The Time of the Warlock by Larry Niven

Author:Larry Niven
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-12-27T16:00:00+00:00

Cloudscapes

The layer of cloud stirred uneasily around them. It was not flat. There were knolls of billowing white that they had to circle round. It was like walking through a storehouse full of damp goose down. The cloud-stuff gave underfoot, and pulled as the foot came forward.

Orolandes found a stride that let him walk with the top-heavy pack, but it was hard on the legs. Half-exhausted and growing careless, he nearly walked into a hidden rift. He stared straight down through a feathery canyon at small drifting patches of farm. A tiny plume of dust led his eye to a moving speck, a barely visible horse and rider.

He turned left along the rift, while his heart thundered irregularly in his ears.

Clubfoot looked back. Mount Valhalla rose behind them, a mile or so higher than they’d climbed, blazing snow-white in the sunlight. “Far enough, I guess. Now, the crucial thing is to keep moving,” he said, “because if the magic fails where we’re standing it’s all over. Luckily we don’t have to do our own moving.”

He helped Orolandes doff the pack. He rummaged through it and removed a pair of water-tumbled pebbles, a handful of clean snow, and a small pouch of grey powder. “Now, Kranthkorpool, would you be so kind as to tell us where we’re going?”

“No need to coerce me,” said Wavyhill. “We go east and north. To the northernmost point of the Alps.”

“And we’ve got food for four days. Well, I guess we’re in a hurry.” Clubfoot began to make magic.

The Warlock did not take part. He knew that Clubfoot was a past master at weather magic. Instead he watched Mirandee’s hair.

Yes, her youth had held well. She had the clear skin and unwrinkled brow of a serene thirty-year-old noblewoman. Her wealth of hair was now raven black, with a streak of pure white that ran from her brow all the way back. As she helped Clubfoot sing the choruses, the white band thickened and thinned and thickened.

The Warlock spoke low to Orolandes. “If you see her hair turn sheer white, run like hell. You’re overloaded with that pack. Just get to safety and let me get the others out.” The Greek nodded.

Now the clouds stirred about them. The fitful breeze increased slightly, but not enough to account for the way the mountain was receding. Now the clouds to either side churned, fading or thickening at the edges. Through a sudden rift they watched the farmlands drift away.

“Down there they’ll call this a hurricane. What they’ll call us doesn’t bear mentioning,” Clubfoot chuckled. He walked back to where Orolandes was standing and settled himself in the luxurious softness of a cloud billow. In a lowered voice he said, “I’ve been wrestling with my conscience. May I tell you a story?”

Orolandes said, “All right.” He saw that the others were beyond earshot.

“I’m a plainsman,” said Clubfoot. “My master was a lean old man a lot like the Warlock, but darker, of course. He taught half a dozen kids at a time, and of course he was the tribe’s medicine man.

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