by Andre Norton
Having decided that his somewhat mentally limited pupil could be trusted to do as directed, the mage turned to the gobbes and rasped out some orders in their own harsh tongue. Half the creatures reluctantly approached him, then fanned out to form a line beside the slaves. Grunting what were obviously threats, they kicked the humans to their feet. Then, driving them back to the remains of the mound being mined, they lashed their charges once again to the same work.
Having made sure that his orders were being carried out, Irasmus wheeled his mount. To Fogar’s surprise, the Dark Lord was not heading back to the tower but rather riding, at a pace hardly faster than a walk, eastward toward the Forest. The boy had known for several days now that the wizard was engaged there in another bit of business—one that also demanded a crew of workers with demon overseers to keep them busy. It had, however, puzzled him to learn that all the workers chosen for that mysterious labor had been the youngest and frailest from the slave pens.
Certainly, Fogar was curious, but the master would undoubtedly return the same way he had gone; and it would be best for his apprentice to keep steadily at his own task and have no eye for anything else.
The slimy feel of the stones was a constant irritation. He might be heaving rotting bodies onto a charnel heap. But Irasmus believed Fogar was totally under hiscontrol; now was not yet the time to test the tool?—weapon?—that had come into his keeping.
A small flare of excitement—almost as sharp as the flash of energy that had alerted him to the difference in the two Light-charged stones—kindled within him at the thought of them and grew as the morning passed. The feeling was faint but right. Somehow the four gobbes who had been left, undoubtedly to keep watch over him, suddenly wheeled about and started at a shambling trot in the direction of their vanished master.
The Valley was not all flat land; in the expanse that began close to the tower and ran to the now-blocked pass, it rose in a series of gentle, low hills, though the Forest’s threat could always be seen beyond. However, anyone traveling in the gaps between those hills would be out of sight at ground level.
The laboring youth paused and straightened, rubbing his hands across the small of his back. He was attempting to cleanse them of the slimy feeling left by the rocks, but he hoped he might be thought to be relieving some stiffness left by repeated stooping and standing again.
Abruptly, air was pierced by a screeching, and the remaining gobbes plunged away to answer what was either a vehement order or a cry for aid. In that same moment, Fogar felt the slightest of touches on his sweat-beaded forehead. It was not even strong enough to stir one of the hairs plastered there, and it was gone again as quickly as it had come, only—he knew. Somewhere, Power stirred, and its farthest-flung reach had found him. Warning? He thought not; rather, an alert.
He had a good portion of the rock spiral finished,using only the evil-tainted rocks. Already the slaves were straggling back from the hill with the morning’s harvest of rocks, but none of their baskets were full, and one or two held only a single stone.
As he had done ever since the mage had set him to this task, the boy began to sort the discs. Three of those were besmirched by the Dark, but there was also a single one of the Light-conducting rounds that made his whole body tingle as he laid it carefully aside.
Two of the kitchen slatterns now lugged out a steaming pot, set it lurchingly down, and dropped by it a basket of bread nearly as hard as the rocks. Fogar, though, was apparently deemed worthy of better food, for a greasy basin holding stew and a slightly less-hard half loaf were brought to him where he sat in the nearly finished spiral. He expected that, as usual, the slave would pay him no real attention, but he caught a glance from her half-lidded eyes. They were not as keen and all-seeing as the eyes of the Firthdun girl had been; still, they showed more alertness than was usual among the slaves.
The girl. Fogar thought about her as he swabbed the bread around the bowl. That she lay in the dungeon he was sure. He wondered if she had been fed; however, since Irasmus wanted her enough to bring her in as a special prisoner, it followed that her jailors would keep her alive.
Back he went to his building, if this stone setting could be dignified by such a name. But continued comparison of his spiral with the sketch the master had given him had pried open one of those locked doors in his mind. Yes, he was building—a road! He had never seen its like depicted in any of the sorcerer’s scrolls,but such paths of power had been described there. From those writings, he also knew that, once the road was built, Irasmus would add an element that would form his own gate, then force it wide if he could.
