Horn Crown

11

If that blackness was some witchery, then what I awoke into was not a dream, though I wanted to believe it was. I was still in the chair of honor at that table but I looked down a hall which was alive with company— enough to fill it, vast as it was. Still, when I tried to focus clearly on any of that throng they appeared to veil themselves against my direct gaze. Thus I could only make out but a hazy outline of a form, perhaps the muted color of a robe or jerkin. Never did I see a face clearly. Also I was left with a strong impression that, while many of those forms were like my own, aliens moved easily and companionably among them—some beautiful, some grotesque.

It was plain they feasted and that this was an assembly for a reason of importance. This I sensed rather than heard. There was sound in the hall but so muted, so far removed from my own hearing, it was more of the murmur of sea waves breaking on distant shore.

I leaned forward, striving to center upon just one face, hold that in my sight until I could be sure of the features, but there was always that veiling. Then I turned my head to the right, to see who occupied the chair at my hand’s side. There was indeed one there, a woman whose robe was the amber of ripened grain. But her face, the rest of her, was only a blur. When I looked to my left I was sure that my other neighbor was a man, but more than that I could not have told you.

Still holding tightly to the arms of my chair, I waited for them to mark my coming, perhaps for the sorcery either to break into nothingness, or else change, to reveal them fully. Yet neither happened, save that those hazy forms moved, sat, ate, raised goblets to drink, spoke in murmurs, and remained within a world of their own which I could not enter, only watch.

One thing only gleamed in sharp brightness—the runes on the tabletop directly before me. They were fully in my world and my eyes kept returning to them as I became more and more confused by the vision into which I had been plunged. By a great effort I loosed my hold upon the arms of the chair, stretched forth both hands to touch those symbols. If they had ensorcelled me into this state of being, then perhaps they would free me from it again.

I had to summon up my will power to straighten my forefinger, hold it once more above that lettering. Just so had I traced the runes, mark by mark. Three times. What would happen if I wrought so again? I set my teeth and began. Under my touch that inscription was cold as if I had plunged my finger into the water of a mountain spring. So—and so—and so—

Once, twice, three times, I made the gesture, keeping my attention fully on what I did. Then my ears opened— I heard voices—no longer as a distant hum but loud and clear. Though what language they spoke—it was none of mine.

I dared to look up. The hall, all those within had been also given reality, emerged from shadows to full substance. There were men and women, feast-day clad with a richness which I had never seen in any lord’s hall among my own kind. They did not wear emblazoned tabards such as my people kept for occasions of state, rather robes and jerkins of soft, clinging stuff colored as brightly as meadow flowers. There were gemmed girdles, broad jeweled collars, the flash of rings on moving hands.

Their hair was dark, and that of the ladies dressed high and decked with jewel-headed pins, or coronets so begemmed it was as if they had drawn the stars out of the skies to bedeck themselves. Circle crownlets the men wore also, but those each bore a single large gem over the forehead and were of gold or silver, or a red metal I had not

seen before.

Among them were others, even as I had thought. I saw near the high table a woman who was surely of the same race as she who I had met among the trees. There was a man—or so I thought him—who wore no jerkin. But there were two begemmed belts crossing on his breast, and covering each shoulder with a wider span. His skin was furred, his features were covered by a soft down, while from his forehead there curled up and back horns of a red shade which matched the glint of his eyes. I was sure that I saw the arch of furled wings standing above the head of another farther down that board. But as I tried to catch a closer look at what I feared might be one of the monsters, I was startled by a touch. A hand rested upon mine.

“Has the spring wine bemused you, my lord? You stare as one who has not feasted here before.”

Her voice was soft, yet it carried easily through the louder sound of all other voices. I turned my head slowly, to see clearly her who sat at my right, who had spoken words in my own tongue.

She was dark of both hair and skin. Even against my sun-browned flesh hers showed darker still, and I was sure that her coloring owed nothing to the touch of heat or wind. Tall she must have been, for I had to look up a fraction to meet her eyes. Those were brown also, the ruddy brown of that amber which is so highly prized by my kin. But her brows were black and straight above her eyes. She possessed the authority of one well used to command. The amber which I had noticed through the haze was a mantle which she had flung back now that she had put out her hand to mine. Under it was a robe of the yellow shade of ripe-to-cut grain, fitted to a body which was generous of breast, but narrow of waist. Between her full breasts rested a pendant which was also of amber, though the chain which supported it was of black and amber beads alternating. The pendant was formed like a shock of harvested grain, bound together by a vine from which had burst fruit in lusty ripeness.

