Golden Trillium

by Andre Norton

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  PRAISE FOR THE SAGA OF THE TRILLIUM

  Black Trillium

  A Booklist Editors’ Choice

  “A fine fantasy novel … the styles and subplots mesh effectively, and the world-building is superior.” —Chicago Sun-Times

  “Three top fantasy stars combine in this tale.… An inventive quest fantasy with strong characters and a well-realized setting—quite worthy of the considerable talents involved.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “A potent tale that is the result of a collaboration of important fantasy writers.… Each of the princesses’ characters and quests was created by one of the top-notch coauthors, who infuse them with distinctive voices and paths. The weaving together of these stories adds texture and interest to an already strong fairy-tale lot and firm world building.” —Booklist, starred review

  “Remarkable … plays to the strengths of all three writers in a wide-ranging, solidly crafted narrative with elements of high adventure, vivid magic, and remote science fiction. Black Trillium is an entertaining, well-told tale.” —Dragon

  “Formidable is the only word for the combo of authors on Black Trillium.… You’re very aware of more than one fertile imagination at work.” —Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine

  “A marvelous, fast-paced fantasy.” —Booklist

  “It is the stuff of which fairy tales were made in your youth—but this one is definitely for grownups.… Magical and sparkling and at the same time, hauntingly real.” —The Courier-Gazette (Rockland, Maine)

  “Three of fantasy’s finest authors join forces to take us on a fabulous quest in an exciting new world.” —Rave Reviews

  “When three such distinguished ladies collaborate, we ignore them at our peril.” —School Library Journal

  Blood Trillium

  “This sequel to the joint effort produced by May, Andre Norton and Marion Zimmer Bradley is a superior tale, giving life, character and emotion to the three Petals of the Living Trillium as they continue their adventures.” —Publishers Weekly

  Golden Trillium

  “The sort of well-told tale that Norton has been writing for nearly half a century … we can rejoice in having such a legacy.” —Chicago Sun-Times

  “[Norton’s] depictions of aboriginal life, with its dedication to nature, and of the emotional growth of a strong yet uncertain and lonely woman are finely wrought.” —Publishers Weekly

  “The grande dame of SF and fantasy returns to a favorite theme—the discovery of an ancient and highly advanced lost civilization—in this heroic adventure set in the shared world introduced in Black Trillium (with Marion Zimmer Bradley and Julian May). Norton’s latest effort bears witness to her mastery of no-frills storytelling. A prime candidate for fantasy collections.” —Library Journal

  Lady of the Trillium

  “An inventive quest with strong characters and a well-realized setting.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “[Lady of the Trillium] focuses … on the more subtle war of the misunderstanding and intolerance found between old and young. Poignant in its depiction of old age, this is a strong addition to most libraries.” —Library Journal

  “With her well-established talents for depicting female characters, political shenanigans, and potent magic, [Bradley and Waters] turn out a thoroughly satisfying yarn.” —Booklist

  Sky Trillium

  “[Sky Trillium] displays May’s usual brisk pacing, command of the language, and deftness at world building.” —Booklist

  Golden Trillium

  The Saga of the Trillium

  Andre Norton

  Prologue

  There were three of them, daughters of the Black Trillium. In their full womanhood, they were to be Haramis, the Sorceress; Kadiya, the Seeker-Warrior; and Anigel, the Queen. At one birth they came into the world (which in itself was a strange and unknown thing) and at the moment of their birthing the Archimage Binah, she who was rumored to be the full Guardian of all the land, hailed and named them.

  They were, she prophesied, to be the hope and saviors of their people. She bestowed upon each an amulet of amber in which was set a tiny floweret of the legendary Black Trillium, which was both the sign of their royal clan and of the land.

  Their country of Ruwenda, though for long generations it had been home to humankind, still held many secrets. A large part was swamp, out of which rose some islands of firm ground. On many of these were ruins, some large enough to be the graveyards of full cities. The King lived in the Citadel, yet another of these remainders of an earlier day, save that it was still whole.

  To the east, humankind drained the swamp, creating polders, which made rich farmland and offered fine grazing for herds and flocks. Ruwenda also served as the major way station for the import of timber from the south, which was needed greatly by their neighbors of Labornok to the north. Other trade wares came out of the swamps themselves: herbs, spices, the scaled shells of water creatures—some as bright as jewels, some so tough they could be fashioned into waterproof scale armor. And most rare of all came things—many so strange they could not be identified—which were found in the ruins on the islands.

  The gatherers of these were called Oddlings—the swamp dwellers whom the Ruwendians had found upon their own first arrival and with whom they had no quarrels. Neither wanted what the other desired in the way of territory. Of these Oddlings there were two races—the Nyssomu who were more forthcoming, some taking service even in the King’s Citadel, and the Uisgu, shy outdwellers whose chosen land lay farther west in the unexplored swamps. What the Uisgu had to trade they brought to the Nyssomu, who in turn offered it to licensed traders. All generally gathered in the large ruined city known to men as Trevista, which outlanders could reach easily by river.

