Wind in the Stone by Andre Norton

Author:Andre Norton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2012-01-10T00:46:47+00:00

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Irasmus had been staring at the murky globe before him, but his real attention was elsewhere. From his coming to Styrmir, he had laid down defenses. Some of those tactics he had acquired in the Place of Learning; though these were not to be trusted, since they had been shaped with the mental tools honed in the storehouse of the scholars. However, the talents of the valley folk upon which he had been battening so long now made Irasmus feel that his own powers were far greater than those of most of the mages under Yost.

He had also continued his probings to penetrate the forbidden levels in the archives; though these attempts had been baffled, so that all he had managed to garner were bits and pieces of knowledge he had spent long hours attempting to fit together. Despite the vigilance of his former brothers, he had learned; but he had been able to trust none of his discoveries until now. This night, however—the Dark Lord’s hands, resting on either side of the sphere, curled into fists—his fortress had been invaded, by what? He had been aware of slight intrusions in the past, and there had certainly been traces of a determined picking at his locks by the archmage and his fellows. Now, it appeared, a new player had entered the game. Once more the sorcerer scowled at the seeing-stone, which had shown him nothing but confusion—a whirling storm of flakes of Light like the palm-sized blizzard captive in a child’s snow sphere. And that cloud of whiteness— conjured by what talent?—had enclosed Fogar. As Irasmus thought that name, the face of his apprentice appeared in the globe in full detail. There was no sign that his heavily drugged sleep had been disturbed. The master had not been able to use that rein on his chosen servant too often; for the draught left the boy dull witted in the morning and apt to make errors, some of which might be dangerous, in his studies. Perhaps—but no! Irasmus was very sure that the child he had chosen at its birth—one uniting in himself two lines of ancient talents that only one family still held— could not have been a mistaken selection.

Firthdun… The men of that line had been disposed of on that wild Midwinter night by the gobbes. Two of the women now labored in his tower and, though he had tested them over and over, neither appeared to be mentally above the level of idiots. There had been a second pregnant female in the dun; however, she, too, had seemed a lackwit since witnessing how Karsh had amused himself in his own unique way with the male who had sired her get. The Forest had been close by at the time, but Irasmus was certain that the girl had had neither the strength nor the opportunity to slip away there.

The wizard arose and went to the dun rolls, which he had inexplicably kept even after all the holdings had at last been wiped from the land.

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