Year of the Unicorn (12 page)

There was sound now and not only in my head. With the bag between my fingers. I turned to look upon the masks of beasts-standing manlike on their hind legs. Bear, boar, cat, wolf-beasts-and yet more, far more-far worse!

I ran, witlessly, with a pain in me which seemed to burst the ribs about my heart. From the beasts I ran, back towards that which had hunted me. And behind I heard a cat's yowl.

Perhaps I might have died, caught in the horror of that dream. But the pressure of the bag in my clenched hand, from that spread-what? Courage? No, I was too far past the point where courage could return. I was only an animal-or less-filled with fear and a terror beyond what we call fear. But there came a kind of new energy and then an awareness that I had outrun the beasts. And after that, a small ray of hope that there would come an end to all this and perhaps it was better to face that end than go mad with terror.

I did not run any longer. I dropped, my breast heaving, under one of the dead trees, and I pressed both hands with the bag to me.

So-thus was it? Knowledge and then anger, then purpose which in turn drew upon the depths of will. My enemies were blind masks behind which men hid. Masks could be torn away-

They had overreached themselves this time, not knowing the temper of the metal they had striven to destroy. In me that metal hardened. They had not yet the breaking of me. Will-I must will myself out of here-

But so little was I used to that weapon that I fumbled. The trees-they were evil-they should be cut away-An axe lay gleaming at my feet.

No wish-axe was the answer. No-that lay elsewhere. Will-I was me-Gillan! At that naming the trees wavered. Gillan-me-I flung that thought at them. I have a will, a power-if the bag I held was in some way a key-then I would turn it. Light routs dark, I held the bag to my dry, cracked lips. Light-I will light.

The gloom beneath the shadow trees thinned. I am Gillan and elsewhere do I have a place which is mine-mine! I will it!

Green of a lamp. In my nostrils the smell of aromatic wood burning, the odour of food. Sounds-of voices, of people moving not too far away. This was the sane world, the world of which I, Gillan, was a part. I was back!

Yet I was so weary that I found it hard to raise my hand, run it along my body, which was clothed as always, under the cover of a fur lined cloak. There was the light of a cloudy winter morning about us. Outside a shelter of skins, not as formal as a tent, I saw Riders moving. Men-or beasts such as I had seen in the dead forest?

I struggled to lever myself up on my hands, straining to see those men. But between me and them came Kildas. Kildas-how long ago had it been since we had eaten together on another morning and wished each other fortune with a formal toast before answering the summons which had brought us here? I found I could not name the days, they mingled one with the other.

"Gillan." She did not look as bemused as she had since her bridal in the field of cloaks, "how do you feel? You are fortunate that you came from such a fall with no broken bones-"

"Fall?" I repeated and stared, stupidly I am sure, into her face.

She steadied my swimming head against her shoulder, raised a brimming drinking horn to my lips, and perforce I swallowed a mouthful of its contents. Hot and spicy, yet the heat did not warm me and I shivered as if never again would my body be shielded from an icy wind.

"Do you not remember? Your mount took fright upon the slope and threw you. Since you have lain unheeding through the night."

But what she said was so at variance with the memories now crowding in upon me, that I shook my head from side to side, awaking in it an aching. Were-were those memories born of some hurt I had taken? Evil dreams could come from fever, as well I knew-though my body was cold, not hot. A blow on the head-from that came my beast-men? No, I had seen the cat before-before we had ridden into these wastes. And I could look now and see-I raised my shaking hand to cover my eyes.

Perhaps the Riders had their own heal craft; they must have had since Herrel had said they, too, knew wounds and hurt. As Kildas urged upon me again the contents of the horn, I grew stronger. My shaking was stilled. But I was cold-so cold-and that cold was fear-

"My lord." Kildas looked beyond my shoulder to one who had come to us. "She was wakened and, I believe, mends-"

"My gratitude to you, Lady Kildas. Ah, Gillan, how is it now wit you, dear heart?"

Hands again on my shoulders. I stiffened...afraid to turn...to look. His words meant nothing. What had happened to me? cried one inner voice. I had not feared before, I had not shrunk from his touch, I had-

I had stood apart, answered something within my mind. All this had been action I watched, which had not engulfed me in its pattern. I had now stepped from one path where I knew, or thought I knew, the trail, into another running on into darkness and fear. "I mend-from my fall, I mend." I answered dully. "It was a sorry one."

Not yet did I look to him; it was all I could do to not flinch from his hands upon me. "Do you think you can ride," he continued, and now there was a difference, a more formal note, in his voice.

"Kildas-" That voice also I knew. He who called wore an eagle crested helm. Or did he sprout a bird's cruel beak, feathers and claws?

"I am called." she laughed joyfully. "Take good care, Gillan. I hope you will meet no more ill fortune." She left us and when she was gone I summoned will and stood away from Herrel, daring to face him.

"So I fell, and struck my head upon a stone." I said swiftly, making myself look. But he was a man, and I was safe. Safe? Would I ever be safe again?

Herrel did not answer me with words. He lifted his hand to my cheek. And this time I could not control my aversion. I dodged his touch as I might have eluded a blow. His eyes narrowed as a cat's might. I waited for furred mask to appear. But it did not and when he spoke again his voice was very remote.

"So you are now using another sight, my lady. What illusion-"

"Illusion?" I cried. "I am seeing with eyes which are freed, shape changer! Tell what tale you need. I shall not nay-say it. Perhaps I could not. You and your pack brothers have woven too well your spells. Only they do not blind me-any more than you can conquer me with night fears-"

"Night fears-?"

