by Andre Norton
The hall was not too long, ending at another door. But this one was effectively barred by a slab of dark wood which displayed no latch nor hinge—a barrier past which she could not win her way. She thought of that sealing stone behind her and knew fear.
Impulse made her raise the dial, send its beam about the four edges of that door—just as one might use a cutter about the lid of a container. Where that ray passed there showed a line followed by a small curl of smoke. Twice more she made that pass about the edge of the barrier, deepening the line.
Then she cried aloud those same words which had come into her mind on the top of the mound. Some property of this dim, dreary hall magnified her voice, made the tone resound so that it had not the full semblance of a human tongue.
There was a loud crash. The barrier her light had severed fell inward, giving way to a light as bright as the dial, in which its rays were swallowed up. Gwennan smelled a strange odor, partly the richness of spice, partly chemical, nose wrinkling with its pungency.
So she came to a room or hall so vast, full of so much that it was hard to concentrate her sight on any one item piled therein. Color fought with color, and over it all shone the brilliant light. Ripples of light traveled through the air itself, pausing now and then to entwine this or that object as if bidding so for her attention. She was bewildered, a little dizzy, as she stood blinking—then rubbed her eyes with the back of her mittened hand. Too much to see—crowded, sacked, piled around her were things she could not view clearly because there was no order, all had been so ruthlessly jammed together. Still, as far as she could look, either ahead or to either side, Gwennan could sight no end, no other walls.
This was a treasure house, and also a storage place. There stood statues not unlike those which she had viewed in the niches at Lyle House, but their strange beauty was lost because they were piled so close to one another. Those things which might have been machines—tubings of metal, cogs and wheels were stacked in total disorder. Boxes, chests, cylinders tightly lidded abounded. The wealth or loot of a whole civilization—or a greater part of it—must have been hastily dragged here, never to be freed.
Gwennan at last noted that before her opened a wandering path or cleared way, where all else was stacked tightly, to a height well above her head, with the jumble. If she would advance she must follow that. The passage did not run straight, but made detours about some of the larger machines. She had not gone far along it when a glance behind showed she had already lost sight of the entrance.
The light of the dial had died. Perhaps it was not meant to compete with that which flowed from bars set in a cross-hatching overhead. Yet those floating, colored ribbons of light drifting along did not appear to be born from that source either.
Once or twice one of them, perhaps as long as she was tall, would float beside her to the right or left for a space, wreathing one or another of the stacked objects as if so courting her attention. But she never paused to explore that which they would direct her to. The wealth about her grew suffocating the farther she advanced. She could admire the objects she had seen at Lyle House, but here the mass pushed in about her, threatening her with the weight of all the riches a man could be tempted to possess.
On wound the path. Gwennan so far had sighted no farther wall. This was as wild a dream in its way as the others she had known. She wanted out—even just to see bare rock, plain and of the earth she knew. Skirting an open chest in which lay a tangle of gem-studded chains, the edge of her cloak swept one from the top. It jangled to the floor, the sound made her start and look back anxiously.
But if there were any guardians in this place, they did not appear. In truth Gwennan wanted nothing of these treasures. Her desire was only for freedom.
Yet the path led on, endlessly twisting until sometimes the girl suspected she was backtracking rather than advancing. Perhaps this was a maze in itself, a protection set up to mystify and completely entangle any intruder. That being so she would never come to the end of it.
Ahead two of the ribbons of the light hung in the air. One was dark green, not unlike the shade of her cloak, the other a rich gold. Even as she caught sight of them they began to move, in a twirling dance, one about the other. They still hung above the path, wafting ahead only as she approached them. Could she believe that they were guides?
14
Drawn by those two interweaving streamers, Gwennan chanced upon a second narrow way branching off the main path. Turning into that she arrived once more at a wall concealed, until one came directly upon it, by the piles of treasure. Here was a door unsealed, for silently it arose upward even as she approached, affording a clear passage out into another and much smaller chamber.
Though this was not bare, it was far more orderly. The furnishings had been set carefully in place, not jammed without any design except storage. Seats were stationed at measured distances, before each a table or desk—Gwennan was not sure which. The wall to her left was not formed of native stone such as she had seen elsewhere, presenting a smooth surface resembling a very large mirror or plate of glass—save that nothing within the room was reflected on it. Facing that squarely was a single seat, apart from the rest, and very different in shape.
Gwennan shivered. She guessed now in a rush what this meant and there could be no escape. What stood before her was the tripod stool of a seer. Only—she was not Ortha—she could not summon—
Nor could she, it would seem, control her body either. For she went to the stool even as she vowed within that she dare not. Stiffly, reluctantly, fighting her own body, Gwennan sat down.
All right, she was in the seat of a seer, but that did not mean she was about to play that role. She shifted her weight, trying to rise and leave—
That wall which was a mirror—truly a mirror—clouded. Even as Ortha had last viewed what was afar upon the billowing smoke and ash veil filling the doomed temple, so did Gwennan see the surface before her cloud, vapor rising to roll across it.
