Wheel of Stars

by Andre Norton

  Gwennan crawled out of bed and began to dress. She gave a shudder which she could not suppress as she heard again a cry of the flying thing, as close as if it would dive against the roof over her head—so force her out into the open for its master to find. There was a way—yes, certainly there was a way.

  She knelt by that cupboard in the kitchen into which she had shoved the tray, the globe. The light over her head flickered but she had taken the precaution of bringing out the battery powered storm lamp, putting it in the middle of the table. Under it was spread the cloak, for she had the feeling that she must bring into use anything which could add strength of one kind or another to that she would attempt.

  The tray still had some unburnt crystals around its far edge. Gwennan pushed these inward, about the base on which she placed the globe with care, after she had once more set in concealment, just as she found it, the pendant which slipped easily into the waiting hollow. The globe was secure. Gwennan reached for a match and then shook her head. She was searching her mind, trying hard to remember. Did those fleeting fragments of thought come from her long time reading, or were they born of her sessions of far memory? It did not matter now—what did was that they reached her in this need.

  Lamp in hand she went to the wood box. Ash—there had been two downed ashes which had been split to feed the stove. She dug until she found one and, with a knife, she hacked a long sliver from the side. Its tip stirred into the newly fed fire, blazed up. With that she lit the blue crystals, hoping that there were enough of them left to aid in what she must do.

  That which flew above screeched. To Gwennan there sounded the ring of a summons in that sound. When the fumes of the incense began to curl up from the crystals, she blew out the ash stick, went hurriedly to the two windows. The falling snow was thick, forming a curtain. Her hand moved, and she drew, with the blackened point of the stick on the glass the looped cross, making sure each pane was so guarded.

  Another weapon of men who had forgotten. However, because they had believed in it for generations power gathered to it—giving some frail advantage against what wandered out there. Faith was the seed of strength, and symbols of faith did protect when used in the name of the Light.

  She slammed shut the door to the woodshed, and that to the hall, inscribing that symbol on each. There was no visible marking left from her tracing but that did not mean that it would fail. The eyes did not always see what was present.

  So, having set what walls of defense against the hunter that she could, Gwennan once more approached the table, taking her seat there to lean forward breathing in the smoke, steadying her head between her hands, her elbows planted firmly on the folds of the cloak. She stared at the globe beaming tentatively, to grope as a child new at school would struggle with half understood words, for that which had once been so easy for Ortha—the second part—the stronger part of her life.

  Gwennan struggled to bend all her will to this purpose, to empty her mind to all but her need.

  The smoke might be a drug; seers through many ages had used such to loosen their bonds with the here and now. Its rich scent did not make her sleepy. Rather it pulled her on into a new kind of wakefulness, she was aware in another part of her which she did not recognize.

  There was a clouding of the globe from the

  smoke—rather a billowing within the confines of the crystal, a rising of force.

  “Show me!” Gwennan's demand was fierce, sharp—"Show me where!”

  There was a door in the crystal, save it was not the globe—it was another place and she was there also, not as an onlooker, but one who acted. She knew that door—it was the vast, age-darkened one of Lyle House. There was the heavy knocker but she need not lift hand to that—rather she pushed ahead with the same fierce desire to be about what she must do as had filled her from the first.

  The wood swung inward. Before lay the hall but it was a blurred, an only half-visualized vision of no consequence, not what she sought. Nor did she turn to the library where Tor had left what she believed was meant to be a trap, but not one by which she could be captured. No, her way led ahead, back into that portion of the house where she had never been before.

  Another door, another hall, more half-opened doors here and there. Then a wall, paneled in heavily carved wood which had been painted, though the colors had worn away and still clung only in the curls of leaves, the entwining of boldly wrought stems. For it would seem that the artist had attempted on this one room side to create a section of heavy vine, stem, plant, beginning at the floor line and extending up to the ceiling.

  So embossed was that design that one could hook fingers into it deeply in many places. Yet there were only two such places which counted, one the center of a half circle of leaves. Yes, as she looked closer she saw there a small head, a laughing face with eyes which lived, pointed ears standing from among curls on the head. The whole was hardly larger than her thumb nail and yet perfect. And, not too far away, was a second twisted leaf, this one hiding the head of a stag—proud as that animal the huntress had ridden in the green world.

  Press—she did not press with her hands—she only sent a thought hurling at the two points. There followed a shaking, a trembling, throughout the wall. The whole of the carvings there tingled with life, and would be free. Then the surface split along a line between head and stag, the vines and leaves so cleverly set that none of them were riven apart by the opening.

  A door—so narrow that she might have to turn sidewise to pass it—Gwennan did not remember entering, she was just beyond. Here were steps even as there had been beneath the stone in the meadow. Save that they were not time touched, but straight and sharp edged, and she followed them downward again.

  It was dark and still not dark to her sight which was of the inner not the outer world, while she passed far more swiftly than she could have done had she made that journey in body. It would seem as though she was seeking the center of the world, descending endlessly. To every action there comes an end. She was again before a door which swung open as had the one of the treasure house, yielding easily.

