Horn Crown

13

Gathea stood beside me, her head held high. I saw her nostrils expand as if, like Gruu, she depended upon sense of smell. If she picked up such a warning it was denied me. Rather I listened to the calling of those birds and then I gazed along the aisles between the trees. Of the great cat there was no sign, though I wished that he had remained with us.

Because I needed some hint for our possible defense I rounded on my companion, determined to get a straight answer from her.

“What do those call? Them I know and have seen before and they are surely evil.”

She met my demanding gaze and I could see she was shaken.

“The Wings of Ord.” Her voice reached me nearly overridden by the clamor from the skies.

“And this Ord?” I pressed her.

Gathea shook her head. “He is, I think, one of the great Old Ones—I—” Her eyes dropped to the wand which she still held, and then once more she looked at me. “There is that I can do—for my own safety—but whether it will also hold for you. . . . Bring forth that cup!”

So sharp was her order that I obeyed without stopping to think. The face of the Horned man looked up at me. Some trick of the light shifted in here by the leaves gave it a change of countenance, made it appear for a moment or two as if those silver eyes had come to life, regarded me measuringly.

“We should have wine—” She looked about her as if a cask might suddenly appear from the air itself in answer to her need. Then she scrabbled within her wallet, brought out several small pieces of fruit which I recognized for long dried grapes, hard and black.

“These—into the cup!” She held out her hand and I scooped up those dried balls (there were seven of them I noted) to drop into the hollow of the goblet. “Now water—no, it must come from your flask!”

Upon the dark balls I sloshed what might have measured three mouthfuls of water, wanting to save our supply since I did not know when I could replenish the bottle.

Some new sense arose abruptly within me. I was grasping the cup with both hands, near level with my chin. So holding it I also turned it, that the liquid it held washed back and forth across the long dried fruit. A poor substitute for wine, perhaps—only, maybe a firm desire in such straits would equal the lack.

“Look at him!” Gathea’s voice was taut. “Think of him! Think of wine, a toast to the Hunter. His pledge cup has passed to you. Perhaps that means that you have favor. But this is a sort which no magic raised by a woman can summon. Think of wine—the taste of it—pledge your service to him. Do it—and speedily!”

I did look at that face under the stag horn crown. There was that in it which was not human, yet here was enough of mankind to make me hope that perhaps whatever magic she believed might be woven by this would come to our aid. Though I had never tried to make my mind command my sight, I had learned enough to believe this might be done—whether or no I was taught in the mysteries of Power.

The silver face stared back at me, that alienness, which had at first appeared so marked, was growing less. There was power here. This represented a high lord, one who dealt justice to his people with one hand, and defended them against all ill with the other. To ride among the household of such a one would be enough for any man.

I raised the goblet yet higher, closed my eyes, and set in my mind that what washed within was not water and bits of dried fruit. No, rather I prepared to taste such a drink as had filled it on that night when I had sat at the feast board at Gunnora’s left hand. Setting the rim to my lips I drank.

And—I shall always swear by all I hold in my heart as right and strong—what I sipped was indeed wine, spiced, mellow, such a vintage as had not stood in the casks of any keep I knew. I pledged with those mouthfuls my service—I who was kinless, and had no honor among my own any more.

We of the clans swear our strongest oaths by blood and steel, and by the Flame. Though the latter is a faroff thing which only the Bards and a handful of believers ever mention. I swore rather by a wine which I drank, by that within me which drew me to this lost lord whose face I looked upon as I turned the goblet upside down as is our custom for honor pledge. There dripped from it (yes, this too I swore to) not water, not knotted ball of sun-dried grape, rather wine light as the sun, yellow and clear. Those drops fell into forest mould and were gone. I threw back my head and shouted aloud words which I did not know but which had come easily into my mind:

“Ha, Kurnous, Ha, Hie Wentur!”

My cry swelled, echoed among the trees, repeated over and over again. About us leaves shook as a wind rushed upon us, wrapping us around. We stood without hurt as branches snapped free and hurtled by us, pieces of the leaf mould underfoot were scuffed up and sent hurtling off.

