by Andre Norton
She leaned closer to him, and instinct moved her to another kind of touch, one that carried in it the seeds of vigorous life as her kind knew it. As her lips met his cold, flaccid ones, she willed her energy into him.
"Hold!"
But there was so little time. Ziantha struggled with the catch on the cabin door, forced it open, stepped out. She cupped the focus-stone to her breast and started back along the causeway. From the air it had looked shorter than it was. The flyer had come to a halt about halfway along it, and there was a wide stretch to traverse before she would reach the sharp rise of the main portion of the island.
It was plain that this roadway was not natural but the work of hands, and also that it had been long under the sea. It was encrusted with shells, and there were patches of decaying water weeds still rooted to it. The stones from which it was fashioned were huge blocks, some fully the size of the flyer in length, and so well set together that even the centuries and the sea had not pulled one from the other.
The draw of the focus-stone was now so strong that she felt as if a real cord were looped about the gem dragging her forward. Somewhere ahead lay the other end of that cord. But where in that maze of rock could it be?
Her road ended in a jumble of huge blocks, as if some structure had been shaken down there, yet the focus still pulled. Ziantha began a painful climb in and among the stones. The clothing she wore had never been intended for such usage. And her knees were scraped and bleeding after two unlucky falls, two of her fingernails torn to the quick, her palm gashed by a sharp shell edge.
But she fought her way on and up that mountain of tumbled stone until she reached a point above. And there—
Although the cord continued to pull there was no further advance. For before her was another of the incredibly ancient structures, only this had no break. It was a smooth wall projecting from the cliff behind it.
Ziantha ran her bleeding hand across its surface, seeking an opening her eyes might not be able to detect; there was nothing to meet her touch. Yet she knew that behind this lay what she sought. With a whimper of despair, the girl sank down at the foot of the wall. Her hands could not tear a way through that. Perhaps there was some weapon or tool in the flyer—but she doubted it. This masonry which had withstood sea burial for centuries could not easily be broached.
There was only one way, and she dreaded it. She could not depend on any backing. To call upon Turan to support her through a trance might mean his death. Yet she must take this final step, or they would fail, and failure would mean they would end here. That inborn spark of refusal to accept death without a struggle that was the heritage of her own species stiffened her resolution. She set the focus-stone to her forehead.
* * *
Once more she was in that nacre-walled room. The Eyes in their band rested heavy on her forehead, just as a weariness which was of the spirit as well as of the body weighed on her heavily. There was fear as dark about her as if shadows drew in from the gleaming walls to smother her.
The storm—she had lasted out the storm, kept the Lurla to their labor of strengthening the walls—but just barely. They had resisted—resisted! With a small hiss of breath she faced what that meant. Her power, her control over the Eyes, must be fading. And it was time for her—
No! It was not time! She was not that old, that weak! The storm had been greater than any they had known before, that was all. And the Lurla had tired. It was not her control slipping. She looked down at her still-rounded body, firm under the veiling of her shell-string clothing. No, she was not ready to put off the Eyes, to take the next remorseless and inevitable step her abdication would lead to.
D'Eyree crossed to the window slit. Now storm-driven waves had subsided for this time. Still the sea looked sullen, angry, and even the tint of the sky was ominous. If the calculations of D'Ongi were right—
Through the sighing of the sea, she heard a slight sound behind her, turned to face a woman standing at a door that had opened in the apparently seamless wall. She was slight, her coarse hair the darkest green of youth. Her body was bare, sleek, and glistening from recent immersion in the sea, her neck gills still a little open.
"Honor to the Eyes," the woman said, but there was mockery in that hail. "There is good gleaning in the storm leavings. Also, D'Huna has spoken—she finds the burden of the Eyes now beyond her power."
And all the time she watched D'Eyree with cruel and greedy eyes.
