Horn Crown

6

I watched her go, certain that I would get no more out of her than she had already said. Still I knew she believed it was not Thorg who had gone wife-raiding. Convinced in part, I turned to the shrine. I came only to that thin opening between the trees which guarded it when I was shocked by the knowledge that I could not enter.

Once more I was met by a wall with force enough to shake my whole body. This place did again have invisibile barriers, a defense which I had no power to breach. Though I tried, yes, I put forth all my strength to fight that which stood between me and that square of pavement.

It was not in my past training to understand such a thing. The clans swore by the Flame, paid homage to the Everburning at the proper festival. We listened to the words of the Bards who had the record-keeping of our past, and who sang of men who won battles or went down to defeat. Yet never had any one of our blood, as far as I knew, met the unseen force against which perhaps even the riders of an entire clan could exhaust themselves or be easily defeated.

At that moment I was not awed, only angry—with my own lacks, with my ignorance, yes, and with Zabina and her Maiden. For I was well assured that they knew far more than they told—if they had told me anything except to mislead and mystify.

So I could not force my way in to view closer a place of empty stone? Well enough. Iynne was not here. She had not returned to Garn’s holding, therefore it remained that she was somewhere. I swung around to stare in the direction Gathea and her beast had taken. It could be that lynne had, in some way, made common cause with this arrogant pacer-of-unknown-trails, for what purpose I could not say. I only remembered the well-filled wallet the girl had, and I thought of a supply of food being carried to someone in hiding. I could see no reason for such action on my cousin’s part, but it was not given me to understand the mind of a maid, and it might well be that she had been dazzled by Zabina’s teaching.

Wise Women—I searched my own memory for what I knew of them. They were healers, and had also (according to rumor) the use of certain powers. Those they were pledged to use only for good, so that no man ever raised hand against them and they went where they would as they chose. Even picked her own successor, to be trained and fostered. Once such a maid was chosen, she was straightway clanless and kinless, no matter what name or House she had been born with and into. But I have never heard of any woman taking two such followers. What would Zabina want with lynne when she already had Gathea? Also such assistants and hand-maidens were chosen when they were still small children, not when they were grown and ripe for the marriage bed.

However I was certain that Gathea, at least, knew more than she had told me, and that if I were to find Garn’s daughter, it would only be through her. I turned to follow the trail she had taken, keeping close watch for the cat, since I had an idea that she might use the beast as a rearguard to make sure that I would not uncover any of her secrets.

There was no distinct trail. Still, from time to time, I found a fresh paw mark of the cat, set almost deliberately as if to lure me on. That trail did not run far along the ridge, rather almost abruptly it descended into a narrow cleft, much narrower than a valley or a dale, in the rock providing a hidden way. Then I came upon a mark which was left so flauntingly clear I began to question my own decision. Surely she whom I followed would not have left such an open guide. I reached out and pulled from a thorn-studded limb of a small bush a bit of veil—thin stuff such as I had seen lynne often use to shield her face from the full rays of the sun.

First the paw marks and then this! They must believe me an utter fool! Only the fact that I had no other trail and I could not quite believe that the Wise Woman would ally herself and her maid with Tugness’s son kept me going.

I made another discovery, that this narrow way had niches of steps set into it as if it were a stair. Old and worn, the tread very narrow, these were surely steps chiseled out of rock for a purpose. They were too regular to be any freak of nature’s building.

Earth had shifted over them in some places and on those, in clear marking, were first the prints of trail boots, then, overlaying those, the paws of the cat. Thus it was no wonder that Gathea had vanished so quickly from sight, she had dropped into this way down from the ridge.

She must have moved with speed for I did not catch sight of her ahead. Now I increased my own pace, becoming more and more sure that if I could only catch up with her I might learn enough to find lynne speedily.

The crude staircase did not descend very far, ending in a narrow way where there were two deep symbols cut in the walls, one on either side of the final step. One was a pair of upward pointing horns and the other a fantastical curving of lines which could be some runic word or sign in a language which was or must be long since dead.

I had put out my hand by chance as I reached the last step so my fingers brushed across the horns. My cry of astonishment echoed hollowly down the way ahead as I jerked back. For there had been such heat there it was as if I had tried to pluck a glowing coal from the heart of a fire’s blaze.

