Earth Magic by Alexei Panshin, Cory Panshin Read Free Book Online

Yes.”
    “See, and thus with many. If I had not made a vow to your mother never to keep another woman, I would marry the girl myself. A daughter of the line of Chastain and Nestria mated to the ruler of the Gets. It is an epic.”
    “The woman is painted.”
    “Her age washes off. She is but fourteen. She has more spirit than you might think. She threatened to kill me at first. And listen to the roar she is causing. Your mother tried to kill me four times before we came to terms. See the girl tomorrow. You may find you like her better. And if you don’t, we have rooms enough to keep her in. The story needn’t suffer. Come along, boy. Let us go down for dinner.”
    Before they were out the door, Morca said, “If I had only known before the softness of Chastain, I would not have spent these many years in wading the Great Slough and other adventures. When Lothor is well returned to Dunbar, you and I will rape an estate or two in Chastain. Mind you, we won’t tell the girl. We’ll spare her feelings.”
    Morca started forward down the stair calling, “Remove the girl. It is my order, Lothor.”
    Haldane followed, at a slower pace. His tongue touched his chipped tooth and he shivered and wasn’t quite sure why.

Chapter 5
    H ALDANE WAS EXUBERANT IN THE MORNING. Far out of sight of Morca’s dun and Morca’s tower, far beyond the huddled Nestorian village and the edge of the wood, Haldane galloped the cool forest avenue alone. He was loosed from all the limits and responsibility he had suffered in Morca’s absence, and he recked for nothing. He felt like a true Get again.
    The mist that had held the dun when he left that morning had been blown away. As he rode the natural lane, the wind nipped the boy’s back and harried him onward. His horse drummed the mold and his heart raced to the drumbeat. He could not be slowed. He could not be stayed. He ducked the reaching branches that lined the forest gallery as though they were enemy broadswords slicing over his saddlebow and laughed though he lost his head fully five times to the cold wet kiss of steel.
    Hemming Paleface, his guard and companion, sent by Morca to heel after Haldane, lay lost somewhere on the turning Pellardy Road behind him, unable to stand the pace. He had called to halt, to slack a little, but Haldane had not heeded. Why should he? Let Hemming explain to Morca why he could not keep up to a proper Gettish pace. If Morca would listen. Haldane could keep up.
    Once again, Haldane saw himself riding beside Morca, leading the Gets into the West. Being Gets as Gets should be, bleeding and being bled, trading blow for blow, squeezing the throat of the world in a hand. No, not at Morca’s elbow. Morca at the head of one army, he at the head of another—Morca’s reserve. Vaulting the Trenoth River into Palsance, overspreading the West.
    But this beautiful vision was spoiled by a thought. Suddenly looming in front of the progress of his armies was a plain. The boy had never seen the plain, but he knew it instantly. It was Stone Heath. Stone Heath lay in Palsance on the other side of the Trenoth River. Out of the stories of his childhood, he had conjured a picture of the place in his mind. It was an open landscape, a series of plains and cliffs, carelessly bestrewn with great rocks shaped like eggs and lit by wild and dangerous lightnings under black clouds. It was a deserted place of death and danger. And in Haldane’s mind the two armies, Morca’s and his, galloped headlong down onto the plain and disappeared into a sudden crevasse.
    Haldane’s gelding swerved at a bridle tug, but it served no purpose to dodge destiny. The army in his mind was gone and the plain stood empty under deathly skies. Haldane was abruptly sobered and drew rein. He looked to see if he were watched. If he had seen outlaws he would have killed them then. He would have cut them down for seeing him.
    He felt it was unmanly of his mind to return to the witch’s words and to dwell on