Her hair had been brought up in a coronet of braids, and, instead of the gem flashing crowns or pins the others wore, there was only over her forehead another amber piece, larger but of the same design as her pendant, supported by a circlet of ruddy gold.

I was so bemused in looking at her. Yes, and in feeling in myself a response such as was certainly not fitting for this time and place—that I had not answered. She was—I could not find words as my thoughts flitted in a crazy fashion to a vision of a field prepared for sowing (also other and less innocent things as my body responded to a growing excitement).

She smiled and her smile was an invitation that drew me so that only my will held me in my seat. Nor did she take her hand away from where it lay on mine. It was a teeth-setting determination to keep from seizing upon her fingers, drawing her to me.

Her eyes changed and there was surprise in them. Then more than surprise, recognition. In that moment I was sure she saw me as what I truly was—not one of their company at all, a stranger caught in some sorcery and so brought among them.

Now I could not have moved even had I allowed myself the wild drive for action which tormented me. Those amber eyes held me. She lifted her other hand to clasp the pendant at her breast. I waited to see her anger grow, to have her claim me imposter, enemy—thief of some heritage which could never be mine.

Instead she only studied me. There was now speculation in her eyes. Her fingers, touching me, moved, closed about my wrist in a grip which I do not believe that I could have thrown off without full exertion of strength. I would not have believed that any woman could hold me so.

She spoke, her words again reaching me clearly under the cover of the babble about us, with a snap of order which I could not have disobeyed.

“Drink!”

There was a goblet at my left hand. Since she did not release the hold on my right I perforce raised that to obey her. The goblet, oddly enough in that place of such wealth, was carved from a solid piece of dark wood. In high relief upon the side was the head of a man, or one close to a man—though the eyes were slanted and there was a wry kind of amusement cleverly suggested by both those eyes and quirk of the lips above a pointed chin. The head of curling locks was crowned by a circlet in the form of deer horns, while the cup was filled near to the brim with liquid which, as I raised the goblet, began to seethe and bubble. Still I could not escape doing as she bade, and I drank.

The liquid was not hot as I had feared from seeing the action within—rather cool. Still, as it went down my throat it spread warmth—warmth and something more. It fired my blood, strengthened my desire.

I had kept my eyes on my companion above the rim of that cup as I drank, and I saw her smile slowly and languorously. Then she laughed a little, her right hand continuing to stroke the pendant between those breasts which flaunted more and more their ripeness, their firmness—

“Well met, well be!” She spoke again. “There is some power already in you, man from years ahead, or you would not come among us.” She leaned closer. From her body, or garments, though I was sure that scent arose from her firm flesh itself, came a fragrance which made my head spin dizzily. For a moment I found I could not put down my cup, nor loose my other wrist; I was held fast prisoner while she played with me.

“It is a pity,” she continued, “that our times do not truly lay one upon the other so that you could realize that present desire of yours. But carry this with you, straying one, and give it to the proper one at the right time and the right place.”

She kissed me full on the mouth. The fire of that touch ran into me, even as the wine had filled my body with another kind of warmth, I knew at that moment that no other woman could be to me what this one might have been—

“Not so,” she whispered as she drew a little away from me. “Not so. In your own time there will be one—I, Gunnora, do promise this. She shall come and you will know her not—until the proper hour. You have drunk from the Hunter’s own cup. Thus shall you seek, until you find.”

Her hand on my wrist moved my fingers now. I was retracing those runes, whether or no, but backwards. Three times I did so. Once more she was but a haze, still I could not shake off her hold. Three times more. Then again the dark and my passage was ended. Had that been through time itself, or space?

I still sat at the table. But the hall was cold and still, and the dark of night was heavy. I held something in my left hand and I could see by the defused light of those shining runes that I held a goblet. The rune light awoke a gleam of silver on its side. Out of that other place I had brought back the Hunter’s cup. My body also knew well the need which had been awakened in me, and for which there was no answer in the here and now.