  There was another race within the mires, claiming as their own the more western reaches of the north, and those none would willingly meet. Drowners, the Oddlings called them; Skritek, the learned named them. They were torturers and slayers, and an evil blight. At times they raided the polders or sought prey among the Oddlings, and nothing good was known of their saurian kind.

  There was peace in Ruwenda—save for such raids as these—during the childhood of the three Princesses. Men were unaware that a storm was building in the north.

  The King of Labornok was old and had occupied the throne for almost the lifetime of many of his people. His heir, Prince Voltrik, was soured with waiting. He spent much time overseas, where he learned different ways and made allies—including the great sorcerer Orogastus. When the Prince returned home, this man of magic was his close companion. When Voltrik did at last assume the crown, Orogastus became his first advisor.

  Voltrik coveted Ruwenda—not for its swamps, but for its control of the lumber trade and for the treasure rumored to be found in the ruined places. Once safely settled on the throne, he struck.

  The mountain forts guarding the only pass were blasted into nothingness by lightnings called down by Orogastus’s magic. Then, guided by a traitorous merchant and with the swiftness of a snake’s strike, the Labornoki took the great Citadel itself.

  King Krain and those of his lords who survived that battle died horribly at Voltrik’s orders. His Queen fell under the swords of those pledged to kill all the royal women, for there was a prophecy that only through them could the invaders be conquered in turn. The three Princesses escaped, each with the aid of her birth talisman—but they did not go together.

  Haramis was carried by the witchery of Binah (now old and failing, else no Labornoki would have won foothold in the land) upon the back of a great lamme
rgeier flying northward. Kadiya, with the aid of an Oddling hunter long her tutor in swamp ways, took to the swamps through an ancient passage. And Anigel, with her Uisgu mentor, the old herbmistress Immu, escaped under cover of the transports of the enemy to the watery city of Trevista.

  Each Princess in turn made her way to the Archimage at Noth, and each was set under a geas to discover a portion of a great magical weapon which would free the land.

  Their trials were many. Haramis, in the mountain lands, was tracked by Orogastus. He skillfully wooed her, first out of policy and then because he believed he saw in her a fit companion for his own gathering of power. But he was unable to obtain the silver wand that was Haramis’s talisman.

  Kadiya was led to the lost city of the Vanished Ones and there took up the sword which grew from the stalk of the Black Trillium which had led her there. Anigel, fleeing southward with the aid of the Uisgu, came to the forests of Tassaleyo, where she plucked a crown from the maw of a life-devouring plant. There also she met the Prince Antar, son of Voltrik, sent to bring her back prisoner but already so revolted by the excesses of his father and fearful of the growing power of Orogastus, he would not fulfill his orders, but rather became Anigel’s sworn defender.

  Kadiya, leading her gathering army of both Uisgu and Nyssomu, joined with Anigel to storm the Citadel. It was Haramis who brought to an end the life and power of Orogastus, by uniting the three talismans into one great and overpowering magical focus.

  Haramis refused the crown which was hers by right of first birth, choosing rather to follow Binah as the Archimage, when the dying sorceress left her her cloak of guardianship. Kadiya also put aside her heirship, for there were secrets in the swamplands which called to her, and she knew in her heart that crown and throne were not for her.

  Anigel wedded with Antar and joined the two once-enemy lands. As Queen and King of Laboruwenda, both swore they would rule as one and hold the peace.

  Haramis departed for the northern mountains and the knowledge stored there which drew her heart as no living thing might do. Before she went she sundered again the three talismans, taking with her the wand. The crown Anigel set within her own as part of her heirship. Kadiya again took up her sword, the point of which was missing, the pommel of which could unlid into three force-shooting eyes—one the color of her own, one that of an Oddling, and the topmost a brilliant one which had no bodily counterpart.

  Kadiya joined her Oddling army and went swampward just at the beginning of the monsoon. She did not know what she truly sought, only that she must seek it.

  1

  Rain lashed the swamp. The waterways flooded, roiled with mud, carried burdens of uprooted trees and brush. Vines writhed in the water like serpents, and true serpents were belly up and tangled fatally among reeds. Some of the monstrous growth swirled out making temporary traps to catch flotsam, to the danger of any craft daring to attempt upstream travel. The pounding of wind deafened all sound except the roar of rain and water.

  Yet there was travel against all odds. Even as much as those who knew the swamp feared their world gone wild, this one season they had dared it. An army had come out of the mires: clans had drawn to clans, peoples to peoples.

  There had been such a battle as even the ancient songs had never pictured. Evil had struck with a power of fire and sorcery beyond knowledge, and had gone down to a defeat of charred ashes. Now those who dared the streams and rivers felt only an overpowering need to turn their backs upon that battlefield, to withdraw into their own places. Victory had been theirs, yet the shadow of what had happened was like the storm clouds above.

  Their number shrank constantly during the journey. This force and that took to side ways, peeling away to seek out their home islets or the lake villages of the clans. The Nyssomu went early since their holdings lay the closest. Their distant cousins, the Uisgu, rode in shallow skiffs drawn by those who were both fighting comrades and aides—the water-dwelling rimoriks, even their great strength taxed by the fury of the waters. They disappeared more and more into half concealed tributaries which led to their fortresses, still unknown to those not of their kind save a few far venturers, none welcomed.

