Warlock by Andre Norton

He was Turan, the enemy, who could not be trusted (that was Vintra growing stronger, bolder). No—he was all the help she could have to win back to Ziantha and reality.

“I will try,” she said simply, though she shrank from such exposure to whatever lay within the focus of this deadly bit of colored stone.

The ornament of the crown could be detached from the rest, Ziantha discovered. She unhooked the pendant, raised it to her forehead, and—

Turan’s hands were on her shoulders; he was calling her, not in words, but in the powerful waves of mind-send.

“I was not able to learn—” she said in distress.

“Nornoch-Above-the-Waves, Nornoch of the Three Green Walls— The Lurla to be commanded—” He recited the strange names and words slowly, making almost a pattern of song.

“She who is D’Eyree of the Eyes—” Ziantha found herself answering. “Turan—what does that mean? I do not remember—I am saying words I do not understand.”

She rubbed her hand wearily across her forehead. Her hair, loosened from the confinement of the crown, fell thickly about her shoulders like a smothering veil.

“You have returned to Vintra.” He still kept that hold upon her, and his touch was comforting, for it seemed to anchor her to this body, controlled that feeling that she was about to whirl out and away from all ties with rational life.

“But before Vintra,” he was continuing, “there was another—this D’Eyree, who had the talent, was trained in its use.”

“Then I just ‘saw’ again—in a trance!”

“Yes. And this you have learned for us, though you may not presently remember. This focus-stone has its counterpart, which is tied to it by strong bonds, draws it ever, so that she using it is swept farther back in time. The one stone struggles to be united with the other, and that which lies in the past acts as an anchor.”

“Vintra—”

“Vintra did not use the talent,” Turan said. “To her the stone was only a beautiful gem, a possession of Turan’s clan. But it is a thing unique in my knowledge, an insensate thing which had been so worked upon as a focus that it has come to have a kind of half-life. Awakened, that half-life draws it, and those who focus upon it, so that it may be reunited with its twin. And unless that is done I believe that we are held to it.”

“But if its origin lies beyond Vintra’s time—how far beyond Vintra?” she interrupted herself to ask that, fearing the answer.

“I do not know—long, I think.”

Ziantha clasped her hands tightly to keep them from shaking. The crown clanged to the floor.

“And if we cannot find . . .” She was afraid to complete that question. If his fears were now as great as hers—she did not want to know. What were they going to do? If they could not return—

“At least,” he said, “we shall not remain here. The spirit door is open. We’d best make what use of that we can.”

He went to stand on the bier, looking up to the dark hole.

“You”—Ziantha moistened her lips and began again—”you—in his body—can you control it?”

To her knowledge, and through Ogan that was not too limited, this experience was totally unknown. Of course the legends of necromancy—the raising of the dead to answer the questions and commands of those using the talent in a forbidden way—were known to more than one galactic race. But this type of transfer was new. Would it last? Could he continue to command a body from which life had ebbed before he entered it? She had come into Vintra while the other lived, merged in a way so that her stronger personality was able to push Vintra aside. But in his case—

He looked at her, the wavering candle flames making his face an unreal mask. “I do not know. For the present I can. This has not been done before, to my knowledge. But there is no reason to dwell on what might be; we must concern ourselves with what is, namely, that to linger here is of no use. Now—” He crouched below that opening and made a leap that she watched with horror, fearing that the body he called upon to make that effort would not obey. However, his hands caught the frame of the spirit door and held for a moment, and then he dropped back.

“We need something to climb on—a ladder.” He looked around, but the grave offerings were all on the other side of the wall. There was nothing here but—

He was moving the bier end up. Then he caught up the chains, jerking them loose from the wall ring so he had a length of links.

“You will have to steady this for me,” he told her briskly. One end of the bier was within the opening above. He draped the chain about his neck and climbed. Picking up the crown, careful not to touch the dangling gem, Ziantha came to his call, bracing and steadying the bier as best she could.

He was within the frame of the door, his head and shoulders out of her range of sight now. A moment later he was gone. The candles were burning low, but they gave light enough for her to see the chain end swinging through and knew that he must be fully out and prepared to aid her after him.

Moments later she shivered under the buffeting of a strong wind and the beginning of rain out in the open. Some of Vintra’s memories helped her.

“The guards—” She caught at his arm. He was winding the chain about him like a belt, as if he might have further use for it.

“On a night like this,” he answered, “perhaps we need not fear they are too alert.”

It was wild weather. Her festive garment, for they had arrayed Vintra for this sacrifice in a scanty feast robe, was plastered to her body, and the wind whipped her long hair about her. The chill of wind and rain set her shuddering, and now she could see her companion only as a shadow in the night. But his hand, warm, reassuring, closed about her shoulder.

“To Singakok, I think.” His voice, hard to hear through the wail of the wind, reached her with difficulty.

“But they will—” Vintra’s fear emerged.

“If Turan returns, as a miracle of Vut’s doing?” he asked. “The mere fact that I stand before them will give us the advantage for a space. And we need what Turan, or his people, know about that toy you carry. Guard it well, Ziantha, for it is all we have left to bring us back—if we can achieve a return.”

Perhaps there was a flaw in his reasoning, but she was too spent by emotion, by what lay immediately behind her, to see it. Vintra shrank from a return to the place of her imprisonment, her condemnation to death. But she was not Vintra—she dared not be. And when he drew her after him, she yielded.

They came through a screen of trees that had kept the storm from beating them down. And now, from this height, they could see Singakok, or the lights of the city, spread before them.

“The guards or their commander will have a land car.” Turan’s attention was entirely on the road that angled toward the root of the cliff like a thin tongue thrust out to ring them round and pull them in for Singakok’s swallowing.

“You can use Turan’s memories?” Ziantha was more than a little surprised. Turan’s body had been dead, emptied. How then could this other being know the ways of the guards?

“After a fashion. If we win through this foray we shall have some strange data to deliver. Yes, it appears that I can draw upon the memory of the dead to some degree. Now, you try Vintra also—”

“I hold her in check. If I loose her, can I then regain command?”

“That, too, we cannot know,” he returned. “But we must not go too blindly. Try a little to see what you can learn of the city—its ways.”

Ziantha loosed the control a fraction, was rewarded by memories, but perhaps not useful ones. For these were the memories of a prisoner, one who had been kept in tight security until she was brought forth to give the final touch to Turan’s funeral.

“Vintra was not of Singakok—only a prisoner there.”

“True. Well, if you learn anything that is useful, let me know quickly. Now, there is no use skulking here. The sooner we reach the city, the better.”

They ended their blind descent of the heights with a skidding rush that landed them on their hands and knees in brush. If Turan found that his badly used body took this ill, he gave no sign, pulling her up to her feet and onto the surface of the road.