“Gunnora?”

I said her name aloud. The sound of it carried emptily down the hall. There was not even an echo in return. Then I pushed the cup aside impatiently, laid my head forward on my folded arms, my cheek pressed against the runes, knowing, without being so assured, that these would not work for me again.

Three days I stayed in the keep, sleeping before its hearth, sitting now and then in the high seat of honor trying to recall every small moment of that time when I had been allowed to look into the past. I had never had a woman, though I had heard in many tales of Garn’s meiny much concerning such experience. It was our birthright that this need did not come in early youth. For that reason perhaps our families were small and it was easier for clan lords to make marriages to their own advantages and that of their heirs.

Now I was ridden by new dreams, and, knowing that I must go unfulfilled, I fought to turn my mind to other matters. Hunt I did, and managed to snare creatures coming to feed upon the grain. That, too, I harvested in a rude fashon, ground awkwardly between stones, and sifted into gritty meal to store in the box Zabina had used for journey bread. The meat I took I smoked as best I could, preparing supplies for when I moved on. For I knew I must leave this place, even though part of me wanted to linger—to try again to master the runes.

I desired nothing so much in my whole life as to join the feasting again, this time for good. Save that I understood that even with the aid of sorcery I could not so bridge time. During those days I thought very little of my quest for Iynne, my hunt for Gathea. Both seemed far away, as if a curtain had fallen over that part of my past, severing me from life before, from the person I had once been

On the fourth morning, however, I roused, knowing, as well as if my amber lady had ordered it, that it was time for me to go. I could moon no longer over what might have been. Though I held very little by her promise that I would be eased of my hunger by any now living. She was too vivid, too much within my thoughts.

Reluctantly I left the keep soon after dawn. West must be my way still. However, after I was well beyond that deserted keep, I suddenly changed. I might have been caught in a feverish sleep and was now healed of my distemper. Again that old urgency came to life—the need for finding some clue as to where Garn’s daughter had gone, and where Gathea had also vanished.

Once more land was wild and held no trace of any former dwelling, not even a road before me. I took as a guide a sighting on one peak of the continuing heights, one which resembled a sword blade pointing upward into the sky. Toward that I made my way with such caution as I could summon, for now that I was away from the deserted keep I was unsure of every standing stone, every cluster of brush which might conceal an ambush. Yet there were only birds high against the sky, and the ground under my feet bore no sign of track. This might be a world free of any life save that which grew rooted or winged.

On the second day I came to the first slope of the peak toward which I had marched. There was food of a sort to ration that I had roughly smoked or brought with me from the forgotten fields. I had come through a patch of bushes heavy with berries which I had found both food and drink. Gathea’s wallet I had not opened, still I bore it with me as if I were to meet her within each hour that passed. My own grew much leaner.

Haze gathered about the peak, not far from sundown. The mist descended like a slowly lowered curtain, wiping the heights from sight as it fell. With that in view I decided to camp for the night and not attempt to win beyond until I had the aid of the morning’s sun.

Thus I searched for shelter until I chanced upon a pocket among rocks where I could crowd in, my back well protected as I faced outward. Nights in this eerie land were periods of endurance which I faced unhappily. Though I had heard nothing during the past ones since I left the keep to suggest that any hunters prowled. Still I slept in snatches and it seemed that my body ached for a chance to rest the full night through with no care for any sentry duty.

Though there was dead wood tangled among the bushes and the trees which grew here and there, I set no fire to be a beacon. Rather I half sat, half lay, my back against the rock, staring out into the gathering shadows. As ever when I let down my guard there crept vividly into my mind the picture of that keep hall as I had seen it as a dream of that long ago feasting time. Why had they gone, those who had gathered there? What blight had fallen to leave their fine hall an empty ruin? I had seen no signs of war there. Had it been a plague, a threat from afar which was so potent as to send them into flight?

I started, gasped.

Had I heard that with my ears? No, that cry had been an invasion of my mind. I hunched forward on my knees, striving to draw from the fast coming night a clue as to who had so summoned help and where they, he, or it might be.

