Year of the Unicorn (30 page)

The echoing of my own cry rang deafeningly in my ears. Had he made answer then I would not have heard it. I walked between the dead spider hounds to the gate. If their masters lurked without I did not see them.

-Herrel?-As I had done when I sought the other Gillan, I used the inner calling. But to it came no reply.

Yet I was aware, just as I had been on my first awaking in the ashen forest, that I was, in a manner, still tied to this ghost world. And that which tied me so was Herrel. Must I go seeking him as I had my other self?

I had not closed my eyes, nor sought for any inner vision at that moment. But before me was a shadow horse. He struck out with a fore foot, not at me, but as if to part some curtain for a clearer meeting.

-Come-

The word was an imperative command. But I did not obey it.

-Herrel?-I made that both question and refusal. The maned head tossed high in impatience. But he gave me no answer and I demanded in turn:

-Where is he?-

-Fled.-

Fled? That I did not believe. He who had held the gate against the monster, who had bought me time to his own hurt, and who had swordbought my deliverance. Why should he flee?

Hyron must have read my thought for he answered it.

-He flees from that deed he did here-

-But he freed me! He could have served me no better-

-Who is Gillan?-The question seemed meaningless.

-I am Gillan!-Of that I had no doubts.

-To him Gillan lies dead, by his hand.-

-No!-So plain was it all to me that I could not readily believe Herrel had not also seen the truth.

-Yes. Come, we can not long hold open the way between the worlds.-

-And Herrel?-

Again the stallion tossed his head.-He chose to tread this road, knowing well the danger. Upon him be his own fate-

"No!" This time I spoke aloud, sending echoes buzzing. "No, and no, and no! Herrel comes forth."

-You also choose your path, witch-

-You are oath-bound to aid us.-

-There comes an end to all oaths. You have now your other self, as Herrel won it for you. Even our united strength can not hold this opening long. Come back to life, or go into nothingness in time and space.-

He had given me the choice. I was not oath-bound to any course. Save that I knew this, in this moment I could not take the steps which would win me safety, that there was that in me which refused what I could not share. I eyed the shadowy Hyron as I answered:

-Hold as you can. Mayhap I will also find that which is another part of Gillan, or her life, as I did not know it until now.-

Now the shadow horse stood still, and those golden eyes which were the most alive part of him studied me.

-Your choice, witch. Do not ask for a second one.-

-Knowing you, I do not.-I retorted, and in me again stirred that anger which had sent me at the sulking things.

Hyron's shadow form flickered, was gone. I stood where I was. With that other Gillan I had had a bond, so deep a bond, to guide me. With Herrel-what did link me to Herrel? A sense of gratitude, of shared danger, of dependence (as much as I had ever depended upon another)? None of those were deep enough to form a leading tie.

Hyron had asked me-who is Gillan? And I had answered him out of triumph, pride and knowledge-I am Gillan. But only because Herrel's sword had made it so could I say that.

Now I must ask myself-who is Herrel-what is he-to me.

I thought of our first meeting in the bridal dell when he had come to me in the mist because I had chosen his cloak out of those lying on the velvet sward. Taller than I, very slender, a boy's smooth face, holding eyes as old as the hills of High Hallack-that was the first Herrel. Then the feline, lying in relaxed slumber on a moonlit bed, awaking to the peril of sorcery as a net spread about us both-the second Herrel. Again the cat, crouched, eager for battle, sliding down and away to hunt those of Alizon-and he who had returned in man-form from that fight to stand with me against the anger of the Were Riders.

Another Herrel who had wooed me, to whom I did not yield, and a Herrel who had sprung at me in blood-lust. The Herrel I had seen appealing to forces and powers for my healing while the Werefires blazed about me and I lay covered with a blanket of flowers. A Herrel who had ridden with me through the day, who had waited for moonrise, telling me of his land and his loneliness-

A Herrel who was shadow fighting embodied evil to win me time-and who thought he had slain a shadow because reality lay dead-

Who is Herrel-all these and more. That was the truth stripped of all illusion, that of his people, that of my own pride. Who is Herrel? He is another part of me, as Gillan was a part. And without him, do I go bereft and lacking all my days!

Thus-as I sought Gillan-yes! This was the right way, the only way! As I sought the Gillan sorcery had made, so must I seek the Herrel which had made himself a thing which could walk this land. Again I put forth my quest call-

I came out from the gate of that place of yellow light. Must I return to the ghost-wood? Or plunge farther into this world without sun or moon, change in time?

-Herrel?-

No answer, but a sense of drawing, of that I was sure. Not back to the wood, forward, bending on it all my powers of concentration.

Something scuttled in the rocks before me. A master with more spider hounds baying on Herrel's trail? That trail, so faint for me, might be plain for their sniffing. Still it must be mine also, if I would win to my desire.

If this world did not have a night and day according to the pattern I had always known, it would seem it had changes in weather of a sort. There was a wind rising about me, but, I noted, it blew neither hot nor cold, merely as a wind which brushed my body, tugged at my hair. And I stopped to pull that to the back of my head, fastened it there with a length of grass plucked from a tussock. That mist which had dogged my path across the bog-valley and the plain withdrew, or else the wind tattered it into nothingness.

I was on a hillside, and ahead climbed other hills, up to massive mountains which were threatening purple against a sky never plain to see. Around the heads of the mountains crackled swords and spears of lightning fire and there was a rumbling-to be felt rather than heard.