In fact I examined my fingertips, half expecting to see blisters rising, so intense had been that pain. I sidled on, trying to keep as far from what looked no more than barren, gray rock, as I could.

Now I did sight Gathea, for no growth cloaked this way. She was well down along it, though into shadows. Shortly after one left the end of the stairway the sides of this runway sloped inward, meeting in places for a space and then opening again in a crack which gave a small measure of light.

“Gathea!” I dared to call, even though I guessed that my summons would do no good. As it did not, for she neither looked over her shoulder nor slackened her swift pace. Nor did the cat behind her pay me any attention.

Thus I was left to follow as the stinging in my hand died away, and my determination to have a straight answer from her grew.

The way of the cut was lengthy, yet the girl ahead never shortened step. Nor was I able, even though I lengthened pace, to catch up to her. Which became another puzzle, adding more fuel to my anger. Always there was the distance between us—though she did not run and my strides were close to a trot.

There was more light ahead. I thought perhaps we were coming to the end of this hidden way. Would it bring us out at the far end of Tugness’s land, or into Garn’s dale? Either way I would have a second difficulty added to the first. Not only must I keep Gathea in sight, but I must also watch for any search parties as might be out.

Gathea and her cat were gone—into that opening. Now I did run in truth, fearing that they might vanish so completely that I could not find them if they entered open land ahead. We did face that, I discovered moments later.

I did not recognize what I saw before me as any part of Garn’s dale. Here was no spread of grass, no easy, sloping away. Instead the land was sterile of any growth, rock-paved, with spurs of tall stone standing. These latter were set, grim, unworked, solid stone, in a circle with, beyond the outermost fringe, a second inner circle of slightly shorter stones, and within that a third. They had not the finish of the pillars I had seen at the Moon Shrine, but certainly, like the carven staircase behind, this arrangement was a work of intelligent purpose, though what purpose I could not guess. It could never have been intended for any defensive fort, for there was a man-wide space left open between one stone and the next.

I plunged forward. At the same moment there leaped from among the rocks to my right a gray-white body, bowling me over so that in a moment I lay flat, the heavy forepaws of the cat planted on my breast, pinning me to the ground, while its long fangs were very near my throat. I fought against the weight, striving to get my hand to my sword hilt, even to reach my belt knife, but the beast held me helpless. Yet it did not follow up that leaping attack with any swoop of those jaws to tear out my throat.

Out of the air sounded a call, a word perhaps, but none I could understand. The cat wrinkled lips in a silent, warning snarl. Then it raised the bulk of its weight from me, though it did not back away, instead crouched as if well ready to pull me down a second time should the need arise.

I could get my hand on sword hilt now and I was already drawing blade when Gathea stepped from among the same screen of rocks where the beast had lain hidden to survey me disdainfully.

“Am I Thorg, warrior, that you hunt me?” Her voice was scornful.

“Do you think that I am hiding your Lady Iynne—to her dishonor?”

“Yes,” I returned flatly, and then added: “perhaps not for her dishonor, but for some reason of your own.”

She must have felt safe in the presence of her furred liegeman for she laughed. And, as she stood there, hand on hips, watching me, my anger passed from hot to cold, as it has always done, making me now very sure of myself and of what I must do.

“Put up your steel,” she ordered, a taunting amusement now at the corners of her mouth—wide and thin-lipped. “Be glad that you were stopped from the folly of plunging into that!” With a jerk of her chin she indicated the first circle of the standing stones.

“What harm lies there?” I remembered how the symbol on the wall had burnt my fingers, and uncertainty broke through my anger. How could one guess what dangers lay hereabout?

“You would find out soon enough—”

I thought she was trying to evade me. With a wary eye on the cat which watched me unblinkingly, I got to my feet to front her, feeling better in command of myself when I could do that.

“That,” she said brusquely, “is a trap. Come here and see for yourself.”

She reached out and caught my jerkin sleeve, drawing me with her to the north side where there was clear sight into the center of this stone wheel. In there a man sprawled out face down. He lay unmoving, but when I would have gone to him Gathea tightened her hold, and the cat slipped in between me and the rocks of the first wall, snarling.