An inflow of new strength swelled within me. I felt in that moment that I was greater than any man, filled with something I could not name but which made me more alive than I had ever felt before in my life. I could have drawn steel and stood against the open attack of a whole clan, laughing as I fought to victory. Or I might front such a cat as Gruu with none but my own two hands, and it would be the cat that would first give ground!

Above the rushing of the wind we could hear the hoarse cries of the birds. They were screaming, calling to whatever had sent them for aid. No help came to them. I saw the air toss branches of the trees which had sheltered us, and between those whipping limbs, that beat wildly here and there, began to fall bundles of ragged feathers, limp bodies of battered birds. Some still struggled feebly as they struck the ground. Their red eyes were glazed, but one or two still gazed toward us and their furious hatred was plain.

The wind swirled, appeared to gather itself together as if it had just formed a wide-flung net and was now being once more compacted into a bundle. Then it was gone. Only a scatter of torn leaves and the dead birds remained.

My exultation had swept with that wind. I drew a deep, ragged breath, looked once more at the Horned Hunter. The face on the goblet held no hint of any life now. In fact a dulling crept across the silver so that it looked both old and worn, as if a virtue had departed out of it. I held it gingerly. What I had wrought by its aid had left me shaken. Now I wanted to stow it away—to think out what I had done and why I had been able to do it.

However, as I placed it back in the wallet, I glanced at Gathea. She was farther apart from me, her back set against a tree, her eyes wide. Between us she held up the wand, as if to ward off blows she half expected I might aim at her.

“He came—” Her words were low, shaken. “He truly came—to your calling. But you are a man, a man of the clans, of the House of Garn, how could you do this thing?”

“I do not know—nor even what I did. But you expected it—you told me—”

She shook her head. “I only had some hope—because you possessed the cup. Now you have done what even a Bard would not dare to try—you summoned Him Who Hunts and have been answered! This is—I must think on this! Now, let us go before that which sent the Black Ones can seek us again!”

She began to run along one of the more open aisles of the wood, leaping over fallen branches here and there. I followed, catching up just as we came out into the open.

I expected that some of that vile flock might have survived the killing wind to spy on us. There was nothing to be seen there except one winged thing (too far to say whether it was bird or something far worse) flying at speed away from the wood. So, relieved of any need for immediate action, I turned to Gathea, caught her arm and held her by main strength. The time had come for answers to my questions.

“Who is He Who Hunts? The Black Ones? Ord? You will tell me now what you know!”

She twisted in my hold, and she was strong, stronger than I thought a woman might be. Still I held her and when she half raised the wand I promptly struck out at her wrist as I was only too wary of what she might do. I had never so roughly handled a woman before, nor did I like this trial of strengths between us. However I was through moving blindly when I believed that she had knowledge which might save us both from new and unknown perils.

Gathea glared at me, though she stopped her struggle. I saw her lips move, though they shaped no speech I could understand. So I swept her closer to me, clapped one hand over her mouth for I believed she might be summoning up some new aid—against me.

“You will talk!” I said into her ear as I held her prisoner against my body. “I have gone your way too long—you have drawn me into sorcery—and I will have answers!” She was like a bar of sword steel in my hold, though she no longer fought for freedom. What further steps I might take to make her answer I could not imagine.

“You are no fool,” I continued. “To go farther into this land without knowing how we may arm ourselves—that is folly past believing. I do not want your secrets—but I am a warrior as you know. I will not go blind if you can tell what will aid me. Do you understand?”

I thought that her stubbornness was going to continue. If so I did not know what I could do, for I could not hold her prisoner forever. When she would not speak, another idea came to me, even as had that invocation which had entered my mind. I spoke again and did so in a voice which demanded an answer:

“By Gunnora I ask it!” For I felt that to invoke whatever power had answered the cup ritual would not make her yield. She spoke so much of women’s knowledge and of things which were not of a man’s world at all—proud in the fact that this set her apart. Gunnora had been all woman and I was sure a person of no little power—in her own time and place.

I was certain that I had done rightly when Gathea made a last plunge for freedom without warning. However I was ready for such a ploy and gave her no chance. Only I repeated:

“By the power of Gunnora, I ask this!”

