Star gate, p.1
Star Gate, page 1
Says the Chicago Tribune:
"When young Kincar, who was of mixed Gorthian and Star blood, followed the Star Lords through the shimmering Star Gate that permits transmigration in time, he found himself in a Gorth entirely different from the one he had known. At first, the people looked the same; but he found they were his foes, not his friends. They were the people his friends would have become if they had made different choices at crucial moments. The clash between the two co-existing sets of characters is full of violent action and reaction.
"Andre Norton writes with great depth of the possible worlds that might exist had other paths been taken. One of the most provocative of the current crop of science-fiction books."
Says the Detroit Times: "Science-fiction fans will eat this one upl"
More quotes from the reviews:
"An action yarn to stimulate any red-blooded reader.'
—Cleveland Press
"Combines taut suspense with the mysterious, heroic atmosphere of pure fantasy."
—Washington Post
"Fascinating and well written... will keep the readers' rapt attention."
—Saturday Review
"A fast-moving, action-filled adventure . .
—Springfield Republican
"Exciting reading. Recommended."
—Library Journal
"A fascinating concept, masterfully handled by the author."
—Virginia Kirkus
ACE BOOKS, INC. 1120 Avenue of the Americas New York 36, N. Y.
stah gate
Copyright ©, 1958, by Harcourt, Brace & Co., Inc. An Ace Book, by arrangement with Harcourt, Brace & Co., Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in U.S.A.
Contents
prologue inheritance
the battle of the waste
no ship—but—
new-found world
a question of birthright
legend come alive
false gods
first foray
volunteer
storm, night, and the shrine ill-chanced meeting a meeting with lord rud ordeal by mord the place of towers trial of strengths rescue invasion
once more a gate—
PROLOGUE
History is not only a collection of facts; it is a spider's web of ifs. If Napoleon had not lost the Battle of Waterloo, if the American colonies had lost the Revolution, if the South and not the North had won the Civil War . . . The procession of such ifs is endless, exciting the imagination and spurring endless speculation. Sometimes the all important turning point can be compressed into a single small action—the death of one man, a seemingly casual decision.
And if the larger history of a nation, or a.world, depends upon so many chance ifs, so also does the personal history of each and every one of us. Because we are five minutes late or ten minutes early for an appointment, because we catch one bus but miss another, our life is completely changed.
There exists a fascinating theory that two worlds branch from every bit of destiny action. Hence, there are far reaching bands of parallel worlds, born of many historical choices. Thus, if some means of communication could be devised a man might travel, not backwards or forwards in time, but across it to visit, for example, a contemporary world which resulted from a successful Viking colonization of the North American continent, or one in which William the Conqueror never ruled England.
Since this game can be envisioned on Earth, then why could it not also hold on other planets out in the galaxy when men of our breed go pioneering there?
Imagine a world on which a Terran ship or fleet of ships
lands. The space-weary voyagers, mutated physically by the effects of their wandering, greet solid soil thankfully. There is a native race, primitive to the point of barbarism. There is so much the Terrans have to give, so without realizing their crime, they meddle. As the generations come and go they begin to realize that each race must have its offn fight for civilization, that gifts too easily obtained are injuries, that its own destiny is the birthright of each world.
So, regretfully, the "Gods" from the stars know that they have already woefully harmed where they meant only good, that to save what may be salvaged they must go. However, there are those of the half-blood, a mingling of Terran and native breed, and there are those among the Terrans themselves who do not want the stars, the endless new searching for a hospitable world on which there is no intelligent native life.
Thus the old idea of parallel worlds awakes anew and some dream wistfully of this same planet where some quirk of history or the past decided against the rise of native life—the empty world they want and yet the familiar one they love and are bounqr"to by many ties:
Next would begin a search for a pathway across the many if worlds, a gate to open to such exploring. And there would be many worlds—even some in which their own landing and their labors had taken a darker and more forbidding turn, a world on which they might even meet themselves as they would be when walking another lane of history and influenced by another past.
These Terrans centuries ahead of us, armed with technical knowledge we can only imagine, might venture forth across time of an alien world, which could lead to just such a chronicle of action beyond a Star Gate. . . .
I
INHERITANCE
This had been a queer "cold" season so far. No snow, even on the upper reaches of the peaks, no drifts to stopper the high passes, warm winds over the fields of brittle stubble, though most of the silver-green leaves of the copses had been brought to earth by those same winds. Instead of cold they had experienced a general drying-out to kill the vigorous life of wood and pasturage. And the weather was only a part of the strangeness that had settled over Gorth—at least those parts of Gorth where men beat paths—since the Star Lords had withdrawn.
The Star Lords, with their power, had raised the Gorthians above the beasts of the forests and had thrown over them their protection, as the lord of any holding could now extend the certainty of life to one outlawed and running from sword battle. But now that the Star Lords had gone—what would follow for Gorth?