The boy was considering how he might best act to prevent the success of this dire plan when the Dark Lord came into view. A good distance behind his mount followed the ragtag squadron of gobbes. Fogar sensed that, at that moment, for whatever reason, the monsters wanted to be no closer to their leader.
Their gibbering was not loud, but it sounded excited; and—to judge by the wizard’s bleak countenance—something had gone very wrong. It was into the direction from which the hell crew was now approaching that the children and their overseer had gone this morning—but there were no children in this company. Feeling sick, but forcing himself to search for evidence he loathed, Fogar looked as closely as he dared at the talons and fangs of the demons for any telltale stains of blood. Mercifully, there were none. Yet neither were there any children, and, as the boy counted the rabble, the slave driver was missing, too.
The mage had nearly passed the spiral of rocks when he pulled his mount up short. His frown diminished as he took in the serpentine enfoldings, his head moving to trace the pattern from stone to stone. Then the frown returned as a scowl—the spiral lacked three rocks near its very heart.
“Finish!” Irasmus’s command was a snarl. “Have this complete before sunset. The Dark may love the darkness, but night may also conceal peril for a worker, and I would not have you come to grief—yet.” His voice rose to a shout. “Do it—now!”
The sorcerer rode on. The gobbes were left to mill around at the gate of the courtyard, where some of them took out their anger—and, perhaps, fear—by kicking the laborers to hustle them back to their pen.
Fogar continued his task at the same speed he had maintained all day. Three rocks were lacking, yes—but he no longer doubted what he was to do. He smiled tightly as, into those last three places, he carefully set the stones that held within them the fire of the Light.
22
ALL THE STONES WERE IN PLACE BEFORE SUNDOWN, and the final three were of Fogar’s secret choosing: those that made his flesh tingle with power—surely their thrilling sensation must be power. At the completion of his task, he stood, surveying his work and checking it against the drawing Irasmus had left with him. Yes—what he had done had reproduced that pattern exactly.
Dusk was gathering in, as if the Dark itself were being bidden to this unhallowed work. The boy had the disquieting feeling that, if he turned his head suddenly, he would catch sight of a shadow that was no true shadow scuttling away just at the edge of his vision—or perhaps he “saw” this apparition with other-than-bodily eyes.
Taking great care not to step onto any of the Dark-allied discs, he made his way out of the spiral and became aware, for the first time, that the gobbes—allof them—had emerged from their reeking barracks. From every creature’s throat now rose a sequence of guttural tones, the sounds of each matching those of his fellows. The raucous noise was far from singing, farther still from Wind-message touch, yet it was clearly a ritual chant. A—a summoning! As soon as his mind had put this name to the demons’ discord, Fogar was certain he was correct.
Others had come to attend whatever would transpire here, as well: human slaves, who stood further away from the spiral path than the gobbes, nearly melting into the earth in this light because of the soil on their skins and clothing. Most of the life remaining in Styrmir, it seemed, was gathering in this place.
Torches flared, restoring clearer sight; then the D
ark Lord came walking from his tower. The torchlight formed an aura about him, its brightest point centered on what he bore, almost reverently, in his two hands. He took short, slow steps as if to make sure no unevenness of the ground would disturb his balance and shift, for the slightest fraction, that globe of murkiness that had been for so long the very heart of his chamber.
The dark mage set foot carefully on the first stone on the spiral path. Excitement and triumph surrounded him in an almost-visible cloak. Fogar did not know what was happening to his own mind; but he was sure that he now possessed a heightened awareness to see and feel things he had never perceived before.
On the final stone, Irasmus halted. He had not appeared to note the difference his apprentice’s touch had read in the last three discs. Yet behind him swept, like a second cloak, a trailing robe of shadow that hadgrown thicker with every stone he passed and that now fluttered from side to side as if it were being repulsed. The wizard, however, did not notice that either.