  This room she had seen! This was what she had come to find—the heart of the Guardians’ life—or the place of their deaths. Here were ranged those coffins, crystal deepening to opaque. Gwennan knew who lay in the first of that line. Lady Lyle rested as a smooth faced statue, the clouding of the crystal about her well begun.

  There certainly could be no wakening for her, once she had entered this place and surrendered her body to the renewing. Gwennan looked upon her longingly for a moment or two—wishing that the process could be reversed, that the Lady might be summoned forth. No, it was the other coffin which she must see—that solid one at the far end of that line. Thought alone wafted her there, she stood beside it in an instant. Solid as any stone, no sign of the flaking or breaking of the outer shell, as she had witnessed when she watched from the seer's stool.

  Did the renewal then sometimes fail, and that lay within that shell—was it indeed dead?

  She stared down at that portion which was meant to cover the head. A skull beneath—or someone who had slumbered past the awakening time? Some very ancient mechanism could have at last come to a final halt.

  It was then that she sighted what lay on the surface above what might have been the heart position of the sleeper. White as the encasing of the coffin, near invisible against it, only the longer she focused upon it the clearer the form of it became. A symbol—not unlike one of those two daggers which had lain crossed on the table in Lyle House—white like frosted ice and as deadly in its life-refusing chill. The one who should have arisen was so sealed within. Unless that evil thing be raised the rightful guardian would remain a prisoner.

  Tor—only Tor could have done this. Gwennan fastened her mind power upon that white, near invisible, knife—strove so to fling it aside, even as her will had freed the upper door. But she could move nothing. This was not a matter of will (or at least her will); she had not the strength of old Power in her. N
either could she reach forth a hand—for that essence of her which had made this journey had no hands to grasp and take. No—she must come here in body for there was no doubt that the only hand which would serve was hers.

  She had been shown the way, the problem made plain to her. The rest depended upon her will, determination—and her courage! For that Tor would allow this threat to his power go unchallenged she did not believe. By her very act of learning this much, of coming here, she had bound herself to action. There could be no retreat.

  Even as she accepted that, Gwennan was again before the globe in the warmth of her kitchen, trembling from the effort, too tired to move.

  The inertia which held her was broken—by a sound from outside. Not the screech of the hunting beast, but a clangor which startled her so she gasped. There was shouting, faint but increasing in strength. Again a siren which could only be the sheriff's car—

  Gwennan stumbled to her feet—wavered to the window then realized that she could not see the outer road from the kitchen. She made her way down the hall, steadying herself with one hand against the wall to open the front door. There was a confusion of passing vehicles, of the warning lights revolving on cars. Half of Waterbridge was coming up the road, headed past her house, on towards the narrower lane.

  The sky was alight—not with dawn rays but rather the glow of a fire lying to the north. There was only one place which could show so easily here. That was not the sign of fire at any outlying fire—but rather at Lyle House itself!

  Set by those candles left burning on the table in a house she had thought empty? But that was hours ago. However, the house's inner paneling was of wood—very old, oiled, polished into being good tinder. While the walls might not be breached for they were stone and very thick, the inner shell could easily be gutted.

  She raced back, caught up the cloak, thrust her feet into her boots. There were people coming along on foot now in spite of the hour and the cold, she slipped out among them and heard their excited voices—telling of a phone call which had sounded an alarm, though no one was sure just who had called—of the destruction of the house unless help arrived in time.

  Would Tor have done this to conceal the resting place of the Guardians? Gwennan believed that no true Lyle would be able to destroy their refuge, the place to which they had clung for centuries. But Tor was half-blood—the house could mean very little to him against what he thought he might gain from it. Had he been able to sense her own penetration by thought into the secret which lay beneath and so acted hastily but ruthlessly, before she could carry out that which she had just found she must determine to do?

  The fire engine—bought largely with Lyle money the girl remembered wryly, had reached the house, followed by the sheriff's car, by two truckloads of men who jumped out to mill around. The high snow might well be such an impediment to their efforts as could spell disaster.

  Standing half open, the front door allowed a view of flame and smoke. There was no sign of the servants, were they trapped within? That appeared the opinion of those who had come to fight the fire. Two of the new heat suits were being donned, volunteers wearing them stamped on through the door under arch of water, from the pump truck, water which froze as it gathered around them.

  Gwennan stared at the glare flickering behind the front windows. What treasures were being lost in there! If the house were consumed she might never perhaps find that inner doorway the globe had led her to.

  There was shouting as the two men who entered returned supporting a third between them. He whom they had rescued was plainly unable to help himself as they bore him forward. While there was no mistaking the brilliant color of his hair, even though his head was turned away from her.

  No matter who else might have been in the house, Tor Lyle had been caught and—Gwennan studied that limp form they settled on a stretcher. One drew a covering over him. Dead? No, they lifted him into the back of the sheriff’s car. He was bound for the station house where the medics would be able to call in a helicopter to take him on to the hospital in Fremont—if he still lived. The way his body had sagged had made her wonder about that.

