Warlock by Andre Norton

“I do not know,” she was forced to confess. What equipment was small enough to be packed personally Ziantha could not tell. The Guild was notorious for its gathering of unusual devices. Ogan might even have the equivalent of the Eyes.

“I—” she was beginning when the world around her blurred. The rocks, the withered-looking vegetation, rippled as if all were painted on a curtain stirred by the wind. The change was such to frighten, passing from desolation to land alive.

She stood on a street between two lines of buildings. Before her stretched the length of a city, towering against the brilliances of sunlit sky. People moved, afoot, in vehicles—yet about them was something unreal.

Ziantha gasped, tried to leap aside as a landcar bore straight for her. But she was not allowed to escape; a grasp held her firmly in spite of her cries, her struggles. Then, the car was upon her but there was no impact, nothing! Another came the other way, scraped by her. She shut her eyes against those terrors and went on fighting what held her helpless in the Singakok returned—for this was Singakok.

The Eyes—they had done this! Yet she had not focused upon them. And if they were able to do this without her willing—! She raised her free hand to her breast. Unsealing her pocket slit, she snatched forth the Eyes, hurled them from her.

But she was still in Singakok! Locked in Singakok! Ziantha screamed. With a last surge of strength, backed by panic, she beat with her free hand against that thing which held her, fighting with fist, both feet, in any way she could, to break the hold. While around her—through her—the people and cars of the long-dead city went their way.

“Ziantha!”

She had closed her eyes to Singakok. Now she realized that, for all the seeming reality of the city, there had been no sound. Her name called in that demand for attention was real. But she dared not open her eyes.

“Ziantha!” Hands held her in spite of her fierce struggles. And the hands were as real as the voice.

“What do you see?” The demand came clearly, to compel her answer.

“I—I stand in Singakok—” And because her fear was so great she released the barrier against mind-probe.

Instantly touch flowed in, that same strong sense of comradeship she had known with Turan. She no longer fought, but rather stood trembling, allowing the confidence he radiated to still her panic, bring stability. And—she had been a fool not to allow this before—he did not mean her ill! As they had fought together in Singakok, as he had given of his last strength to aid her out of Nornoch, so was he prepared to stand with her now.

Ziantha opened her eyes. The city was still there; it made her giddy to see the cars, the pedestrians, and know that this was hallucination. But who induced it? Not the Wyvern-trained Lantee—he could not have done so and responded to her mental contact as he was now doing. Harath? The Eyes? But those she had thrown away.

“The Eyes! I threw them away, but still I see Singakok!” She quavered.

“You see a memory someone is replaying for you. Ogan—” Lantee’s voice from close beside her, even as she could hold on to him. But she could not see him—only Singakok.

“Do not look, use your mind sense,” Lantee ordered. “Do you pick up any thoughts?”

She tested. There was Lantee—Harath—nothing of those alien patterns she had known before. Just as the city had no sounds to make it real to one sense, so it had no mind-pattern to make it real to another.

“It is sight—my sight—”

“Well enough.” Lantee’s voice was as even as if he fully understood what was happening. “The hallucination is only for one sense. It worked in that it made you throw away the Eyes.”

Sent to force her to discard the Eyes? Then it had succeeded.

“I did. I threw them—”

“Not very far. Harath has retrieved them. Now listen, this was meant to engulf us all. But because I am Wyvern trained, and because Harath is alien, we were not caught. But if we stay here to fight for your freedom we may be courting another and stronger attack. Therefore we must push on. You must discount what you see, depend upon mind-send and your other senses, so we can reach my scout. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Ziantha kept her eyes tightly closed. Could she walk so blind, even with them leading her?

“We can do it.” Lantee was confident. “Keep your eyes closed if you must, but follow our directions. Harath will work directly with you. I am now putting him on your shoulder.”

She felt the weight, the painfully strong clutch of Harath’s claws.

“Keep your eyes closed. Harath wishes to try something.”

She felt the touch of the alien’s tentacles about her head; then their tips were lightly touched to her eyelids. It—it was like seeing and yet unlike—the sensation was strange. But through Harath she could visualize the scene as it had been before the illusion entrapped her. And, with her hand in Lantee’s, as he drew her on, with Harath’s shared sight, Ziantha started ahead. She went with only a shaky belief that this could be done, but her confidence grew.

They were following one of the small stream trickles now, and, remembering the poisonous lizard, she projected a warning. Lantee reassured her.

“We are sending warn-off vibrations. You need not worry about the native life.”

“This is the long way round,” he added a moment later. “Ogan may have more weapons. We have the shield; but since he has been able to pierce that in your case, we cannot be sure he will not try more direct methods of attack.”

More direct methods of attack—laser fire from ambush? No, she must not let herself think of that, she must concentrate on the journey. There were differences in Harath’s sight and her own as she speedily discovered, a distortion that was a trial. But it was far better than being led blindly.

They toiled up a rise where Ziantha found the going harder than it had been before. And there was a second descent as both Harath and Lantee cautioned her, taking so long on the passage down, she felt they would never reach bottom.

But before them stood a ship. Far smaller than the Jack craft that had once been a trader, this, she presumed—though through Harath’s intermediacy its outlines were odd—was the Patrol scout.

“Wait!” Lantee’s hand was now an anchor.

“What is the matter?” Through Harath Ziantha could not see anything that might be amiss. But this perception could be deceptive.

“The ship—it was left on persona-lock—with the ramp in!”

“But the ramp”—with Harath’s aid she could see that—”it is out!”

“Just so. Walk into a trap. Does he think he has panicked us into being utter fools? If so he is wrong—but—”

Ziantha stiffened. “It is not the ship. He wants you to try for that—”

She could hear his heightened breathing, so still he was. Harath had tensed in turn on her shoulder until his claws cut her flesh. She welcomed that pain as a tie with reality.

“A distort! Can you not feel it?” Surely he was aware of that stomach turning, that inner churning, as if mind and body were swinging about.

It was growing so much stronger that she knew she could force herself no nearer. Now she felt Harath’s tentacles slip from their hold about her head, their touch gone from her eyelids. She no longer had his sense as her guide, while that terrible feeling of disorientation grew and grew.

Harath uttered a shrill cry, carrying the force of a human scream. Apparently he was more susceptible to this attack than even the other two. He lost his hold, and Ziantha caught him, felt the shudders in his body. As she cradled him against her he went limp and she lost his mind-touch.

“Back!” Lantee drew her with him. But the distort centered on them, followed their retreat. Whatever defensive barrier her companion trusted in had not held. And if they were caught by the full force of a powerful distort they could lose all coherent thought.

“I am stepping up barrier power.” Lantee’s voice had not changed; he still seemed confident. “But,” he continued, “that cannot hold too long.”

“And when it blows—” she added what he had not said, “we can be overcome.”

“There is one thing—” He pulled at her hand. “Get down, behind these rocks.” Gently he forced her to her knees. The distort broadcast lessened.

“You say there is something we can do?”

“You have the Eyes.”

“I threw them away back here. Harath—”

“Harath returned them to me. Here.” His hands on hers, opening her fist, dropping on her flattened palm those two pieces of mineral.

“Since you have used them, they will answer best to you. Now, Ogan has plunged you into a visual hallucination. He is hiding near here somewhere. He could not have forced entrance to the ship, although he hallucinates for us that he has. We must reverse on him his own illusion.”