High Sorcery Read Online Free PDF

settlements were carved out by a scattered people moving up from the south in great wheeled wains, bringing flocks and herds and their carefully treasured seed. They stopped here and there for a season to sow and reap, until they decided upon a site for their final rooting. Tiny city-states were protected by the Black Hoods, the Espers who purposefully interbred their own gifted stock, keeping their children apart.
    Takya and her brother came; such sometimes, if rarely, came from the common people. They were carefully watched by the Black Hoods, then discovered to be a new mutation, condemned as such to be used for experimentation. But for a while they were protected by the local lord who wanted Takya.
    But he might not take her unwilling. The power that was hers as a virgin was wholly rift from her should she be forced, and he had wanted that power obedient to him, as a check upon the monopoly of the Black Hoods. So with some patience he had set himself to a peaceful wooing. But the Black Hoods had moved first.
    Had they accomplished her taking, the end they had intended for her was not as easy as death. She wove a picture of it, with all its degradation and shame stark and open, for Craike’s seeing.
    â€œThen the Hooded Ones are evil?”
    â€œNot wholly.” She untwisted the hair and put it with care into the fire. “They do much good, and without them people would suffer. But I, Takya, am different. And after me, when I mate, there will be others also different; how different we are not yet sure. The Hooded Ones want no change; by their thinking that means disaster. So they would use me to their own purposes. Only I, Tayka, shall not be so used!”
    â€œNo, you shall not.” The vehemence of his own outburst startled him. Craike wanted nothing so much at that moment than to come to grips with the Black Hoods, who had planned this systematic hunt.
    â€œWhat will you do now?” he asked more calmly, wishing she would share her thoughts with him.

    â€œThis is a strong place. Did you cleanse it?”
    He nodded impatiently.
    â€œSo I thought. That was also a task one born to this world might not have performed. But those who pass are not yet aware of the cleansing. They will not trouble us, but pay tribute.”
    Craike found her complacency irritating. To lie up here and live on the offerings of river travelers did not appeal to him.
    â€œThis stone piling is older work than Sampur and much better,” she continued. “It must have been a fortress for some of those forgotten ones who held lands and then vanished long before we came from the south. If it is repaired no lord of this district would have so good a roof.”
    â€œTwo of us to rebuild it?” he laughed.
    â€œTwo of us, working thus.”
    A block of stone, the size of a brick, which had fallen from the sill of one of the needle-narrow windows, arose slowly in the air and settled into the space from which it had tumbled. Was it illusion or reality? Craike got to his feet and lurched to the window. His hand fell upon the stone which moved easily in his grasp. He took it out, weighed it, and then gently returned it to its place. This was not illusion.
    â€œBut illusion, too—if need be.” There was, for the first time, a warm note of amusement in her tone. “Look on your tower, river lord!”
    He limped to the door. Outside it was warm and sunny, but it was a site of ruins. Then the picture changed. Brown drifts of grass vanished from the terrace; the fallen stone was all in place. A hard-faced sentry stood wary-eyed on a repaired river arch. Another guardsman led out ponies, saddle-padded and ready; other men were about garrison tasks.
    Craike grinned. The sentry on the arch lost his helm, his jerkin. He now wore the tight tunic of the Security Police; his spear was a gas rifle. The ponies misted, and in their place a speedster sat on the stone. He heard her laugh.
    â€œYour guard, your