Marion Zimmer Bradley

“ It was a Lhari spaceport that lay before him, to all appearances identical with the one on Earth: sloping glass ramps, tall colorless pylons, a skyscraper terminus crowded with men of all planets. But the sun overhead was brilliant and clear gold, the shadows sharp and violet on the spaceport floor. Behind the confines of the spaceport he could see the ridges of tall hills and unfamiliarly colored trees. He longed to explore them, but he got a grip on his imagination, surrendering his ticket stub and false papers to the Lhari and Mentorian interpreter who guarded the ramp. ”

“ There seemed to be dozens of faces, shifting with each spin of the prism, human and nonhuman, all dim and slightly distorted. My own face, Juli's, Joanna's came out of the crystal surface, not a reflection but a caricature.
A choked sound from Juli made me turn in dismay. She had let herself drop to the floor and was sitting there, white as death, supporting herself with her two hands.
"Race! Find out where he got that—that thing!"
I bent and shook her. "What's the matter with you?" I demanded. She had lapsed into the dazed, sleepwalking horror of this morning. She whispered, "It's not a toy. ”

“ The Old One's forehead ridged vertically and he said with stinging contempt, "Is this the breed of king which men call Hastur now?"
"Man or God or Hastur, I am not too proud to plead for my people," retorted Regis, flushing with anger. "Never in all the history of Darkover has a Hastur stood before one of you and begged—"
"—for the men from another world."
"—for all men on our world! Old One, I could sit and keep state in the House of the Hasturs, and even death could not touch me until I grew weary of living! But I preferred to learn new lives from new men. ”

“ He caught her in his arms as she fell, straining her close. The physical contact of their bodies brought him back to the level of reality again, to a complete realization of Fran's plight. He tried to make his grip as firm, as reassuring as he could—to bring her back to a world in which men were not, one minute, cloaked in streaming flame, and the next minute alive and human and—
"Max!" She straightened, "You don't have any clothes on!"
"I know. I lose more pajamas that way," he said, lightly, keeping his voice casual. "Sit down, Fran, and I'll put on a pair of pants, at least." ”

“ Above them, the burning brilliance of a star gave strange glow and color to the crystal pylons. What color was the star? He turned to Meta, irritated at his inability to be sure.
"Meta, what color is this sun? I've been all around the spectrum, and it's not red, blue, green, orange, violet—" He broke off, realizing what he had said and what he had seen. "An eighth color," he finished, anticlimatically.
"You and your talk of colors," Ringg grumbled, "I wish I knew what you Mentorians see! It's like trying to imagine seeing a smell or hearing light!" ”

“ She whispered, "Robin, Robin, tell me what you mean! There isn't anyone here. Once or twice I thought I had seen—something, by moonlight, only it was a dream. Please, Robin—please—"
"If it's only a dream, why are you frightened?" Robin asked, through a curious constriction in his throat. "If they've never hurt you—"
No, they had never hurt her. Even if, in her long-ago dream, one of them had come to her—and the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair—a scrap of memory from a vanished life on another world sang in Helen's thoughts. ”

“ Kyral had warned me, not knowing he was doing it. I hastily imitated the gesture Kyral had made, gabbling a few words of an archaic charm.
Like every Earthman who's lived on Wolf more than a tourist season, I'd seen faces go blank and impassive at mention of the Toad God. Rumor made his spies omnipresent, his priests omniscient, his anger all-powerful. I had believed about a tenth of what I had heard, or less.
The Terran Empire has little to say to planetary religions, and Nebran's cult is a remarkably obscure one, despite the street-shrines on every corner. ”

“ Jay saw that she was shaking in real fright.
He said wearily, "I'm not going to—to turn into a bat and fly away. I'm just a poor devil of a doctor who's gotten himself into one unholy mess." There was no reason, he was thinking, to take out his own misery and despair by shouting at this poor kid. God knew what she'd been through with his irresponsible other self—Forth had admitted that that damned "Jason" personality was a blend of all the undesirable traits he'd fought to smother all his life. By an effort of will he kept himself from pulling away from her hand on his shoulder. ”

“ Someone was pushing at him, babbling words in Lhari, but he heard them through an ever-increasing distance: Vorongil's face bent over his, only a blurred crimson blob that flashed away like a vanishing star in the viewport. It flamed out into green darkness, vanished, and Bart fell through what seemed to be a bottomless chasm of starless night.
When he woke, acceleration had its crushing hand on his chest. He tried to move, discovered that he was strapped hard into a bunk, and fainted again. ”

