Wizard's Worlds: A Short Story Collection (Witch World) by Norton Andre

Author:Norton, Andre [Norton, Andre]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2014-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

“I am Tursla of—No, I am no longer of any clan house. Just what I am now—or whom—that I must learn.”

“It will not be hard that learning. There will be those to help,” he promised her.

Tursla’s smile grew wider. “That I do not doubt,” she replied with conviction.

Toys of Tamisan

1

SHE is certified by the Foostmam, Lord Starrex. A true action dreamer to the tenth power.”

Jabis was being too eager, or almost so; he was pushing too much, Tamisan sneered mentally, keeping her face carefully blank, though she took quick glances about from beneath half-closed eyelids. This sale very much concerned her, since she was the product being discussed, but she had nothing to say in the matter.

She supposed this was a typical sky tower, seeming to float, masked in clouds at times, since its supports were so slender and well concealed, lifting it high above Ty-Kry. However, none of the windows gave on real sky, but each framed a very different landscape, illustrating what must be other planet scenes. Perhaps some were dream remembered or inspired.

There was a living lambil grass carpet around the easirest on which the owner half lay, half sat. But Jabis had not even been offered a pull-down wall seat. And the two other men in attendance on Lord Starrex stood also. They were real men and not androids, which placed the owner in the multi-credit class. One, Tamisan thought was a bodyguard, and the other, younger, thinner, with a dissatisfied mouth, had on clothing nearly equal to that of the man on the easirest but with a shade of difference which meant a lesser place in the household.

Tamisan catalogued what she could see and filed it away for future reference. Most dreamers did not observe much of the world about them. They were too enmeshed in their own creations to care for reality. Most dreamers . . . Tamisan frowned. She was a dreamer. Jabis and the Foostmam could prove that. The lounger on the easirest could prove it if he paid Jabis’ price. But she was also something more, Tamisan herself was not quite sure what. And that there was a difference in her, she had had mother wit enough to conceal since she had first been aware that the others in the Foostmam’s Hive were not able to come cleanly out of their dreams into the here and now. Why, some of them had to be fed, clothed, cared for as if they were not aware they had any bodies!

“Action dreamer.” Lord Starrex shifted his shoulders against the padding which immediately accommodated itself to his stirring to give him maximum comfort. “Action dreaming is a little childish—”

Tamisan’s control held, but she felt inside her a small flare of anger. Childish was it? She would like to show him just how childish a dream she could spin to enmesh a client. But Jabis was not in the least moved by that derogatory remark from a possible purchaser; it was in his eyes only a logical bargaining move.

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