Year of the Unicorn

8 Power of the Pack

“It is well with you?”

“A day in the saddle is not like unto one spent in a bower.” I feared. The impulse of welcome which had made me move a step forward was a break in the wall of my fortress, imperilling me.

“We shall not drive you further, Gillan. And do not build up your defences; to yield will be more to your profit, I promise you.” His hand enfolded mine past my strength to free my fingers unless we struggled in good earnest.

And his touch built illusion. We stood not in a steep walled, dark cut, but in a place of spring time. Night was about us, yes, but a spring night. Small pale flowers gave sweet perfume to the night, blooming in a turf carpet, a thick cushion for our feet. Ripples of green and gold ran free from lamps along the edges of the tents, outlining them. There was a low table set with a multitude of plates and goblets, with mats for the diners. Those who were not partnered were gone. Only the twelve and one of us who had come out of the Dales and those of our choice remained.

Herrel drew me to the feasting table, and I went without question, as much bemused in that moment as any of the others. It was a relief to push aside reality, to plunge into the illusion, as one might dive into a pool of cooling water when one’s body was fevered with summer heat.

I ate from the plate we shared in the courtly fashion. I could not have named the food, only knew that never before in my life had I tasted such viands, so subtle of flavour, so beguiling to the senses, so satisfying of hunger. There was drink in the goblet before me. Not the amber liquid Herrel had brought me in the marriage dell, but darkly red. And from it arose an aroma like the first fruits of bounteous autumn, rich, freighted with the sunlight of summer past.

“To you, my lady.” Herrel raised that cup.

That which lay within me stirred, the lull of illusion was troubled, a ripple across the surface of a pool. Did he drink, or did it only appear so? He held out the cup to me. And I no more than wet my lips as I bowed my head in return.

“Can this then be journey’s end, my lord?” I asked as I put away the scarce tasted wine.

“In one fashion. But it is also a beginning. Tonight we feast to that. Yes, a beginning—” He looked down at the table rather than to me.

Alone were we sober in that company. Around us there was soft, fond laughter, the murmur of voices, a kind of beatitude. But that part of the illusion was not ours.

“Ahead lies the gate you must storm?”

“Storm? No, we can not force a way here. Either the path is freely open, or it remains closed. And if it is closed—” He paused so long I dared to question.

“What then?”

“Why, once more we go a-wandering—”

“By the Bargain you can not return to the waste—”

“This land is very wide, larger than you of the Dales know. There are other portions in which we may live.”

“But you hope not—”

Now he did turn to me, and what I read in his face struck all other questions from my lips. Yet when he answered, the words came evenly, as if he read them from some often conned book.

“We hope wandering is past.”

“When and how will you know?”

“When?—tomorrow. How?—that I can not tell you.”

But his “can not” was plainly “will not”.

“And if we pass this gate, what then shall we find waiting us beyond?”

Herrel drew a deep breath. Always his man face had been that of a youth with the eyes of age, but now when he looked upon me the eyes were young also. And of the beast—had I ever seen the beast?

“How can I tell you? It is far beyond the words we share. Truly life there is different; it is another world!”

“And you came from there—how long ago?”

Once more his eyes were weary with years of looking at what he must see. “I came from there—how long? I—we—do not reckon times save when we must deal with those of this world. I do not know. We were granted one favour when we came forth, that our memories would be dimmed and dulled, that we would only dream, and that infrequently—”

Dreams! I shivered. The table before me, the feast, the lights, shimmered, lost substance. I wanted no dream memories. I reached forward, lifted the goblet to my lips. I was cold—cold—Perhaps the wine would warm me. Yet when it was on my tongue I paused, again within me that warning.

About us one by one the couples arose, arms entwined, going to the tents. What I had unconsciously feared was now before me.

“Dear heart, shall we go?” His voice had changed, he was soft-spoken, not as he had been when telling of the gate.

NO! shrilled my mind. But my body did not elude the pressure of his arm about my waist. To any onlooker we would have been another langorously amorous couple.

“A toast,” he glanced at the cup I still held, “to our happiness, Gillan—drink to our happiness!”

No lover’s request—an order. And his eyes compelled me to it. I drank. My vision wavered, the illusion mended—could it indeed be illusion? I went with him, for a moment unheeding save that this was ordained.

Lips—gentle, seeking, then demanding, to which demand I responded. And then hands—

Sharp as a sword thrust the awakening in me of denial. No—no—this was not for me! This was an end to the Gillan that was, a small death. And against that death all the will and what I termed “power” arose in savage defence. I crouched on the far side of the pallet, my hands crooked to claw. Herrel’s white face I saw and across it a band of bleeding scratches.

