Lost Lands of Witch World Read Online Free Page A

with half-learned magic, and as a consequence she has been stripped of all her magical learning. Unfortunately, this leaves her vulnerable to evil influence, with her powers crippled. She intends to go back to Estcarp to try and find help. Instead, fate has other plans, bringing her into another part of Escore, where she must use what she learned so painfully about evil masquerading as good to decide whether or not the ancient power she finds there is boon or bane. The themes in this book are sophisticated and complex, and there are few easy answers. Kaththea is abducted by nomadic hunters—she is forced to become the apprentice to their Wise Woman, who herself is of witchblood out of Estcarp and has served in that capacity for several of the short-lived nomads’ generations. The Wise Woman binds Kaththea to these people—yet she does so out of her own sense of obligation and duty, and a desperate need to find someone who can protect them. Kaththea concentrates so much on finding a way to break that obligation that she fails to watch for danger despite being told that raiders are a hazard.As a consequence, the tribe that is depending on her is slaughtered. She escapes, but how much of that doom is
she
responsible for? Her mistakes nearly brought disaster when she sought out great power previously—her desire for an equal partnership, like her parents and brothers have found, made her blind to the faults in a masquerading enemy. Dare she trust herself again when presented with a similar situation? Kaththea has to overcome the dark places in her own heart and find the courage to face her own demons. Andre Norton accomplishes all of this with an economy of language that still astonishes me. Kaththea is a whole, living, breathing person, with faults and virtues—someone who makes many fantasy heroines look like cardboard cutouts.
    The blurb for this book wavers between fantasy and science fiction:
    â€œI am one of three, three who once became one when there was need: Kyllan the warrior, Kemoc the seer-warlock, Kaththea the witch. So my mother had named us at our single birthing; so we were.” Thus opens the final saga of Andre Norton’s already classic WITCH WORLD novels.
SORCERESS OF THE WITCH WORLD
is the dramatic and fabulous novel of Kaththea, sister-witch-protectress, daughter of an Earthman and an Estcarp Wise Woman. Kaththea’s destiny had yet to be resolved, and in her efforts to regain her knowledge of the forbidden sciences of that strange world we are drawn into a series of adventures which put a fitting and breathtaking climax to this series. It is a full-length novel, complete in itself, of fantastic adventures among strange races and on alien worlds, of high magic and low, and of wizardry and super-science.
    Once again, the publisher seemed afraid to name this book for what it was—pure fantasy. And although the blurb would seem to indicate that this sixth book meant the end of the series, this was far from the case. There were many more books to come, thirty-five in all thus far, although they were to appear under the imprints of no less than five different publishers. This series has a life of its own, and Andre Norton created a world with the depth and breadth in it to play host to myriad tales.
    Furthermore, this series has exerted an influence far out of proportion to the books’ modest size. In an age when contracts routinely call for works of not less than 120,000 words, and when books of double and even triple that length are printed every month, these 60,000-word gems are the treasured prizes of many a collection. Not only are first printings, yellowing and often falling to pieces, lovingly encased in acid-free plastic envelopes and stored carefully upright in boxes and bookcases all over the country, but the words inside those covers resonate with readers every day. Not just readers, either—I can’t think of any fantasy writer of my acquaintance