Andre Norton - Wind in the Stone

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* * * Info * * *
Author: Norton, Andre
Title: Wind in the Stone
Publisher: Eos (HarperCollins)
Printing: Originally published by Avon Eos, 11/1999, in hardcover. Republished as a paperback by
Eos, 12/2000.
ISBN: 0-380-97602-1 (hardcover), 0-380-79556-6 (paperback)
Version history:
v2.0: Proof completed 23/06/2006 from original scan.
v1.0: Scanned by Highroller.
* * * Text begins * * *
Part I
1
Among these high and narrow mountain valleys, the past winter had been a cruel one. Supplies carefully
harvested and gathered during the short summer had shrunk. There were tightly pulled in belts and
children who sometimes whimpered in their sleep, sucking with cracked lips on the edge of thin blankets
during frost-filled nights. Even the carefully selected breeding stock for the next season had been twice
more culled and slaughtered. It seemed as if the world was passing into a punishing grip of cold.
Now there was sluggish stirring suggesting the belated coming of spring. The first trader’s caravan of the
season had set out, though other merchants had shaken their heads at such recklessness.
Not only the traders ventured so: a handful of other travelers always joined such trains, either paying a
few coins or offering to help with the animals. No one wanted to risk the early spring trails alone—all too
often, deadly rockfalls occurred.
So it was with the young man who had drifted slowly to the end of the train of pack ponies. He was
mounted on a horse so bony that its joints seemed to crack with every step it took. Now he edged
himself and that sorry steed into the shadow of a rock spur as the others plodded by. Though it was still
only mid-morning, men and beasts alike looked as if they’d been on the trail for hours.
The rider did not turn his head to view the trail back, but his attitude was that of one listening; and he
was muttering almost at a whisper—a gabble of sounds that bore little resemblance to human speech. He
pulled his riding cloak tighter against the probing finger of a sharp breeze, though he had lived long
enough in the heart of the heights to accept the dreary cold.
Of course, he had been well housed. His thin lips curved in a smile that was half sneer, for, behind him
there still showed the towers and walls of Valarian, the Place of Learning, where he had been a
novice—whether or no in good standing—until a day ago.
That sprawl of buildings, which had been added to until it choked a valley and the mountains refused it
any expansion, was so old that its core might have been wrought from the very bones of the earth.
Among all the scholars, who blinked in their study cubicles like distempered, disturbed owls, there was
probably not one who was interested enough in the past so lost in time—the era when the first stones of
the first wall had been fitted together.
In years agone, the Place of Learning had housed many more seekers of knowledge than the shrunken
number who used the nearly deserted halls today. There were names out of legend connected with it; but
nowadays those gathered there were like the froth floating on a jack of ale—bubbles that never sank
below the surface.
Each scholar had long since settled into a chosen area of study. His or her learning might be deep and
authoritative, yet the subject would be nearly meaningless to a neighbor. Had anything really useful come
out of there, even in the generation immediately past?
The rider’s head snapped to the left as he caught a faint sound from the rocks. His lips pursed, and he
loosed a chitter that sounded much like the complaint of a rockrat finding its home territory invaded.
Listening, he waited; however, there was no movement in the brush, no misshapen shadow flitting from
one rock cover to the next. Irasmus, fourth son of a border warden by his third wife, smiled again. He
dug his heel into the mount’s tough hide, and the horse shambled on.
He had come this way—how many years ago? Season ran into season in the Place of Learning; they
spoke there of eons rather than days, months, or years. His mother who had sent him to Valarian after
seeing him engaged in one of his secretive games in their neglected garden. He had expected punishment;
but instead, when he had followed her obediently to her bower, his real life had begun.
Mind talents were largely a matter for bards and ballad makers now; once, however, those fortunate
enough to have such had ruled without putting hand to sword hilt. On that long-past afternoon, the shy
youth had been encouraged to try things that had never occurred to him.
Irasmus’s mother had been a scrawny, gaunt-faced female very sparing of words, yet one who could,
with a single glance, set a servant—or a child—quaking. He never remembered her showing any
approbation of his efforts to please her; and his failures were made doubly sour by her set face, just as
the weapon trials with his brothers in the arms yard had gained nothing but jeers from them and his father.