Herrel’s smooth skin—or was it furred, blurred with fur—and his mouth fanged? Man or beast? I think I cried out and flung up my hand before my eyes.

“Witch—”

I heard him move away. That word he had flung at me—

“So—that is it—witch.” he added. “Gillan!”

I dropped my hand shield to look at him. He made no move. Only his face, truly a man’s face, was set as it had been when he had fronted his pack brothers after the battle.

“I did not know—” he spoke, not to me, but as one seeking support or assurance from a source greater than he, “I did not know.”

He moved and I shrank instinctively.

“Be not afraid. I lay no hand on you this night, nor like to any other night either!” There was bitterness in that. “Indeed Fortune is crossgrained to me. Another—Halse—would force you—to your good and the company’s. But that is not in my birthright. Very well, Gillan, you have chosen—upon you be the consequences—”

He seemed to think I understood, yet his words were riddles past my reading. Now he drew the sword from the sheath he had thrown aside, laying the naked blade in the centre of the pallet. So doing he laughed without mirth.

“A convention of the Dales, my lady. I shall honour it this night, you may rest without fear—that fear. But perhaps later you will discover that your choice was not altogether a wise one.”

He stretched himself beside the sword and closed his eyes. Why? Why? I had so many whys swelling in my mind, but his face was closed. It was as if, though he lay only a hand’s distance from me, we were separated by miles of a haunted waste. And I dared not break the silence.

I thought to lie sleepless. But when I came to the other side of that sword barrier I was straightway plunged into dark where there was not thought nor feeling. Nor did I dream.

From sleep to wakefulness I passed in an instant. I have heard that soldiers in the field sleep so, with an inner alert which walks sentry go for their protection. Around me—what could I name it—a quickening?

Though I listened there was naught but silence. Yet it was a silence which was alive. Herrel? My hand went out—there was no cold steel—

“Herrel?” Did I whisper that or only think it?

I opened my eyes. There was a faint grey light—perhaps that of very early morning. And I was alone in the tent. But in me that surging need to be out—about—I had known it back in the hillkeep when it had brought me to the discovery of Lord Imgry, but not as greatly as I did now. I was summoned—summoned! By whom and to what?

Swiftly I ordered my clothes and then pushed out into the morning. The enchantment was gone-cold stone cliffs, a dying fire—No movement, save now and then at the picket line a mount pawed the ground. I felt as if I alone were awake when all else slept. And the need for knowing I was not alone swept me.

I came to the next tent, moved by that need. Kildas lay there, covered by a cloak, sleeping. I looked farther, the Riders were gone! Returning to Kildas I strove to rouse her, but I could not. Perhaps she dreamed happily for there was a smile on her lips. Nor were my efforts more fruitful with the rest.

The restlessness possessing me until to sit still was beyond my power, I fed the dying fire. My flesh tingled; I was eaten by a rising excitement I did not, could not understand. Somewhere action was in progress, and it drew me—

Drew me! That was the answer. Not my mind—I must blank out my mind and the here and now as I had sought to do to preserve the illusion—the other sight. Let that drawing force take over, it must if I would ease this torment within.

Clumsily I strove to do that. Closing my eyes against the reality of the camp, trying to shut out what I knew and yield to that tugging I felt. I swayed, as one in a wind too great to breast, and then turned to the rubble filled end of the valley. There—somewhere there—!

Danger—I forgot danger—I was aware of nothing save the drawing. I scrambled through the rubble of the fallen rocks, impatient at the hindrance of my skirts. On and up—on and up!

It was like blood beating in the regular pound of my heart, yet also was it a throb in the air which was not as loud as the pound of a drum-waves beating, becoming a part of my body as I laboured up the path to the Safe-keep gate.

Sound now, and the tingling in me responded to that sound. But within a growing frustration. I should know—I should! And yet I did not. I was shut outside some door on which I could beat with my fists until they ran blood, yet I could not enter for the knowledge which controlled the door was not mine.

I reached the top of one of the mounds and looked down. I had found the Riders.

They stood in a triple line, facing the end of the valley, and it was indeed an end—a wall of solid rock without break, smooth past any climbing. They were bare of head, their helms and their arms, all laid behind, immediately below my perch. They faced that wall with empty hands.

And they were calling, not with voices, but from their hearts. It tore at me, that calling. I put my hands to my ears to shut it out. But that gesture was nothing against the evocation rising from below. Hunger, sorrow, loneliness—and a small spark of hope. They hurled emotions against the stones as besiegers would swing rams to batter down a keep gate.