Kincar s'Rud paused beneath the flapping mordskin banner of Styr's Holding to direct a long, measuring glance along the hill line. His cloak, sewn cunningly from strips of soft suard fur brought back from his solitary upland hunts, was molded about him now by the force of that unseasonably warm wind, as he stood exposed on the summit of the watch tower alert to any movement across the blue-earthed fields of the Holding. Kincar was no giant to boast inches rivaling a Star Lord's, but he was well muscled for his years
and could and had surpassed his warrior tutors in sword play. Now he absently flexed one of his narrow, six-fingered hands on the rough stone parapet, while the banner crackled its stiff folds over his head.
He had volunteered for this post at midday, for no other reason than to escape the sly prodding of Jord—Jord who affected to believe that the withdrawal of the Star Lords meant a new and brighter day for the men of Gorth. What kind of day? Kincar's eyes—blue-green, set obliquely in his young face—narrowed as he traced that thought to the vague suspicion behind it.
He, Kincar s'Rud, was son of the Hold Daughter and so ruler by blood as soon as Wurd s'Jastard went into the Company of the Three. But if he was alive to walk this Holding, then Jord would be master here. Through the years since he had been brought from the city to this distant mountain Holding, Kincar had overheard enough, pieced-together bits of information, until he knew what he would have to face when Wurd did depart into the shadows.
Jord had his followers—men whom he had gathered together during his trading journeys—who were tied to him by bonds of personal loyalty and not by clan reckoning. And he appeared able to smell out advantages for himself. Why else had he come down the long trail two days ago, heading a motley caravan? Ostensibly it was to bring the latest news of the Star Lords' departure, but it was strange that Wurd had just taken to his bed in what coukl only be that ancient man's last bout with the old wound that had been draining his strength for years.
Would Jord attempt to force sword battle on Kincar for the Holding? His constant oblique remarks had suggested that. Yet outwardly to provoke such a quarrel when Jord himself was the next heir after Kincar was to court outlawing as Jord well knew. And Jord was too shrewd to throw away his future for the mere satisfaction of removing Kincar. There was something else, some other reason beneath Jord's preoccupation with the Lords' withdrawal, behind his comments on the life to come, that made Kincar uneasy. Jord never moved until he was sure of his backing. Now he hardly attempted to veil his triumph.
Kincar could not remember his mother, unless a very dim dream of m.uted colors, flower scent, and the sound of soft weeping in a shadowed night were to be named Anora, Hold Daughter s'Styr. But he could never reconcile in his mind the fact that Anora and Jord had been brother and sister. And certainly Jord had given him often to believe that whatever lay between them, hate had been its base.
Though he had been born in Terranna, the city of the Star Lords, Kincar had been brought to the Holding when he was so young that he could not remember anything of that journey. Nor had he ever seen the plains beyond the mountain ring again. Now he did not want to. With the Star Lords departed, who would wish to visit the echoing desolation of their city or look upon the empty stretches where their Star ships once stood? It would be walking into the resting place of the long dead who were jealous when their sleep was disturbed.
He did not understand the reason of their going. The aliens had done so much for Gorth—why now did they set off once more in their ships? Oh, he had heard the blasphemous whisperings current among those who followed Jord, that the Star Lords denied to Gorth's natives their great secrets—the life eternal with which they were blessed and the knowledge of strange weapons. He had also heard rumors that among the Lords themselves there had been quarreling, that some had wished to give these gifts to Gorth, while the others chose to withhold them, and that those who would give had gathered a fighting tail of Gorthians to rebel. But since the Lords had withdrawn, what could they now rebel against—the open sky? Perhaps in the hour of their leaving the Lords had set a curse upon this rebellious world.
Though the wind about him continued warm, Kincar shivered. Among his people were those with the in-seeing, the power to drive out certain kinds of sickness by the use of hand and will. How much greater must be such powers among the .Star Lords! Great enough to lay a spell upon a whole world so that the cold came not? And later would there follow any season of growing things once more? Again he shivered.
"Daughter's Son!"
Kincar had been so occupied with his own imaginings that his hand went to the hilt of his sword as he whirled, shocked alert by that hail, to see Regen's helmed head emerge from the tower trapdoor. But Wurd's guardsman did not climb any farther.
"Daughter's Son, the Styr would have speech with you."
"The Styr—he is—?" But he did not need to complete that question; the answer was to be read plainly in Regen's eyes.
Although Wurd had taken to his bed days ago, Kincar had not really believed that the end was so near. The old chief had ailed before, had been close enough to the Great Forest to hear the sighing of the wind in its branches, yet he had come back to hold Styr in his slender fist. One could not picture the Holding without Wurd.
Kincar paused in the hall outside the door of the Lord's chamber only long enough to tug off his helm and drop his cape. Then, with his drawn sword gripped by the blade so that he could proffer the hilt to his overlord, he went in.
In spite of the warmth there was a fire on the hearth. Its heat reached the bed on which was piled a heap of coverings woven from fur strips. They made a kind of cocoon about the shrunken figure propped into a sitting position. Wurd's face was blue-white against the dark furs, but his eyes were steady and he was able to raise a claw finger to the sword hilt in greeting.