“He is dead,” she said without emotion. “One Jamil of Lord Tugness’s meiny. He followed me—as Thorg has also done—because he was hungry for a woman and he deemed me fit prey. Once within those circles he came not out again. I think some madness struck him, for he ran about and about until he fell and then he died.”

How much of that tale could I believe? No man raised hand against one with the Wise learning. But then Zabina had also hinted that Gathea had been sought by the Lord’s own heir. She must have seen my doubt for she added:

“You know not Lord Tugness and his ways. Among those who ride for his House are oath-breakers and worse. They—” She shook her head. “I do not think, nor does Zabina, that the Bards were wise when they allowed the Gate to hide so much of our past. It would seem to me that something of our own evil crept through to flower here. If so, Jamil learned that there are forces even he could not front.”

Again I did not doubt that she spoke the truth as she saw it. The thing which had been that dead man’s intent was a monstrous act which no sane man could have conceived. As for the Gate—I, too, had wondered if a new life without certain memories had been altogether wise. I questioned that the more now after hearing her story.

“What killed him?”

“Power,” she answered somberly. “This was a place of such power as we cannot understand. Gruu here can tread those ways.” Her hand dropped to fondle the ears of the cat. “I have seen other living things cross it without concern. But for my life’s sake, and for the sake of that inner part of me which is more important than the life of my body, I would not venture in there. Do you not feel it at all?”

Since she watched me, and I needed to recover from the fiasco of my capture by Gruu, I moved closer to the stones, stretching out my hand. Perhaps there was no invisible wall there, but I was ready to discover one. There was not, but my flesh began to tingle as I neared the outer circle. Not only that, but there arose within me a feeling of sudden danger, that I must leap forward into that circle which was the only safe shelter from an ominous shadow I could not put name to.

So forceful became that drawing that once more I was jerked to a stop by Gathea’s grasp, by the cat pushing against my knees making me stumble backward. I felt my anger stiffen into a chill of sheer fear. For that pull upon me, until the two who were with me urged me back, was such a compulsion that I wanted to fight them, free myself, fly into the safety of the circle—

“Not safety—never there!” Could she read my mind or had some experiment of her own made her understand what moved me?

I was well back now, away from the influence of the stones, free—and very much shaken.

“Iynne!” I could think only what might have happened had she come this way. There lay only one body in the center of that monstrous trap but now that I stared more closely, I saw that Jamil did not rest alone. There were bones there, gray-white in the day’s light, which was beginning to fade. I do not know how many might have been before him, but there was enough evidence that what abided there still held its captives.

“She was never here.” Gathea loosened her hold on me. “As I told you, she was drawn by another magic—”

I pointed to her wallet. “You have her hidden, you take her food. Does she hide from Thorg, or have you witched her with your ways so she would become like you?”

“Like me? You ask that, warrior, as if you find me less than a keep lady with her imprisoned mind, her soft body, her willingness to be driven to the marriage market as an ewe is driven to be sold to the highest bidder!” She flashed back. “No, perhaps in your soft little lady there lies a spark of the talent so overladen by years of being a keep daughter that she never realized what slumbered within until she found a place of power and that hidden part of her stirred to life, awakened from a lifetime of sleep. I do not hide Iynne and steal away to give her food and comfort. She has gone—but I cannot tell you where, though I shall try to find her. For what she discovered was wasted on her.” Now there was some of the same scorn she had shown me coloring her tone. “I—I would have known how to weave, and bind and tie. I was not there when the life of the shrine returned. She was taken when I was meant to be the one!” Now there was anger, as cold as my own, in her voice. “She took my birthright and what she will make of it, being who and what she is, that I cannot guess. I go now not to rescue your little lady, warrior, but that I may repair the damage her curiosity has caused!”

“Where?”

“Where?” she repeated, her chin lifted. “There—” Now she swung out one arm, pointed west. “I follow no trail such as you would understand. My guide lies here.” She touched her forehead between the eyes. “And here.” And this time that pointing finger dropped to her breast. “It may be that I have not the power I hoped for, still I can try—one can always try.”

