Andre Norton - Wizard's World

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This is a work of fiction. AH the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and

any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

WIZARDS' WORLDS

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

49 West 24th Street

New York, N.Y. 10010

Cover art by Lucy Synk ISBN: 0-812-54750-0

First Tor edition: August 1989

First mass market printing: July 1990

Printed in the United States of America ^09*765432 1

Acknowledgments

author.

of the author.

author.

permission of the author.

of the author.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

by Andre Norton.

Table of Contents

Falcon Blood 1

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Toads of Grimmerdale 20

Changeling 77

Spider Silk 111

Sword of Unbelief 159

Sand Sister 195

Toys of Tamisan 253

Wizards' Worlds 348

Mousetrap 407

Were-Wrath 416

By a Hair 454

All Cats Are Gray 464

Swamp Dweller 473

Falcon Blood

TANREE sucked at the torn ends of her fingers, tasted the sea salt stinging in them. Her hair hung

in sticky loops across her sand-abraded face, too heavy with sea water to stir in the wind.

For the moment it was enough that she had won out of the waves, was alive. Sea was life for the

Sulcar, yes, but it could also be death. In spite of the trained resignation of her people, other

forces within her had kept her fighting ashore.

Gulls screamed overhead, sharp, piercing cries. So frantic those cries Tanree looked up into the

gray sky of the after storm. The birds were under attack. Wider dark wings spread away from a body

on the breast of which a white vee of feathers set an unmistakable seal. A falcon soared, swooped,

clutched in cruel talons one of the gulls, bearing its prey to the top of the cliff, where it

perched still within sight.

It ate, tearing flesh with a vicious beak. Cords flailed from its feet, the sign of its service.

Falcon. The girl spat gritty sand from between her teeth, her hands resting on scraped knees

barely covered by her undersmock. She had thrown aside kilt, all other clothing, when she had

dived from the ship pounding against a foam-crowned reef.

The ship!

She got to her feet, stared seaward. Storm anger still drove waves high. Broken backed upon rock

fangs hung the Kast-Boar. Her masts were but jaggered stumps. Even as Tanree watched, the waters

raised the ship once more, to slam her down on the reef. She was breaking apart fast.

Tanree shuddered, looked along the scrap of narrow beach. Who else had won to shore? The Sulcar

were sea born and bred; surely she could not be the only survivor.

Wedged between two rocks so that the retreating waves could not drag him back, a man lay face

down. Tanree raised her broken-nailed, scraped fingers and made the Sign of Wottin, uttering the

age-old plea:

"Wind and wave, Mother Sea, Lead us home. Far the harbor, Wild thy waves - Still, by thy Power,

Sulcar saved!"

Had the man moved then? Or was it only the water washing about him which had made it seem so?

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He was - This was no Sulcar crewman! His body was covered from neck to mid-thigh by leather, dark

breeches twisted with seaweed on his legs.

"Falconer!"

She spat again with salt-scoured lips. Though the Falconers had an old pact with her people,

sailed on Sulcar ships as marines, they had always been a race apart - dour, silent men who kept

to themselves. Good in battle, yes, so much one must grant them. But who really knew the thoughts

in their heads, always hidden by their bird-shaped helms? Though this one appeared to have shucked

all his fighting gear, to appear oddly naked.

There came a sharp scream. The falcon, full fed, now beat its way down to the body. There the bird

settled on the sand just beyond the reach of the waves, squatted crying as if to arouse its

master.

Tanree sighed. She knew what she must do. Trudging across the sand she started for the man. Now

the falcon screamed again, its whole body expressing defiance. The girl halted, eyed the bird

warily. These creatures were trained to attack in battle, to go for the eyes or the exposed face

of an enemy. They were very much a part of the armament of their masters.

She spoke aloud as she might to one of her own kind: "No harm to your master, flying one." She

held out sore hands in the oldest peace gesture.

Those bird eyes were small reddish coals, fast upon her. Tanree had an odd flash of feeling that

this one had more understanding than other birds possessed. It ceased to scream, but the eyes

continued to stare, sparks of menace, as she edged around it to stand beside the unconscious man.

