it proudly aloft as became her. She returned to the window slit, resting her head against its solid frame, the breeze from the sea cool and moist against her scaled skin. She was so tired. Let those who had never worn the Eyes, carried that burden, think of the powers and privileges of her position. The weight, fear, and responsibility of it was far heavier than any respect could bolster.

Why then not follow D’Huna, admit that the Lurla had been sluggish for her, that four had failed? But if she did that, she was surrendering another kind of wall to D’Fani and those who followed him. The only possible wearers of the Eyes were very young, easily influenced, and one was D’Wasa, whom D’Eyree did not trust.

No, as long as she could, she must not surrender to her weariness, the more so if the Feeding returned. Not only did her whole being shrink from the very thought of that horror for herself; she knew it would also be throwing open the gate to the worst of the people.

Yet if the Voice proclaimed another such storm ahead, and D’Fani called for a trial of power before that came—

She was like one swimming between a fanged raider and a many-arms, with cause to believe that each was alerted to her passing and ready to put an end to her. And she was so tired—

D’Huna—she would go to D’Huna. She must know more of the failure of the Lurla—whether the other believed what she herself suspected, that it was not the fault of the Eyes, but of a mutation in the Lurla themselves. Knowledge was strength and the more knowledge she could garner the better she could build her own defense.

Even if D’Huna had surrendered her Eyes, she would not have left her tower. That by custom she could not do until the new wearer entered into it and took formal possession. So there was yet time.

D’Eyree threaded a way along nacre-walled corridors, climbed down in one section, up in another. The majority of the people never came into these link-ways between the towers. The privacy of the wearers was well guarded, lest they be disturbed at some time when it was necessary to check upon the Lurla or otherwise use their talent. And with a council in progress and the possibility of the Voice making some pronouncement, the attention of most of Nornoch would be centered elsewhere.

She passed no one during her journey; the towers might be deserted. Though there were six wearers on permanent duty, two for each wall. If D’Caquk and D’Lov had heard the news, there was no indication they stirred to hear more. The pale glow of the in-lights shone above their doors as she passed. Then she came to D’Huna’s tower.

With her webbed fingers D’Eyree rapped out their private call code. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the slit door opened, and she stepped into a room the duplicate of her own. D’Huna faced her, looking strange without the Eyes. D’Eyree had never seen her without them since they had become wearers on the same day.

“Kin-close,” D’Eyree spoke first, a little daunted by the unfocused stare the other turned on her—as if D’Eyree were not there at all. “I have been told a tale I cannot believe.” Her voice trailed away.

“What can you not believe?” D’Huna asked in a voice as lacking in animation as her face. “That I have put aside the Eyes, that I am no longer to watch and ward? If it is of that you speak, it is the truth.”

“But why have you done this thing? All—all of us know that the Lurla can be sluggish at times, that it is hard to drive them to their task. Of late years this has grown more and more the case.”

“With the storm,” D’Huna did not answer her directly, “I learned what the Lurla have become. Three would not answer the Eyes, even when I used the full force of my will. Therefore I failed Nornoch by so much. Let another who can bring more force to bear take my place, lest the wall crack at last.”

“Are you sure that another can do better?”

At that sharp question life showed in D’Huna’s face; there was a flicker in her large eyes. She stared at D’Eyree as if she still wore the Eyes, was attempting to bring their strength to bear on her sister wearer, to read her thoughts.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Have you sensed no difference in the Lurla?” D’Eyree might be grasping now for a small scrap of hope, but if she could make D’Huna question her own self-judgment perhaps there was a way out for them all. “As I have said, they have been sluggish of late. Perhaps it is not that our powers fail, but that the Lurla are more armored against us.”

“Be that so—then it will be also said that the Feeding once made them obey, that without it they are beyond our holding. Let another who is newly trained, perhaps stronger, stand in my place and try.”

The Feeding! So D’Huna was half converted to that belief. But did she not understand the danger in allowing that thought to spread? Perhaps she, D’Eyree, should keep to herself the observations she had made, or she would be giving ammunition to the enemy.

But even as she reflected, D’Huna’s expression changed. She threw off that blankness and her interest awakened.

“So—you have found them sluggish. Tell me—how many failed you this time!”

“Why should you—”

“Why should I think that?” D’Huna countered. “Because you are afraid, D’Eyree. Yes, I can read it in you, this fear. You sought me out, wishing to learn why I put off the Eyes. That being so, I think that it follows that you have also found your power failing you. There is no place for a wearer whom the Eyes fail. Would you be humbled before all the people by being forced to a trial? Set aside the Eyes by your own will; let them not be torn from you so that all may see a piteous thing worthy of contempt!”

“It is not so easy.” D’Eyree longed to deny the other’s accusation. But one cannot tell untruths to a wearer. “D’Fani speaks with the council. He urges a return to the Feeding; he promises the Voice will speak—”