Still, he had known he possessed innate skills; and some of the trials his mother had set him did end in
triumph. In that hour, Irasmus had also understood that such gifts were a private thing, not to be
discussed openly. He was not to astound his brothers by performing some of the odd tricks that
appeared to come naturally to him, nor let his bear-strong father guess he had any more talents than the
woefully few he had shown so far.
Being the youngest, the slightest of body, and—apparently—the least-competent member of a fighting
clan, the boy had early learned to efface himself as much as possible. He had approached happiness for
the first time in his life when his mother had informed him that he was to go into exile from his unloved and
unloving home. Then the future had been up to him, to make his way in the outer world.
These days, there were few students applying to the Place of Learning. If children were born with the
right mind power they were not encouraged to enhance a native gift by any manner of study. Irasmus
owed a great deal to his mother—she had sent him to Valarian.
Being used to practicing unobtrusive spying on members of the barony from which he had come, the
new scholar soon learned the advantage of becoming two persons in his new surroundings. One was the
soft-spoken, nearly ineffectual youngster who was hardly able to carry through the simplest experiment
without a senior at hand to make sure that he did not loose something he could not control. But his other
self became an avid explorer, not only of the permitted portions of the ancient pile of buildings but
particularly of those parts, mainly lying deep underground, where the dangerous or even forbidden
knowledge had been hidden to molder away.
The boy had met his first wandering wraith in those corridors and had stood up to it valiantly, controlling
his fear with iron will. It was fairly easy to discover that the ancient seals on half-seen portals could be
broken. What lay within engaged his curiosity and desire to know more, rather than frightening him with
evidences of ancient horrors left to warn off invaders.
Under tutorship, Irasmus had steeled himself not to show any signs of his growing mastery. His first
concrete plan had been laid after he discovered that it was possible to draw secretly upon the talents, or
even vestiges of talents, others possessed and to use the stolen power to strengthen his own.
The fledgling mage considered that he was succeeding very well. However, unfortunately for all his
feigned dullness, the time soon approached when he had to pass the first of the tests which would either
make him an inmate of the Place of Learning for the rest of his natural life or betray him utterly for what
he was. He was still unsure of what power he could control.
It was then that he redoubled his secret searching. What he chanced upon had brought him out into the
world this day, equipped as few men had been since the long-ago war between the Dark of Chaos and
the Covenant of Light, that was supposed to tie the hands and tangle the thoughts of any who would
break it. His discovery had also given him enough arrogant self-confidence to believe he had sufficient
learning to further an ambition, vague at first but now grown brighter than the sun on the rock wall in the
morning.
One last visit to a certain corridor, a speaking of words, the burning of certain herbs, and a
well-practiced bit of ritual had made Irasmus sure he was now invincible.
It had been easy enough, then, to let the success of that attempt to tap the forbidden give him the
courage to go before Yost and admit, with mock humility, that he was not the stuff of which a scholar
was made. Nor had the archmage objected to his withdrawal from the school.
Now Irasmus had no wish to return to the barony where he had been born. The few scores he had
once nursed in his mind to be settled there were trivial when placed against what he could now
accomplish. He was riding on a path he had studied well ahead of time, and he knew exactly where he
was going.
At night, when the traders gathered around the camp-fires, Irasmus hunkered down to listen. The talk
he overheard confirmed his plan of action.
There was one last matter to be accomplished before he could part company with the caravan. In
assuming power, he had also assumed responsibilities, and he could not put off much longer what must
be done. Should he act tonight, he wondered, or were they still too close to the Place of Learning that he
dared not take the next step?
By listening, he had learned of the way ahead. Tomorrow in the late afternoon they would come to a
place where an ancient trail branched. That, he decided, was his goal for the present.
Habits of mind acquired early in the Place of Learning now led Irasmus to close his thoughts tightly on
his plans for the future. The new mage might sneer at the petty preoccupations of those who presided
over the hoary hall of lore, but he was also aware that they had wards and guards beyond telling; and he
was certain he was not yet beyond those long ago set to ensure against any escape of things of the
shadows or invasions of the Dark.
The symbol under which the former student had spent his past days developing mind and body was that
of a scale. There was a mighty one of burnished metal set in the main hall at Valarian. The top arm
supported chains from which depended to hold level, shallow pans. One shone brightly enough to light
the hall, while the other held an inky pool that swallowed up any light which might so much as touch its
surface. So did the masters hold ever before them the balance of the world. This device also had its
wards, and it was rumored to give forth an alarm if its two pans did not continue to hang always in even
balance.