She half raised her hand, striving to cover her eyes, forgetting for the moment that she still gripped the pendant. The rich light of its dial rayed outward, but, before that beam touched the surface of that wall it was defused, became a haze clinging to the mirror, sinking inward to produce a change—objects gained substance within.
A square as tall as Gwennan steadied, to become clearly visible. She might be a child in a schoolroom faced by a blackboard, set to learn a necessary lesson. Markings darkened, starkly sharp. She recognized a reproduction of that same horoscope which had borne her own date of birth. But how could this be here? She wished she knew more (or had been permitted not to know at all—to have remained ignorant and free). Already she discovered she could not shut her eyes or
look away.
A pain grew within her head, a prying, a loosening. Gwennan crouched lower on the tripod and moaned faintly, partly because of the pain of opening a barrier that in her species had long remained closed, partly in fear of what might be freed at such an opening.
Before her was the key to life—her life. Stars wove their appointed patterns and the wheel turned—very slowly, hardly at all by the measurements of short-lived mankind. But turn it did. Thus it came full circle again after thousands of years, untold time. There was her life which had been once and now was again.
There had been no dream of Ortha, she had indeed been Ortha—and many others. From each of those lives she had carried onward a fragment of power—a portion of that which was greater than her human blurred senses could ever accept or understand. Now the full circle had been completed, she was once more to face, to do—and this time handicapped even more than Ortha, because through the flow of the past she had lost so much—
Tears of pain, of loss (for she had lost, Gwennan knew, all the safe, sure life which had been) were wet on her cheeks, dripped from her chin to the stiff collar of the cloak.
There was a change in the mirror which she must watch. Once more she viewed the dying world which had been, saw the survivors fall
to the level of mindless animals. No, become less than animals, for in madness they did that which beasts did not do to their own kind, even to their prey. She saw the flow of death continue. Here and there would rise a man, a woman, who bore the look of that older race. They were quiet, cautious, secretive, striving to teach, to train, to reach those among the beast-people who could be influenced.
Some were proclaimed gods and goddesses in spite of their denials. Some failed their tasks, to accept such homage, using their control over the lesser for their own reasons. Some died—some grew weary and disappeared. But always they came to labor, and, nearly always, they failed. For a generation or two they might lift, teach, lead. Then men and women, having reached a point, did not progress farther. There followed wars, slayings, plagues, knowledge used wrongly—again a weary rise, to begin all over again.
Guardians, those strangers from the past deemed themselves. Their numbers grew less during the centuries. They produced few of their own kind, for it appeared that only a handful were fertile. Some, isolated in loneliness among those they strove to teach, took mates. There were a few, a very few children, of such mixed matings. In a handful of these offspring the old blood was strong. New teachers arose here or there, or people living obscurely had subtle influence, making better the time and place in which they appeared. Others—others were of blood and also of the Dark. They sought power to use in greed and pride. There were mighty conquerors among them, leaders of another kind—tearing down what had been so painfully built.
Never was this long battle over—only small victories won, which, within years, blew away, as formless dust and ash. It would seem that madness ruled the world and never would sanity or the light again prevail.
So Gwennan watched as time rolled by in huge waves of centuries. Now came history she knew through her researching, but how false was much which had been since taught, how far removed from the truth mirrored before her. Events hailed as facts were a coating of hallucination—sometimes deliberately reported so, sometimes altered in report because of the flaws in men's own minds begun with the first survivors.
Then, abruptly, as if that which controlled the mirror (it was certainly no power of her own which summoned this surfeit of defeat, death, and constant wrenching of lives) changed what it showed. There was no longer a wide panorama of action centering in at intervals upon one man, one woman, or one set of actions which had changed the whole course of the future. Rather she watched one of the guardians—and Gwennan knew her, in spite of the unfamiliar dress, the look of wearied, greatly wearied age.
This was Lady Lyle, more worn and more haunted even than the girl had last seen her. She moved slowly, painfully, as if with every step she took the strength drained from her as blood from a death wound. Here was a chamber lighted a cold blue. Down its center stretched a raised platform on which rested boxes of crystal which had the look of coffins.
Those closest to the doorway through which that woman had come so slowly were clearer —the one at the very end totally transparent. Gwennan could see through the sides of two more though there was a cloudiness gathering to cloak what they held. In one rested a man, the other a woman. Both bodies were the white of frost upon the ground, their eyes closed, no sign of any breath or life about them. As the line advanced so did the murkiness of coffins grow thicker, until those at the far end of the line might have been wrought of marble not crystal, their occupants sealed away forever.
The woman who came, steadied herself with one hand upon the lid of the unoccupied coffin. Her back was bowed, her face so gaunt with weariness that much of its flesh drew tight against the bones. Her other hand plucked at the fastenings of her garments, a coarse, black full skirted dress with a wide white collar. She tugged and pulled until that fell about her ankles. The yellowish underclothing beneath were also discarded. Then she pulled from her head a tight, plain cap which had covered most of thin white hair, letting the locks loose about her bony shoulders. She was very old, her body near that of a walking skeleton, the spirit within her burning close to its final embers.
