The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

panic awoke in him, forcing him after sharp struggle to look away.
    Laughter? No, he had not heard laughter. But a sense of amusement tinged with respect came to him.
    “You are very right, Gordoon. This one is also of your kind. He is not witches’ meat.” Ross caught the distaste, the kind of haunting unhappiness which colored those words, remnants of an old hurt.
    “These are the Foanna,” Ashe’s voice broke more of the spell. “The Lady Ynlan, The Lady Yngram, the Lady Ynvalda.”
    The Foanna—these three only?
    She whom Ashe had named Ynlan, whose eyes had entrapped and almost held what was Ross Murdock, made a small gesture with her ivory hand. And in that gesture as well as in the words witches’ meat the Terran read the unhappiness which was as much a part of this room as the rest of its mystery.
    “The Foanna are now but three. They have been only three for many weary years, oh man from another world and time. And soon, if these enemies have their way, they will not be three—but none!”
    “But—” Ross was still startled. He knew from Loketh that the Wreckers had deemed the Foanna few in number, an old and dying race. But that there were only three women left was hard to believe.
    The response to his unspoken wonder came clear and determined. “We may be but three; however, our power remains. And sometimes power distilled by time becomes the stronger. Now it would seem that time is no longer our servant but perhaps among our enemies. So tell us this tale of yours as to why the Rovers would make one with the Foanna—tell us all, younger brother!”
    Ross reported what he had seen, what Tino-rau and Taua had learned from the prisoners taken at Kyn Add. And when he had finished, the three Foanna stood very still, their hands clasped one to the other. Though they were only an arm’s distance from him, Ross had the feeling they had withdrawn from his time and world.
    So complete was their withdrawal that he dared to ask Ashe one of the many questions which had been boiling inside him.
    “Who are they?” But Ross knew he really meant: What are they?
    Gordon Ashe shook his head. “I don’t really know—the last of a very old race which possesses powers and knowledge different from any we have believed in for centuries. We have heard of witches. In the modern day we discount the legends about them. The Foanna bring those legends alive. And I promise you this—if they turn those powers loose”—he paused—“it will be such a war as this world, perhaps any world has never seen!”
    “That is so.” The Foanna had returned from the place to which they had withdrawn. “And this is also the truth or one face of the truth. The Rovers are right in their belief that we have kept some measure of balance between one form of change and another on this world. If we were as many as we once were, then against us these invaders could not move at all. But we are three only and also—do we have the right to evoke disaster which will strike not only the enemy but perhaps recoil upon the innocent? There has been enough death here already. And those who are our servants shall no longer be asked to face battle to keep an empty shell inviolate. We would see with our own eyes these invaders, probe what they would do. There is ever change in life, and if a pattern grows too set, then the race caught in it may wither and die. Maybe our pattern has been too long in its old design. We shall make no decision until we see in whose hands the future may rest.”
    Against such finality of argument there was no appeal. These could not be influenced by words.
    “Gordoon, there is much to be done. Do you take with you this younger brother and see to his needs. When all is in readiness we shall come.”
    One minute Ross had been standing on the carpet of living moss. Then…he was in a more normal room with four walls, a floor, a ceiling, and light which came from rods set in the corners. He gasped.
    “Stunned me, too, the first time they put me through it,” he heard Ashe say. “Here, get some of this inside you, it’ll steady your head.”
    There was a cup in his hand, a beautifully carved, rose-red container shaped in the form of a flower. Somehow Ross brought it to his lips with shaking hands, gulped down a good third of its contents. The liquid was a mixture of tart and sweet, cooling his mouth and throat, but warming as it went down, and that glow spread through him.
    “What—how did they do that?” he