Ah, yes, D'Atey, how much you wish that I would also resign this power! D'Eyree forced herself not to put hand to the Eye band. D'Atey, you have never rested content since the Eyes came to me and not to you, and you have so carefully provided that you sister-kin will have the next chance to stand for warden. But D'Huna—she is five seasons younger than I! And that will be remembered. I am not loved too greatly in Nornoch. It has been my way to walk a lone path. Yet that I cannot alter, for it is a part of me. Only now—who will stand to my back if clamor grows?
"D'Huna has served well." Carefully she schooled her voice. This one must not suspect she had scored with her news.
"She may serve even better." A pointed tongue showed, caressed D'Atey's lips as if she savored some taste and would prolong that pleasure. "There is a meeting of the warriors' council—"
D'Eyree stiffened and then forced herself to relax, hoping that the other had not seen that momentary betrayal of emotion, though she feared that nothing escaped those vicious, envious eyes of D'Atey's.
"Such is not by custom. The Eyes did not attend—"
"D'Fani holds by the Law of Triple Danger. In such times the warriors are independent of the Eyes. That, too, is custom."
D'Eyree, by great effort, bit back an exclamation. D'Fani was the fanatic, the believer in the old dark ways the people had set aside—D'Fani who talked of the Feeding— If D'Fani gained followers enough what might happen?
"They meet now, the warriors." D'Atey moved a little closer, her eyes still searching D'Eyree's face for some sign of concern. D'Fani speaks to them. Also the Voice of the Peak—"
"The Voice of the Peak," D'Eyree interrupted her, "has not uttered for as many years as you have been hatched, D'Atey. D'Rubin himself could not make it answer when he worked upon its inner parts this past year. The ancients had their secrets and we have lost them."
"Not so many as we thought were lost. And perhaps it was because we sought other paths, less hard ones, weaker ones. But D'Tor has found a way to make the Voice utter. He follows his brother in seeking the wisdom of the old ways. Rumor says now our future will be shortened if we do not find a way to rebreed the Lurla. D'Huna failed with three of them during the storm."
Three? She had failed to spur three! But there had been four that resisted D'Eyree. And D'Huna had resigned the Eyes. Thus it would follow that she must also— But what had D'Atey earlier hinted at? She must know more.
"You spoke of D'Huna serving better." She hated to ask a question of D'Atey; there was a gloating about the other which fed her own inner fear. "What mean you by that?"
"If the Voice foretells another storm, then D'Fani will have a powerful voice in the council. Are the Eyes not vowed for their lifetime to the service of Nornoch? How better can they serve, once their power over the Lurla has waned, than to provide strength for the Lurla to procreate in greater abundance? Once the Feeding was custom. It is only the weaklings of these latter days who want it set aside—"
This time D'Eyree could not control her slight hiss of breath, though she writhed inwardly a second later when she saw the flash of triumph in D'Atey's eyes.
"The Feeding was of the old days, when the people followed dark customs. There is the Pledge of D'Gan that we be no longer barbarians of the dark. Have we risen from the muck to choose once more to live in it?"
"D'Fani believes that our weakness in listening to D'Gan and his like has doomed us. How find you the Lurla, Eyes Wearer? Are they as strong, as obedient to your orders as they have always been?"
D'Eyree forced a smile. "Ask th
at of Nornoch, D'Atey. Has a tower tumbled? Have the walls cracked in any storm?"
"Not this time perhaps. But if the Voice says there will be a second storm, a third—" Now D'Atey smiled. "I think after D'Huna's report, D'Fani will have many listening to him. He may even call for a trial of power, D'Eyree. Think you well on that."
She nodded and slipped away. D'Eyree looked once more to the sea. The Voice—had D'Fani's brother really repaired it? Or was it, as more likely, some trick of D'Fani's to influence the council and the people to plunge back into the old ways from which D'Gan had raised them? The Voice was set on the highest peak within the Three Walls. In the old days it had predicted accurately the coming of storms. But custom had been its conqueror. For by custom only one line of the people serviced the Voice, understood its intricate mechanism. And when the Plague of the Red Tide Year had struck, those who had understood the Voice had been, for some reason, the first stricken.
