Andre Norton - Horn Crown

“Where?”

“Where?” she repeated, her chin lifted. “There—” Now she swung out one arm, pointed west. “I follow no trail such as you would understand. My guide lies here.” She touched her forehead between the eyes. “And here.” And this time that pointing finger dropped to her breast. “It may be that I have not the power I hoped for, still I can try—one can always try.”

“You believe this,” I answered slowly, “that Iynne blundered into ensorcellment and was taken, that you may be able to find her. After seeing that,” I motioned to the stone trap, “how can I say that anything may or may not be true in this country? But if there is a chance to find my lady and you can act as guide, then do I go also.”

She frowned at me. “This is woman’s power,” she said slowly. “I doubt that you can follow where I may lead.”

I shook my head. “I know not one power from another. I do know that it is laid on me as a debt of honor that I go where there may be a chance to aid Iynne. I think that your Wise Woman knew this of me,” I continued. “She may have thought to mislead me with her hints of Thorg, but she gave me this,” I motioned to the wallet I, too, bore, “and she did not warn me away from what I intended.”

Gathea smiled with a certain stretch of lips. I disliked that more each time I saw it.

“There is one thing Zabina understands, that many times it is useless to argue when a mind is closed. Doubtless she read that yours was—tightly.”

“As is yours, perhaps?”

Her frown grew sterner. “You guess too much.” She turned. “If you will push into such peril as you cannot begin to dream, kinless one, then come. Night is not far away and in this land it is best to find shelter.”

She started on, without another glance at me, skirting carefully about the edge of the circles, across a country which was rough going. For here had been many slides of stone, some running nearly to touch the standing pillars. Those we scrambled over (for I was close on her heels) with care, lest some tumble of them carry us out into the influence of the trap.

The cat went ahead, much to my relief, for I did not trust him, no matter how he served my companion. We had passed that ominous set of circles, were in the rock-covered country beyond, before we found him waiting for us under an overhanging ledge at the edge of wilderness country where a few splotches of green showed, but which was mostly rocks and upstarting ridges in a chaotic mixture of broken stone.

There was no wood for a fire. Nor would I have wanted to light one in this wilderness, drawing to us— what? Garn’s men, or things far more dangerous even than that lord in his rage? The sun seemed to linger, as if favoring us enough to allow me at least to mark every approach to the shelter Gruu had discovered. The big cat had vanished into that wilderness of rock, intent, I was sure, on hunting. Gathea and I ate sparingly of the food we carried and drank only scant mouthfuls of water. I had seen no trace of any stream in the land ahead, unless one of those splotches of growth a goodly distance away marked some spring or rain-catch basin.

We did not talk, though there were questions enough I would have liked to have asked. However she turned a shut face upon me, making it plain that her thoughts were elsewhere, so that for stubbornness of will I would not break the silence which lay between us.

Instead I continued to study the land lying ahead, attempting to mark the easiest path among those sharp upcrops and ridges. It was as desolate, and, in its way, as threatening a land as I had ever seen. That it had ever held life surprised me. Unless that circle trap had been built as a barrier against some coast invader, only the first, perhaps, of deadly surprises.

“This is not Garn’s land,” I said at last, mainly to hear my own voice, for her continued silence built the barrier higher and higher between us. If we were to go on together we must work out a way of communication so that we might front the dangers I was sure lay before us together as companions-of-the-trail at least and not as enemies standing well apart.

“It is not Tugness’s either,” Gathea surprised me with her answer. “This land lies under another rule. No, do not ask me whose—for that I cannot tell. Only here we are intruders and must go warily.”

Was she in those words obliquely agreeing to a partnership? At least there was no impatience in her voice and she no longer wore a frown. The sun banners were fading fast from the sky. Shadows reached out from the rocks before us as if they were hands to grasp and hold anything venturing near.

“This is a cursed land, and we’re the fools for taking lordship of it!” I burst out.

“Cursed, blessed, and all manner of such in between. Still we were meant to come, or that Gate would not have opened to us. Therefore there is a purpose and a reason and it is for us to discover what those may be.”

“The Gate,” I said slowly. “I know that the Bards sang it open, that also it wiped from our minds the reason why we came. Why was that done unless—My thoughts turned direly in a new direction. “Unless that was so that we might bend all our wits and strength to front new enemies here to deal with in the future not the past. Yet I wonder why we came—”

She had put away more than half her journey cake, made fast the loop latch of her wallet.

“Ask that of the Bards—but expect no answers. This land may be more blessed than cursed—”

She halted, for a sound arose into the evening air. I caught my breath. They say that the Bards, if they so wish, can sing the soul out of a man, leaving him but an empty husk. I had thought those but the idle words of men who try to add more to any story. Now the sound which arose and fell across the stone world before us was such singing as I had never heard in my life—not even when the Arch Bard Ouse sang at midsummer feasting.

Nor was this any man’s voice, but rather the soaring voices of more than one woman, reaching notes as high as any bird could carol. And it came from behind us!

I was on my feet and out from under the ledge, looking back along our pathway, only dimly aware, so bemused was I by that singing, that Gathea stood beside me so closely now that her shoulder rubbed against my own.

It was a hymn of praise—no, it was a song for lovers, beckoning. It was a trilling of victory, welcoming to safe homes those who had fought well and dared much. It was—

I could see them now. Women, yes, though their faces were mostly hidden by long hair, which stirred about them as if blown by a wind I could not feel here. Was it only long flowing hair which covered their slender bodies—or wore they robes as thin and frail as those locks which blew through the air? Silver was that hair, silver their bodies. They were far from me and yet as each one paced, singing, facing me, I thought that I caught sight of bright eyes, fire-bright, for they were the color of ruddy flames, which held steady sight in spite of the veiling of their hair.

Hand in hand they went, yet with a space between each of them as they circled—and there was another circle behind them and beyond that. Three circles! I uttered a small sound of my own.

Where the stone pillar of the trap had stood, that was where these singers now trod their way. Did I still see the pillars, or had twilight shrouded them? The silver bodies, the spinning hair, had a light of their own, thin and wan—

Still they wove then- way singing. Peace and happiness, love, longing fulfilled, life everlasting, but life of a new kind—a wondrous kind. One needed only to go to them and all this would be given. Sweeter, lower, more enticing became that song. I moved yet I had not willingly or consciously taken those steps. But I must go—