In both hands, he now raised the globe well above his head and deliberately, forcibly, hurled it into the open space at the end of the spiral. Then, raising his wand, he pointed at the sphere.
Both the night and the world came apart—or so Fogar thought. The boy was thrown to his knees by a blast of power that bewildered his wits; then he was—where? His mind could not tell him as consciousness faded.
Cerlyn hunched in a corner of the cell, blinking and blinking again. Sometimes it was hard to know what was real and what was dream—for dreams had crowded thickly upon her of late.
Color had not been known in Styrmir for a long time—no flowers, no blue sky, no bright-winged birds could the girl remember. Yet a rich play of hues was part of her vision, or visions—perhaps one had slid so seamlessly into another that she had not been aware of any separation.
She might still be hedged about by stone walls, but now those barriers were hidden by strips of cloth patterned in tints that fed her color-starved sight. Illuminating those hues shone light born not of any torch or taper but rather from floating bubbles of wondrous rainbow sheen.
Was this beauty some glamourie sent by Irasmus—and was she seeing what was true or only what she hungered to see? She must be wary.
“Cerlyn.”
Quickly the girl turned. Who, even in a dream of hers, would call her so? Dream-caught she must be!
She saw very little, at first, of the one who had addressed her, for he sat behind a table so high-heaped with wooden-covered books and rolls of parchment that they towered about him like a barricade (and a most unstable one). But the man himself . . .
Cerlyn met his gaze, and her first fear melted away. This was not her captor playing a cruel trick. The man she saw wore a cloak of shining cloth across which played lines of vivid color that added to his greater bulk. This man had never eaten grass roots, much less gone empty of belly! His hair was dusty brown and thin, and he might have been running his hands through it, for its limp strands were mussed. His round face was pale, as if he seldom saw the sun, but his generous mouth was curved upward in a smile the girl found her own lips echoing.
Caution forgotten, she responded, “Master—”
“Do not give me such a title, child!” The stranger raised large but sensitive-looking hands in a gesture of horror. “My name is Gifford. For my fault of being born with a seeking mind, I am Keeper of the Records in this place. We have no masters here; for all talents are unique, and who can say that one is better than another?”
Treading carefully once more, Cerlyn asked, “Where is this place? It looks not unlike where Master Irasmus spends his days, with all those”—she gestured to the books and scrolls—“evil things.”
The archivist shook his head. “Not so! Evil comes from wrong choices.” For the first time, he frownedslightly. “You, child, were born with talent you have not been trained to use, so you must add learning.” He nodded at the uptowering records. “However, after that, it shall be your choice as to which path you will walk.”
The girl wet dry lips with the tip of her tongue. “Irasmus has such—choice—and no good comes from him.”
Gifford nodded again. “Irasmus has chosen, yes. Now he delves deeply into Darkness, and he will choose again. But let us speak of you. You are Cerlyn, granddaughter to Haraska, who was daughter in turn to Inssanta, Mistress of the Winds. . . . Oh, I could go on for quite some time naming the generations behind you, but they do not matter. This is here and now; yet you hold the talent, though it lies in your mind and spirit still asleep.”
“Haraska—” She choked on her beloved grandmam’s name. “The gobbes tore her to pieces by his orders. I seek no such end if I can help it.”
“You would be safer if you were willing to learn, Cerlyn.”
The girl’s trust was not so easily captured a second time. “Fogar—The Dark One claims he has talent and has made him study for years, yet we have never witnessed a single spell of his casting. So what good has come of his studies?”
“Child, that young man has his own part in what we all must do, and, when the time comes, he will be ready—though not as Irasmus would have him!”
Suddenly the girl felt a stab of fear. “Will you, indeed, make me safe from—him?”
Gifford’s smile faded. “That you must discover for yourself. However, this much I can promise: you shallfind a task before you, as Fogar will; but, by all the power of the Light, you shall also learn that it brings deliverance and not despair.
