Andre Norton - Year of the Unicorn

“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?