Though—Irasmus was near open laughter now, his expectations bubbling within him—when had the
Dark ever threatened in these later years? Those who had devised that artifact were long since gone.
Could their lost knowledge be counted upon to give warning? He himself—poor, small, and still nearly
negligible as he was—was proof that a crack in the ancient shields gaped and could be put to good use
by any stouthearted enough to dare.
Now he called up a mental picture of a very old map and scanned it as he urged his horse on. The beast
snorted, rolled its eyes, and sweated, as if it were possessed by fear—as well it might be, though its time
had not yet come.
Yes, the mage’s delving had given him the proper stage for the beginning of his conquest: Styrmir, a
wide valley, rich even after the bad weather of this past cold season. Its stupid land grubbers were
complaisant and actually held themselves aloof from any use of the talent: still, they came from a people
who had once been possessed in such ability. That these earth-lovers had foolishly chosen to allow their
gifts to lie uncultivated would be their downfall.
Much had been said at the Place of Learning of the Covenant; and its words were still solemnly intoned
every tenth day in meetings that were now only empty formalities. There had been an ancient war,
resulting in the devastation of half the world—or perhaps more. Traders did not travel far, even in these
days; and there were strange and mighty ruins rumored to exist in places now so difficult to reach that no
one wasted time trying to find them. Some great lord of the Dark—Irasmus now inclined his head slightly
to right and left as if giving deference where it was due—had led a bloody wash of terror and death
across more lands than one. However, he did not succeed in his purpose, since the forces of Light had
arisen in close alliance to do battle.
There were conflicting accounts of what had ensued at the final confrontation, but most of the legends
told of a windstorm of such awesome proportions that the very mountains had yielded slides of rock to
its fury—a description that was undoubtedly a countryman’s metaphor for some extreme release of
power.
Unfortunately, though the Dark had been defeated, this destructive wrath had also smitten the redoubts
of the Light. Those surviving leaders of the Light had sworn an oath that such a weapon would never be
used again. The world, rent and torn, had settled back into what must at first have been sheer fatigue,
which then dwindled through the years into an indifference and at last a half forgetting.
Again, Irasmus heard a squeak from the boulders that fringed the trail. The dank smell of horse sweat
was heavy on the air, and his mount trembled under him. The sorcerer scowled. The creatures skulking
out there were his, bought by him to be used as he would. Let them continue this kind of protest, and he
would mete out punishment! His hand went to his belt and what was sheathed there. Not a sword—in
fact, anything wrought of iron could well defeat the purpose for which the artifact had been made—but a
wand, something he had not dared to gird on until he was some distance from the Place of Learning.
“Ssssaaaa—” The sound he uttered was a warning hiss. Now there was another taint beside the strong
horse scent in the air here between the two heights where the very clouds hung dankly heavy.
Irasmus wrinkled his nose and drew forth from the front of his shabby doublet a small bag which, when
squeezed tightly, gave off a spice scent. Raising it to his nose he sniffed deeply. He only needed to put up
with his otherworldly recruits for a short time; once in Styrmir, he would have servants of another kind in
plenty.
Styrmir—and the tower of Ronunce. There could not be much left of that fortress after all these years;
however, it had been a stronghold for the valley lordling. Irasmus intended it to be refurbished to form his
own headquarters. It was well known that sites that had been used for trials of strength, where emotions
had been fired to great heights, held locked within them the remnants of much energy and needed only
one who knew how to harvest such. There was a tale or two of Ronunce; and Irasmus had tried to hunt
those out without arousing the suspicion of the archivist. Unfortunately, for all his calm and placid
exterior, Mage Gifford seemed to possess some wards his pupil had never been able to identify, and he
had been wary enough to evade Gifford’s notice.
Irasmus chewed his lower lip and frowned. It seemed all too easy. By his planning, the people of
Styrmir were asking to be delivered into his hands like fowls to a cook whose pot was heating. After
whatever had struck at the end of that long-ago war, their dun Elders had taken an oath to set aside any
use of the talent from that time forth. None of the valley’s youths had ever come to the Place of Learning.
They seemed one with their land—heavy and awaiting harvest.