"Hunting me through the forest of ashes-but you did not have your will there."

"Forest of ashes?"

"Can you do naught but repeat my words, shape changer? I have run before fear. But be warned, dreaming or waking, Lord Herrel, there comes a time when the whip of fear breaks. One can learn to live under it, which is the first step towards making it servant, not master. Haunt my sleep as you will-"

Now he caught me again in his grip, holding me so I must meet his eye stare directly and in the full. Green-vast green-pool-sea into which I was falling-falling-falling-

"Gillan!"

Eyes only, but not human eyes. Below them a mouth straight set, a face hard as if carved from some white gem stone.

"Not of my doing. Do you understand, Gillan? Not of my doing!"

Not quite coherent those words, yet their meaning reached me. He was denying what I had thrown at him in accusation, not quite believing it all myself. And his denial had an effect. That had been no vivid nightmare; it had been an attack, delivered in a different time and space, but aimed at me. "Then whose?" I demanded of him. "Could I point the sword, then I would in this instant! Until I can-"

"I must run haunted and-What was that they spoke of last night-the hinder-cord?" For now memory supplied another bit.

"Something which could have been named a trick if discovered, or be my undoing if it had been aided by fate. A spell laid to slow and perhaps lame a horse. But night terrors are not one man's trick, they are a flight of arrows from more than one bow."

"They would be rid of me, wouldn't they? The bear, the eagle, the boar-"

"They must abide by the covenant-or be shape spelled! And I do not think they will try to strike again-"

"Because, warned, you may strike back?"

"I? The least of them? I think they do not deem that possible." He had no shame in that saying. "They may not know me yet, however. Now-can you ride?"

"I think that I had better-"

He nodded. "It will not be for more than a day. We draw near to gate. But, I ask of you, keep in mind that still we deal in illusions and it is best not to fight before we must-"

Herrel spoke as if together we faced danger. Yet in me I was alone, all alone. There was no Herrel I could depend upon, there was a man and a beast, and neither dared I cling to. But that I would not dispute upon now, not when I was so tired in mind and body.

"I fell and hit my head on a stone." I said as one repeating a well learned lesson. "There was no battle?"

"No battle." he agreed.

"In my dream battle then." I pursued the question."what force trailed us and what weapon did they use which might have destroyed your illusions?"

"You remember it all?"

"I remember-"

"They were Hounds of Alizon. But some of them must have been schooled in the knowledge they make such a parade of abhorring. What they sent to confuse us was a power of the dark to shape change and then enforce that change to continue. In this they heaped their own grave mounds-better would they have wrought to keep us men."

"How many of them were there? And why did they attack?"

"Twenty-that we found. It was cleverly planned for they split our party with a false trail and then struck at what they deemed the weaker portion. As for why? They carried Hallack shields and blazons-thus they wished to embroil us with the Dales. It is only the dark arrow we do not understand, that has no place in their armament."

"Herrel-" Hyron, his crest of a rearing stallion plain in the growing daylight, stood at the open end of the lean-to.

"Lady-" he sketched a hand salute to me, but I noted that he did not really look in my direction. "It is time we ride. You are able to, lady?"

I wanted to say now, that I could not cling to a saddle, that I had no desire, nor strength to face a day's ride across this land which was enemy to my kind. But I could not say those words; instead I found myself nodding as if what he willed could only be my heart's desire also.

We rode, but in a different pattern from that which we had followed before. Now woman companied woman; the men threw out advance scouts and set a rear guard. I looked to Kildas at my left, Solfinna at my right. Neither seemed apprehensive, nor did they remark upon this division.

"Hisin says that this night shall we bide in the outer way." Solfinna's words broke my absorption. "Soon there will be an end to this journeying, though we are still two days from the appointed hour. Very fair must be the land beyond the Safekeep-" She smiled happily.

"Gillan, you have said so little. Does your head still ache?" Kildas shifted a little in the saddle to look at me more closely.

"It aches, yes, and I dreamed ill in the night."

To my surprise she nodded. "Yes, Herrel was in great concern when you cried out. He strove to wake you, but when he touched you, Hyron bade him cease for you seemed in even greater distress. Then he put something into your hand, and thereafter you quieted."

"Why did that so anger Hyron?" Solfinna broke in. "I could not see that it did harm, rather good."

"Hyron was angered?"

"Yes-" Solfinna began but Kildas broke in:

"I do not think angered, rather concerned. We all were, Gillan, for you cried out strange things we could not understand, which frightened, as if you were caught in a very evil dream."

"I do not remember." I lied. "One may do such after a head blow, that much I know from heal-craft. And this land is so dreary it puts phantoms into one's mind-"

My first real error. Kildas looked at me oddly.

"The land lies under winter, but it is like unto the Dales. Why men speak of it as a waste, I do not understand. Look you how the sun touches all to diamond snow and crystal ice?"

Sun? Where shown any sun? We moved under a leaden sky. And the diamond snow was rimed drifts. Icy coated branches spoke only of frozen death. Illusion-Now I wanted to share that illusion for my own comfort. But this time, for all my willing, I could not see the land under the beneficent haze through which my companions moved. All was grey, grim, stark, with branches reaching for us like the misshapen hands of monsters, while every shadow could be granted evil and alien life of its own, lying in wait for the unwary.