Year of the Unicorn (22 page)

They bore no carving, no indication that they were aught but rocks, save that their setting was so plainly the work of man, or some intelligence and not natural chance. Oddly, once I had sighted them much of my uneasiness fled. And, though the position was exposed, I was drawn to that earthy platform beneath the central pillar's long shadow.

Slowly I climbed and unrolled the rug, sitting on it so that I could pull the flaps up about me when I wished. The pillar was at my back and I leaned against its support, while before me stretched the road, uniting beyond the point of the islet, to run on and on, though it was hidden by the trees not too far away.

Once more I ate from the bounty the inn had supplied, far less than I wanted. I was thirsty and it was hard to chew the bread, but the cheese had a measure of moisture and went down more easily.

It was past sunset now. I pulled the rug about my shoulders. The voices of the wood were many, a kind of murmur which kept me straining to identify just one sound and so bring a measure of the familiar past to comfort me in this strange present. But sleep was heavy on me, a burden weighting my tired body.

I awoke in the dark, my heart pounding, my breath fast and gasping. Yet it was no dream terror that shook me into wakefulness. My head lay against the pillar's foot. There were streaks of moon on the road. But around me the light was very full and bright. Under its touch the pillars glowed silver.

Again I was as one blindfolded, stumbling about a room which held a treasure of great importance. Only I could not guess what that was. That I had unwittingly been drawn to a place of real power, I was sure. But the nature of that power-for good or ill-was past my reading.

There was no fear in me, just a kind of awe, a despair because I could not receive the messages which flowed about me, which might mean so much-

How long did I sit there, entranced, striving to break the bonds of my ignorance and reach out for riches, the nature of which I could not name?

Then it broke, failed. And another emotion swept in, a need for awareness, for being prepared-A warning which again I could not read past its general alerting.

Sound-the pound of hooves on the road. That did not come from behind, but from ahead. Someone rode towards me at reckless speed. Around my island the forest stirred. A multitude of small, unseen things fled away from the road and from me whom they had been watching with set

purpose.

Yet under my silver pillar no fear touched me...only the need to be ready, an expectancy. The rider must be very close-

Out into the moon came a horse, flecks of white foam on its chest and shoulders. The rider reined in so suddenly the animal reared, beat the air with forefeet.

A Were Rider!

The horse neighed and again beat with forefeet. But the rider had full mastery. Then I saw clearly the crest of his helm and I was on my feet, the rug falling from about me. It tripped my feet as I would have run to the end of the mound, and I kicked at its folds. I shook free. My hands were out as I called-called?-rather shouted:

"Herrel!"

He swung from the saddle, started to me, his cloak flung back, his head lifted so that his eyes might seek mine, or so I believed. But his face was still overshadowed by the helm.

Beast Into Man

THIS WAS like journeying down a dark way in the cold of a winter's night, making a turn, and seeing before one the open door of an inn from which streamed warmth and light, the promise of companionship with one's kind. So did I scramble down from the safety of my moonlit mound-island and run to meet him who had ridden in such haste.

"Herrel!" Even as I had called to him from the tent when I was for a short space that other Gillan, so did I now reach out to him, voice and hand

But a swirl of that green light which was the Riders' mark coiled between us serpent-wise, threatening-and

when it vanished-

I had seen the beast which had crouched on the ledge before it leaped to go hunting the Hounds of Alizon. But then I had not fronted it-only watched it in lithe action. Now beast eyes were on me, lips raised in a snarl over cruel fangs-and there was nothing left I could reach.

"Herrel!" I do not know why I named that name-the man had gone.

Stumbling I tried to back away as that long, silver furred shape stooped low to the ground in a threatening crouch and I knew that I looked upon death. The firm earth of the mound was hard behind my shoulders, but I dared not turn my back upon that death to climb to what small safety its summit might offer.

There was a knife at my belt, but my hand did not go to it. This I could not meet with steel. Nor perhaps would my other weapon be any more than a reed countering a sword stroke. Still it was all I had left me.

Deep did I stare into those green eyes which now held nothing of man in them, were only alien pools of threat Within the beast was still Herrel-hiding, submerged, yet there. Or else man could not rise again from cat. And if my will-my power-could find the hidden man, then perhaps I could draw him once more to the surface. For to front an angry man was far, far better than to be hunted by a beast.

-Herrel-Herrel-I besought him by mind rather than voice.-Herrel!-

But there was no change, only a small, muted sound from that furred throat, of anticipation-hunger-And from that thought my mind recoiled sickened, and my will nearly broke. But I fought our battle as best I could.

Suddenly that round head with the ears flattened back against the skull arose a little and from the beast bubbled a yowl such as it had voiced before the Hound attack.

-Herrel!-

Its head waved from side to side. Then it shook it vigorously, as if to throw off some irritating touch. One paw, claws unsheathed was outstretched in the first step of a stealthy advance which could only end in a hunting spring.

-Man not beast-you are a man!-

I hurled that at him-or it. For now was leaving me the conviction that man did lie within the cat. This was its own land. What new power or source of power lay open to it here?

-Herrel!-

Long ago I had lost the talisman I had brought out of the Dales. I knew no power which might lie over this land to which I could raise voice in appeal-in protest-against this ghastly thing which was to pull me down. It is very daunting to stand alone with riven shield and broken sword as I did then.