Harvest, yes—the sorcerer’s momentary annoyance was forgotten—the harvesting would be his and his
alone. The idea reminded him of the coming action. The caravan was perhaps three quarters of a day’s
ride from the Pass of the Hawk, which was now the only doorway into Styrmir. Yes, why wait until the
morrow? Let these clods bed down early for the night, as they had been doing. His own venture could
well begin!
2
In Styrmir, Sulerna of Firthdun straightened up from the washboard in order to, as Grandmam always
said, “take the crick” out of her back. The strong odor of the soap made her sneeze, her hands were red
and wrinkled, and she was inclined to believe that only magic such as spiced up the old tales could
actually drive the grime out of men’s work smocks. But Grandmam had a saying for that also: “Put a
good hard elbow bend into it, girl, and keep at it!”
The taller of the bushes in first leaf around her had already been draped with the fruits of her “elbow
bending,” and she hoped the breeze was doing its best to roughly dry them. However, there were still
two heaped baskets of dirty clothes awaiting her attention, and Jacklyn was dawdling somewhere. He
should have been back with filled water buckets some time ago.
The young woman could not blame her young nephew too much. The winter had been a hard one, and
these first days of real spring urged one out and away from the dun, to roam greening fields, sniff the
scents of bloom in the orchard, drift awhile to let the sun sink into long-chilled skin and, as Mam would
say, just “fritter away time”.
Firthdun was one of the oldest, as well as the largest and best kept, of the Styrmir valley holdings. The
Elders, during their infrequent conferences, always honored Grandsire with the first speaking on any
problem, though such discussions dealt mainly with matters connected with the land and its tending and
thus were the common knowledge to them all.
Sulerna raised a soapy hand, gave it a quick wipe on her wide apron, brushed the sweaty hair out of her
eyes, and retied the string which was supposed to hold her hair in place.
Then—
It had come as the softest of touches such as might have been delivered by a fingertip as impalpable as
smoke. The girl’s hand flew to her cheek over the spot.
The Wind!
Sulerna was as sure she had felt its wandering touch as if she possessed the very ancient powers and
could see the heart of that force which could both save and smite. But the Wind had gone long ago, and
many felt themselves the poorer for that.
Those of Firthdun held more tightly to the old faith and belief than most of their neighbors. However,
only Widow Larlarn, who had turned her small nearby holding into a nursery for healing herbs, joined
now with the dun kin at certain times to listen to the reading from a wood-backed book so old its hard
surface was cracked and gouged by time.
No, those of Firthdun never scoffed at the old tales. How could they? Once the Wind had visited here,
even as in the grove at full moon each month the womenfolk gathered to do homage to the Caller, She
who was the only mistress the Wind had companied with when it had been free of the bonds laid upon it
by the Covenant.
A sudden surge of a strange life-not-life coursed through the young dunswoman as she stood, still
shielding her cheek where it had been touched. For a moment or two, all living beings about her, even the
bird soaring high above as well as the earth under her muddy clogs—everything that was vibrant with life
had been a part of her or, rather, she of it.
“Well, this be the last of it—thank the moon!”
Another girl, a wide and high-heaped washing basket tightly clasped in her hold, came up beside
Sulerna. Dumping the basket onto the ground, she woofed forth a noise combining equal parts of relief
and exasperation.
“One would think”—the newcomer had stooped to pick up a smock, which she held an arm’s length
away and frowned at—”that they slid around on their bellies out in the fields. I swear your brother Elias
can stand there while dirt wraps itself around him!”
Sulerna paid no attention to her sister-in-law’s complaint. She held her head high, turning it slowly from
side to side. Surely there would be no more than just that one touch!
“Aaagreee!” It was neither a true word nor a whistle she uttered but a sound not akin to the world she
knew.
“Sulerna!” The other young woman stared at her open-mouthed, then laid a hand on her shoulder and
gave her an impatient shake. “What would you do? Have them all down upon you for kin judging?”
Few threats were more dire, but the new-wakened one showed only a joyous face in answer. “Ethera, I
swear by the moon, I felt it—the Wind! It touched me here—” She put a finger back on her cheek. “The
Wind, Ethera—think of it! What if the old wards be broke, and it comes to us again? It will bring us the
whole of the world, even as the old tales tell…”
“Sulerna—” Now both Ethera’s hands were on her shoulders, and the bemused Sulerna was being
shaken in their strong grip. “The Wind is gone; that is all old babble from the past. Let Grandmam hear
you spouting such nonsense—!”