Tanree was no weakling. As all her race she stood tall and strong, able to lift and carry, to haul

on sail lines, or move cargo, should an extra hand be needed. Sulcarfolk lived aboard their ships

and both sexes were trained alike to that service.

Now she stooped and set hands in the armpits of the mercenary, pulling him farther inland, and

then rolling him over so he lay face up under the sky.

Though they had shipped a dozen Falconers on this last voyage (since the Kast-Boar intended to

strike south into waters reputed to give sea room to the shark boats of outlaws), Tanree could not

have told one of the bird fighters from another. They wore their masking helms constantly and kept

to themselves, only their leader speaking when necessary to the ship people.

The face of the man was encrusted with sand, but he was breathing, as the slight rise and fall of

his breast under the soaked leather testified. She brushed grit away from his nostrils, his thin-

lipped mouth. There were deep frown lines between his sand-dusted brows, a masklike sternness in

his face.

Tanree sat back on her heels. What did she know about this fellow survivor? First of all, the

Falconers lived by harsh and narrow laws no other race would accept. Where their original home had

been no outsider knew. Generations ago something had set them wandering, and then the tie with her

own people had been formed. For the Falconers had wanted passage out of the south from a land only

Sulcar ships touched.

They had sought ship room for all of them, perhaps some two thousand - two-thirds of those

fighting men, each with a trained hawk. But it was their custom which made them utterly strange.

For, though they had women and children with them, yet there was no clan or family feeling. To

Falconers women were born for only one purpose: to bear children. They were made to live in

villages apart, visited once a year by men selected by their officers. Such temporary unions were

the only meetings between the sexes.

First they had gone to Estcarp, learning that the ancient land was hemmed in by enemies. But there

had been an unbreachable barrier to their taking service there.

For in ancient Estcarp the Witches ruled, and to them a race who so degraded their females was

cursed. Thus the Falconers had made their way into the no-man's-land of the southern mountains,

building there their eyrie on the border between Estcarp and Karsten. They had fought shoulder to

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shoulder with the Borderers of Estcarp in the great war. But when, at last, a near exhausted

Estcarp had faced the overpowering might of Karsten, and the Witches concentrated at their power

(many of them dying from it) to change the earth itself, the Falconers, warned in time, had

reluctantly returned to the lowlands.

Their numbers were few by then, and the men took service as fighters where they could. For at the

end of the great war, chaos and anarchy followed. Some men, nurtured all their lives on fighting,

became outlaws; so that, though in Estcarp itself some measure of order prevailed, much of the

rest of the continent was beset.

Tanree thought that this Falconer, lacking helm, mail shirt, weapons, resembled any man of the Old

Race. His dark hair looked black beneath the clinging sand, his skin was paler than her own sun-

browned flesh. He had a sharp nose, rather like the jutting beak of his bird, and his eyes were

green. For now they had opened to stare at her. His frown grew more forbidding.

He tried to sit up, fell back, his mouth twisting in pain. Tanree was no reader of thoughts, but

she was sure his weakness before her was like a lash laid across his face.

Once more he attempted to lever himself up, away from her. Tanree saw one arm lay limp. She moved

closer, sure of a broken bone.

"No! You - you female!" There was such a note of loathing in his voice that anger flared in her in

answer.

"As you wish - " She stood up, deliberately turned her back on him, moving away along the narrow

beach, half encircled by cliff and walls of water-torn, weed-festooned rocks.

Here was the usual storm bounty brought ashore, wood - some new torn from the Kast-Boar, some the

wrack of earlier storms. She made herself concentrate on finding anything which might be of use.

Where they might now be in relation to the lands she knew, Tanree had no idea. They had been

beaten so far south by the storm that surely they were no longer within the boundaries of Karsten.

And the unknown, in these days, was enough to make one wary.

There was a glint in a half ball of weed. Tanree leaped to jerk that away just as the waves strove

to carry it off. A knife - no, longer than just a knife - by some freak driven point deep into a

hunk of splintered wood. She had to exert some strength to pull it out. No rust spotted the ten-

inch blade yet.