“ But there had been rioting here and in Charin during the last month. After the display of mob violence this afternoon, a lone Terran, unarmed, might turn up as a solitary corpse flung on the steps of the HQ building.
There had been a time when I had walked alone from Shainsa to the Polar Colony. I had known how to melt into this kind of night, shabby and inconspicuous, a worn shirtcloak hunched round my shoulders, weaponless except for the razor-sharp skean in the clasp of the cloak; walking on the balls of my feet like a Dry-towner, not looking or sounding or smelling like an Earthman. ”

“ His whole body shook. "I could be God, and I'm playing with burning carpets! Fran—oh, Fran, it's too much for me! I'm not God, I don't want it, I'm too small for it—I wish it was only a dream and now I could really wake up and find it never happened—oh, Fran, Fran, tell me what I am, tell me what to do!"
Aware only of pain and terror, he felt his face wet and did not even know he was sobbing.
"You're Max, Max," Fran wept, "You're Max, and I love you—"
Again the touch calmed him. ”

“ Her eyes, swollen with crying, ached as she tried to pierce the gloom of the mist, lilac-tinted with the approaching sunrise, which hung around the water. Through the dispersing mist she made out, dimly, the form of a man.
He was tall, and his pale skin shone with misty white colors. Helen sat frozen, her mouth open, and for the space of several seconds he looked down at her without moving. His eyes, dark splashes in the pale face, had an air of infinite sadness and compassion, and she thought his lips moved in speech, but she heard only a thin familiar rustle of wind. ”

“ She saw that I did not move. "Jason—?"
I could not look at her. Muffled behind my hands, I said, "No, Kyla. I—I promised the Old One to look after my people in the Terran world. I must go back—"
"You won't be there to look after them! You won't be you!"
I said bleakly, "I'll write a letter to remind myself. Jay Allison has a very strong sense of duty. He'll look after them for me. He won't like it, but he'll do it, with his last breath. He's a better man than I am, Kyla. You'd better forget about me." I said, wearily, "I never existed." ”

“ There was still no one to be seen in the square. It lay white and windswept, a barricade of emptiness; to one side the spaceport and the white skyscraper of the Terran Headquarters, and at the other side, the clutter of low buildings, the street-shrine, the little spaceport cafe smelling of coffee and jaco, and the dark opening mouths of streets that rambled down into the Kharsa—the old town, the native quarter. ”

“ The light from the small captive sun grew more intense. Bart had never known anything like it, and was glad to slip away and put the dark contact lenses into his eyes. They made his eyes appear all enormous, dilated pupil; fearfully, he hoped no one would notice. His arm smarted, and he did not speak to Ringg all through the long, slow deceleration.
When the intercom ordered all crew members to the hatchway, Bart lingered a minute, pinning the yellow radiation badge in a fold of his cloak. A spasm of fear threatened to overwhelm him again, and nightmarish loneliness. ”

“ It had been a long layover for the Starholm's crew, hunting heavy elements for fuel—eight months, on an idyllic green paradise of a planet; a soft, windy, whispering world, inhabited only by trees and winds. But in the end it presented its own unique problem.
Specifically, it presented Captain Merrihew with the problem of Robin, male, father unknown, who had been born the day before, and a month prematurely, to Dr. Helen Murray. ”

“ Vorongil read the words slowly aloud in the musical Lhari language:
"'Here, with thanks to Those who Watch the Great Night, I, Rhazon of Nedrun, raise a stone of memory. Here we first do touch the new worlds. Let us never again fear to face the unknown, trusting that the Mind of All Knowledge still has many surprises in store for all the living.'
"I think I admire courage more than anything there is, Bartol. Who else could have dared it? Doesn't it make you proud to be a Lhari?" ”

“ At that moment I was thinking only of Rakhal, of an unsettled blood-feud, and of my revenge.
Red lamps were burning inside the wineshop, where men reclined on frowsy couches. I stumbled over one of them, found an empty place and let myself sink down on it, arranging myself automatically in the sprawl of Dry-towners indoors. In public they stood, rigid and formal, even to eat and drink. Among themselves, anything less than a loose-limbed sprawl betrayed insulting watchfulness; only a man who fears secret murder keeps himself on guard. ”