Andre Norton - Year of the Unicorn

Of that night I remember very little, waking, but of sleeping—Even now my mind shrinks from that memory. Dreams seldom linger in the mind far past the waking hour, but such dreams as haunted me that night were not the normal ones.

I ran through a forest, leaved and yet not green—but a sere and faded grey, as if the trees had died in an instant and had not thereafter lost their leaves, but only become rigid ghosts of themselves. And from behind their charred black trunks things spied upon and hunted me—never visible, yet ever there, malignant and dreadful beyond the power of words to make plain.

There was no end to that forest, nor the hunters, nor to my anguish. And there grew in me the knowledge that they were driving me to some trap or selected spot of their own wherein I would be utterly lost. I can yet feel beneath finger tips the rough bark of trees against which I leaned panting, pain a sword in my side, listening—oh, how I listened!—for any noise from those who followed. But there was no sound, just ever the knowledge they existed.

A wild hunt—though the hounds, the hunters I never saw—only the fear which preceded them drove me.

Time and time again I strove to hold to courage, to turn and face them, telling myself that fear faced is sometimes less than fear fled, but never was my courage great enough to suffer me to hold, past a quivering moment or two. And always the dead-alive trees closed about me.

Growing in me was the knowledge that the end would be horrible past all bearing—

And when I broke then and screamed madly, beating upon the trunk of the tree where I had paused, there was a murmur in my head, a murmur which was first sound and then words, and finally a message I could understand:

“Throw it away—throw it away—all will be well—” It? What was it? Sobbing with breaths which hurt, I looked first to my hands. They were scratched, bleeding, the nails torn—but they were empty.

It? What was it?

Then I looked down at my body. It was bare, no clothing left me. And it was so wasted that the bones showed clearly beneath scarred and scratched skin. But on my breast rested a small bag patterned with runes stitched on in black. Memory stirred faintly, fading before it really told me aught. I caught at the bag. That which stuffed it crunched, and from it arose a faint odour to sting my nose.

“Throw it away!” A command.

There was sound now and not only in my head. With the bag between my fingers. I turned to look upon the masks of beasts—standing manlike on their hind legs. Bear, boar, cat, wolf-beasts—and yet more, far more—far worse!

I ran, witlessly, with a pain in me which seemed to burst the ribs about my heart. From the beasts I ran, back towards that which had hunted me. And behind I heard a cat’s yowl.

Perhaps I might have died, caught in the horror of that dream. But the pressure of the bag in my clenched hand, from that spread—what? Courage? No, I was too far past the point where courage could return. I was only an animal—or less—filled with fear and a terror beyond what we call fear. But there came a kind of new energy and then an awareness that I had outrun the beasts. And after that, a small ray of hope that there would come an end to all this and perhaps it was better to face that end than go mad with terror.

I did not run any longer. I dropped, my breast heaving, under one of the dead trees, and I pressed both hands with the bag to me.

So—thus was it? Knowledge and then anger, then purpose which in turn drew upon the depths of will. My enemies were blind masks behind which men hid. Masks could be torn away—

They had overreached themselves this time, not knowing the temper of the metal they had striven to destroy. In me that metal hardened. They had not yet the breaking of me. Will—I must will myself out of here—

But so little was I used to that weapon that I fumbled. The trees—they were evil—they should be cut away—An axe lay gleaming at my feet.

No wish-axe was the answer. No—that lay elsewhere. Will—I was me—Gillan! At that naming the trees wavered. Gillan—me—I flung that thought at them. I have a will, a power—if the bag I held was in some way a key—then I would turn it. Light routs dark, I held the bag to my dry, cracked lips. Light—I will light.

The gloom beneath the shadow trees thinned. I am Gillan and elsewhere do I have a place which is mine—mine! I will it!

Green of a lamp. In my nostrils the smell of aromatic wood burning, the odour of food. Sounds—of voices, of people moving not too far away. This was the sane world, the world of which I, Gillan, was a part. I was back!

Yet I was so weary that I found it hard to raise my hand, run it along my body, which was clothed as always, under the cover of a fur lined cloak. There was the light of a cloudy winter morning about us. Outside a shelter of skins, not as formal as a tent, I saw Riders moving. Men—or beasts such as I had seen in the dead forest?

I struggled to lever myself up on my hands, straining to see those men. But between me and them came Kildas. Kildas—how long ago had it been since we had eaten together on another morning and wished each other fortune with a formal toast before answering the summons which had brought us here? I found I could not name the days, they mingled one with the other.

“Gillan.” She did not look as bemused as she had since her bridal in the field of cloaks, “how do you feel? You are fortunate that you came from such a fall with no broken bones—”

“Fall?” I repeated and stared, stupidly I am sure, into her face.

She steadied my swimming head against her shoulder, raised a brimming drinking horn to my lips, and perforce I swallowed a mouthful of its contents. Hot and spicy, yet the heat did not warm me and I shivered as if never again would my body be shielded from an icy wind.

“Do you not remember? Your mount took fright upon the slope and threw you. Since you have lain unheeding through the night.”

But what she said was so at variance with the memories now crowding in upon me, that I shook my head from side to side, awaking in it an aching. Were—were those memories born of some hurt I had taken? Evil dreams could come from fever, as well I knew—though my body was cold, not hot. A blow on the head—from that came my beast-men? No, I had seen the cat before—before we had ridden into these wastes. And I could look now and see—I raised my shaking hand to cover my eyes.

Perhaps the Riders had their own heal craft; they must have had since Herrel had said they, too, knew wounds and hurt. As Kildas urged upon me again the contents of the horn, I grew stronger. My shaking was stilled. But I was cold—so cold—and that cold was fear—

“My lord.” Kildas looked beyond my shoulder to one who had come to us. “She was wakened and, I believe, mends—”

“My gratitude to you, Lady Kildas. Ah, Gillan, how is it now wit you, dear heart?”

Hands again on my shoulders. I stiffened...afraid to turn...to look. His words meant nothing. What had happened to me? cried one inner voice. I had not feared before, I had not shrunk from his touch, I had—

I had stood apart, answered something within my mind. All this had been action I watched, which had not engulfed me in its pattern. I had now stepped from one path where I knew, or thought I knew, the trail, into another running on into darkness and fear. “I mend—from my fall, I mend.” I answered dully. “It was a sorry one.”

Not yet did I look to him; it was all I could do to not flinch from his hands upon me. “Do you think you can ride,” he continued, and now there was a difference, a more formal note, in his voice.

“Kildas—” That voice also I knew. He who called wore an eagle crested helm. Or did he sprout a bird’s cruel beak, feathers and claws?