Andre Norton - Year of the Unicorn

There was one cloak lying well away from the rest, almost to the hedge which set the boundary of the dell. The runes did not run on it as an uninterrupted edging, but rather were broken apart. For a moment I strove to see it enchanted—green—or blue—or something of them both—and on it a winged form wrought in crystals. But that glimpse was gone so quickly that I could not have sworn to it a moment later. I was drawn to it—at least it drew my eyes more than did the others. And I must make a choice at once, lest I be suspect—though why I thought that I could not tell.

So I crossed dead and frozen ground, and I picked up the cloak, holding it before me as I went on, through bare bushes and the chill of the mist, leaving yet perhaps a half score of cloaks still lying there, their spells fled, their colour vanished.

I heard voices in the mist, carefree laughter, joyful sounds. But I saw no one and when I tried to follow any of the sounds, I could not be sure of my direction. In the filmy entrapment my uneasiness grew and all the dark of dread rumour whispered in memory. The cloak between my hands was heavy, lined with the white-grey fur which was harsh to my skin. Also I was chilled, and my borrowed finery dew-wet, little protection against the mist.

A darkness within that cloud, a figure coming towards me. In that moment it was as if I were being stalked, cunningly and with no hope of escape.

Shape changers, that was the cry in one’s ears when the Were Riders were named. Man—or beast—or both? What did I face now—a darkish shadow—but it walked on two feet as a man. Did a beast’s head rest upon its shoulders? Whatever my companions had met with in that disguising fog, they had not feared, or voices would not continue to rise with so happy a ring, even though the words they spoke I could not distinguish.

I halted, holding still the cloak which grew ever heavier in my hands, dragging them down with its weight. Man, yes, the outline of the head was human, not that of a shaggy beast. And still I had clear sight, for the grey-brown cloak I held proved that.

A last whip of the fog between us was sundered and I looked upon this stranger from another breed who had come a-hunting me. He was tall, though not of the inches of a hill warrior, and slim as any untried boy on his first foraging would be slim. Smooth of face as a boy, also. Yet the green eyes beneath slanting brows were not a boy’s eyes, but weary and old, still ageless also.

Those brows slanting upward, made the eyes in turn appear angle-set in a face with a sharply pointed chin, and were matched in outline by his thick black hair which peaked on his forehead. He was neither handsome nor unhandsome by human standard, merely very different.

Though his head was bare of war-helm he wore a byrnie of chain-link, supple by his easy movements within its casing. This reached to midthigh and beneath it breeches, close fitting, of furred hide, a silvery fur shorter in the hair than the pelt which had taken my fancy at the tent though still of the same nature. His feet were booted, but also in furred leather, their colour being a shade or two the darker than his breeks. About his slender waist was a belt of some soft material, fastened by a large clasp in which were set odd milky gems.

Thus did I face for the first time Herrel of the Were Riders, whose cast cloak I had gathered to me, though not through the same weave spell as intended.

“My-my lord?” I used the address courteous, since he did not seem disposed to break the silence between us.

He smiled, almost wryly.

“My lady.” he returned and there was a kind of mockery in his voice, but I did not feel it was turned upon me. “It would seem that I have woven better than was deemed possible, since that is my cloak you bring.” He reached out and took it from me. “I am Herrel,” he named himself as he shook out the folds of cloth and fur.

“I am Gillan.” I made answer, and then was at a loss as to what was expected of me. For my planning had not reached, even in fancy, beyond this point.

“Welcome, Gillan—”

Herrel swung out the cloak and brought it smoothly about my shoulders so that it covered me, from throat almost to the ground now lost in the mist.

“Thus do I claim you, Gillan—it being your wish?”

There was no mistaking the question in those last words. If this be some form of ceremony, then he was leaving me a chance of withdrawal. But I was committed now to this course.

“It is my wish, Herrel.”

He stood very still as if awaiting something more, I knew not what. And then he leaned a little towards me and asked, more sharply than he had yet spoken:

“What lies about your shoulders, Gillan?”

“A cloak of grey and brown and fur—”

It was as if he caught his breath in a swift gasp.

“And in me what do you see, Gillan?”

“A man young and still not young, wearing chain mail and furred clothing, with a belt about him buckled with silver and milk white stones, with black hair on his head—”

My words dropped one by one into a pool of quiet which was ominous. His hand came out and took from my head the bride’s veil, so swiftly and with such a jerk that it dislodged the pinning of my braids, so they loosened and fell upon my back and shoulders over the cloak he had set about me as a seal.

“Who are you?” His demand came with some of the same heat as Lord Imgry had shown at our night meeting.

“I am Gillan, beyond that I do not know.” The truth I gave him because even then I knew that the truth was his right. “A war captive from overseas, fostered among the Dales of High Hallack, and come here by my own will.”

He had dropped the veil into the mist, now his fingers moved in the air between us, sketching, I believe, some sign. There was a faint trail of light left by their moving so. But the smile was gone from his mouth and now he wore a battle-ready face.

“Cloak-bound we are—and there is no chance in that, only destiny. But this I ask of you, Gillan, if the double sight is yours—see with the outer eyes only for this while—there is danger in any other path.”

I did not know how to regain the less from the greater, but I tried fumblingly to see green grass under my feet, colour about me. And there was a period of one wavering upon the other, then I stood with rippling splendour about me, green-blue hung with crystal droplets. And Herrel wore a different face more akin to that of human-kind and strongly handsome—yet I found it in me to like his other guise the better.

He took my hand without more words and we walked from the never-never land of the mist into more green and flowering trees. There I found my companions, each companied with a man like unto Herrel, and they were seated on the grass, drinking and eating, each couple from a common plate, even as was the custom at bride feasts in the Dales.

To one side there were more men, and these were without companions, nor did the feasters appear to note them. As Herrel drew me onward we passed close to these apart and almost as one they turned to stare at us. One started forward with a muffled exclamation, and it was not a pleasantry I knew. Two of the others shouldered him back into their midst. Nor did they do aught more as we passed and Herrel brought me to a small nook between two sweet flowered bushes and then vanished, to speedily return with food and drink, set out in crystal and gold, or that which had such seeming. “Laugh,” he told me in a low voice, “put on the happiness of a bride, there are those who watch, and there is that which must be said between us which other ears—or minds—or thoughts—must not share. “

I broke a cake and held a portion to my lips. From somewhere I summoned a smile and then laughter. But in me there was a sentry now alert.