Again that plea shuddered through me. From behind—from the mist-veiled mountain! But who? I pulled around and up to my feet, staring up that wall of rock. There was a wink of light now visible in the night, though it was but a formless splotch through that mist. Fire? It did not have the color of true flames. A trap with that as bait? I could remember only too well those silver women and their wooing song among the rock circles.

For the third time came that frantic, wordless summons. Caution told me to remain where I was. But I could not shut out that plaint by covering my ears. It found its way to my very bones. Nor could I stand against it—for it seemed to me that strange though it came, it was a cry for help from one of my own kind— Gathea, Iynne—? It could be either or both, a power that had come to them out of this sorcerous country.

I left my frail suggestion of safety and began to climb. The wind came down slope, striking against me. On it was an odor—not a stench of evil nor yet the musky sweetness which I had associated with Gunnora, with the Moon Shrine, and its pallid flowering trees. This I could not put name to.

Though I knew that I was a fool to venture thus into the night, still I could do no less, but I could go with caution, and a wary eye and ear. So I did not hurry blindly, but set my feet as carefully as I could, waiting tensely between each step for another of those pleas to reach me.

The splotch of light held but there was nothing else now. Nothing unless one could give some name to that sensation of awaiting some significant action, some demand which grew stronger and stronger with every step I won up slope.

Luckily there were bushes here which I could grasp when the slope became steeper, using them to haul myself farther and higher. I reached the outer edges of the mist and that clung as a clammy cloak about my body, settling in drops of moisture on my face. Yet it had not put out that light in the center of its curtain.

I stopped short every few steps I won, to cast about. I was blind, but I was forcing my ears to serve me. There was a chill to this fog as if it were indeed sleet of late autumn instead of a normal mist. It seemed also to deaden sound for I heard nothing.

The light neither dwindled nor grew, but remained as a beacon—a beacon to summon—what? Me? I might well be only caught in the web meant for another. Yet I could not bring myself to turn aside, even now when that call no longer reached me.

Then—

Out of the very ground at my feet there arose a form near as light as that ghostly fog. It reared tall and I could not mistake that soft rumble of growl. A mountain cat—Gruu?

I paused again, hand reaching for sword hilt. This lurker was surely as large as Gruu, and, if it were a nocturnal hunter like many of its breed, then even steel and my best efforts might be very little to halt any attack.

Once more it growled, then it turned and was gone into the mist which swallowed it instantly. Gruu! Surely that had been Gruu or I would not have gone unchallenged. Which meant that Gathea was up there!

I made the rest of that climb in a scrambling run, wanting to call out her name, but fearing that if she were in trouble I would alert whatever held her captive or besieged. Again the white-silver cat awaited me as I plunged on into a circle of light.

That radiance arose and spread out from an object resting on bare rock—a ledge level enough to have been cut from the mountainside by purpose. I could not see what made its core. At that moment I was more intent upon the form which lay limply beside it, over which the cat crouched, using his rough tongue gently across a cheek.

Gathea it was. Something had dealt harshly with her. The stout trail clothing which she had worn was in tatters, so that her arms, showing the red marks of deep scratches, were bare near to the shoulder, and even her breeches were shredded into strips which were held together by knotting one rough length onto another.

Her hair was a wild tangle around her head, matted and twined with bits of stick and dead leaf. While her face was only skin laid thin across the bones, and her hands, bruised and scratched, were as skeletal as those claws of the winged thing I had fought.

I knelt beside her, my fingers seeking out the pulse of life, for so limply did she sprawl that I thought perhaps what I had caught had been her death cry, and that she was gone before I had reached her. Gruu drew back a little and let me to her, but his green eyes were steady on me, as if he would challenge my tending.

She was alive, yes, but I believed that her heart fluttered weakly and that she perhaps had come near to death. I needed my supplies. There was water, and that I dripped first upon her face and then, steadying her head against my body, I forced the edge of the small pannikin I carried between her lips and trickled what I could into her mouth. Looking about that eerie pillar of light I could see no sign of supplies, but remembering Zabina’s instructions I crumbled some dried leaves into the pannikin and swirled water about with them. The aroma which came from the mixture was fresh, pungent, with a clearing rush of sharp scent. Again I steadied her against my body and was able to get a mouthful of the herb liquid then another into her. Her eyes opened and she looked up at me.