One of them came forth from the line—Hyron, I believed, though I could not see his face. He went forward to the wall, laid the palms of his hands against its surface and stood so, while still they cried silently their desire for admittance. He stepped aside and another took his place, and another, each in turn. Time passed and I was no more aware of that than the Riders. The first line were done with that touching, the second, one by one, and now the third and last. Halse led them. He came to the barrier with an air of confidence, as if it must open for him.

On and on—and now the last—Herrel—wall. I remembered his face as I had seen it the night before, naked, scored by loss and longing. They were not willing down there, they were pleading, humbling themselves, against the nature of their kind.

Answer—Did they expect an answer now? Herrel came away from the wall to his place in the last line. And the beat, beat of their plea was unchecked. Almost I could believe that they had mistaken their gate. That stone must have stood unriven from the beginnings of time. Or had madness, born out of their wanderings in the waste, tainted their minds so they expected the very mountains to break—Was there any lost land?

I was accustomed now to the beat in my own body. Now that I knew what they strove to do here perhaps prudence would argue that I make my way back to camp. But when I tried to move from my vantage point I could not. I was one bound to the rock on which I half lay. And the fright that realization gave me brought a cry from my throat.

They would know—would find me here! Only not a head turned, no eyes moved from their steady fix upon the wall. I struggled the more, summoned all my will—and could not break those invisible bonds. On and on the Were Riders called upon whatever power they sought to reason with, and I lay there helplessly.

Now it seemed endless and I found my fear of the trap which held me broke through my preoccupation with what passed. Will—I would not lie here helpless! I could move—My fingers stretched across a stone before my eyes. Those I would move—narrow my world and my will to my fingers—

Move, fingers! Flesh and bone arched up in answer, free of the flesh held in prison. My hand curved into a fist, thrust against the rock to push away. Arm—next—arm!

Beat—beat—open gate—NO! Doggedly I pulled will and mind back to me—me! Arm—raise—

I tasted the salt of my sweat running across my lips, into the corners of my lips. Arm—raise!

Slowly—with such painful slowness—obedience. I could set hand on rock, arm as a brace, lever myself up a little. But the rest of me was unstirring weight. Foot—knee—

“Beat—beat—the gate—that was important—the gate—

“No!” Perhaps I flung that denial down upon the heads of those below in an outburst of fury and frustration. Their gate meant nothing to me. They had receded from my life. What was needful was to move a foot, bend a knee, break out of a web I could not see.

I lay back, my shoulders supported by the cliff wall, panting as I drew great gasps of air into my labouring lungs. So far—in this small way I had broken free. Now—on my feet—I must get to my feet! From this new position I could no longer see the Riders, though their wall, still unbreached, was in my line of vision. As it would doubtless continue. They had failed. Why would they not accept that fact?

No—do not think of them! To do so was to lose the small ground I had gained, again it was hard to turn my head. There was nothing, nothing beyond this pocket of stone and earth which held my disobedient body, feet, legs, arms, hands—Will their coming alive!

Now I stood, stiffly, unsteadily, afraid that any attempt at a step would plunge me from my perch. Once more I could look down upon the Riders. And from them now arose no disturbing beat of supplication. But still they stood facing the wall. And it came to me that they awaited their answer.

I edged around. It no longer mattered to me what that answer would be. My world now held only Gillan and her concerns. I was encased in a hardening shell in which I could depend upon myself alone. And, when I thought that, there flashed a vivid picture out of memory, of Herrel setting between us a drawn sword—not of custom, but of severence.

As I managed to drag myself away from the rock where I had lain to watch the Riders my movements became freer. I had to expend less effort of will on making each limb do as I wished it to.

And sunlight found its way down into the valley. It was warm on my face, my hands, scraped raw and bruised. By the time I had turned my back fully on the slide of rock which walled the Riders from me I was moving normally, but with the fatigue which had punished me after my flight through the dream forest. There was on me now another kind of need, to reach the camp—to find there anchorage.

But I was only a few steps upon my way when my isolation was broken. I had heard the mellow gong notes they sound in the Abbey chapel to tell the hours prescribed for prayer. More rounded than the voice of any bell, richer, deeper. But this note came as if from the rock about me, the sky overhead, the rough ground under foot. And with it all that was stable moved, shook, was stirred. Stones toppled and fell. I threw myself back against the cliff side. My arm went numb as one struck against flesh and bone.

The echo of that note rolled, now growing fainter and fainter down the chain of the hills, seemed louder, more imperative, than—the sound from which it was born. No war trumpet’s ring, no temple gong, no sound I had ever heard could compare with it.

