Trey of Swords (Witch World (Estcarp Series)) by Andre Norton Read Free Book Online Page A

did, I loosened the lacing of my mail shirt until I could grope beneath it, close my hand about the sword hilt, bring it forth. Here in the darkness —it glowed! The gray-white of the dull crystal came to life as strong inner fires blazed within it.
    If I only had a blade!
    A blade—!
    My eyes went, I did not know why, save as if something so compelled them, to those long icicles which hung from the roof. And to them I went, though I knew this did not make sense. Still I selected one of those sharp points of ice, the length of a sword blade. Then I exerted force enough to break it free.
    The ice snapped off cleanly as if cut. Still moving under a command I did not understand, I fitted the hilt to it. There was a burst of light which blinded me for a moment.
    I might still be dreaming, or I might be indeed mad, but that which I held now was no thing of metal or ice, but a sword, perfect and balanced. It had now been called out of time itself to exist again for the sake of the Light.
    6
    Now I returned to that prisoner in the block of ice. Surely he was a dead man. Still an uneasiness lingered in me as I studied him, as if, should I walk away and leave him so pent there, I would indeed be deserting a battle comrade.
    I approached closer to the pillar, kicking aside the shriveled remains of the root bonds which were rotting away. There was a deep silence around me. Except in my own mind, where, very faint and faraway, sounded once more that name:
    “Tolar!”
    In my hand the new-knit sword did not cease to radiate light, though not with the full brilliance it had given off when I joined ice to metal. But enough to provide a torch far more effective than those stones of Tsali's, and I wondered if its gleam could betray me. Yet I could not put it aside in this place of dark mystery.
    Crytha—Tsali—where were they? How could I track them through this maze? With no mind touch I would be lost as any talentless beast, unless I could gain some clue.
    The smell of the Thas remained, but I could see no tracks. For underfoot was bare rock holding no print.
    And my eyes were continually drawn back to that inert figure in the pillar, as if some deep compulsion tied me here—to it—rather than releasing me to the quest for the freeing of Crytha. Against my will I advanced toward the chill of that frozen column. Cold radiated from it, even as the light did from my strangely forged weapon. Yet the grip of that in my hand was warm, reassuring.
    Who was this prisoner? How had he come to stand so in Thas territory? Plainly, from what I could see, he had no physical kinship with the squat, ill-formed earth people. Was he their god? Or some ancient prisoner they had so set to mock and gloat over at intervals? Why had they brought Crytha here to perform so oddly?
    Questions for which I had no answers. But, almost without conscious thought, I reached with sword point, to touch the surface of the frozen prison. As I did that, I was seized as tightly as the root things had bound me. No longer was it my will which moved me. No, another force overrode all which was Yonan.
    I raised the sword, to bring it down against that pillar. One unyielding surface met another, jarring muscles along my side and shoulder. Yet I could not stop myself aiming such another blow, and a third; without any effect on either blade or pillar which I could perceive. I could not move away, held as a man in a geas, pledged to beat away at this column of ice, fruitlessly, while my body ached in answer each time the sword thudded home against the unbreakable.
    Or was it breakable?
    I could not be sure. Had a small network of cracks begun to spread outward from that point I had been crashing my blade against? This was the height of folly, to so fight to uncover the body of the long dead. My brain might know that well, but what moved my arm did not accept such logic.
    Nine times I struck at the ice pillar. Then my arm fell to my side, so wearied by that useless labor that I