Planet Of Exile

"Yes."

"What can we do for you here? Anything you'want?"

She could not look at him from so close, of course, but his tone was both friendly and mocking. It was a boyish voice; she thought he was probably younger than she. She would not be mocked. "Yes," she said coofly. "I want to see that black rock on the sands."

"Go on out. The causeway's open."

He seemed to be trying to peer into her lowered face. She turned further from him.

"If anybody stops you, tell them Jonkendy Li sent you," he said, "or should I go with you?" '

She would not even reply to this. Head high and gaze down she headed for the street that led from the square towards the causeway. None of these gri

Nobody followed. Nobody seemed to notice her, passing her in the short street. She came to the great pillars of the causeway, glanced behind her, looked ahead and stopped.

The bridge was immense, a road for giants. From up on the ridge it had looked fragile, spa

No rail divided the great walkway from the gulf of air. The idea of walking out on it was simply wrong. She could not do it; it was not a walk for human feet.

A sidestreet led her to a western gate in the city wall. She hurried past long, empty pens and byres and slipped out the gate, intending to go on round the walls and be off home.

But here where the cliffs ran lower, with many stairs cut in them, the fields below lay peaceful and patterned in the yellow afternoon; and just across the dunes lay the wide beach, where she might find the long green seaflowers that women of Askatevar kept in their chests and on feastdays wreathed hi their hair. She smelled the queer smell of the sea. She had never walked on the sea-sands in her life. The sun was not low yet. She went down a cliff stairway and through the fields, over the dykes and dunes and ran out at last onto the flat and shining sands that went on and on out of sight to the north and west and south.

Wind blew, faint sun shone. Very far ahead in the west she heard an unceasing sound, an immense, remote voice murmuring, lulling. Firm and level and endless, the sand lay under her feet. She ran for the joy of ru

Cold lurked hi that long shadow. She shivered and set off ru

Faint and deep on the wind a voice rang in her ears, calling something, calling so strangely and urgently that she stopped still and looked back with a qualm of dread at the great black island rising up out of the sand. Was the witchplace calling to her?

On the unrailed causeway, over one of the piers that stuck down into the island rock, high and distant up there, a black figure stood calling to her.

She turned and ran, then stopped and turned back. Terror grew in her. Now she wanted to run, and did not. The terror overcame her and she could not move hand or foot but stood shaking, a roaring in her ears. The witch of the black tower was weaving his spider-spell about her. Flinging out his arms he called again the piercing urgent words she did not understand, faint on the wind as a seabird's call, staak, staak! The roaring hi her ears grew and she cowered down on the sand.

Then all at once, clear and quiet inside her head, a voice said, "Run. Get up and run. To the island—now, quick." And before she knew, she had got to her feet; she was ru

Water crashed and boiled below them with a roar that shook the solid rock. The waters parted by the island joined white and roaring, swept on, hissed and foamed and crashed on the long slope to the dunes, stilled to a rocking of bright waves.

Rolery stood clinging to the wall, shaking. She could not stop shaking.

"The tide comes in here just a bit faster than a man can run," the quiet voice behind her said.

"And when it's in, it's about twenty feet deep here around the Stack. Come on up this way ... That's why we lived out here in the old days, you see. Half of the time it's an island. Used to lure an enemy army out onto the sands just before the tide came in, if they didn't know much about the tides ... Are you all right?"

Rolery shrugged slightly. He did not seem to understand the gesture, so she said, "Yes." She could understand his speech, but he used a good many words she had never heard, and pronounced most of the rest wrong. "You come from Tevar?"

She shrugged again. She felt sick and wanted to cry, but did not. Climbing the next flight of stairs cut in the black rock, she put her hair straight, and from its shelter glanced up for a split second sideways at the farborn's face. It was strong, rough, and dark, with grim, bright eyes, the dark eyes of the alien.

"What were you doing on the sands? Didn't anyone warn you about the tide?"

"I didn't know," she whispered.

"Your Elders know. Or they used to last Spring when your tribe was living along the coast here.

Men have damn short memories." What he said was harsh, but his voice was always quiet and without harshness. "This way now. Don't worry—the whole place is empty. It's been a long time one of you people set foot on the Stack ..."

They had entered a dark door and tu

"Does nobody live here?" she asked hi a small voice.

"Not now."

"It's your Whiter City?"

"No, we winter in the town. This was built as a fort. We had a lot of enemies in the old Years ... Why were you on the sands?"

"I wanted to see ..."

"See what?"

"The sands. The ocean. I was hi your town first, I wanted to see ..."

"All right! No harm hi that." He led her through a gallery so high it made her dizzy. Through the tall, pointed arches crying seabirds flew. Then passing down a last narrow corridor they came out under a gate, and crossed a clanging bridge of swordmetal onto the causeway.

They walked between tower and town, between sky and sea, hi silence, the wind pushing them always towards the right. Rolery was cold, and u

As they entered the town he said abruptly, "I won't mind-speak you again. I had to then."

"When you said to run—" she began, then hesitated, not sure what he was talking about, or what had happened out on the sands.