I cried out-no longer his name-for what or who I had known as Herrel was gone as surely as if death had severed our worlds one from the other. I closed my eyes as my small power was swept away in a rush of hate. The beast sprang.

Pain raking along the arm which I had flung across my face in that last instant. A weight pinning me against the mound so that I might not move, I would not look upon what held me, I could not.

"Gillan! Gillan!"

A man's arms about me, surely-not the claws of a beast rending my flesh. A voice strained and hoarse with fear and pain, not the snarling of a cat.

"Gillan!"

I opened my eyes. His head was bent above me, and such was the agony in his face that I knew first a kind of wonder. Held me in a grip to leave bruises on my arms and back, and his breath came in small gasps. "Gillan, what have I done?"

Then he swung me up as if my weight was nothing, and we were on the platform of the mound where the moon was very bright. I lying on my robe while, with a gentleness I had not thought in him, Herrel stretched out my arm. The torn cloth fell away in two great rents and revealed dripping furrows.

He gave a sharp cry when he saw them clearly, and then looked about him wildly, as if in search of something his will could summon to him.

"Herrel?"

Now his eyes met mine again and he nodded. "Yes, Herrel-now! May yellow rot eat their bones, and That Which Runs The Ridges feed upon their spirits! To have done this to you-to you! There are herbs in the forest-

I will fetch-"

"In my bag there are also cures-" The pain was molten metal running up my arm, into my shoulder, heavy so that I could not breathe easily, and around me the moonlight swirled, the pillars nodded to and fro-I closed my eyes. I felt him pull the bag from beneath the rug and I tried to control my wits so that I might tell him how to use the balms within it. But then he laid hands upon my arm again and I cried out, to be utterly lost in depths where there was neither pain nor thought.

"Gillan! Gillan!"

I stirred, reluctant to leave the healing dark-yet that voice pulled at me.

"Gillan! By the Ash, the Maul, the Blade that rusteth never, by the Clear Moon, the Light of Neave, the blood I have shed to He Whose semblance I wear-" the murmur flowed over and around me, wove a net to draw me on out of the quiet in which I lay.

"Gillan, short grows the time-By the virtue of the

Bane-bloom, and the Lash of Gorth, the Candles of the Weres-come you back!"

Loud were the words now, an imperative call I could not nay-say. I opened my eyes. Light about me, not that of day, but of green flames. A sweet scent filled my nostrils and the petals of flowers brushed my cheeks as I turned my head to see him who spoke. Herrel stood against a silver pillar, his body to the waist pale silver too, for he had stripped off mail and leather and was bare of skin to ' his belt-save that across his upper arms and shoulders were welts, angry, red, and on some of them stood beads of blood. Between his hands was a whip of branch broken in the middle. "Herrel?"

He came quickly, fell to his knees beside me. His face was that of a man who has come from a battlefield, gaunted by exhaustion, too worn to care whether he held victory in his hand, or must taste the sour of defeat. Yet when he looked down at me he came alive again. His hand came out as if to touch my cheek, then dropped upon his thigh.

"Gillan, how is it with you?"

I wet my lips. Far within me something was troubled, as if it had reached and been denied. I moved my arm; faint pain, the lingering memory of that agony which had rent me earlier. I sat up slowly. He made no move to aid me. There was a bandage about my arm and I smelled the sharp odour of a salve I knew well; so he had plundered my bag. But as I so moved a covering of flowers cascaded down my body, and with them leaves hastily torn into bits, from which came the scent of herbs. I had lain under a thick blanket of them.

Herrel made a gesture with his hand. The green lights snuffed out. Nor could I see from what they had sprung, for they left no sign of their source behind them.

"How is it with you?" he repeated. "Well, I believe well-"

"Not wholly so. And the time-the time grows short!"

"What do you mean?" I gathered up a handful of that flowery covering, raised the bruised blossoms, the aromatic leaves to sniff them.

"You are two-"

"That I know." I broke in.

"But perhaps this you do not know. For a space one may be made two-though it is a mad and wicked thing. Then, if the two do not meet once again-one fades-"

"That other Gillan-will go?" The flower petals dropped from my hand, once more I felt that cold within me, that hunger which could not be appeased by any food taken into the mouth, swallowed by the throat.

"Or you!" His words were simple, yet for a moment the understanding of them was not mine. And he must have read that in my face, for now he got once more to his feet, brought down his bare fists against the side of the pillar as if he smashed into the face of an enemy.

"They-wrought this-thinking that you-this you-would die in the waste-or in the mountains. This land has mighty safeguards."

"That I know."

"They did not believe that you would live. And if you died, then would that Gillan they had summoned be whole-though not as you, save in a small part. But when you came into Arvon-they knew. They learned that a stranger troubled the land, and guessed that it was you. So they turned again to the power and-"

"Sent you-" I said softly when he did not continue.

He turned his head so that once more I could read his face, and what lay there was not good to behold. There were no words in me which I could summon to assuage that wound as my balms and salves could have healed torn flesh for him.

"I told you-at our first meeting-I am not as they are. They can, if they wish, compel me, or blind my eyes, as they did when they brought forth that other Gillan who turned aside from me to welcome Halse-as he wished from the beginning!"