She as suddenly went limp in my hold, her head bobbing against the hand which gagged her. I released her then and stepped away, but I kept a wary eye on the wand. She was grasping it tightly, the burned part down, and she did not face me even now, only her voice, cold and hard, came:

“You meddle still. Once you shall go too far, and then you shall learn what comes to those who invoke what they do not understand. You are the fool!”

“I would rather be a live fool, than a dead one. And I think you know enough to let both of us walk this land with some weapons besides steel to hand. You know where we go—”

“Where I go!” Gathea corrected me. Even now she kept her face turned away as if she had been shamed by my handling and was thus lessened even in her own eyes. But I kept rein on any sympathy—I had treated with her fairly from the first, she could not say the same and be honest.

“Where we both go,” I corrected her calmly. “Also, you have a guide—one unseen—I saw you speak with such a one. Is she—or it—here?”

“These are Mysteries, not to be spoken of by those who stand outside,” she retorted.

“I have been involved in them. I have spoken to Gunnora. I have called upon the Hunter—and did he not answer me?”

She still would not look at me, rather her eyes went from side to side as a cornered animal might search for some hole of escape. “I have given oaths. You do not know what you ask—”

Again I was visited by inspiration. “Call upon that which cannot be seen—ask then of it whether I should be left blind among the sighted. I demand this in Gunnora’s name!”

The wand quivered. “She—why do you speak of her? She is no voice for a man’s hearing!”

“She is for this man. I sat at a feasting board at her left hand and she spoke to me with far better grace than you have ever known. The cup was her gift—”

“I cannot tell—”

“Then summon what can,” I pressed her. “Your invisible one.”

Now she did look at me and there was a flame which could be either rage or hatred in her eyes.

“On you then be the consequences!” She drove the wand butt down with a vicious push into the ground at her feet, stepped back a pace or two to settle herself beside the charred branch cross-legged, her gaze now concentrated on the half-burned wood.

My own hand fell to the wallet in which I had put the goblet and I pictured in my mind my amber lady as she had been, full of life, as ripe and bountiful as the symbol she wore.

There was a gathering chill, though the sun had been warm on my helmless head only moments earlier. I felt as if the breath of the Ice Dragon was spreading outward from the half-consumed rod which meant so much to my companion. Every passing moment I expected to see that light fan out to hide it. Only that did not happen. Just that cold grew greater, as if to banish me. I stood my ground and thought of Gunnora, and the cup I carried. Also I fumbled in my wallet and brought out that gem-leaf. Perhaps, as once it had been a growing thing, it would prove now a talisman.

Gathea spoke, in that other tongue which held a singsong cadence. She could be reciting some bardic invocation. The chill increased. I might have been encased in ice from head to foot, only under that hand which lay upon the wallet and within the hand which closed upon the leaf there was warmth which spread outward, fighting that chill which perhaps could be deadly. Whether Gathea deliberately summoned harm I had no way of telling. Perhaps what answered her had its defenses against the interference of an outsider.

I heard no voice out of the air. However Gathea stopped her chant, to speak directly to the source of that cold. Again I summoned to my own mind my most vivid memory of Gunnora. That began to fade in spite of my efforts. Another face took on substance in place of her amber and golden beauty. This was of a younger woman, one I had never looked upon. Her hair was held straight back by a band with the new moon in silver mounted over a brow which was austere, remote, where Gunnora had been well aware—and forgiving—of human frailties. The eyes beneath this other’s wide brow were gray as winter ice, holding no more warmth than that. Night black as any winter sky was her hair, and the robe which was girdled about the straight figure of a very young girl was white as the light of the burning wand.

There was no humanity in her. She had been frozen away from every warmth known to my kind. Still there was in the lift of her proud head, about her face a trace haunting of memory. I did not question that this vision in my inner eyes was that of the entity Gathea had summoned, and that there was nothing in her which would move her followers to seek out aught but sterile knowledge which would serve to wall them yet further from their own kind.

There was no escape for me from her inspection. I sensed a kind of impatient contempt—not for me as a person—but because to her no male was of consequence.

“Gunnora!” Had I thought that, or had I cried the name aloud?

The saying of it broke the calm. She did not frown, she did not draw back, yet I sensed that, in some way beyond my comprehension, she was disturbed, shaken. There might well be a feud upon another plane of existence which touched this land, in which power strove with power. I had chanced upon one such power, Gathea had found another, and they were far from allied.

