Andre Norton - Horn Crown

We had passed no more relics of the unknown people during the morning. The farther we had withdrawn from the circles, the emptier this land appeared, the more my spirits recovered. When I had finished replenishing our water supply I hitched my way up to the top of an out crop which helped to shelter the pocket of the spring and, shading my eyes to the sun’s glare, strove to ahead the easier of the ways which might be offered us.

During the morning the distant line on the horizon had not only risen but grown still more sharply outlined against the cloudless sky. I thought that it marked heights—perhaps even mountains. But my inner uneasiness grew. I did not care how long a head start Iynne had had, surely she could not have come this way without any supplies or aid. Had I been deceived when I had been in a manner lured away from my first belief that she was taken by Thorg? No one who was not well hardened to the trail could have beaten us this far. While Iynne had been much shielded all her life—even during our trek north when she had spent all her hours of travel within that wain which had been made the most comfortable for her alone. Garn was not in the least soft of speech or manner, but he valued his daughter, if for no other reason than for the alliance her eventual marriage would bring to his small house—he would risk nothing concerning her.

Having decided that she could not have come this way alone, I determined to have plain speech once again with Gathea, and slid down the rock, pushing through the brush to where she was washing her hands in the running water.

She did not look up at me but she spoke, startling me:

“You turn again to thoughts of Thorg. You believe that I do not know—or care—what happened to your Keep lady. Not so!” Now she did raise her head to stare at me, a fierce light in her eyes such as I have seen a hawk wear when it surveyed its own hunting territory and thought of the swift flight, the final pounce, which was to come. “I know this: There was power in the shrine which would be an open door—at the right time. Why do you think I sought it? I— I was meant to take that path! Your lady gathered up a harvest which was to be mine! She is a fool and will not know or understand what she had chanced into. But she shall not have the good of it—no, she shall not!”

“I know she could not have come this far alone,” I pushed aside her heat of voice. “She was not one who could trail so. Thus— I must have missed some sign or—”

“Or you think I have misled you? Why? She has what is mine. I will have it! If you can take her back—then I shall rejoice. I tell you she meddled ignorantly and we have yet to find the end of a trail which may never touch on the ground of this land at all!”

Gathea arose and shook the water from her hands, then ran her damp palms across her face.

“There were no signs of any mounts—” I held stubbornly to my own thought.

“There may be here such mounts as you cannot begin to dream of,” she snapped. “Or other ways of travel. I do not think that the door she found open gave on this land before us—but that its source does lie ahead.”

Because I had no answer for myself, I again had to take her word as we went on. There was no sign of Gruu. If the cat still accompanied us, he either scouted before or ranged at some distance beyond our sighting. However we were not far along from the cup of the spring before we came to a way which was some relief against the straight beams of the sun whose glare on the rocks struck back at us with a heavy heat like that of an autumn fire.

There was another cut in the broken lands, this a narrow valley. No water ran here, but as we dropped into it we found that in places the stone walls arose to arch across the way and there was cooler air, which now and then puffed full into our faces, as if a wind deliberately chose to make our way easier. Also the floor of this cleft was free of any falls of stone from the rim and ran almost as straight as a road westward. I searched carefully for any sign that this had been made by intent but there were no marks on the stone to suggest that man or some other intelligence had wrought this.

Gathea strode forward as if she knew exactly where she was going, and there was a need for haste. I went perhaps more slowly, keeping not only an eye on the edges of the cliff well above our heads, but an ear to listen for any sound which was not made by the pad of our own trail boots.

Perhaps because of that extra awareness I sighted what I might not have noticed had I trod in the dales or along the trail we had come from the Gate. It was neither sound nor sight, but rather uncurled within me, as might a thread of thought which I had not consciously summoned. It is difficult to describe inner awareness that has no visible existence.

Had I walked under the sun I would have thought that I was dazzled by the heat, my mind affected enough to see those mirages which travelers are supposed to view in desert lands—often to their destruction if they are beguiled to leave the trail. Only there was not enough heat here. In fact, the farther we advanced, the more the cliffs above drew together to shade us and the oftener those wandering puffs of air came to cool our bodies.

Still—can a man form pictures in his mind alone? Scenes which were not born of memory or from some tale he had heard many times over so that the descriptions which are a part of it take on reality? I did not know— save this, which began to linger in small quick snatches of inner sight, was from no dream of mine, and certainly not out of memory.

Twice I closed my eyes for the space of three or four strides. When I did so I knew that I did not walk on naked rock in a desolate land. No, I marched with purpose along a way well known to me and there was an urgency upon me that some task hard set must be carried through, lest evil come. Nor did walls of rock rise on either hand. I saw, from the corners of my eyes (or seemed to) brilliantly colored buildings among which people moved— though I had only a flutter of shadow to mark them. When I opened eyes again I was in the cleft—and— still—that other half-sight was also with me.

Whether Gathea experienced that same strange overlay of one with another I did not know. Nor did I want to ask. There was sound in my closed-eye place also. Not the sweetness of evil such as the singers in the night had used to draw, rather this was a kind of whispering—if one could hear distant cries or orders or urging to action as whispers instead of shouting.

I think I was caught in that maze of one world upon another passage for a long time. For suddenly, when I roused, there was no longer the other scene about me; the sun was well to the west and our cleft opened out into a wide valley as green and open as the dales behind, appearing to be a land in which enchantment had no place.

Animals grazed some distance away. One, on the outskirts of that herd, raised a head on which branched horns glinted with a sheen as if they were coated with burnished silver. It was larger than the deer we had seen in the sea-girt dales, and its coat was paler, a silver-gray, marked with lines of a dark shade about the forelegs.

It gave a bellowing call and then was gone with a great leap, the rest of the herd dashing after it. But not swiftly enough, for out of the tall grass flashed a furred hunter that could only be Gruu. He brought down a younger buck, one with far less of the horned majesty of the herd’s leader, killing it by a single well-placed blow.

Thus, as we came up to the cat, he was licking eagerly at the blood, raising his head to stare at us and growl.

There was a goodly amount of meat and I found myself eager to set knife to it, to build a fire and toast strips which would be better eating by far than the dry journey cakes. However I knew better than to dispute with Gruu over the prey he had himself pulled down.