Such a piece of good fortune! She sat her jaw firmly and faced around, striding back to the

Falconer. He had flung his sound arm across his eyes as if to shut out the world. Beside him

crouched the bird uttering small guttural cries. Tanree stood over them both, knife in hand.

"Listen," she said coldly. It was not in her to desert a helpless man no matter how he might spurn

her aid. "Listen, Falconer, think of me as you will. I offer no friendship cup to you either. But

the sea has spat us out, therefore this is not our hour to seek the Final Gate. We cannot throw

away our lives heedlessly. That being so - " she knelt by him, reaching out also for a straight

piece of drift lying near, "you will accept from me the aid of what healcraft I know. Which," she

admitted frankly, "is not much."

He did not move that arm hiding his eyes. But neither did he try now to evade as she slashed open

the sleeve of his tunic and the padded lining beneath to bare his arm. There was no gentleness in

this - to prolong handling would only cause greater pain. He uttered no sound as she set the break

(thank the Power it was a simple one) and lashed his forearm against the wood with strips slashed

from his own clothing. Only when she had finished did he look to her.

"How bad?"

"A clean break," she assured him. "But - " she frowned at the cliff, "how you can climb from here

one-handed - "

He struggled to sit up; she knew better than to offer support. With his good arm as a brace, he

was high enough to gaze at the cliff and then the sea. He shrugged.

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"No matter - "

"It matters!" Tanree flared. She could not yet see a way out of this pocket, not for them both.

But she would not surrender to imprisonment by rock or wave.

She fingered the dagger-knife and turned once more to examine the cliffs. To venture back into the

water would only sweep them against the reef. But the surface of the wall behind them was pitted

and worn enough to offer toe and hand holds. She paced along the short beach, inspecting that

surface. Sulcarfolk had good heads for heights, and the Falconers were mountaineers. It was a pity

this one could not sprout wings like his comrade in arms.

Wings! She tapped her teeth with the point of the knife. An idea flitted to her mind and she

pinned it fast.

Now she returned to the man quickly.

"This bird of yours - " she pointed to the red-eyed hawk at his shoulder, "what powers does it

have?"

"Powers!" he repeated and for the first time showed surprise. "What do you mean?"

She was impatient. "They have powers; all know that. Are they not your eyes and ears, scouts for

you? What else can they do beside that, and fight in battle?"

"What have you in mind?" he countered.

"There are spires of rock up there." Tanree indicated the top of the cliff. "Your bird has already

been aloft. I saw him kill a gull and feast upon it while above."

"So there are rock spires and - "

"Just this, bird warrior," she dropped on her heels again. "No rope can be tougher than loops of

some of this weed. If you had the aid of a rope to steady you, could you climb?"

He looked at her for an instant as if she had lost even that small store of wit his people

credited to females. Then his eyes narrowed as he gazed once more, measuringly, at the cliff.

"I would not have to ask that of any of my clan," she told him deliberately. "Such a feat would be

play as our children delight in."

The red stain of anger arose on his pale face.

"How would you get the rope up there?" He had not lashed out in fury to answer her taunt as she

had half expected.

"If your bird can carry up a finer strand, loop that about one of the spires there, then a thicker

rope can be drawn in its wake and that double rope looped for your ladder. I would climb and do it

myself, but we must go together since you have the use of but one hand."

She thought he might refuse. But instead he turned his head and uttered a crooning sound to the

bird.

"We can but try," he said a moment later.

The seaweed yielded to her knife and, though he could use but the one hand, the Falconer helped

twist and hold strands to her order as she fashioned her ropes. At last she-had the first thin

cord, one end safe knotted to a heavier one, the other in her hands.

Again the Falconer made his bird sounds and the hawk seized upon the thin cord at near mid-point.

With swift, sure beat of wings it soared up, as Tanree played out the cord swiftly hoping she had

judged the length aright.