For years it had continued to operate even though those who had once tended it were gone. And the people had been lulled into believing that it was indestructible. Then it slowed, became inaccurate by days with its warnings. Finally it stopped. Though men had labored for two generations now to relearn its workings, they had been uniformly unsuccessful. The belief had been held for a long time that, like the Lurla, the Voice answered to mental control—a control inherited by the one clan that no longer existed. There were no visible focus points of communication to be discovered, nothing like the Eyes.
The Eyes—and D'Huna had surrendered hers! Perhaps she had surrendered even more as D'Atey had suggested. Of course the Lurla no longer bred as they once did. But their number had always been carefully controlled as was needful. However, suppose that a mutant strain had developed, one not so quick to answer to the dominance of the Eyes? The people had changed over the centuries since they had ventured forth step by step from the sea. They were amphibians now. But the fear had always hung over them that if they were forced out of Nornoch, which was their grip upon the land, they would lose their hard-won intelligence and revert again to sea creatures who could not think of themselves as human.
To return to feeding the Lurla on food long forbidden—could that be right? D'Gan had taught that such practices were savage, reducing those who held them to the status of one of the fanged sea raiders.
The band that held the Eyes seemed to press so tightly on D'Eyree's forehead that it was a burden weighting her head; she could not carry it proudly aloft as became her. She returned to the window slit, resting her head against its solid frame, the breeze from the sea cool and moist against her scaled skin. She was so tired. Let those who had never worn the Eyes, carried that burden, think of the powers and privileges of her position. The weight, fear, and responsibility of it was far heavier than any respect could bolster.
Why then not follow D'Huna, admit that the Lurla had been sluggish for her, that four had failed? But if she did that, she was surrendering another kind of wall to D'Fani and those who followed him. The only possible wearers of the Eyes were very young, easily influenced, and one was D'Wasa, whom D'Eyree did not trust.
No, as long as she could, she must not surrender to her weariness, the more so if the Feeding returned. Not only did her whole being shrink from the very thought of that horror for herself; she knew it would also be throwing open the gate to the worst of the people.
Yet if the Voice proclaimed another such storm ahead, and D'Fani called for a trial of power before that came—
She was like one swimming between a fanged raider and a many-arms, with cause to believe that each was alerted to her passing and ready to put an end to her. And she was so tired—
D'Huna—she would go to D'Huna. She must know more of the failure of the Lurla—whether the other believed what she herself suspected, that it was not the fault of the Eyes, but of a mutation in the Lurla themselves. Knowledge was strength and the more knowledge she could garner the better she could build her own defense.
Even if D'Huna had surrendered her Eyes, she would not have left her tower. That by custom she could not do until the new wearer entered into it and took formal possession. So there was yet time.
D'Eyree threaded a way along nacre-walled corridors, climbed down in one section, up in another. The majority of the people never came into these link-ways between the towers. The privacy of the wearers was well guarded, lest they be disturbed at some time when it was necessary to check upon the Lurla or otherwise use their talent. And with a council in progress and the possibility of the Voice making some pronouncement, the attention of most of Nornoch would be centered elsewhere.
She passed no one during her journey; the towers might be deserted. Though there were six wearers on permanent duty, two for each wall. If D'Caquk and D'Lov had heard the news, there was no indication they stirred to hear more. The pale glow of the in-lights shone above their doors as she passed. Then she came to D'Huna's tower.
With her webbed fingers D'Eyree rapped out their private call code. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the slit door opened, and she stepped into a room the duplicate of her own. D'Huna faced her, looking strange without the Eyes. D'Eyree had never seen her without them since they had become wearers on the same day.
"Kin-close," D'Eyree spoke first, a little daunted by the unfocused stare the other turned on her—as if D'Eyree were not there at all. "I have been told a tale I cannot believe." Her voice trailed away.
"What can you not believe?" D'Huna asked in a voice as lacking in animation as her face. "That I have put aside the Eyes, that I am no longer to watch and ward? If it is of that you speak, it is the truth."
