Wizards’ Worlds by Andre Norton Read Free Book Online Page A

plenty where certain powers and presences were felt to
     this day, where things could be invoked—by men who were crazed enough to summon them.
     Had the lords of High Hallack not been driven at the last to make such a bargain with
     the unknown when they signed solemn treaty with the Were Riders? All men knew that
     it had been the aid of those strange outlanders which had broken the invaders at the
     last.
    Some of the presences were beneficial, others neutral, still others dangerous. Perhaps
     not actively so in these days. Men were not hunted, harried, or attacked by them.
     But they had their own places, and the man who was rash enough to trespass there did
     so at risk.

    Among such were the Standing Stones of the Toads of Grimmerdale. The story went that
     they would answer appeals, but that the manner of answer sometimes did not please
     the petitioner. For years now men had avoided their place.
    But why a shuttered window? If, as according to legend, the toads (people were not
     sure now if they really were toads) did not roam from their portion of the dale, had they once? Making it necessary
     to bolt and bar against them? And why a second-story window in this dusty room?
    Moved by a curiosity he did not wholly understand, Trystan drew his belt knife, pried
     at the fastenings. They were deeply bitten with rust, and he was sure that the window
     had not been opened night or day for years. At last the fastenings yielded to his
     efforts; he was now stubborn about it, somehow even a little angry.
    Even though he was at last able to withdraw the bar, he had a second struggle with
     the warped wood, finally using sword point to lever it. The shutters grated open,
     the chill of the night entered, making him aware at once of how very odorous and sour
     was the fog within.
    Trystan looked out upon snow and a straggle of dark trees, with the upslope of the
     dale wall beyond. There were no other buildings set between the inn and that rise.
     And the thick vegetation showing dark above the sweep of white on the ground suggested
     that the land was uncultivated. The trees there were not tall, it was mainly brush,
     and he did not like it.
    His war-trained instincts saw there a menace. Any enemy could creep in its cover to
     within a spear-cast of the inn. Yet perhaps those of Grimmerdale did not have such
     fears, and so saw no reason to grub out and burn there.
    The slope began gradually and shortly the tangled growth thinned out, as if someone
     had there taken the precautions Trystan thought right. Above was smooth snow, very
     white and unbroken in the moonlight. Then came outcrops of rock. But after he had
     studied those withan eye taught to take quick inventory of a countryside, he was sure they were no
     natural formations but had been set with a purpose.
    They did not form a connected wall. There were wide spaces between as if they had
     served as posts for some stringing of fence. Yet for that they were extra thick.
    And the first row led to a series of five such lines, though in successive rows the
     stones were placed closer and closer together. Trystan was aware of two things. One,
     bright as the moon was, it did not, he was sure, account for all the light among the
     stones. There was a radiance which seemed to rise either from them or the ground about
     them. Second, no snow lay on the land from the point where the lines of rock pillar
     began. And above the stones there was a misting, as if something there bewildered
     or hindered clear sight.
    Trystan blinked, rubbed his hand across his eyes, looked again. The clouding was more
     pronounced when he did so. As if whatever lay there increased the longer he watched
     it.
    That this was not of human Grimmerdale he was certain. It had all the signs of being
     one of those strange places where old powers lingered. And that this was the refuge
     or stronghold of the “toads” he was now sure. That the shutter had been bolted against
     the weird sight he could