Moon Mirror Read online

  Those with him had all fled. Knowing that she had nothing now to fear from them the girl straightened. Strength came flowing back. She willed it to her as she might at the end of a training bout. Her breath no longer came in ragged gasps, rather smoothly as a precious draught of water in the desert. With herself once more under control she became more and more aware of a force which filled this narrow way. It was so strong that she believed she might put forth a hand and gather up its substance.

  It was not aimed at her. Coultar's face grew more tense, he began to breathe faster. His lips were forced back against his teeth in a half snarl of effort as he visibly fought for speech:

  “By Curwen, by Thethera, by Skula, by the oak, the ash, the red thorn, by the waxing moon—the moon that is full—that which wanes. By—”

  He passed into another language, one in which the sounds began low in his throat, ascending note by note to a higher pitch than she could believe any man might naturally utter.

  The disc he held was no longer that. Rather he cupped a length of white flame. His fingers writhed, blistered before her eyes, still he held it, and stood, rock firm.

  “By the Law of the Worlds, and that which lies between them, by those who walk still our paths, and those who have gone before,” he dropped into intelligible speech again, “In the name of Herne, Thoth, Abyis, Lord of Light, by Suth, and Korn, also the Watch Lords of the East, West, North, and South, do I stand here. Two things that have contact—” he held the flame a fraction higher—"will come together. A power strengthens a power. O, She who—”

  The flame in his hand leaped free. To Alathi it sped. He wheeled to face the girl as that flame struck against the latched hoop at her throat, clung, changed. She felt no fire, from this uniting came no harm to her.

  Alathi raised hands to the disc once more formed, then she stretched out the right slowly to the man who had held it earlier. A wall might have fallen—she saw. He was no merchant—rather a seeker—one who was a stranger, still closer than any kin.

  She gasped, for his body seemed to flow, to change. This was not the man she had followed secretly across the waste of Ghritz. Though something of that one remained. Only more had been revealed.

  “Who are you!” she asked.

  “There is the Lady.” There was a weight in his words as if he were one of more authority than she had ever met. “There is also He who comes with the winter—into whose hands She passes the Sword, that He may complete that circle which balances the world—Life and birth, death and sleep, before life comes anew. I am one who is vowed to that Lord of Winter. He has been lost from the time and people of my birth world; thus I must journey into another time and place to call upon him again for the sake of my own land.

  “Evoe, Evoe, Pan! Evoe, Herne! Evoe, Thoth!” He threw back his head. His voice came as a great shout which seemed to rock the very world under and about them.

  Again he changed. Here stood a dark-skinned man who wore the sported skin of some beast about him over a white kilt; another with a head of close-curled hair, his body bare save for a small strip of hide, the badge of kinship with the world of beasts; a man in armor; one in a long robe across which ran runes in scarlet, to glow and fade. He was all these, yet also the Coultar of the here and now.

  “I swear by the wide and fruitful womb of my mother, by my honor among men, by the blood shed in the Circle—” He spoke softly, as if he sought some answer from her. Though her ears still rang from his shouts, she could hear.

  Alathi answered, knowing, even as she spoke, that she had said the words before many times. When and in what places? That did not matter now—this was the time, the place, to which she had been led so that she might say them again and so enter into what waited.

  “I swear by my hope of the Great Glory beyond, by my past lives, my hope of future ones yet to come—”

  At last their hands might meet. Around them surged the power. Not driven by it, but a part of it, they went back—Hill Cat and merchant no longer. What they were now they must learn.

  They came out to the pool. Alathi understood. In each life there waits a door to the Inner world ready. Some never found it. That she had was as fair a fortune as the stuff of dreams.

  “Blessed Lady, I am thy child—”

  “—thy child,” he echoed her.

  Together they climbed upon the curbing; together they leaped, hand in hand, out into the great waiting moon mirror. It closed about them, drew them in. However, their search had only begun, their feet but touched upon the first steps of the widest and straightest road of all.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  “How Many Miles to Babylon?” © 1988 by Andre Norton

  “The Toymaker’s Snuffbox,” © 1966 by Golden Press, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Teddi,” © 1973 by Western Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Desirable Lakeside Residence,” from Saving Worlds (Roger Elwood, ed.), © 1973 by Doubleday & Co. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Long Night of Waiting,” from The Many Worlds of Andre Norton, © 1973 by Andre Norton.

  “Through the Needle’s Eye,” from High Sorcery, © 1970 by Andre Norton.

  “One Spell Wizard,” © 1972 by Fantasy Publishing Co. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Outside,” from Outside, © 1974 by Andre Norton.

  “Moon Mirror,” from Hecate’s Cauldron (ed. Susan Shwartz), © 1982 by Andre Norton.

  Copyright © 1988 by Andre Norton

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-5651-2

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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