The light faded from Sulerna’s face. “Haraska is a dreamer,” she said with the beginning of a sullen note
in her voice.
“And how many times since you were first frocked and set on your feet has Haraska true-dreamed?”
Ethera demanded. “There are none to spin dreams now. The mountains are bare, and even the traders
come our way no more than once a season or so. You know that the forest is warded. All heed the
Covenant—even the Wind!”
The dunsgirl turned to her scrub board in fury. Everything the other said was true, and she knew it well.
Still—she wanted once more to touch her cheek. Instead, she got her hands resolutely busy in the soapy
water again.
No branch swung, no leaf rustled in that dark rim of trees that was the final end of the known world as
far as those of Styrmir were concerned. The Forest loomed like a dark curtain, and there was nothing on
the other side of which the inhabitants of the valley knew enough to draw them.
But the Forest held its own world. Life and death were known to it; but, more than that, here blew the
Wind, uniting all. It bore messages of import for each kind of being it reached. Seeds stirred in the
ground under its probing; animals mated, produced their young, and fared forth to live. And there were
also the Great Ones, who made no attempt to rule within the tree bounds but were all sworn to the
service of Her Who Could Call.
Mighty among the Forest’s children were the Sasqua. These were not of the human kind. In fact, so
unlike were they that men or women meeting them might at first feel terror, unless the Wind had made it
plain there was nothing to fear from those tall, furred bodies whose muscular strength was apparent in
their every move.
There was no power in the Forest greater than the Sasqua except the Wind, and they were also a part
of that. They owed no allegiance to any save Her of legend who could—and had—called the Wind, but
they visited Her shrine only when Her silent summons went forth.
This morning, a number of them were down by one of the Forest streams, harvesting a fresh-grown
reed that they had discovered long ago was of usefulness manyfold. Not only were its roots sweet to the
taste, but the reeds themselves, when rolled back and forth between the huge hairy hands of the Sasqua
until the fibers were pulped, could be woven into nets for the taking of fish and the carrying of tubers and
fruits.
Hansa squatted beside a pile of the stuff she had pulled and now and then sent a wistful glance at her
neighbor, whose guttural laughter was quick to bubble forth and who had one cubling at breast and
another playing beside her, striving to pull apart one of the tough reed stems. Grapea always had strong
cubs, and she could take pride in remembering them even after they had struck out on their own. Hansa
wrapped her arms about herself and squeezed. She had not had her first bearing season yet, but she
hoped with all her heart that, when a little one came, it would be like Grapea’s get.
Hansa fell to twisting reeds, hardly knowing what she was doing; rather, her mind was full of the joys of
a cubling to be and what it would mean to share a night nest with a small being.
At that moment, the Wind sang in her ear, and the Sasqua female sat gape mouthed at its touch. Cubling
to come, yes, but more—something so strange that Hansa could not sort it out before that fleeting
message had vanished. She was to be given—she could not be sure what but a gift of great importance.
However, this was not a thing to be spoken of among her kind; and there was a time between the present
and its arrival which she could not reckon.
Up on the mountain trail, it had begun to rain; and the handlers of the pack animals cursed bitterly. It
was too easy here for the footing to turn to slippery mud; and there were places not far ahead now where
the trail dwindled to a mere thread, to be followed by only a very surefooted man or animal.
Well, thought Irasmus, trying to make his cloak cover him as much as possible, the weather had given
him his answer. Tonight he would make his move. That stout fellow there, tugging at the hackamore of a
reluctant pony, would not have much longer to damn the day, these reluctant animals, or his own
mistaken choice of employment.
The pack train had coiled down into a fairly level cup where a spring fed a pond. Pretus, the caravan
master, gave the signal to camp, and his men were happy enough to obey. Irasmus had held his horse to
a much slower pace and had stopped well behind the now-rising tents.
The mage gave once more that cricking, rockrat cry and was not surprised to hear it answered from
almost immediately behind him. Rain was not favored by his present servants, and their tempers had not
improved during the last half hour’s travel. He swung out of the saddle and allowed his horse to back into
a crevice between two rocks. The beast certainly wanted no meeting with those now flitting out of cover,
and he did not blame it.