There was no recognition in her gaze; she was one who saw into other worlds, beyond me, through me— Still I got her to drink all of the restorative, then I crumbled a handful of coarsely ground grain into more water—making a lumpy gruel which, using a small horn spoon, I got into her and which she did chew and swallow. Yet never did she seem to see me, or even appear to realize that someone tended her.

For the first time I raided the wallet which had been hers. In one box I discovered more salve which, working as gently as I could, having lain her down by the light, I anointed the worst of the blood-encrusted scratches so deeply lacing her arms and legs.

Gruu watched me intently as ever. Before I was quite done, he arose and faced outward into the night, his head up, as if he either listened or scented some peril. Restlessly he began to pace back and forth, keeping, I noted, between the two of us and the mist curtain which hedged in the small clear pocket about the flame.

Then he voiced one of those roars with which he had challenged the creatures of the night. Before I could move, he leaped out to vanish into the fog. I could hear the sounds of a mighty struggle, grunts, shrill cries, which certainly had never broken from Gruu’s furred throat, last of all a gurgling.

I stood over Gathea, my sword out and ready. Yet nothing came through the mist until Gruu himself paced back. There was a dark spattering down his chest, and more blood dripping from his large fangs. He sat now, unconcerned, by the light and started to clean his coat of those traces of battle, licking and then hissing with disgust. I at last took that folded bandage I had carried with me and wet it with my water.

Approaching the cat I ventured to wash the worst of the thick clotting from his ruff where a long trickle had matted deeply into his fur. He suffered me to do this, and I did not wonder at his disgust at his own attempt to clean himself, for what I sponged off did not seem like true blood, was instead a thicker, noisome stuff with so foul a smell that I nearly had to hold my nose as I ministered to him.

Gathea did not regain full consciousness—at least she still did not appear to note that I was with her. However, I was able to get more of the grain gruel into her, spoonful by spoonful, and I made certain that her many scratches, though deep and red and angry-looking, were not real wounds. How she had won this far without supplies and what was the nature of the light which glowed by us remained mysteries. I began to believe that she had collapsed from sheer lack of food and exhaustion. Yet that strange summons which had brought me to her had been of such a nature that must have been more than just weakness of body to make her cry for aid.

With Gruu as sentry I felt more at ease than I had since I had left the keep. The cat lay now by the fire, licking his paws, seemingly wrapped in his own concerns. Yet I was sure he could be trusted.

I made the girl as comfortable as I could, her own wallet for a pillow, spreading over her the travel cloak I had kept as a roll across my shoulder. Shaking the water bottle beside my ear I guessed I had used its contents freely and I must find a mountain spring by morning—perhaps Gruu could help.

Stretching out an arm’s distance away from Gathea I allowed fatigue to claim me. The light still burned as high as ever, but it did not dazzle the eyes. There was a softness in its gleam which did not shine too strongly.

I was in the light, the very core of it. There I awaited an unfamiliar intelligence. First it challenged me; there came an abrupt demand—unvoiced. From whence had I come and what would I do? At that there flashed into my mind in answer (though that was not of my calling) the symbol my amber lady had worn, the sheath entwined with fruitful vine.

My unseen challenger was startled, so much that mind picture alone might have struck a telling blow. Yet there was nothing in me which wanted battle between us. I felt no enmity toward that which had so peremptorily demanded my right to be where I was. This ability to build in such detail a mind picture was new to me, yet it seemed right. No longer was my vision only the pendant, that altered, to become a true sheaf of harvest, the fruit wound around the stock possessing real life, so that I could have reached forth a hand to pluck each globe from the burdened vine. Though I could not see her, I believed that behind me at that moment stood my lady of the keep. Though I longed mightily to look and see if that were so, still I could not turn my head.

That which the fire in the mist represented gave way. An impatient arrogance which had filled it when it would not only weigh me, but would judge me to my fate, faded. Instead there was a questioning—tinged with astonishment—not because of me but for the coming of her who was so standing to sponsor my actions.

I felt forces sweep around me, through me. Questions were raised and answered, and I understood nothing. Save that, in some manner, I had been made free of a road, though the power behind the fire was still resentful and grudging. Then I was given, at last, the boon of deep sleep which my aching body craved.