Andre Norton - Year of the Unicorn

The shaft of light set to the cord of light. Now had I desired in that last moment to seek a small and doomed moment of safety in flight, yet I would not have succeeded, for their united wills held me as fast as if I were bound to the tree. And the cord twanged, or else that small sound was sensed rather than heard.

Cold—a bite of frost so bitter and so deep that it was worse than any pain I had ever known. I stood still against the tree—or did I? For in strange double vision now I looked upon the scene as one who had no part in it. There was she who stood, and another she who lay upon the ground. Then she who stood moved forward to that company of beasts, and they ringed her around and vanished among the trees. But she who lay did not move. And now I was she who lay—and the shadows were drawing in to—

I had said fear could become so familiar it no longer was a goad. But there was that in those shadows which caused such a revulsion and terror in me that I answered with a frantic denial of them, of what I saw—And was answered by dark and no knowledge at all—

Cold-piercing cold—I had never known such cold. But cold was my portion now—cold, cold, cold—

I opened my eyes. Over me a leaden sky and from it the falling of snow. Tent—surely there was a tent—?

Slowly I moved, struggled to sit up. Memory also awoke. Those cliffs I had seen before—this was the valley which led to the gate of the Riders’ lost land. But it was empty. No tents stood, no mounts in a picket line. Snow drifted a little, but it had not quite yet hidden a ring of fire blackened stones. Fire—heat to banish this body aching cold! Fire!

I crept to those stones on hands and knees, thrust my fingers into the ashes. But they were long dead, as cold as the flesh and bone which probed them.

“Herrel—Kildas—Herrel!” I cried those names and had them echoed ghost-fashion back to me. There came no other answer. The camp, all those who had been within it—gone—utterly gone!

That this was another dream I never believed. This was the truth, and one my mind flinched from accepting. It seemed that the Riders had indeed rid themselves of one they did not want, and by the simplest of methods—leaving me behind in the wilderness.

I had two feet—I could walk—I could follow—

Swaying I got to those feet, staggering along. Only to return again to hands and knees, to crawling. And then—there it was—that unbroken cliff wall. Had there ever been a gate? After all I had not seen it. If there had it was firmly closed once more.

Cold—it was so cold—I would lie in the snow and sleep again and from that sleep there would come no waking. But sleep—sleep perhaps meant an ashen forest and the shadow that crept in to—feed! Painfully I made my way back down over the rubble. There, already powdered with snow was the furred rug on which I had lain. I shuffled to it, to find something else—my bag of simples.

My hands were so cold I could hardly feel anything my fingers handled, but somehow I brought out one of the vials, got it to my lips, sipped, waited for inner warmth to follow.

No warmth—cold—cold—As if some part of me had been frozen for all time, or else drawn out to leave an empty void into which ice had moulded. But my head cleared, my hands answered the commands of my brain with more skill.

I had the rug on which I had lain, and my bag, the travel stained clothing I wore. There was naught else—no weapon, no food. I might have been left for dead on some battlefield where the victor cared not to honour the remains of the vanquished.

Cold—so cold—

Wood, some wood left. And they had not been wise to discard my simple bag—ho, that had been a grievous mistake on their part. I was better learned in the worth of what I carried so far than they might guess.

I dragged the wood to the fire stones, laid it as best I could, and then smeared on some twigs a fingers tip of salve, to which I added drops from another vial. My hands were steady. They moved easily now. Flame answered, caught easily at the branches around. I drew as close as I might to its warmth.

Warm—on my hands, my face, my body, yes, there was warmth. But inside me, cold, cold, cold emptiness! At last I found the right word for that sense of loss. I was empty—or had been emptied! Of what? Not life, for I moved, breathed, knew not hunger and thirst, which I assuaged with handfuls of snow. The cordial from my bag had quieted the pangs of physical hunger. Still I was empty—and never would I be whole again until I was filled.

That me which the beasts had taken with them—that was what I must find again. But a dream—? No, not wholly dream, they had wrought some sorcery of their own over me when—last night—many nights ago? By all accounts sorcery could alter the wave of time itself. They had left me to the shadows in the dream world—perchance thus, they believed, to one form of death. And if that failed, as it had, then to this other death in the wilderness. Why had they so feared—or hated—me? Because I could not be ensorcelled or shaped, controlled as those others from the Dales?

“Witch.” Herrel had named me. And he had spoken as one who knew well of what he spoke.

Dame Alousan was a Wise Woman. She had known more of things outside the beliefs of the Abbey than she had ever said. In her library of old knowledge there were books, books I had understood only in part. Sorcery existed. All men knew that. It was remnants of a kind of learning from a very old day and from other peoples who lived in the Dales before the men of High Hallack came from the south to spread out among the hills. And the Were Riders—all men knew that they controlled powers and forces beyond human ken.

Some such powers were for the good of those who sought them, or they could be shaped for good or ill. And a third sort were neither good nor evil. But beyond the bonds laid by men, yea or nay. There was a flaw in the use even of good powers. That had been early impressed on me until I learned it as an undeniable lesson. For the sense of mastery such use gave the one who practised it led to a desire for more and more. And finally, unless one was strong willed enough to put aside temptation, one ventured from light into shadow, and into the dark from which there was no return.

No return—there might have been no return from that ashen wood for me. And—also there had been something rift from me there. Cold—cold—I pressed my hands tight to my breasts—so cold! Never would I be warm again, filled again—until I won back from those who had taken it that other self of mine. Won back? What chance had I of that? I would die here in the wilderness, or this part of me would die—Oh, I could keep life in me for a short period using those simples and my knowledge—but it would only stave off an inevitable end.

Cold—would I never be warm again? Never?

If only I knew a little more! If I have not been denied my birthright—birthright? Who was Gillan? Witch, Herrel had laid name to me—witch? But one who could not perform her witchery, who had power of a sort but could not use it to any great purpose—a witch who was maimed, even as Herrel had claimed to be maimed, unable to be whole. Whole?

I found myself laughing then, and that laughter was so ill a thing to hear that I covered my mouth with both hands, though my shoulders still shook with the force of those convulsions which were not mirth, were very far from human mirth.

Whole? The laughter which had torn me subsided. I must—I would be whole. Slowly I turned my body until I faced the gate which was no longer a gate. What would make me whole had vanished—behind that. But—it pulled me—it did, it did! As my body grew stronger, my mind more alert, so did I feel that pull, as well as if I could actually see a cord trailing away, leading into the stone.