The creatures were a motley lot, with only one thing in common—excessive ugliness of body and
feature. Green-yellow skin, much disfigured by warts and pits, certainly gave them no countenance a man
would enjoy facing. Their eyes shone with a peculiar red-gold fire in the fast-falling dusk; and their
slavering mouths gaped, showing discolored fangs. They boasted no hair on their elongated heads, which
were mainly lumps, now slick with rain.
Though their joints sometimes protruded at what seemed almost impossible angles, the beings scuttled
forward rapidly. In size, if they stood upright (their usual stance was a stoop), they could match Irasmus
in height. Their clothing was rudimentary—either bits of hide crudely laced together or cloth that looked
as if it had reached the state of rot that would lead it to fall speedily from an energetic body. From them
arose a thick miasma of foul odor.
Their leader, Karsh, shambled forward. Spittle shot forth from his wide mouth along with his words as
he addressed his would-be master.
“Hungry!” The nightmare raised one huge and long-taloned paw and slashed it through the air not far
from the young man, who showed no sign of any emotion but complete disdain. “Eat,” Karsh added.
“As you shall,” Irasmus replied. “But these have weapons—”
Karsh’s mouth sprayed froth even farther, and he held up his clawed hand yet higher. “So also we!”
“But not,” the sorcerer returned calmly, “iron ones.”
Karsh’s jaws came together with a snap. “Gobbes kill from shadows. No time those”—he indicated the
busy camp below—“have for weapons drawing.”
Irasmus shrugged. “Warning; take it for what it is worth. But listen well, for you are bound to me by
blood, and my orders shall be obeyed. I will go down to the camp. We will wait until they build their
cook fire. What they have to cook will not altogether agree with the eaters.” He did not know how much
of what he said could be understood by the out-world creature, but he drew as sharp a mental picture as
he could of men clutching their throats and reeling back from the fire. “It is for you,” he continued, “to
take out the sentries and so make sure there is no alarm.”
Those bulbous eyes the color of swamp slime stared at him for a long moment. The mage waited but
refused to believe that all would not happen as he had ordered. He had deliberately called these things
into his service, and the spell that held them was a potent one none of them could break. The gobbes
were very low-grade demons, and any powers they might try to raise could not stand against what he
had learned.
Karsh apparently accepted the situation. “We do,” he gabbled.
Two under the creature’s command slipped back into the shadows, and Irasmus did not doubt they
were about to do as they had been ordered—to remove expeditiously and noiselessly any watchers
Master Pretus had assigned to guard.
Remounting, the sorcerer began the slow ride down into the valley. This time he did draw his wand from
its sheath and held it ready. The confusion at the camp was his aid, for no one paid any attention to him.
He did not add his mount to the horse line but fastened it some distance away before he walked among
the others.
Gaszeb, the cook—if making the sorry concoctions the travelers had been forced to stomach could be
called “cooking”—had already set up the stout rod that held his all-purpose pot over the fire and was
busy tossing into it, with more or less accurate aim, handfuls of the dried lizard flesh that were all the meat
left after the winter.
When Irasmus approached, the cook had turned to grab at a too-limp sack that held some undoubtedly
now-moldy barley to be added to the mess beginning to bubble in the pot. A single glance around
assured the mage that he was under no observation, and his wand moved, its tip aimed at the pot. A thin
thread of dull red snaked into the stew, and for a moment he moved the thread back and forth as if from
a distance stirring the kettle.
“So, young sir.” Irasmus instantly whipped the wand into hiding as Master Pretus came closer. “Slim
fare for active men. Better if we could eat like the beasts and so find us grazing! We be still three days
from Ostermur, and that is a port, so they have foodstuffs from overseas to make up for this we gag
down now.”
“The trail runs straight to Ostermur?” Irasmus asked as if he had never seen a map.
“There be a side path down to Styrmir, but after such a winter the folk of that valley will have nothing
worth trading for. Ostermur is more promising.”
“Come along! Come along!” Gaszeb waved a great ladle to direct their attention to the pot as a young
boy trooped over balancing a tower of bowls. Most of the men had already finished their immediate
tasks and were able to line up for a well-filled bowl. Irasmus himself accepted one but did not raise it to
his lips, making signs that he wished it to cool first.
A moment or so later, the sorcerer was not disappointed by the results of his own addition to the meal.
With a whoop of pain and rage, one of the horse handlers spewed out—unfortunately across the feet of
the man next to him—the mouthful he had taken. And he was not the last to be so stricken.