"Daughter's Son." His voice was only a faint whisper of sound, less alive than his eyes. It died away in a silence as if Wurd must gather and hoard strength to force each word out between his bloodless lips. But he raised again that claw finger in a gesture to Regen, and the guard moved to lift the lid of a chest that had been drawn forward to a new position beside the bed.
Under Wurd's eyes Regen took out three bundles, stripping off coverings to display a short-sleeved shirt of scales fashioned of metal with the iridescent sheen of a reptile's skin, a sheathed sword, and, last of all, a woven surcoat with a device, new to Kincar, worked upon the breast. He thought that he was familiar with Wurd's war gear, having been set to the polishing of it many times in his younger days. But none of these had he ever seen before, though their workmanship was that of an artist in metal, and he thought that their like could not be equaled save perhaps in the armories of the Star Lords.
Shirt, sword, and surcoat were laid across the foot of the bed, and Wurd blinked at them.
"Daughter's Son"—again that wavering claw pointed— "take up your heritage—"
Kincar reached for that wonder of a shirt. But behind his excitement at the gift, he was wary. There was something in Wurd's ceremonious presentation that bothered him.
"I thank you, Styr," he was beginning, a little uncertainly, when that hand waved him impatiently to silence.
"Daughter's Son—take up—your—whole heritage—" The words came in painful gasps.
Kincar's grasp of the shirt tightened. Surely that could not mean what he thought! By all the laws of Gorth, he, Hold Daughter's Son, had a greater heritage than a scale shirt, a sword, and a surcoat, fine as these were!
Regen moved, picking up the surcoat, stretching it wide before his eyes so that the device set there in colorful pattern was plain to read. He gasped in amazement—those jagged streaks of bolt lightning with the star set between! Kincar moistened lips suddenly dry. That device—it was—it was—
Wurd's shrunken mouth shaped a shadow smile. "Daughter's Son," he whispered, "Star Lord's son—your inheritance!"
The scale shirt slithered through Kincar's loosened grip to clink on the floor. Stricken, he turned to Regen, hoping for reassurance. But the guard was nodding.
"It is true, Daughter's Son. You are partly of the Star Lords' blood and bone. Not only that, but you must join with their clan—for the word has come to us that the rebels would search out such as you and deal with them in an evil way—"
"Outlawry—?" Kincar could not yet believe in what he heard.
Regen shook his head. "Not outlawry, Daughter's son. But there is one here within Styr's walls who will do rebel will on you. You must go before Styr is departed, be out of Jord's reach before he becomes Styr—"
"But I am Daughter's Son!"
"Those within these walls have full knowledge of your blood," Regen continued slowly. "And there are some who will follow you in drawing sword if you raise the mord banner. But there are others who want none of the Star blood in this Holding. It may be brother against brother, father against son, should you claim to be Styr."
That was like coming up with bruising force against a wall when one was running a race. Kincar looked to Wurd for support, but the old lord's still bright eyes held the same uncompromising message.
"Where shall I go?" he asked simply. "The Star Lords have left."
"Not—so—" Wurd's whisper came. "Ships have gone— but some remain— You shall join them. Regen—" He waved a finger at the guard and closed his eyes.
The other moved quickly. Almost before he knew what was happening, Kincar felt the man's hands on him, stripping off ring mail, the jerkin under it. He was reclad in the scaled shirt, over it the surcoat with its betraying insignia. Then Regen belted on the new sword.
"Your cloak, Daughter's Son. Now down the inner stair. Cim awaits you in the courtyard."
Wurd spoke for the last time, though he did not again open his eyes, and the words were the merest trickle of sound. "Map—and the Fortune of the Three with you— Daughter's Son! You would have held Styr well—it is a great pity. Go—while I still hold breath in me!"
Before Kincar could protest or take a formal farewell, Regen hurried him from the room and down the private stair to the courtyard. The mount that he had trapped in the autumn drive pens two years previously and knew to be a steady goer, heavy enough for good work in the press of a fight, and with an extra stamina for long travel on thin rations, stood with riding pad strapped about its middle, saddlebags across its broad haunches.
Cim was not a beautiful larng, no sleek-coated, nervous highbred. His narrow head whipped about so all four of the eyes set high in his skull could survey Kincar with his usual brooding measurement. His cold-season wool was growing in patches about the long thin neck and shoulders, its cream-white dabbed with spots of the same rusty red as the hide underneath. No, Cim was no beauty, and he was uncertain of temper, but to Kincar's mind he was the pick of the Holding's mount pens.
But Cim was not the only thing in Styr Hold that he could claim as his own. As Kincar settled on the larng's pad and gathered up the ear reins, he whistled, a single high, lilting note. He was answered from the hatchery on the smaller tower. On ribbed leather wings, supporting a body that was one-third head with gaping, toothed jaws and huge, intelligent red eyes, the mord— a smaller edition of those vicious haunters of the mountain tops, lacking none of their ferocious spirit—circled once over her master's head and then flapped off. Vorken would hover over him for the rest of the day, pursuing her own concerns but alert to his summoning.