"But why have you done this thing? All—all of us know that the Lurla can be sluggish at times, that it is hard to drive them to their task. Of late years this has grown more and more the case."
"With the storm," D'Huna did not answer her directly, "I learned what the Lurla have become. Three would not answer the Eyes, even when I used the full force of my will. Therefore I failed Nornoch by so much. Let another who can bring more force to bear take my place, lest the wall crack at last."
"Are you sure that another can do better?"
At that sharp question life showed in D'Huna's face; there was a flicker in her large eyes. She stared at D'Eyree as if she still wore the Eyes, was attempting to bring their strength to bear on her sister wearer, to read her thoughts.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Have you sensed no difference in the Lurla?" D'Eyree might be grasping now for a small scrap of hope, but if she could make D'Huna question her own self-judgment perhaps there was a way out for them all. "As I have said, they have been sluggish of late. Perhaps it is not that our powers fail, but that the Lurla are more armored against us."
"Be that so—then it will be also said that the Feeding once made them obey, that without it they are beyond our holding. Let another who is newly trained, perhaps stronger, stand in my place and try."
The Feeding! So D'Huna was half converted to that belief. But did she not understand the danger in allowing that thought to spread? Perhaps she, D'Eyree, should keep to herself the observations she had made, or she would be giving ammunition to the enemy.
But even as she reflected, D'Huna's expression changed. She threw off that blankness and her interest awakened.
"So—you have found them sluggish. Tell me—how many failed you this time!"
"Why should you—"
"Why should I think that?" D'Huna countered. "Because you are afraid, D'Eyree. Yes, I can read it in you, this fear. You sought me out, wishing to learn why I put off the Eyes. That being so, I think that it follows that you have also found your power failing you. There is no place for a wearer whom the Eyes fail. Would you be humbled before all the people by being forced to a trial? Set aside the Eyes by your own will; let them not be torn from you so that all may see a piteous thing worthy of contempt!"
"It is not so easy." D'Eyree longed to deny the other's accusation. But one cannot tell untruths to a
wearer. "D'Fani speaks with the council. He urges a return to the Feeding; he promises the Voice will speak—"
"Suppose that it does and it tells of another storm such as that just past? And suppose a wearer who no longer has full power strives to keep the Lurla to their task and fails—shall Nornoch then fall because of her pride?"
"It is not pride, no—nor fear, save a little," D'Eyree protested. "If we revert to the Feeding, then, I believe, it is better we quickly, cleanly, return through wind and wave to that which brought us forth, not sink back by degrees, forgetting all D'Gan taught. For the Feeding is evil, that I believe above all!"
"Which is strange coming from one sworn to nurture the Lurla above even her own life!" It was a man's voice.
D'Eyree spun around to face the speaker.
D'Fani! she shaped his name with her lips but did not utter it aloud.
12
He stood there arrogantly, taller than most other males, if less robust of body. His quick, dominant mind blazed through his eyes. At that moment D'Eyree in a flash of intuition knew what made him a threat to her and all her kind. D'Fani had part of the power, not as the wearers had it, but enough so he resented that he had not the right to the Eyes. Because he lacked them he was her enemy.
D'Fani was no warrior either. He was inept with any weapon save his tongue and his mind. But those he had sharpened to his use so that he had gained ascendancy over others with greater strength. In their world he had carved a place, now he aspired to a greater one.
In this moment of their eyes' meeting, D'Eyree knew this. Now she not only feared for herself, and vaguely for Nornoch; she feared for a way of life that D'Fani would destroy so that he might rule.
"You are sworn to defend the Lurla," he repeated when she made no answer. "Is that not so, Eye Wearer?" There was in him that same strain of cruel maliciousness which D'Atey showed, save that here it was a hundred times the worse.
"I am sworn so," D'Eyree answered steadily. "I am also sworn to the way of D'Gan." Her future might be forfeit now. She had feared such a meeting, yet at this moment she drew upon some inner strength she had not known she possessed.