Andre Norton - Warlock of the Witch World

There was no sound, only a wave of feeling. But I was buffeted by it to the ground as a man may be beaten down by a storm of great force, I lay under it, fighting to hold my own identity intact. Then it was gone, and I pulled once more to my hands and knees. That what had wept was crumbling, falling apart, as unbaked clay will yield to water. Swiftly it went, until there was nothing left but a heaped pile of red dust.

Shaking, I got clumsily to my feet. Something lay there. Startled, I saw that the light which had traveled with me had taken on a more substantial form. Once again it had the outline of a sword. When I went painfully back down on one knee to grasp it, I discovered that, while I could move it a little way, I still could not pick it up.

Once more I stood as erect as I could, for the first time becoming aware of another change. There was an alteration in the feeling of this land, a kind of troubling. I began to wonder if, in my pity, I had not done something which would bring on me such notice as no traveler here would care to court.

“Kaththea!”

I sent the thought and tried to speed the pace of my shuffle, also puzzling as to why my sword had changed.

Sytry willing—The words I had used from no memory of my own. Further back, when I had fought the monster in the underground channel—what had I called on? Sytry! Was it a name or a word of power? there was a way to test that. I came to a stop, staring down at that gold shaft-blade.

In the name of Sytry! I thought. Be you again a weapon to my hand, a thing of power!

There was no buffeting wind of emotion this time. Rather a trembling which shook my body as if some invisible thing shook me to and fro. A flash of light exploded, to dance wildly along the length of the sword, making it blaze until I shut my eyes and uttered a beastly kind of mewling sound. But when I forced them open again—

The sword—no light beam now—but seemingly a weapon as complete and concrete as that which I had carried out of the tomb. I was on my knees where that shaking fit had left me; for the third time I reached for the hilt. It was hard to flex my paw about it, yet I did so. From that grip a new kind of strength flowed up my arm into me.

Who was Sytry? Or what? In this place it had some governance. Would it also restore my own form so that I could go into battle, if need be, as one in his proper body?

In the Name of Sytry, I tried that thought, let me be as the man I was—

I waited for that shaking, for some sign that the spell would work again. But nothing came; I did not alter. Then I got wearily to my feet. The sword was a thing of Sytry; I was not. I should not have hoped it would be so.

“Kaththea!”

Once more I loosed the winged thought and continued on this endless journey across space, bound by no dimensions known to me. Though my shuffle was hardly more than a painful hobble, I did make progress. Some time later later I saw looming in the flashes of color something else above the surface of the plain. This was no giant hunched figure but a band of light which did not leap and die, but was constant. Great gems cut in facets to reflect might have looked so, for these were diamond shaped, one narrow point rooted in the ground. Again the system of numbering prevailed—three yellow, seven purple, nine red—making a wall to rise well above my bowed head.

Yet my thoughts sped over that wall; for whom I sought must be behind it. I came to it, moved right for many steps, and then went in the opposite direction. Both ways the wall continued on and on as far as I could see. There was no climbing it, for the surface was slick; there was nothing for my poorly coordinated paws to cling to.

I squatted down before one of the red stones, my weariness a great aching in my bones. It would seem I had come to the end of my journey. As I sat there, I slid the flat of my paw back and forth across the blade of the sword. No runes blazed there; it was as if they had never been. The metal was cool, somehow reassuring. I continued to finger it as I stared at the stones.

The narrow points . . . how were they based? Set immovable in the surface of this land? Now on my hands and knees I crawled to the place where I could examine the setting carefully. Yes, the wall was not an integral part of the ground; there was a thin line. To me that seemed the only part to attack.

My only tool was the sword. Almost I feared to put it to such a test. To break the blade—what would I have left? On the other hand, what would an intact sword profit me if this was indeed the end of my quest?

My clumsy movements made it a far harder business than was necessary, as I began to pick and dig with the point at that juncture between the red stone and the ground. I tried to search my memory for anything out of Lormt which might now lend me strength, either of arm or purpose. But to think of Lormt was also a struggle, and when I did so, my arm grew weary at once and I missed my aim.

Lormt, then, was no aid. What of Sytry?

For the first time the sword hit true, just where I had wished to aim it!

“By the power of Sytry, under the Name of Sytry.” I paused and then experimented. Three times I repeated that name in my mind and then gave a thanks word, seven times, and again thanks, and at last nine times—

The sword was out of my awkward grasp. It stood erect at an angle, to work in sharp picks and jabs as I wanted.

There was a humming along the gem wall, a buzzing—it filled my head. I raised my paws to my ears, tried to blanket out that sound. Still the sword worked on.

Now small fragments, chips of red glitter, flew splinter-like to the ground. Some of them cut my warty hide. Yet I dared not take my paws from my ears to shield myself. The sword moved faster, a blur of light. Sometimes in my teary sight it was no longer a sword but a dart of pure force.

The tall stone shivered, trembled. Now the sword rose in the air, turned to a horizontal position and launched itself straight at the side of the diamond about halfway up. The stone cracked at impact, crashed down into crimson shards. The splintering spread to its two neighbors, so they, too, fell apart in a rain of vicious fragments. Along that wall the breakage continued to spread.

I did not wait to see how far it would carry. I got to my feet and held out my right paw. Back through the air swung the sword, to fit itself there securely. Then, wincing at the cuts that carpet gave me, I crossed the broken barrier into a vastly different place.

Alien had been the world of color: This had a superficial resemblance to the lands I knew. At first I thought that perhaps I had been returned to Escore. Before me ran a road among rocks, and down this road I had gone trailing behind a green scarf which moved, a ribbon-serpent, to the Dark Tower.

As I stepped onto that rutted way I saw that any resemblance was indeed only superficial, since there was no stability to anything there. Rocks melted into ground and grew again in another place. The road flowed and I struggled through it knee-deep, as I had walked streams with Orsya. Those things I had sensed being below the surface of rocks, now showed themselves plainly, so I must keep my eyes from looking at them or be lost in madness.

There was only one stable thing in all this—the sword. When I looked upon it for a space and then to what lay before me, that too was solid, had some security, if only for a small fraction of time.

I came to a dip which had been the dell in which, I slew the guard. But this brimmed with a bubbling, stinking stuff which might be poisonous mud. There was no way for me to go except down into it.

BUBBLES ROSE to the surface of that slime pit and burst, releasing fetid puffs of gas. Swim? Could I put this twisted body of mine to such effort? I tried with my teary eyes to discover footing which might lie either to the left or the right. But in both directions was only that shifting which was so confusing; I quickly looked away.