So—they had succeeded in opening their long closed door. Their homeland was before them. Theirs—theirs! Not mine—

A further rattling of rocks—I looked around. Slavering boar eyeing me, and behind its shoulder the narrow muzzle of a wolf, and the beat of eagle’s wings. The Weremen—or beasts—coming to me. It was my vision from the dead forest brought into the sunlight of open day. And this time I could not flee.

“Gillan!”

A weaving, watering of the pattern. Men now and not beasts. Herrel had pushed to the front of the pack.

“Kill!”

Did that come from the wolf’s jaws, or in the scream of the eagle, or the wild neighing of a stallion? Did I hear it at all, or only read it in their eyes?

“You can not kill—” that was Herrel, “she is sister stock—”

Their heads swung so they looked upon me, and then to him, and again to me.

“Do you not understand what we have netted by chance? She is wise-stock—witch by blood!”

Hyron had come to the fore, was looking upon me with narrowed eyes, noting my dishevelled clothing, the wounds on my hands.

“Why came you here?” His voice was quiet, too quiet.

“I woke—I was—called—” Out of somewhere I chose that word to describe the uneasiness which had impelled me here.

“Did I not tell you?” broke in Herrel. “All of the true blood would answer when we—”

“Silence!” That carried the force of a blow in the face. I saw Herrel’s body tense, his eyes glitter. He obeyed, but only just.

“And you came where?” Hyron continued.

“Up there.” At that moment I could not have raised hand to point. I used my eyes to indicate the rise from which I had viewed their calling.

“Yet—” Hyron said slowly, “you did not fall, you climbed down in return—”

“Kill!”

Halse? Or another? But Hyron was shaking his head. “She is no meat for our rending, pack brothers. Like draws like.” He raised his hand and lined a symbol in the air between us. Green it was as if traced in the faintest curl of mist, and then that green became blue which was grey at its dying.

“So be it.” Hyron spoke those three words as if he pronounced some sentence. “Now we know—”

He did not move towards me, but Herrel did. And I yielded to his hand. Together we walked slowly, none of the Riders following closely behind, letting the distance grow between us.

“Your gate is open?”

“It is open.”

“But—”

“Now is not the time for talking. We shall have many hours for that ahead of us—”

Then he broke the moment of new silence. “I wish—” he began but did not continue, looking never at me but at the way ahead, picking out ever the easiest footing for me.

“What do you wish?” I did not really care much. I was so tired I wanted nothing but to slip into some dark place and there rest content.

“That there was more—or less—”

More or less what? I wondered mistily, not that it mattered. But to that he made no reply.

We came to the tents. The fire was dead, and there were no signs of life—the others must still sleep. Why had I not been able to share that? Since we had passed through the Throat of the Hawk I had shared nothing—nothing—

Herrel brought me back to the bed where the sword had lain between us. Weary I lay down upon it and closed my eyes. I think that I slept—or swooned—because of my great weariness of body and mind.

Had I been adept in the power born in me, but which I used only as a clumsy child would play with a weapon which could either save or harm, then I would have been armed, warned, perhaps able to defend myself against what the new night brought. But Hyron, in that testing, knew me for what I was, witch blood right enough, but unskilled, so no foe to stand against what he could summon and aim.

I had thrown away the one defence Herrel might have set between me and what they intended. Though I was not to know that for long to come.

Hyron moved quickly, and he had the backing of all the pack but one in that moving. Illusions they dealt in—but illusions may be common, or very complex. And the opening of the gate allowed them to draw upon sources of energy which had been dammed from their use for a long time.

I roused as Herrel knelt beside me, cup in his hand, concern in his face, his touch tender. He would have me drink—it was the reviving fluid which had restored me before. I could recall its taste, its spicy scent. Herrel—I put out my hand—it was so heavy—so hard to lift. Herrel’s cheek bearing my nail brand—Why had I so misused one who—one who—?

But that cheek wore no brand! Herrel—cat—Or wax it a cat’s green eyes watching me? Cat-bear—? My eyelids were so heavy I could not hold them open.

But though I could not see, yet still it would seem that hearing had not foresaken me, the dregs of my power leaving open that small channel to the outer world. I could hear movement in the tent about me. Then I was lifted, carried—

I was aloof, apart from what my ears reported.

“—fear him—”

“Him?” Laughter. “Look upon him, brothers! Can he move to raise his hand, does he even know what we now would do?”

“Yes, he will be content enough to ride with us in the morning.”

It was like that beat of their desire in the valley, but now it formed a huge, stifling cloud of will—their will—pushing me down into darkness—with no hope of struggling against it.