  Gwennan felt only wonder at first, and then her feelings became stronger. She was inclined to believe that he might have brought about his own death, perhaps because of his hot ambition—that need to be in command of the Lyle secret. Tonight he had opened a gate for those creatures from other worlds, of that she was as certain as if she had watched him at such summoning, still to meet with death—no! There was another answer somehow—If his death was meant to be, Lady Lyle could have caused it herself. She who had once been the Voice was ruthless for the triumph of the Light as Gwennan herself could testify. To face, to remove, the menace Tor represented was for any Guardian an outright duty, nor would Saris Lyle flinch from carrying that through.

  So no affection had bound the older woman to Tor—rather a need to work out a desired pattern. Time had failed the Lady, therefore she had done all she could to make sure that her mission might not also fail. She had suborned Gwennan, awakened, used her, to achieve what she herself might not do. Tor was not a thread to be pulled loose and tossed aside, he was still one who mattered to time's weaving.

  Therefore if he were dead, there had been partial failure not a triumph for the Lady, unfinished action still remaining. Gwennan watched the firefighters, more intent upon her thoughts than their actions.

  The glow behind the window now, certainly that was much lessened. Finally the men tramped out pulling out smoldering tatters of cloth behind them to be tossed into snow banks. The acrid smell of smoke hung heavy. Gwennan heard the news passed along that the flame had been largely confined to drapery and a section of carpet. That the fire crew themselves were surprised that so little real damage had been done.

  Young Lyle, the story went, had collapsed from smoke inhalation after fighting the blaze on his own. There had been no one else in the house.

  16

  So far Gwennan had gone unrecognized in the crowd. People were still straggling out from town. The fire must have roused all of White-bridge. She had seen enough, wanting to get away—to think, perhaps to call once more upon the globe. Tor was for a space removed from the board on which he would play his game. Now might be her only chance.

  She slipped away among the brush of the shrubs which helped conceal most of Lyle House from the road. They would surely leave a guard on the house. What she must do—if she could—would be secret.

  What she could do—

  Suddenly realizing that her time might be very short before she might be seen, or precautions taken to lock up the house beyond her penetration, Gwennan pushed through the shrubbery, heading towards the back of the house, away from the lights and confusion of the trucks and people in the fore yard. She had never explored the grounds here, nor was she sure that she could discover any unguarded entrance to the side or back of the house. The absence of the servants continued to present a question. Had Tor sent them away? Or had they refused to serve a master they believed in a false position? Gwennan was not even sure how many of them there had ever been. The woman who had been the lady's soft-footed attendant, a man who had tended the door, been seen in the yard at intervals—another older woman who waited on the table for their dining—those were all she personally knew.

  Though the snow was not drifted here, a thickened growth about both the side walls of the house and a series of shrubs and hedges of bare branches acted with the persistence of a maze to keep her from a straight path. Gwennan was continually having to turn right or left to avoid some such obstruction, many looming well above her head.

  She had made some progress when once more the cry of the flying thing shook her. Instinct took over, forcing her back against one of the lengths of hedge. The tall, overhanging branches here would, she hoped with a fast-beating heart, conceal her.

  That stench of an Outworld thing enveloped her. She heard the beat of what could only be wide wings. More than half of her screamed silently to run—to ge
t away from this place. Tor had set his own guards! Against the monsters of his pack—what weapon had she? The flyer might not be able to reach her in this entanglement of shrubbery—but there were other hunters out this night—and perhaps that impatient cry from overhead summoned those!

  Would the house itself provide any defense, be a refuge? How could it? Even in the most sacred temple of Ortha's time, the beasts from outside had prowled—prowled to slay.

  Yet the house, its thick walls, seemed to be the only refuge she dared hope to gain. She was somehow very certain that what was alive in the night wanted no dealings with the others. No, she was the intended prey—Tor's prey!

  The girl dared not move into the open, so she caught at handsful of the icy coated branches to draw herself along, support her over the roughness of ground she could hardly see. Thus Gwennan reached the back of Lyle House, saw a wall forming a barrier, then a door. Shrubs grew close enough that she could follow under their overhang so that moments of being in the open, vulnerable, were very few. Success depended now on whether that door was barred. If she reached it and could not win through—

  Gwennan ran clumsily for the wall gate. There was no latch, no handle. While above she heard the beat of the wings—the foulness wafted by these made her choke and gag. She threw out both hands, beat upon that resistant surface.

  The pendant swung loose from her half opened parka. A thread of light shot from the crescent moon on its top, not a full ray such as the dial might have offered, yet visible enough as it struck on the door.

  Oddly enough it slanted downward of its own accord, though she had not attempted to aim the ray, that finger wide beam found to enter a hole in the dark old wood.

  Gwennan dared not look up over her shoulder. That which swooped upon her out of the night was monstrous. She need not actually sight it to know that. It flew silently, avidly. Were beak and talons already reaching for her? The door swung back to allow Gwennan to throw herself inside, catching at the stout slab with both hands. She slammed it shut, to stand gasping for breath—her fear and the terrible fetor mingling, to leave her so shaky she doubted for a fraction of time her ability to move.