Warlock by Andre Norton

There was no real choice; there never had been, Charis knew that deep within her. But now, at the final test, she felt as bruised and beaten as if those spear carriers had taken her in an unequal struggle. Somehow she got to her feet and ran for the copter.

As she wrenched open the cockpit door, Charis paused for any trap to explode in her face. Then she scrambled in behind the controls. So far, all right. Now—where?

The Citadel was to the west, that was her only clue. Only, the sea was wide and she had never made the journey by air, as Lantee had. Maybe her guide could be a negative one, and she tracked her goal by the barrier against the Power or rather her use of it. Such a thin chance—but still a chance.

Charis set the control on full, braced herself for the force of a lift-leap, and pushed the proper button. She was slammed back in the cushioned pilot’s chair. Copters were not designed for such violent maneuvering. But a lift-leap would take her off the strip with speed enough to startle any guard she had not seen.

She gulped and fought the effects of the spurt upon her body, forcing her fingers to modify the climb. The domes were now small silvery circles just visible in the growing dark. She set a course northward, and put the flyer temporarily on auto-pilot while she tried to think out just how she could track that barrier with any accuracy.

How did you track nothingness? Just try to pierce here and there until you found the wall between you and your goal? Her vague direction was that island home of the Wyverns which stood northwest of the government base, southwest from Jagan’s post, and she had not even a com sweep to give her a more definite position.

Below, just visible in the night, was the shore, an irregular division between land and sea. The pattern—she must have the pattern. Charis looked about her a little wildly. There was no leaf to scratch, no earth or rock to draw upon. That wall storage pocket at her left hand? Charis plunged fingers into it and spilled out what it contained.

A packet of Sustain tablets—swiftly she scooped that into her own belt pouch and another first-aid kit, bigger and better fitted than the small one Lantee had carried. Joyfully Charis scrabbled in it for the sterile pencil. It was not here, but there was a large tube of the same substance. Last of all, a flat sheet of plasta-board such as could be used for sketch maps, its surface slighted roughened as if it had been marked and erased many times.

This would serve if she could find something with which to mark. Again Charis pawed into the pocket, and her fingers, scraping the bottom of the holder, closed about a thin cylinder. She brought out a fire tube. No use—or was it?

Frantically she twisted its dial to the smallest ray, and pressed the tip tight to the plasta-board. It was such a chance—the whole thing might go up in a burst of flame. But a map sheet should have been proofed against heat as well as moisture. Only this one had been used in the past, perhaps too often. She drew swiftly, fearful of any mistake. The brown heat-lines bit deeply into the surface and spread a little, but not enough to spoil the design.

Charis clicked off the heat unit and studied what she now held. Blurred, yes, but to her distinctive enough in its familiarity. She had a good substitute for the disk which she had lost.

Now—to put it to use. She closed her eyes. The room in the Citadel—concentrate!—the barrier! But in which direction? All she knew was that the barrier still existed. Her one idea of a direction-finder seemed a failure. No one gave up at a first try, though.

Room—design—barrier. Charis opened her eyes. Her head was turned slightly to the left. Was that a clue? Could she test it? She snapped the copter off auto-pilot and altered course inland away from the shore. When she had ceased to see the sea with only the dark mass of land now under her, she brought the flyer about and cruised back.

Room—design— Her head to the left again, but not so much. She had to take that as her lead, slender as it was. Altering the degree of course to that imagined point, she sent the copter on out to sea.

Design—try— She was looking straight ahead when she met what she could not penetrate. Oh, let this be right. Let it be right.

Charis had no idea how far offshore the Wyvern-held islands were. Any copter had a good ranging allowance, but her goal might still lie hours ahead. She clicked up the speed to full and sat with her hands on the map sheet, waiting.

The stars were low on the horizon. No! Not stars—they were far too low. Lights! Lights at nearly sea level—the Citadel! On impulse Charis tried the Power and it was as if she had thrown her body at full force against an unyielding slab of tri-steel. She gasped at what was translated into physical pain upon that encounter.

But the copter had met with no barrier. It continued on, unerringly bound for the lights ahead.

Charis had no idea what she would do when she reached the Citadel. Only she had her warning, and with the Power the Wyverns would know that she spoke the truth. Even with the warning—what could the witches do in their turn, except avoid outright and quick disaster by delaying whatever attack they had already organized.

The lights picked out the windows in the massive block of the Citadel, some of them almost on a level with the copter. Charis resumed control and circled the buildings in search of a level site on which to land. She had rounded the highest of the blocks when she sighted ground lights marking an open space, almost as if they had prepared for her coming.

As the flyer touched the pavement, she saw a second copter at one side. So—the other Survey man, Thorvald, had not left. An ally for her? Or was he now a prisoner, tucked away in such a pocket of non-being as Lantee had been? Lantee— Charis tried to push out of her mind any thought of Lantee.

She held the plasta-board. In this well-like space between walls there were no breaks, no doors, and the windows were at least a story above her. The lights which had directed her landing burned in portable standards. So the Wyverns had expected her. Yet no one waited here; she might be standing in a trap.

Charis nodded. This was all a part of what the shadow-patterned Wyvern had promised. She must do it all by her own efforts; the answer had to be hers.

The shadow Wyvern had said it, so to her it must be proven. Charis held the plasta-board in her two hands where she could see its design in the flickering half-light of the lamps. Spike-wing crest, pallid skin with only the faint tracings of faded designs—Charis pulled the Wyvern out of memory and built with care the picture to center upon, until she was sure no detail she could recall was missing. Then—

“So you can dream to a purpose after all.” No amazement, only recognition as a greeting.

The room was dusky. Although two lamps stood on either side of a table, their radiance made only a small pool, and Charis sensed larger space stretching far beyond where she stood. That other—the Wyvern—sat in a chair with a high back, its white substance glowing with runnels of color, which in themselves appeared to crawl with life.

She leaned back at her ease, the alien witch, her hands resting on the arms of her chair as she surveyed Charis appraisingly. Now the off-worlder found words to answer.

“I had dreamed to this much purpose, Wise One, that I stand here now.”

“Agreed. And to what future purpose do you stand here, Dreamer?”

“That a warning may be delivered.”

The vertical pupils in those large yellow eyes narrowed, the snouted head raised a fraction of an inch, and the sense of affront reached Charis clearly.

“You have that which will arm you against us, Dreamer? Then you have made a gain since last we were thus, face to face. What great new power have you discovered to be able to say ‘I warn you’ to us?”

“You mistake my words, Wise One. I do not warn you against myself, but against others.”

“And again you take upon yourself more than you have the right to do, Dreamer. Have you then read your answer from Those Gone Before?”

Charis shook her head. “Not so. But still you mistake me, Reader of Patterns. In what is to come, we dream one dream, not dream against dream.”