  Though the fast diminishing army fought hard to leave the past behind them, there were gruesome reminders of what horror had held sway here. Trussed in one patch of mud burdened reeds were the remains of a human, one of the ill-fated invasion force.

  The girl, swinging her paddle violently in one of the foremost skiffs, looked away hurriedly. Some Skritek had feasted there—satisfied the abominable hunger of his kind upon the flesh of his onetime ally.

  Skriteks—many now must be on the run before the storm fury. They knew only too well what would happen to any of their kind who had survived the defeat of the invaders within reach of the victors.

  The small party left had pushed on now into the Thorny Hell, a place of dread in which the innermost heart of fear seemed trapped in the tangle of thorn-sprouting growth. A sense of peril appeared to cling in leprous patches to the trunks of dead trees. Those who ventured here because it was the straightest path to their destination did not attempt to see beyond the bristling curtain which walled the river on either hand.

  The rain formed shrouds across the open water which shut out much of the view ahead. Bowed head and hunched shoulders could not help. Kadiya—who had once been a Princess housed in all the soft life known to her kind—endured, even as she endured the weight of the sheathed weapon which dug against her ribs when she swung to the paddle’s need. The same stubbornness which had brought her an army held. Kadiya could not and would not turn aside with any of those who continued to urge her to shelter with them. Nor could she have remained at the Citadel, now cleansed of the evil which had struck down those of her house. Payment had been taken. However, she was not yet free …

  Once more that weight resting upon her was greater than all that the storm could hurl at her, stronger than any floating trap she and her companions fought their way through.

  Why did she feel this driving urge, this pressure which was sometimes close to frantic? She felt she was being moved by a will which was not her own. The first time she had fled there had been red death, fire, the end of all the life she had known. Now … now what drove her?

  Drive it did—through the very maw of the storm. Islets on which they tried to camp were only sinks of mud and water-heavy brush. There was no real shelter. Sleep was only a temporary end to an exhaustion that left the body one great ache. Still each time she roused she was quick to settle once more into hazardous traveling.

  At least the storm kept their drenched world free of some dangers. No voor cruised above, no scale-armored xanna arose from murky paths with sucker-encrusted limbs to threaten them. Those plants which had their own vicious weapons were curled in upon themselves to outwait the floods.

  On the seventh day they came to the end of the river road. Now there was only their single craft left to nose the sticky mud of the bank. At least here the thorns did not repel.

  Kadiya threw her pack ahead to a mound of earth which looked stable enough to hold it. Reaching out for a trailing vine, she used it to drag herself ashore. Then she turned to face those who had accompanied her without complaint and wearily raised one hand in salute.

  Many things had changed in the days just past, but old Oaths were still honored. No matter how valorous they had been in a battle which had wrenched their world out of the hands of the Dark, no man or woman of the Oddlings would venture beyond this landing into a long-forbidden land—none except Jagun, the huntsman who had taught her the swamp ways and was now swinging ashore in her water-filling tracks. Oathed against this he had been, but that Oath was lifted by her own belief and act.

  Yet those others watching her now, their great yellow-green eyes unblinking as if those very stares would hold her, were plainly loath to let her go.

  “Light-bearer.” One of the two women warriors raised her hand in entreaty. “Come with us. You have carried our hope.” For a
moment her eyes sought the heavy burden at Kadiya’s belt. “There is peace—the peace which we have won. Let us shelter you. Seek not this place which is not to be seen …”

  The girl pushed back a sodden string of hair dangling from under her xanna-bone helm. She found that she still had the power to summon a smile.

  “Joscata, this has been laid upon me.” Her hand went to the bulbous hilt of that talisman which was also a sword. “It would seem that I cannot rest until I have fulfilled yet another duty. Let me but do this and I promise I shall return with a full heart to you all—for such comradeship I wish more than all else in the world. The choice is not yet mine to make. I have something still to do.”

  The Nyssomu looked beyond the girl’s shoulder to the drenched land. On her face there was a shadow which might have been set by fear.

  “May all good go with you, Farseer. Firm be the land for your footing, clear the path to where you must trod.”

  “Swift be your boats, comrades,” Kadiya replied as she hoisted her pack to her shoulders, “quick the way. If fortune wills I shall see you again.”

  Jafen, war speaker of the clan who had brought them here, still held the tie rope. “Lady of the Sword, remember the signal. There will be always a watcher. When you have done what you must do …”

  Slowly Kadiya shook her head, then blinked her eyes against the stream of water the gesture dislodged from her helm. “War Captain, do not expect a quick return. In all truth I do not know what lies before me now. When I am free, then surely I shall seek out those whose spears were a wall against the Dark.”

  Memory struck for a moment. It was as though not a Nyssomu faced her but that awesome figure she had seen but once before, who had come to her when she had been a hunted fugitive with despair nipping at her heels. And because of the courage born from that meeting with the mysterious presence in the garden of the lost city, she now felt the flash of memory as a spur, urging her on.