Now the bird spiralled down and the cord was suddenly loose in Tanree's grasp. Slowly and steadily

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she began to pull, bring upward from the sand the heavier strand to dangle along the cliff wall.

One moment at a time, think only that, Tanree warned herself as they began their ordeal. The

heavier part of the rope was twisted around her companion, made as fast as she could set it. His

right arm was splinted, but his fingers were as swift to seek out holds as hers. He had kicked off

his boots and slung those about his neck, leaving his toes bare.

Tanree made her way beside him, within touching distance, one glance for the cliff face, a second

for the man. They were aided unexpectedly when they came upon a ledge, not to be seen from below.

There they crouched together, breathing heavily. Tanree estimated they had covered two thirds of

their journey but the Falconer's face was wet with sweat which trickled down, to drip from his

chin.

"Let us get to it!" he broke the silence between them, inching up to his feet again, his sound arm

a brace against the wall.

"Wait!"

Tanree drew away, was already climbing. "Let me get aloft now. And do you keep well hold of the

rope."

He protested but she did not listen, any more than she paid attention to the pain in her fingers.

But, when she pulled herself over the lip of the height, she lay for a moment, her breath coming

in deep, rib-shaking sobs. She wanted to do no more than be where she was, for it seemed that

strength drained steadily from her as blood flowing from an open wound.

Instead she got to her knees and crawled to that outcrop of higher rock around which the noose of

the weed rope strained and frayed. She set her teeth grimly, laid hold of the taut strand they had

woven. Then she called, her voice sounding in her own ears as high as the scream of the hawk that

now hovered overhead.

"Come!"

She drew upon the rope with muscles tested and trained to handle ships' cordage, felt a responding

jerk. He was indeed climbing. Bit by bit the rope passed between her torn palms.

Then she saw his hand rise, grope inward over the cliff edge. Tanree made a last great effort,

heaving with a reviving force she had not believed she could summon, falling backward, but still

keeping a grasp on the rope.

The girl was dizzy and spent, aware only for a moment or two that the rope was loose in her hands.

Had - had he fallen? Tanree smeared the back of her fist across her eyes to clear them from a

mist.

No, he lay head pointing toward her, though his feet still projected over the cliff. He must be

drawn away from that, even as she had brought him earlier out of the grasp of the sea. Only now

she could not summon up the strength to move.

Once more the falcon descended, to perch beside its master's head. Three times it screamed

harshly. He was moving, drawing himself along on his belly away from the danger point, by himself.

Seeing that, Tanree clawed her way to her feet, leaning back against one of the rocky spires,

needing its support. For it seemed that the rock under her feet was like the deck of the Kast-

Boar, rising and falling, so she needs must summon sea-legs to deal with its swing.

On crawled the Falconer. Then he, too, used his good arm for a brace and raised himself, his head

coming high enough to look around. That he was valiantly fighting to get to his feet she was sure.

A second later his eyes went wide as they swept past her to rest upon something at her own back.

Tanree's hand curved about the hilt of the dagger. She pushed against the rock which had supported

her, but she could not stand away from it as yet.

Then she, too, saw -

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These spires and outcrops of rock were not the work of nature after all. Stones were purposefully

piled upon huge stones. There were archways, farther back what looked like an intact wall -

somber, without a break until, farther above her head than the cliff had earlier reached, there

showed openings, thin and narrow as a giant axe might have cleft. They had climbed into some ruin.

A thrust of ice chill struck Tanree. The world she had known had many such ancient places and most

were ill-omened, perilous for travelers. This was an old, old land and there had been countless

races rise to rule and disappear once more into dust. Not all of those peoples had been human, as

Tanree reckoned it. The Sulcar knew many such remained, and wisely avoided them - unless fortified

by some power spell set by a Wise One.

"Salzarat!"

The surprise on the Falconer's face had become something else as Tanree turned her head to stare.

What was that faint expression? Awe - or fear? But that he knew this place, she had no doubt.

He made an effort, pulling himself up to his feet, though he clung for support to a jumble of

blocks even as she did.