“You believe this,” I answered slowly, “that Iynne blundered into ensorcellment and was taken, that you may be able to find her. After seeing that,” I motioned to the stone trap, “how can I say that anything may or may not be true in this country? But if there is a chance to find my lady and you can act as guide, then do I go also.”

She frowned at me. “This is woman’s power,” she said slowly. “I doubt that you can follow where I may lead.”

I shook my head. “I know not one power from another. I do know that it is laid on me as a debt of honor that I go where there may be a chance to aid Iynne. I think that your Wise Woman knew this of me,” I continued. “She may have thought to mislead me with her hints of Thorg, but she gave me this,” I motioned to the wallet I, too, bore, “and she did not warn me away from what I intended.”

Gathea smiled with a certain stretch of lips. I disliked that more each time I saw it.

“There is one thing Zabina understands, that many times it is useless to argue when a mind is closed. Doubtless she read that yours was—tightly.”

“As is yours, perhaps?”

Her frown grew sterner. “You guess too much.” She turned. “If you will push into such peril as you cannot begin to dream, kinless one, then come. Night is not far away and in this land it is best to find shelter.”

She started on, without another glance at me, skirting carefully about the edge of the circles, across a country which was rough going. For here had been many slides of stone, some running nearly to touch the standing pillars. Those we scrambled over (for I was close on her heels) with care, lest some tumble of them carry us out into the influence of the trap.

The cat went ahead, much to my relief, for I did not trust him, no matter how he served my companion. We had passed that ominous set of circles, were in the rock-covered country beyond, before we found him waiting for us under an overhanging ledge at the edge of wilderness country where a few splotches of green showed, but which was mostly rocks and upstarting ridges in a chaotic mixture of broken stone.

There was no wood for a fire. Nor would I have wanted to light one in this wilderness, drawing to us— what? Garn’s men, or things far more dangerous even than that lord in his rage? The sun seemed to linger, as if favoring us enough to allow me at least to mark every approach to the shelter Gruu had discovered. The big cat had vanished into that wilderness of rock, intent, I was sure, on hunting. Gathea and I ate sparingly of the food we carried and drank only scant mouthfuls of water. I had seen no trace of any stream in the land ahead, unless one of those splotches of growth a goodly distance away marked some spring or rain-catch basin.

We did not talk, though there were questions enough I would have liked to have asked. However she turned a shut face upon me, making it plain that her thoughts were elsewhere, so that for stubbornness of will I would not break the silence which lay between us.

Instead I continued to study the land lying ahead, attempting to mark the easiest path among those sharp upcrops and ridges. It was as desolate, and, in its way, as threatening a land as I had ever seen. That it had ever held life surprised me. Unless that circle trap had been built as a barrier against some coast invader, only the first, perhaps, of deadly surprises.

“This is not Garn’s land,” I said at last, mainly to hear my own voice, for her continued silence built the barrier higher and higher between us. If we were to go on together we must work out a way of communication so that we might front the dangers I was sure lay before us together as companions-of-the-trail at least and not as enemies standing well apart.

“It is not Tugness’s either,” Gathea surprised me with her answer. “This land lies under another rule. No, do not ask me whose—for that I cannot tell. Only here we are intruders and must go warily.”

Was she in those words obliquely agreeing to a partnership? At least there was no impatience in her voice and she no longer wore a frown. The sun banners were fading fast from the sky. Shadows reached out from the rocks before us as if they were hands to grasp and hold anything venturing near.

“This is a cursed land, and we’re the fools for taking lordship of it!” I burst out.

“Cursed, blessed, and all manner of such in between. Still we were meant to come, or that Gate would not have opened to us. Therefore there is a purpose and a reason and it is for us to discover what those may be.”

“The Gate,” I said slowly. “I know that the Bards sang it open, that also it wiped from our minds the reason why we came. Why was that done unless—My thoughts turned direly in a new direction. “Unless that was so that we might bend all our wits and strength to front new enemies here to deal with in the future not the past. Yet I wonder why we came—”

She had put away more than half her journey cake, made fast the loop latch of her wallet.