Leaving her clothing as it lay, the woman exerted what appeared to Gwennan to be a vast effort to lift up the lid of the waiting coffin. She climbed in. A shade of thankfulness, of joy crossed her face, she welcomed death eagerly—
She stretched out in the crystal box as the cover, without her touching it, descended. The woman's eyes were already closed. Gwennan could not see any lift of that breast where the bones showed so sharply.
Yet, though the entombing was past, the picture did not fade. Rather some voice she neither heard nor understood directed Gwennan's attention to the solidly white coffin at the far end of that line. The closing of the woman's refuge might well have been a signal. There followed a cracking across the surface there—one which spread in lines. Patches of solid material broke free, dropped into powdery fragments. The lid moved, ponderously, sending rolling from it the accumulation of centuries.
Gwennan could not yet see who or what lay within; however, there were movements along the edge of the box, fingers hooked there, a hand appeared. Slowly, stiffly a figure arose to a sitting position. A woman had entered the first coffin and gone to her rest, but a man aroused, sitting up for a long moment as if he must gather strength before he climbed out. He was young, his well-muscled shoulders twisted, moved, as he threw both arms wide, stretching, limbering up. Then he got to his feet and stepped forth.
At first Gwennan's breath caught—Tor? Then he faced her squarely as he left that time-embowered bed, began to exercise, stretching, bending, willing his body to life. He had the same brilliant golden hair—near the same cast of features as Tor Lyle, yet this was a different man, though perhaps a kinsman, one of a close-bred line.
He stumbled at first as he walked away from the line of coffins but his steps grew firmer and more assured with each step. Now he approached a niche in the wall and there opened a small grille from behind which he drew a bottle of rainbow bright glass. Pouring a small measure of its contents into a matching cup, he drank with a single gulp. Paying no attention to the line of coffins, he strode along until he came to the huddle of clothing the woman had discarded. There he stopped and shook out those garments. There fell something from among their folds, some object upon which he pounced eagerly. Holding his find in one hand, he gathered up the clothing in a rough bundle, to thrust the whole of it into another niche in the wall where it rested untidily for a moment before it flared up in flames to be almost instantly consumed.
The man turned and left the chamber, his find in his hand, and the mirror picture faded away. Only Gwennan knew now. The Lyles—were they the only ones? Or had there been other clans to know such renewing—rebirth? What of the half-lings—those whose blood were mixed? Did they renew? Or for them was it always normal rebirth, a reliving with all the loss of memory, the loss of even the faint shadow of the Power—a weary, re-beginning each time?
Once more the girl faced the chart of the horoscope—the turn of the star wheel. This insistence that she was one who carried the same potential as Ortha pressed upon her as might a physical burden. She felt as weary as that other Lady Lyle who had gone to sleep in her renewing coffin. And must recently have gone again—
Gwennan's head bobbed as if to reassure another part of her. No death for the Lyles. They went into their sleep to return once more, following a set cycle. What did they deal with now—were they still teachers, covert leaders? What of the warning that even as the star wheel had turned for her, so had it turned for all the world, and once more a cycle of disaster was upon them?
A disaster wrought by man, not nature this time. The threat of a final war had enshadowed the world ever since Hiroshima had proved that man could relearn old knowledge but apply it only to strike out and destroy. So much had madness clung through the generations. War—and complete destruction. So what could these sleepers—even if they were all awakened and spread throughout the world—do to prevent such a catastrophe? Any more than they had once been
able to prevent the coming of the dead moon world which had brought with it such destruction?
There was a vast despondency in her, a hopelessness which was as evil in its way as any of the monsters Gwennan had seen prowl from another plane. She looked upon the horoscope and thought it mockery. What did it mean to her that the wheel had turned? She was no Guardian—
Burning fire in her hand, a blaze to jerk her attention away from the mirror to the pendant she held. Now the dial of the watch was a glare of light—no longer could she distinguish any of the symbols, for bands of light which barred it spun with such fury that they formed a single blazing disc. Half-blood—no holder of the Power— Swiftly she attempted to deny what she held.
Gwennan shook, her body wove from side to side on the flimsy support of the seer's tripod. There was such a spin of half thoughts, of only dimly realized impressions in her mind that the pain there grew unbearable. She was aware of torment as a black wave rising to engulf her, then lost her last hold on the outer world and fell forward, far down, helplessly, into a dark nothingness.
Dark and nothingness, yet there was something to be sought, to be gained—to be held to. She was a seeker and she could not deny that, even though she now longed for the peace of a dark which would never stir again.
There was no road of thread to follow this time, no gates which stood for the signs of Power—and which did not try to hold her back. If she moved (she could not even be sure that she did) it was through nothingness where she was only a small lingering essence of self—fast fading—not caring—
Gwennan opened her eyes. Had the darkness only come because she had closed them in protest against the pain? Flowing through her, making her body tingle, her flesh prickle, was an energy which she could not have controlled even had she so wished. She no longer huddled on the tripod, nor had she fallen to the floor before it. Rather she was walking, and here was no mirror, no shining wall.