"Salzarat - " His voice was the hiss of a warning serpent, or that of a disturbed war bird.

Once more Tanree glanced from him to the ruins. Perhaps a lighting of the leaden clouds overhead

was revealing. She saw - saw enough to make her gasp.

That farther wall, the one which appeared more intact, took on new contours. She could trace -

Was it illusion, or some cunning art practiced by the unknowns who had laid those stones? There

was no wall; it was the head of a giant falcon, the fierce eyes marked by slitted holes above an

outthrust beak.

While the beak -

That closed on a mass which was too worn to do more than hint that it might once have been

intended to represent a man.

The more Tanree studied the stone head, the plainer it grew. It was reaching out - out - ready to

drop the prey it had already taken, to snap at her....

"No!" Had she shouted that aloud or was the denial only in her mind? Those were stones (artfully

fitted together, to be sure) but still only old, old stones. She shut her eyes, held them firmly

shut, and then, after a few deep breaths, opened them again. No head, only stones.

But in those moments while she had fought to defeat illusion her companion had lurched forward. He

pulled himself from one outcrop of ruin to the next and his Falcon had settled on his shoulder,

though he did not appear aware of the weight of the bird. There was bemusement on his face,

smoothing away his habitual frown. He was like a man ensorcered, and Tanree drew away from him as

he staggered past her, his gaze only for the wall.

Stones only, she continued to tell herself firmly. There was no reason for her to remain here.

Shelter, food (she realized then that hunger did bite at her), what they needed to keep life in

them could only lie in this land. Purposefully she followed the Falconer, but she carried her

blade ready in her hand.

He stumbled along until he was under the overhang of that giant beak. The shadow of whatever it

held fell on him. Now he halted, drew himself up as a man might face his officer on some occasion

of import - or - a priest might begin a rite.

His voice rang out hollowly among the ruins, repeating words - or sounds (for some held the tones

of those he had used in addressing his hawk). They came as wild beating cadence. Tanree shivered.

She had a queer feeling that he might just be answered - by whom - or what?

Up near to the range of a falcon's cry rose his voice. Now the bird on his shoulder took wing. It

screamed its own challenge, or greeting - so that man-voice and bird-voice mingled until Tanree

could not distinguish one from the other.

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Both fell into silence; once more the Falconer was moving on. He walked more steadily, not

reaching out for any support, as if new strength had filled him. Passing under the beak he was -

gone!

Tanree pressed one fist against her teeth. There was no doorway there! Her eyes could not deceive

her that much. She wanted to run, anywhere, but as she looked wildly about her she perceived that

the ruins funneled forward toward that one place and there only led the path.

This was a path of the Old Ones; evil lurked here. She could feel the crawl of it as if a slug

passed, befouling her skin. Only - Tanree's chin came up, her jaw set stubbornly. She was Sulcar.

If there was no other road, then this one she would take.

Forward she went, forcing herself to walk with confidence, though she was ever alert. Now the

shadow of the beak enveloped her, and, though there was no warmth of sunlight to be shut out,

still she was chilled.

Also - there was a door. Some trick of the stone setting and the beak shadow had concealed it from

sight until one was near touching distance. With a deep breath which was more than half protest

against her own action, Tanree advanced.

Through darkness within, she could see a gray of light. This wall must be thick enough to provide

not just a door or gate but a tunnel way. And she could see movement between her and that light;

the Falconer.

She quickened step so that she was only a little behind him when they came out in what was a

mighty courtyard. Walls towered all about, but it was what was within the courtyard itself which

stopped Tanree near in mid-step.

Men! Horses!

Then she saw the breakage, here a headless body, there only the shards of a mount. They had been

painted once and the color in some way had sunk far into the substance which formed them, for it

remained, if faded.

The motionless company was drawn up in good order, all facing to her left. Men stood, the reins of

their mounts in their hands, and on the forks of their saddles falcons perched. A regiment of

fighting men awaiting orders.

Her companion skirted that array of the ancient soldiers, almost as if he had not seen them, or,

if he had, they were of no matter. He headed in the direction toward which they faced.

