Storm Over Warlock quotes

More than caution kept him pinned on that narrow shelf of rock. Watching that holocaust below, Shann Lantee could not force himself to move. The sheer ruthlessness of the Throg move-in left him momentarily weak.

To listen to a tale of Throgs in action, and to be an eyewitness to such action, were two vastly different things.

He shivered in spite of the warmth of the Survey Corps uniform.

However, since he had been eating regularly from Survey rations, he was not quite so scrawny any more.

His formal education was close to zero, his informal and off-center schooling vast.

And that particular toughening process which had been working on him for years now aided in his speedy adaption to a new set of facts, formidable ones. He was alone on a strange and perhaps hostile world. Water, food, safe shelter, those were important now.

He smiled wryly now, remembering his emotions when he had first seen Ragnar Thorvald months ago.

As if the officer ever considered the likes, dislikes⁠—or dreams⁠—of one Shann Lantee.

No, reality and dreams seldom approached each other. Dreams …

Shann gazed down at the green water, opaque, not to be pierced to the depths by human sight. Anything might lurk there.

Suddenly the Throgs became normal when balanced against an unknown living in the murky depths of an aquatic world.

Another attack on the Throg-held camp could be well preferred to such exploration as Thorvald had in mind. Yet Shann did not voice any protest as the Survey officer faced again in the same direction as the disk had pointed him moments before.

“Legend of my people.” Thorvald smeared spray from his face with one hand. “

Utgard, those outermost islands where dwell the giants who are the mortal enemies of the old gods.

”

“I am a man!” he hurled that assertion as he might have thrust deep with one of the crude spears he had used against the Throgs. For against what he faced now his weapons were as crude as spears fronting blasters.

“I am Shann Lantee, Terran, man⁠ ⁠…” Those were facts; no haze could sweep them from his mind or take away that heritage.

And again there was the lightening of the pressure, the slight recoil, which could only be a prelude to another assault upon his last stronghold.

He clutched his three facts to him as a shield, groping for others which might have afforded a weapon of rebuttal.

Dreams, these Warlockians dealt in and through dreams. And the opposite of dreams are facts!

His name, his breed, his sex—these were facts. And Warlock itself was a fact. The earth under his boots was a fact. The water which washed around the island was a fact. The air he breathed was a fact. Flesh, blood, bones—facts, all of them.

Shann puzzled over that conception, guessed at its meaning.

“I am my own thoughtguider,”

he returned stoutly, with all the conviction he could manage to put into that reply.

Shann covered his face with his now empty hands.

To see a nightmare flicker out after facing squarely up to its terror, that was no great task. To give up a dream which was part of a lost heaven, that cut cruelly deep.

The Terran dragged himself to his feet, drained and weary, stumbling on.

“Don’t bet on it,” Shann snapped.

“The unreal can be mighty real⁠—here.”

His hand went up to the smarting brand on his shoulder.

Steadying his head with both hands, Shann turned slowly, to survey what might lie at their backs. The water, pouring by on either side, suggested that they were again on an island.

Warlock, he thought gloomily, seemed to be for Terrans a succession of islands, all hard to escape.

The tangle of rocks did not encourage any exploration. Just gazing at them added to his weariness. They rose, tier by tier, to a ragged crown against the sky. Shann continued to sit staring at them.

Perhaps those disks are only window dressing, and they can work without them. A great deal will depend upon the impression we can make on these witches.” He began to smile again, more wryly. “The name we gave this planet is certainly a misnomer.

A warlock is a male sorcerer, not a witch.

”