That I had thought before the change began. The white garment took a tinge of color, the girl’s body beneath it ripened into curves, the crescent moon of her diadem grew into a circle, the same sign at its full zenith. That halting resemblance I had half seen—this was also Gunnora! But in another guise. Maid, woman—both the same, but possessing different gifts.

The cold which had tried to freeze me warmed. I could smell scents of full summer, that of ripened fruit, the dusty aroma of grain falling to the harvest. Two natures! That which abode in Gathea had summoned one, that which lay dormant in me had drawn the other.

Only for an instant did I see my amber lady. Then she winked out of my mind’s vision. However as she left I felt that I was indeed accepted by her and that there were more gates open to me, giving on stranger lands even than the one I now walked. I need only reach for what I wished with the full strength of my mind, and my desire would come to me bit by bit in answer to the force which I exerted.

“Gunnora!” I called as she vanished, my whole being longing once more to hear the richness of her voice. My lips burned again, as they had when I had received her kiss.

“Dians!” My own cry was echoed by another name. Gathea reached up into the air, as if she would catch and hold the intangible. For I knew that we were now alone. The Power she had called up had answered me as well as her.

Her voice had a desolate ring as if she had called upon near kin who were leaving her forever. Then her hands fell down upon her knees, her head drooped forward.

I did not move to her, for I knew at that moment she would resent bitterly any touch of mine. But I spoke:

“She was Gunnora, maid—wife—”

“She was Dians who knows no man! She was—” Gathea lifted her head. The tears in her eyes astounded me as much as if one of the tree trunks about us wept. “She is—the Moon Lady. Then—then—” Again that hawk fierceness shone in her eyes as she raised her head to look at me. “Gunnora is for woman also, but only for women who put off their maidenhood to follow the path of submission to some man.”

“Submission?” I countered. These was nothing in my Amber Lady to suggest submission. “I think not so—unless the woman so desires. She is of the harvest, the coming together of those who would produce new life. She is warmth—your Dians all cold—”

Gathea shook her head slowly. “It is true that Gunnora answered your thought-call. I do not know why or how she lends favor to a man. Her Mysteries are not for you. Hut it seems, past all belief, that she has indeed chosen you for some reason. Only—it is to Dians’s shrine that we go and that is another matter.”

I noted that her “I” had become “we.” However, I was wise enough to make no comment. She arose slowly, as if that invocation had worn her hard. Now she plucked the wand from the ground to lay it across her palm which she held out well before her.

Though I could detect no movement of the flesh on which it rested, the wand did turn, pointing to her left, out into that green land. Gathea nodded.

“We have our guide, let us go.”

That this land was inhabited I was sure and I had no mind to meet with any in possession until I learned more of what we might expect. The coming of the birds was warning enough to tread with caution and keep well away from what we did not understand until we could judge it good or evil.

These who had withdrawn from the dales were, I suspected more and more, of many different species. I remembered the glimpses I had had in that feasting hall of those who were far from human in their seeming. Though all had been in harmony there, much time must have passed. Having been raised among a people who were often torn by clan feuds, I could understand that some such disputes might well have rent apart the dwellers here.

“You spoke of the birds as Ord’s.” Now that I had broken through Gathea’s barrier against explanation I determined to make the most of it. “Who then is Ord?”

“I do not know—save he is a Dark Master—and those are loathsome things which are hunting prey their master wishes.”

“That winged thing which I strove with in the mountains?” Swiftly I told her more of that battle and of the strange statue which had guarded the entrance to the foul hole from which it had crawled.

“Evil, yes—but twisted from another way long ago. There was some great warring here once. Those who chose the Dark were changed. Then there are the ones who made no choice, who withdrew. They changed in another way—drawing farther apart from either good or ill into a state where they acknowledge the power of neither and cannot be summoned to a quarrel.”

“You have learned a lot,” I commented.