The storm, if storm this was, had not yet hit the hills about me. I climbed among the rocks, which were broken and twisted, taking on all manner of evil shapes, suggesting they hid greater horrors, lurking to spring, rend and tear. I reached the top of the rise. Still that thread, thin as any spider's weaving, led me on. I looked down into a dusky dip. There was a trickle of liquid running there and from it arose hazy smoke, while it was as dull red as dying coals.

Along its bank a figure moved. It did not walk straight, but wove a staggering path from side to side, sometimes falling, but ever pulling up again to struggle on.

"Herrel!" Hunters to be roused or no, I cried that aloud, throwing myself at the down slope.

The stumbling one halted, but he did not turn. Then he went on at a hobbling run, reaching out to grab at holds to pull himself along. I lost my footing and fell, rolling down to come up against an earth embedded rock. I put my hand to my spinning head, blinked at stones and earth which were no longer steady. "Ssssss-"

The thing had scrambled to the top of a boulder facing me, hunkered there, slavering so that the spittle dripped thickly from its almost lipless mouth. Lipless that mouth might be, but it was well equipped with pointed fangs. Above was a slit which must serve it for nose, and then very large eyes, lacking pupils, flat and dull. But that they could well see me I did not doubt.

Its skull was round and hairless, the ears slits like unto its nose. But the worst was its monstrous resemblance to man-though no man could be as this horror. With skeleton fingers to its mouth it produced a kind of whistling, very high and shrill, hurting my ears. And it was answered. I was hemmed in by the hunters I had driven from Herrel. But that they would flee a second time from anger-that was too much to hope. Nor could I summon that super-human rage to serve me.

"Herrel!" The moment that cry left my lips I repented it. What magic could he summon to our salvation? I would merely draw him back into the worst of traps. The thing on the rock turned its head from side to side. It sat on all fours like an animal, raising one hand now and then to its mouth. Slowly I got to my feet, waiting for it to spring. Another round head came into view, a third, a fourth-How soon would they pull me down? I stopped and caught up a stone. They carried no weapons I could see, and perhaps I could give some account of myself. At the same time all that was sane in me, all the heritage of my own world, shuddered at the thought of any close contact with these nightmare things. The first of the creatures lifted its head high, opened wide its jaws and squalled.

Pride is a great deceiver. We who choose to walk apart from our fellows wear it, not as a cloak, but as an enshell-ing armour. I who had asked nothing from my fellows-or thought I asked nothing-in that moment I was stripped of a pride which broke and fell from me, leaving me naked and alone. I faced not death as I knew it, as I had felt it in this world, but something infinitely beyond human death, which we have been told is in reality a beginning. From this there would be no issue save a blackness it is not given my kind to face with a mind untouched by madness.

Perhaps madness did possess me now. I think I shrieked, that I called upon gods whose names had no power here, that I cried aloud for any help which might be given me. I do not know this for truth, but I think it is so.

And help came then, stumbling, weaving, but still on his feet, sword ready. Even as I struck with that stone which was my only weapon, so did Herrel come, shadow still, but alive, able to answer my plea.

Of that fighting in the rocky, stream cut valley I remember but little. I do not want to remember parts of it. But the end-that I shall always hold in memory-he who stood between two rocks, pushing me into safety behind him. His sword was a live thing, and from that blade those things flinched and cringed. Though they strove, they could not pull him down. Until at last the survivors fled and left us.

"Who are you?" Herrel held to the rock as if he dared not trust his own strength to stand erect. "Who are you?"

He held up his hand, from his wrist dangled his sword by a cord. His fingers moved, slowly, painfully as if this was some effort almost past his making, and in the air he drew a symbol.

Fire, blue, so bright that my eyes were dazzled. But I called out trying to put the truth that was into my voice:

"I am Gillan. Truly, Herrel, I am Gillan!"

The Last Gate of All

HE DID not come to me, rather he sank to his knees, one arm thrown across a rock to support him. But his green eyes were on me, though his face was still more shadow than true substance. "I slew-"

"You united!" I threw myself down beside him. "That other Gillan, she had to die that we might be whole again-whole! By your sword I am!"

Herrel bowed his head upon his out-flung arm and I could no longer see those eyes which were the most living part of him. I put forth my hand and touched that which was not firm flesh-rather a yielding, changing stuff.

"Herrel!" I saw him as a shadow, but I had expected to touch a man. And this struck new fear into me. Now he did raise his head again, look at me. "I am-far spread-Go-back-Hyron-" The words came with long pauses between them. "No! Herrel-!"

But his head had fallen forward again and he did not answer my call. In me stirred again that anger, and with it my will. I got to my feet and this time I did not plead in my summoning, I demanded: "Hyron!"

The rolling echoes of that name boomed about the walls of that unknown valley, appeared to join with the vibrations set off by the mountain storm. But could it reach from one world to another?

"Hyron!" For the second time I voiced that demand. A shimmering-a change in the air-behind it shadows moved-Come!-Very faint.

"Herrel!" I stooped, strove to draw up that collapsed shadow. But it was as if I scooped running sand in my two hands, there was nothing substantial in him for my fingers to grip upon. "Herrel!"

I glanced up. That troubling in the air, it was already subsiding-perhaps we had only seconds.

"Herrel!" Once more I tried to arouse him-to no purpose.

And when I looked again-that shimmering which marked the gate between the worlds was gone. I covered my face with my hands, dull despair warring with my will, Hyron had warned me that they could not hold the gate-or was it rather would not-for long. Now they had let it close-we were trapped in this nightmare other existence.