The saboteur emptied his portion quietly onto the ground. That action might have been a signal, for out
of the night there came, sending both men and animals screaming in pain and terror, such an attack as
their world had not seen for a thousand years or more. The gobbes were hungry; and the feast, to their
minds, was ready. Shrieks of torment were stilled. Those who attempted to run were dragged down and
suffered the fate of their comrades. The reek of blood was as strong as the stench of fear and pain. And
the sounds—
The Wind might have been forbidden to course the outer world but, during the years since its binding by
the Covenant, it had ventured forth a little, curious, seeking what it had once had—communication with
all. What it gathered now, its innermost heart shrank from in horror. Then, very distantly, anger awoke,
and power was shaken out of slumber.
3
It had been a night of storm, lightning lashed around the ancient towers and walls; yet all wards had
held. Only, just after dawn, there had been one occurrence which for he who had witnessed it had
seemed ominous.
Unable to sleep, his drowsy thoughts presenting him in broken images such pictures as he never had any
intention of drawing, Harwice had arisen when the sky was hardly more than gray.
As always after he had dressed, the artist mage sought the table on which he had left the sketches done
yesterday. A new cover was needed for one of the Covenant missals, and he had been trying one design
after another, attempting to find or achieve a motif that carried more meaning than these scrawls which
had been his latest efforts.
Now the seer stopped short, and the candlestick he held shook a little so that the flame danced. The
light was feeble, but it was enough to make plain what lay there: a depiction of the huge scale which was
the ward and the heart of the Covenant.
But…
The table must have been jarred. Harwice put out a hand now to test its steadiness, but it stood solid
and unmoving even when he increased his grip and shoved. Yet somehow, during the fury of the night just
past, one of his small paint pots had been overset; and a dribble of murky red, like clotted blood, had
fallen directly onto his sketch, blotting out the standard of the scale and leaving only the pans loose from
any support and ready to spill all they had.
A warning—an omen—a matter he must speak about in open council? Sometime during this day, the
dream painter would at least share this incident with Gifford, who had forgotten more about omens than
any one man could ever hope to learn.
However, when he went searching for the archivist, Gifford was not, as customarily, in his stuffy room, a
spider in a web of books. It appeared that he had been summoned elsewhere; Harwice’s strange
experience would have to wait for the telling.
The chamber was very old. Time itself had welded one great collection of wall blocks to another until
they stood, and would stand, intact through the passing years which were no longer counted here. Yet
there was color to temper the somberness of the room: richly brocaded cushions on the chairs and panels
of fabric that rippled like wind-touched pools on the walls.
Archivist Gifford, who had just entered this room to make a report, paused before one of those panels
and, as if his gaze had commanded obedience, the ripples gathered and began to form shapes. These
sharpened and separated until it was as if the mage looked out a window down a long stretch of
countryside that wore the bright-green livery of spring, with flowering bush and tree to set the season’s
seal firmly upon it.
“Styrmir?”
The single-word question from someone entering after him broke the spell. That expanse of land, rich in
peace and plenty, disappeared, its colorful components dispersing to match the shaded bands on the
other hangings. The archivist, who had been watching, turned to face the speaker.
Both scholars wore breeches and doublets of muted purple with loose robes the hue of sword-blade
steel. The plainness of those garments was broken by a twisting of embroidered runes, which differed in
tint and design on each of the two men. The men varied slightly in size also, the newcomer, with his thick
crest of white hair, topping his fellow by several inches. Gifford was more full of body and face, with a
splotch of ink on one cheek where a writing finger had been absentmindedly wiped. His hair was much
more sparse and was held down by a round cap, as if the thinness of that natural covering brought a chill
to his nearly bare scalp.
“One can remember even through the veil of years,” Gifford said slowly. “Do you never regret the
Withdrawing, Yost? Happiness and peace are reckoned to be the innermost desire of all our kind. Those
of Styrmir have held that belief for centuries, and they raise no temples to any gods while the winds blow
free.”
摘要：

***Info***Author:Norton,AndreTitle:WindintheStonePublisher:Eos(HarperCollins)Printing:OriginallypublishedbyAvonEos,11/1999,inhardcover.RepublishedasapaperbackbyEos,12/2000.ISBN:0-380-97602-1(hardcover),0-380-79556-6(paperback)Versionhistory:v2.0:Proofcompleted23/06/2006fromoriginalscan.v1.0:Scannedb...

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