“Do you not understand even yet?” she asked. “I was born knowing that I had in me powers, talents, which I could not use because I lacked the key which would unlock them. I came here and there were keys! Zabina wanted me to walk slowly, to creep as a babe who has not yet found the way to rise upon its feet. I am young, but my years do not stretch so far ahead that I can wait, and wait, and accept humbly scraps of knowledge when I know there is a full feast provided for those who dare seek it! The Moon Shrine—that gave me the key. Through it I would have been able to fly where now I stumble foot over foot, although the magic which lay there came only now and then. Before I could draw upon it your keep girl blundered in. I hope she will or has learned what it means to steal another’s hopes!”

She spoke with a twist of lip which made me think that she would rather have framed a curse to hurl at Iynne.

“I know Gunnora—she is another phase of your Moon Lady—though she goes in guise of sun warmth. Who is the Hunter who came to my calling?”

“What his name tells you. In a woman lies the right to hold the seed, to nourish it, to watch it grow, to harvest when it is ripe. In a man lies hasty action, the seeking for prey, the hand on sword, the readiness to cut down growth. The Horn-Crowned One hunts—and slays—”

“So he is evil?”

I could read in her face a desire, or so I thought, to agree. But, at length, she answered reluctantly:

“All things must balance in any world. There is light and dark—moon and sun—life and death. For the most part one is neither better nor greater than the other. The mother sows, the man reaps, she gives life, he grants death when the proper hour turns on the everlasting wheel. To her all the harvest rooted in earth, to him dominion over that which runs four-footed, flies two-winged, unless the balance is disturbed and there arise those strong enough to challenge the proper order of things and bring about pure evil. For that is the true nature of evil—it is power which is used to pull apart the smooth weaving of life and the world.”

“So the Hunter is the opposite of your Dians, of Gunnora, yet he has his place.”

I thought of the fact that she assigned death as the task of the Horn-Crowned Man and that I did not like. Even though it was part of the scheme of life. For my blood mostly look upon Death with dread—unless life has beaten them so cruelly that they do indeed welcome him as a friend. That I had summoned Death incarnate to our help made me now uneasy and I longed to throw from me that unlucky cup—perhaps the leaf also—and have nothing more to do with them. But Gunnora had given me the cup, and if she stood for the abundance of life why would she present me with the visible image of death? Unless (the woman of the forest had also life coursing in her, strange though that might be—I could not believe her leaf a promise of ending) unless there had been a dire message in both gifts.

Only never would I admit to Gathea my doubts of the Amber Lady and what she stood for. Since I was bred a fighting man I should not shrink from the idea that I had indeed called upon Death as an aid. In that moment I decided to live for one day only. What came I would face without flinching. If Gunnora had meant that cup as a warning—no, that I would not believe. She had spoken of a future for me, and I would hold fast to her prophecy.

Gathea could not read my thoughts. Now she frowned. Not as if she held me to fault, but rather as she faced a puzzling task.

“The Horn-Crowned One is not the opposite of Dians.” Her words came slowly, her frown grew more forbidding. She plainly spoke against her will. “He is honored with the Maiden, and the Mother—he is in turn, brother, and mate—even son to the Old One—”

“And this Old One?”

“The Wise One, she who finishes life as the Maid begins it, the Dark Moon we cannot see. Yes, the Horn-Crowned One is their equal. Save that he does not answer to the Shrine—he has his own place. And—”

What more she might have said she never added for there came a silver flash through the air. With one leap Gruu was again with us. Behind the cat coursed something else. To me it looked like a streak of black lightning—if one can conceive of lightning as being that, instead of the brightness which we know. It cracked in the air as might the lash of a whip—

The lash of a whip! That was what it was! Out of the countryside rode at a gallop three robed figures and one of them was reeling back, as he came, a black lash, both hands busy with that while his mount, unguided, came forward, its huge fanged jaws agape, its scaled legs in such motion as I thought no living creature might achieve. For these were no steeds of the common world which the three riders bestrode, rather they raced upright on ponderous hind legs, their shorter and thinner forelegs dangling as they came, while their riders balanced on saddles strapped upon those mighty shoulders.

I saw that black lash coiled, ready to come flying out at us. Gruu had turned at bay once he reached Gathea’s side, his fangs showing white and sharp as he roared. I drew steel and thrust myself before the girl, knowing that there was no time for us to flee back into the forest. Death-bringer indeed. I had summoned the Hunter and now I was faced with his price for playing a game I could not understand.