“Ask that of the Bards—but expect no answers. This land may be more blessed than cursed—”

She halted, for a sound arose into the evening air. I caught my breath. They say that the Bards, if they so wish, can sing the soul out of a man, leaving him but an empty husk. I had thought those but the idle words of men who try to add more to any story. Now the sound which arose and fell across the stone world before us was such singing as I had never heard in my life—not even when the Arch Bard Ouse sang at midsummer feasting.

Nor was this any man’s voice, but rather the soaring voices of more than one woman, reaching notes as high as any bird could carol. And it came from behind us!

I was on my feet and out from under the ledge, looking back along our pathway, only dimly aware, so bemused was I by that singing, that Gathea stood beside me so closely now that her shoulder rubbed against my own.

It was a hymn of praise—no, it was a song for lovers, beckoning. It was a trilling of victory, welcoming to safe homes those who had fought well and dared much. It was—

I could see them now. Women, yes, though their faces were mostly hidden by long hair, which stirred about them as if blown by a wind I could not feel here. Was it only long flowing hair which covered their slender bodies—or wore they robes as thin and frail as those locks which blew through the air? Silver was that hair, silver their bodies. They were far from me and yet as each one paced, singing, facing me, I thought that I caught sight of bright eyes, fire-bright, for they were the color of ruddy flames, which held steady sight in spite of the veiling of their hair.

Hand in hand they went, yet with a space between each of them as they circled—and there was another circle behind them and beyond that. Three circles! I uttered a small sound of my own.

Where the stone pillar of the trap had stood, that was where these singers now trod their way. Did I still see the pillars, or had twilight shrouded them? The silver bodies, the spinning hair, had a light of their own, thin and wan—

Still they wove then- way singing. Peace and happiness, love, longing fulfilled, life everlasting, but life of a new kind—a wondrous kind. One needed only to go to them and all this would be given. Sweeter, lower, more enticing became that song. I moved yet I had not willingly or consciously taken those steps. But I must go—

Again I was thrown with painful roughness into rock, this time rolling over with the force of the blow which had sent me down. Then a second body joined me and we struggled together in a tangle of arms and legs until a large and heavy furred weight landed crosswise, pinning us both to the earth.

I smelled the strong breath of the cat, heard the rumble of a growl, so low it was more a vibration through his body than an actual sound. The singing held high and true, but our struggles to throw off Gruu were useless.

Then I heard Gathea’s voice through that heart-wrenching singing. Her face was so close to mine that her breath was warm on my cheek as she spoke.

“Fingers—in—ears—lure—”

I felt her squirming, and guessed that she was doing just that, thrusting her fingers into her ears to block out that sound. Half dazedly, for my head was beginning once more to ache woefully after this second assault, I, too, loosened my arms, though I did not struggle to free myself, so sealing out that singing with my fingers.

Gruu however did not stir, nor did Gathea attempt to free herself from where she lay half over me, the beast pressing us both down. I could smell the scent of herbs, sharp and clean, which must come from the hair which had shaken a little loose in her fall and now lay with the braid end close to my nose.

Guessing that this was a second part of the stone trap, and that it was an even more dangerous lure than the first, I strove to shut out sound, to concentrate on other things, such as how soon we might get away from this ever-present peril, and how many of such plague spots we might be apt to meet in this unknown land.

Very faintly I could still hear the singing, and it dragged at me, making me want to squirm free, to seek out those singers. Then, slowly, it died away. Perhaps we lost ourselves in a daze, for I cannot remember well what happened until there was the chill white of moonlight across us.

Gruu heaved himself up at last. I felt bruised and sore from being flattened so against the stone and was slow in drawing to my knees, so Gathea arose before me. She faced into the full rays of the moon and I saw her hands move in what could only be the gestures of some ritual.

It was a very bright moon, making the stone around us either silver or dead black, as shadows dictated. I dropped my hands from my ears. The night was so quiet I could only hear a whisper of sound from the girl as she recited words not meant for me to understand. I drew a little away from her and stood to look back at the circles of stone. They looked very far away, just as the singers had seemed so much closer. And they were only that once more—stones set on end for a purpose which I did not like to consider. The singers of the evening were gone, only the moon hung over us as Gruu pressed close to Gathea with a rumble of purr louder than her whisper voice.