Tales from High Hallack, Volume Two by Andre Norton

Author:Andre Norton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2014-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

That Which Overfloweth

From Grails: Quests, Visitations and Other Occurrences (Unnameable Press, 1992) and Grails: Quests of the Dawn (Penguin/Roc, 2004)

There are many tales, legends, and stories misshapen by years of mistelling, generations of adding to – or subtracting from. Once there was a man who fled with a handful of followers overseas to the farthermost known portion of the great empire. He took with him, it is said, two things of Power, a staff and another possession, which he guarded so jealously that even those who shared his exile seldom saw it.

In the far country he set the staff into the ground in a place which was already known to Power, where older Presences than those the voyager worshiped, had long held steady. And that staff, cut and dried for years, rooted and brought forth blossom so that the man believed he had found that place where the seeds he and his carried could flourish. But his other treasure was hidden away – though in plain sight – and so remained through the rise and fall of kings and empires and the passing of uncounted centuries, even into the final years when the world itself grew sick, promising death’s coming.

They came just after dawn, the dire wolves. Since Jan had broken his leg there was no trained sentry on the High Hill. Guran was very young, but he had the horn and he sounded it, before he was picked off by a sky bolt. Thus he bought those at the shrine village a small measure of time.

Not enough.

She Who Spoke had already reached the inner shrine when the alarm sounded. For a single breath she stood tense and still, and then she beckoned to those two who had lingered by the entrance in awe of this sacred place.

“There.” She pointed to the dressed stone on which stood the unlit candles of sheep fat, alongside the faded flowers of yesterday’s offering. Then, in demonstration of what must be done, she set her hands to the edge of the stone, feeling frantically for what was a key.

There were screams from beyond now, the cries of a village put to pillage. Death cries. Cassia, as she stooped to obey the Voice, shuddered. She heaved with all her strength as Lana was doing to match her at the other end of the stone. Reluctantly it began to move.

“In with you,” the Voice’s fingers bit painfully at Cassia’s shoulder as she pushed the girl-child toward the black hole they had half uncovered. There was no way to protest that order. Terrified, not only of the dark gap before her but at the sounds which reached them, she pushed into that opening, and, a moment later, felt Lana’s weight shoving her yet farther in and down. Then, before she could protest, the stone was swinging back, to leave their thin childish bodies pressed tightly together.

“Lana.” There was no answer from the other – she was only a heavy weight against Cassia’s shoulder and arm. “Lana? Voice?” she whimpered once again and then was silent.

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