There were two wide steps there, and beyond the cavern of another door, wide as a monster mouth

ready to suck them in. Up one step he pulled, now the second. ... He knew what lay beyond; this

was Falconer past, not of her people. But Tanree could not remain behind. She studied the faces of

the warriors as she passed by. They each held their masking helm upon one hip as if it was needful

to bare their faces, as they did not generally do. So she noted that each of the company differed

from his fellows in some degree, though they were all plainly of the same race. These had been

modeled from life.

As she came also into the doorway, Tanree heard again the mingled call of bird and man. At least

the two she followed were still unharmed, though her sense of lurking evil was strong.

What lay beyond the door was a dim twilight. She stood at the end of a great hall, stretching into

shadows right and left. Nor was the chamber empty. Rather here were more statues; and some were

robed and coiffed. Women! Women in an Eyrie? She studied the nearest to make sure.

The weathering which had eroded that company in the courtyard had not done any damage here. Dust

lay heavy on the shoulders of the life-size image to be sure, but that was all. The face was

frozen into immobility. But the expression. Sly exultation, an avid . . . hunger? Those eyes

staring straight ahead, did they indeed hold a spark of knowledge deep within?

Tanree pushed aside imagination. These were not alive. But their faces - she looked to another,

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studied a third - all held that gloating, that hunger-about-to-be-assuaged; while the male images

were as blank of any emotion as if they had never been meant to suggest life at all.

The Falconer had already reached the other end of the hall. Now he was silent, facing a dais on

which were four figures. These were not in solemn array, rather frozen into a tableau of action.

Deadly action, Tanree saw as she trotted forward, puffs of dust rising from the floor underfoot.

A man sat, or rather sprawled, in a throne-chair. His head had fallen forward, and both hands were

clenched on the hilt of a dagger driven into him at heart level. Another and younger man, lunged,

sword in his hand, aiming at the image of a woman who cowered away, such an expression of rage and

hate intermingled on her features as made Tanree shiver.

But the fourth of that company stood a little apart, no fear to be read on her countenance. Her

robe was plainer than that of the other woman, with no glint of jewels at wrist, throat or waist.

Her unbound hair fell over her shoulders, cascading down, to nearly sweep the floor.

In spite of the twilight here that wealth of hair appeared to gleam. Her eyes - they, too, were

dark red - unhuman, knowing, exulting, cruel - alive!

Tanree found she could not turn her gaze from those eyes.

Perhaps she cried out then, or perhaps only some inner defense quailed in answer to invasion.

Snakelike, sluglike, it crawled, oozed into her mind, forging link between them.

This was no stone image, man-wrought. Tanree swayed against the pull of that which gnawed and

plucked, seeking to control her.

"She-devil!" The Falconer spat, the bead of moisture Striking the breast of the red-haired woman.

Tanree almost expected to see the other turn her attention to the man whose face was twisted with

half-insane rage. But his cry had weakened the spell laid upon her. She was now able to look away

from the compelling eyes.

The Falconer swung around. His good hand closed Upon the sword which the image of the young man

held. He jerked at that impotently. There was a curious wavering, as if the chamber and all in it

were but part of a wind-riffled painted banner.

"Kill!"

Tanree herself wavered under that command in her mind. Kill this one who would dare threaten her,

Jonkara, Opener of Gates, Commander of Shadows.

Rage took fire. Through the blaze she marched, knowing what must be done to this man who dared to

challenge. She was the hand of Jonkara, a tool of force.

Deep within Tanree something else stirred, could not be totally battered into submission.

I am a weapon to serve. I am -

"I am Tanree!" cried that other part of her. "This is no quarrel of mine. I am Sulcar, of the seas

- of another blood and breed!"

She blinked and that insane rippling ceased for an instant of clear sight. The Falconer still

struggled to gain the sword.

"Now!" Once more that wave of compulsion beat against her, heart high, as might a shore wave. "Now

- slay! Blood - give me blood that I may live again. We are women. Nay, you shall be more than

woman when this blood flows and my door is opened by it. Kill - strike behind the shoulder. Or,

better still, draw your steel across his throat. He is but a man! He is the enemy - kill!"

