Warlock by Andre Norton

” . . . where blow the winds between the worlds,

And hang the suns in dark of space.

For Power is given a man to use.

Let him do so well before the last accounting—”

The voice was hoarse, cracked, the words spaced with uneven catches of breath, as if they had been repeated many, many times to provide an anchor against madness, form a tie to reality. And hearing that note, Shann slowed his pace. This was out of no memory of his; he was sure of that.

” . . . blow the winds between the worlds,

And hang the suns in . . . dark—of—of—”

That harsh croak of voice was running down, as a clock runs down for lack of winding. Shann sped on, reacting to a plea which did not lay in the words themselves.

Once more the mist curled back, provided him with an open space. A man sat on the sand, his fists buried wrist deep in the smooth grains on either side of his body, his eyes set, red-rimmed, glazed, his body rocking back and forth in time to his labored chant.

” . . . the dark of space—”

“Thorvald!” Shann skidded in the sand, went down on his knees. The manner of their last parting was forgotten as he took in the officer’s condition.

The other did not stop his swaying, but his head turned with a stiff jerk, the gray eyes making a visible effort to focus on Shann. Then some of the strain smoothed out of the gaunt features and Thorvald laughed softly.

“Garth!”

Shann stiffened but had no chance to protest that mistaken identification as the other continued: “So you made class one status, boy! I always knew you could if you’d work for it. A couple of black marks on your record, sure. But those can be rubbed out, boy, when you’re willing to try. Thorvalds always have been Survey. Our father would have been proud.”

Thorvald’s voice flattened, his smile faded, there was a growing spark of some emotion in those gray eyes. Unexpectedly, he hurled himself forward, his hands clawing for Shann’s throat. He bore the younger man down under him to the sand where Lantee found himself fighting desperately for his life against a man who could only be mad.

Shann used a trick learned on the Dumps, and his opponent doubled up with a gasp of agony to let the younger man break free. He planted a knee on the small of Thorvald’s back, digging the officer into the sand, pinning down his arms in spite of the other’s struggles. Regaining his own breath in gulps, Shann tried to appeal to some spark of reason in the other.

“Thorvald! This is Lantee—Lantee—” His name echoed in the mist-walled void like an unhuman wail.

“Lantee—? No, Throg! Lantee—Throg—killed my brother!”

Sand puffed out with the breath which expelled that indictment. But Thorvald no longer fought, and Shann believed him close to collapse.

Shann relaxed his hold, rolling the other man over. Thorvald obeyed his pull limply, lying face upward, sand in his hair and eyebrows, crusting his slack lips. The younger man brushed the dirt away gently as the other opened his eyes to regard Shann with his old impersonal stare.

“You’re alive,” Thorvald stated bleakly. “Garth’s dead. You ought to be dead too.”

Shann drew back, rubbed sand from his hands, his concern dampened by the other’s patent hostility. Only that angry accusation vanished in a blink of those gray eyes. Then there was a warmer recognition in Thorvald’s expression.

“Lantee!” The younger man might just have come into sight. “What are you doing here?”

Shann tightened his belt. “Just about what you are.” He was still aloof, giving no acknowledgment of difference in rank now. “Running around in this fog hunting the way out.”

Thorvald sat up, surveying the billowing walls of the hole which contained them. Then he reached out a hand to draw fingers down Shann’s forearm.

“You are real,” he observed simply, and his voice was warm, welcoming.

“Don’t bet on it,” Shann snapped. “The unreal can be mighty real—here.” His hand went up to the smarting brand on his shoulder.

Thorvald nodded. “Masters of illusion,” he murmured.

“Mistresses,” Shann corrected. “This place is run by a gang of pretty smart witches.”

“Witches? You’ve seen them? Where? And what—who are they?” Thorvald pounced with a return of his old-time sharpness.

“They’re females right enough, and they can make the impossible happen. I’d say that classifies them as witches. One of them tried to take me over back on the island. I set a trap and caught her; then somehow she transported me—” Swiftly he outlined the chain of events leading from his sudden awakening in the river tunnel to his present penetration of this fog-world.

Thorvald listened eagerly. When the story was finished, he rubbed his hands across his drawn face, smearing away the last of the sand. “At least you have some idea of who they are and a suggestion of how you got here. I don’t remember that much about my own arrival. As far as I can remember I went to sleep on the island and woke up here!”

Shann studied him and knew that Thorvald was telling the truth. He could remember nothing of his departure in the outrigger, the way he had fought Shann in the lagoon. The Survey officer must have been under the control of the Warlockians then. Quickly he gave the older man his version of the other’s actions in the outer world and Thorvald was clearly astounded, though he did not question the facts Shann presented.

“They just took me!” Thorvald said in a husky half whisper. “But why? And why are we here? Is this a prison?”

Shann shook his head. “I think all this”—a wave of his hand encompassed the green wall, what lay beyond it, and in it—”is a test of some kind. This dream business . . . A little while ago I got to thinking that I wasn’t here at all, that I might be dreaming it all. Then I met you.”

Thorvald understood. “Yes, but this could be a dream meeting. How can we tell?” He hesitated, almost diffidently, before he asked: “Have you met anyone else here?”

“Yes.” Shann had no desire to go into that.

“People out of your past life?”

“Yes.” Again he did not elaborate.

“So did I.” Thorvald’s expression was bleak; his encounters in the fog must have proved no more pleasant than Shann’s. “That suggests that we do trigger the hallucinations ourselves. But maybe we can really lick it now.”

“How?”

“Well, if these phantoms are born of our memories there are about only two or three we could see together—maybe a Throg on the rampage, or that hound we left back in the mountains. And if we do sight anything like that, we’ll know what it is. On the other hand, if we stick together and one of us sees something that the other can’t . . . well, that fact alone will explode the ghost.”

There was sense in what he said. Shann aided the officer to his feet.

“I must be a better subject for their experiments than you,” the older man remarked ruefully. “They took me over completely at the first.”

“You were carrying that disk,” Shann pointed out. “Maybe that acted as a focusing lens for whatever power they use to make us play trained animals.”

“Could be!” Thorvald brought out the cloth-wrapped bone coin. “I still have it.” But he made no move to pull off the bit of rag about it. “Now”—he gazed at the wall of green—”which way?”

Shann shrugged. Long ago he had lost any idea of keeping a straight course through the murk. He might have turned around any number of times since he first walked blindly into this place. Then he pointed to the packet Thorvald held.

“Why not flip that?” he asked. “Heads, we go that way—” he indicated the direction in which they were facing—”tails we do a rightabout-face.”

There was an answering grin on Thorvald’s lips. “As good a guide as any we’re likely to find here. We’ll do it.” He pulled away the twist of cloth and with a swift snap, reminiscent of that used by the Warlockian witch to empty the bowl of sticks, he tossed the disk into the air.

It spun, whirled, but—to their open-jawed amazement—it did not fall to the sand. Instead it spun until it looked like a small globe instead of a disk. And it lost its dead white for a glow of green. When that glow became dazzling for Terran eyes the miniature sun swung out, not in orbit but in a straight line of flight, heading to their right.

With a muffled cry, Thorvald started in pursuit, Shann running beside him. They were in a tunnel of the fog now, and the pace set by the spinning coin was swift. The Terrans continued to follow it at the best pace they could summon, having no idea of where they were headed, but each with the hope that they finally did have a guide to lead them through this place of confusion and into a sane world where they could face on more equal terms those who had sent them there.