Andre Norton - Year of the Unicorn

It was all a dream—a soft dream.

I was no longer on horseback, I lay on a bed or couch. No, I stood apart and looked down upon one who lay upon a couch, one who was very pale and thin and wasted seeming. And beside her lay another, straight and lithe, well muscled, for his mail and leather had been taken from him. But he was not wasted, nor did he sleep, and the words he spoke reached me as the thin whispers of wind teased leaves. “Do as you will for our swift passing.” Smoke arose about that bed place, whirling, whirling, whirling, billowing out and the smoke touched me, wreathed about me, caught me into it so I, too, whirled, drifted, and was a part of it.

A wind within the smoke, impelling me ahead of it as if I had no more weight or substance than a leaf or petal—driving me onward through this unseeingness—this place of spectres—

Spectres? My mind, if I still possessed a mind, clung to that word—spectre.

Shadows in the smoke, things which were rooted, for I passed them, they did not float with me. And they became darker, more real—a gnarled trunk, crooked branches up flung against a hidden sky. Uneasiness grew—sometime—sometime, long ago—I had seen their like and they carried a threat of danger—evil. What danger? What evil? I willed, I reached, I caught at one of those branches, and so stayed my flight within the smoke—mist. Under my fingers that wood, if wood it could be, had a dry, dusty feel, as if dead and falling into rot.

Still the smoke drifted by and I could see only what I held to. There was no sound at all. For a space I held to my anchorage. Then I loosed my grip, was once more pulled forward in the mist, passing other branches, other trees, seeing no purpose in lingering by them.

There was—there was something I must find. It was not a tree, nor anchorage. But I must find it—yes, yes, I must find it! A raging need for that filled me, as if I had drunk it out of a cup—was a fever in me.

What did I seek, and where? Please, I must know—I must find out!

I—I must find Gillan. And who was Gillan? Witch, a whisper in the fog? Maid—bride—Gillan—I tried to open my lips and call that name, but no voice was granted me. Suddenly the fog about me thinned, the charred dead trees stood out of it, to ring me in a forest glade.

Gillan—

There was a grey-white ash on the ground and it was trackless. There were no guides to turn me this way or that. Where did one seek Gillan in this alien world?

White-grey skeleton leaves upon the trees, and silence—a brooding silence. Yet still I listened, eagerly—or fearfully—I was not certain which.

Gillan—My will sent that call questing out, though my lips did not shape the name.—Gillan, where?—

No answer, but I began to walk forward, down that aisle of trees, always the same.

Gillan!—

On and on. To this always-the-same forest there was no end. On and on and on—no end—no answer. Nor was there any change in the wan light, no rising nor setting sun, or moon, no darkening, no lighting—always the same. So I might not have walked forward but stood in the same place. Still move I did, through those endless rows of trees.

Gillan?—

Now that hunger which drove me was fed by uneasiness. What lay behind? I turned now and again to look back. All I saw was the silent forest, no movement. But—no longer was I alone among those trees—something had been attracted by the mere stir of my passing, was awake, padding to see what disturbed its world. And with it came fear.

I wanted to run, but I knew that running would bring it the quicker on my trail. So I must walk as always, hunting that to which there was no clue, while behind came something hunting—ME!

Gillan?—

I had grown so used to the unanswering silence that I was startled when this time there came an answer—or was it but a troubling of the atmosphere, a stirring? But to me it was an answer—and it lay to my right, so I turned aside from the way I had been going. But as I hurried, I knew that same troubling had alerted that which followed me. Now it was more than curious. It was aroused to a hunter’s hunger and cunning.

The trees were growing taller, thicker of girth, as if now I headed into the heart of this forest. As they towered so the light was less, I walked in gloom wherein each darker shadow could hold that which was prudent to fear.

Gillan?—

Again that answer. This time I could not mistake that it was an answer and that she I sought was somewhere ahead of me.

Now I must round trees whose trunks were like small towers of men’s building, and among them were other growths, tall plumes of ashy grey, like skeletons of ferns. These fell into thick powder when one brushed against them, leaving on the air a faint trace of the odour of very ancient corruption.

But long dead as this world seemed to me, it had its own life, was home to creatures which were not of my species. I saw a many legged thing of dull yellow flash into a fern bed. And there was something so malignant in even that small glimpse I had, that I detoured well around the spot where it had vanished, and thereafter watched the forest floor with care.

That which hunted—it was no longer alone! Others of its kind had joined it. I tried to control the panic which wished to rush me on at a blundering run through the forest, unheeding of my going. As yet, though, it seemed content to keep its distance.

Gillan?—

The answer far sharper, clearer! Close—she must foe very close. If only I did not have to weave in and out among these monstrous trees—

Among the brittle ferns began to appear great fan shaped growths which gave forth a yellowish glow as if they were carved of phosphorescent putrescence—for they had the look of rottenness frozen before it lapsed into slime. These were so unclean in seeming I tried to keep well away from any contact with them.

Finally there were no more ferns, only the stinking fans, as the odour, faint at first, grew stronger with their numbers. And it was very hard to find a path among them. Some grew horizontally from the trunks of trees, vast ledges of corruption.

Gillan?—

Surely by the answer she was just ahead! I picked my way along a corridor between noisome, shoulder high barriers of the fans and came out abruptly on the border of a lake. Or was water ever so black and still? Still? A bubble arose, broke on its surface and I swayed as the fetid gas it had released stung my nostrils, choked me.

Gillan?—

Had I only thought I had had an answer? I stood on the border of the lake, could see around its rim—the fans, the dark trunks of more trees—but there was no one there. And my last call brought only silence. A trick—a trap? I tried to listen with that sense which was not the hearing of the normal world, but here served in its stead—listening for what slunk behind. It was there—no closer—perhaps it had also halted for a space.

Again the water was troubled, but this time twin bubbles arose, an even space between them. Those were no bubbles, but eyes!—eyes regarding me, drawing—drawing—No!

I trembled, drawn forward by the willing of those eyes, rooted by my own sense of preservation. I must not be swallowed up in that mere, go to meet the death behind those eyes. There was Gillan—I must find Gillan! And the thought of her snapped the spell those eyes had thrown upon me, so I could move, not into the water as they willed, but along the shore.

For a time those eyes paralleled me and I could feel the grasp and pull of the will behind them, tearing at my resolve, trying to force me to turn, look into them—obey—until at last I made each step with the effort of one climbing a mountain cliff, but I made it.

How long did it take me to round the end of the lake, dogged by the eyes? There was no time in this land, only purpose, need and hunger and my own hunger gave me strength to pull away. I turned my back upon the turgid waters and went on into the wood once more. Had that monstrous lake dweller picked up my call and used it to draw me?