Tanree swayed, her body might be answering to the flow of a current. Without her will her hand

arose, blade ready, the distance between her and the Falconer closed. She could easily do this,

blood would indeed flow. Jonkara would be free of the bonds laid upon her by the meddling of

fools.

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file:///F|/rah/Andre%20Norton/Norton,%20Andre%20-%20Wizards'%20Worlds.txt

"Strike!"

Tanree saw her hand move. Then that other will within her flared for a last valiant effort.

"I am Tanree!" A feeble cry against a potent spell. "There is no power here before whom Sulcar

bows!"

The Falconer whirled, looked to her. No fear in his eyes, only cold hate. The bird on his shoulder

spread wings, screamed. Tanree could not be sure - was there indeed a curl of red about its feet,

anchoring it to its human perch?

"She-devil!" he flung at her. Abandoning his fight for the sword, he raised his hand as if to

strike Tanree across the face. Out of the air came a curl of tenuous red, to catch about his

upraised wrist, so, even though he fought furiously, he was held prisoner. "Strike quickly!" The

demand came with mind-bruising force.

"I do not kill!" Finger by finger Tanree forced her hand to open. The blade fell, to clang on the

stone floor. "Fool!" The power sent swift punishing pain into her head. Crying out, Tanree

staggered. Her outflung hand fell upon that same sword the Falconer had sought to loosen. It

turned, came into her hold swiftly and easily.

"Kill!"

That current of hate and power filled her. Her flesh tingled, there was heat within her as if she

blazed like an "Oil-dipped feast torch.

"Kill!"

She could not control the stone sword. Both of her bands closed about its cold hilt. She raised

it. The man before her did not move, seek in any way to dodge the threat she offered. Only his

eyes were alive now - no fear in them, only a hate as hot as what filled her. Fight - she must

fight as she had the waves of the storm lashed sea. She was herself, Tanree - Sulcar - no tool

for something evil which should long since have gone into the Middle Dark.

With the greatest effort she made her body move, drawing upon that will within her which the other

could not master. The sword fell.

Stone struck stone - or was that true? Once more the air rippled, life overrode ancient death

for a fraction of time between two beats of the heart, two breaths. The sword had jarred against

Jonkara.

"Fool - " a fading cry.

There was no sword hilt in her hands, only powder sifting between her fingers. And no sparks of

life in those red eyes either. From where the stone sword had struck full on the image's shoulder

cracks opened. The figure crumbled, fell. Nor did what Jonkara had been vanish alone. All those

others were breaking too, becoming dust which set Tanree coughing, raising her hands to protect

her eyes.

Evil had ebbed. The chamber was cold, empty of what had waited here. A hand caught her shoulder,

pulling at her.

"Out!" This voice was human. "Out - Salzarat falls!"

Rubbing at her smarting eyes, Tanree allowed him to lead her. There were crashing sounds, a

rumbling. She cringed as a huge block landed nearby. They fled, dodging and twisting. Until at

last they were under the open sky, still coughing, tears streaming from their eyes, their faces

smeared with gray grit.

Fresh wind, carrying with it the clean savor of the sea, lapped about them. Tanree crouched on a

mat of dead grass through which the first green spears of spring pushed. So close to her that

their shoulders touched was the Falconer. His bird was gone.

They shared a small rise Tanree did not remember climbing. What lay below, between them and the

file:///F|/rah/Andre%20Norton/Norton,%20Andre%20-%20Wizards'%20Worlds.txt (10 of 239) [1/17/03 1:37:16 AM]

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file:///F|/rah/Andre%20Norton/Norton,%20Andre%20-%20Wizards'%20Worlds.tx\tThisisaworkoffiction.AHthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthi\sbookarefictitious,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleoreventsispurelycoincidental.WIZARDS'WORLDSCopyright(c)1989byAndreNortonAllrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproduce...

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Andre Norton - Wizard's World

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