“Although”—the lorekeeper rested his plump chin thoughtfully on his hand—“the temptation sometimes arises for an overeager scholar to experiment. I warn you, Cerlyn, casting forth one’s line into forbidden waters brings up monsters instead of respectable fish! You must also keep hard hold upon your trust. Nothing in this world is exactly what it seems, for we each view any action according to who—or where—we are.
“But you do not stand alone. Aiieee”—Gifford sang that last word—“we have dealt together in the far past, your breed and mine, for the keeping of the Light! It was into Styrmir that those folk retreated who had been dealt the hardest blows of that war. There, they found the Wind—and the Wind blows fresh and clear when put to the proper purpose; thus the fostering of talent prospered.
“However, as the years pass, those who remember rightly grow fewer and fewer. Folk no longer think of the Wind as a weapon of great fury, the Fist of Death; rather, they conceive of it as a soother, a mere carrier of messages—the Breath of Life.
“Unused, Cerlyn, talent lessens. Thus, when Irasmus struck at Styrmir, he was able to bend the Valley born to his purpose: to suck forth their talents and banish their ally, the Wind. The people had grown dull eared to the voice of the Light. They also believed that peace once won is won for all time, and they abandoned their vigilance and thus lost the battle before it had ever begun.
“However, through a few of your people the oldstrain yet runs true—with or without their awareness. You say that Fogar fails at the tasks Irasmus sets him. Yet that very lack of success is his salvation in two ways: it has prevented him from falling into complete bondage, and it has awakened in him the beginnings of talent. The Dark Lord is aware that the boy has power and keeps that ability locked, as one locks a coffer—but a seal set on talent cannot hold forever.”
The mage’s expression softened, and again Cerlyn felt the lump rising in her throat as it had when he had talked of Mam Haraska. It had been so long since any had spoken to her with kindness; but she would not cry in front of this stranger—she would not! Fiercely she swallowed as Gifford continued.
“Child, you think of your dun kin who were slain, yet you must remember that they were vessels that had weakened. You were saved by chance because, when you were a child, Irasmus could detect no power in you. But now he dares ever greater evil, and against this you must be armored—aye, and armed as well—by learning, which has always been a weapon greater than a sword.
“So let me bid you welcome to Valarian, the Place of Le
arning. You have already heard your first lecture”—here the lorekeeper laughed, seemingly at his own tendency to let his tongue run on—“and now you must have your first lesson. Come!”
He beckoned with his finger, and, unthinkingly, the girl obeyed. She did not believe that she walked forward in the body; rather, her essence approached her new teacher. As she “arrived” at his worktable, the mage opened a massive book. The novice student saw lines of writing rendered in blue and gold, as freshlycolored as if they had just been drawn there. At first, they seemed mere gibberish, but then the archivist ordered her to read the passage aloud. She did so, slowly sounding out each of those sky-and sun-painted words, yet still they made no sense to her.
Only, when she repeated them, Gifford correcting her now and then, she began to feel a throbbing in her ears. This sensation moved into her brain, frightening her at first but then bringing with it a new confidence.
The girl came to the end of the passage, but the lorekeeper did not turn the leaf to continue.
“Your first lesson,” he commented. “Let us see how well it has settled into your memory.”
Cerlyn discovered, upon closing her eyes and concentrating, that she could clearly reconstruct the whole page in her mind. What was more, in this mental “viewing,” the writing was even brighter than it had been to her physical sight!
Gifford nodded, smiling broadly. “So—in you the Old Blood, indeed, runs true.” Abruptly his approving expression turned sober. “Now—a warning. The dark mage has leached from your people the strength of their inborn talent. He has also mined the awareness out of the earth, torn it from the fields—even snatched it from the sky. You are now in his power, and if he should guess that you are even more than he suspected—” The lorekeeper paused.