Andre Norton - Horn Crown

They struck at that black-robed crone, met resistance, sprayed sideways, lapped across the altar stone and the sleeping girl. I might have loosed a fountain of light, for this radiance did not fade. Instead, the beams mingled with the moonlight, grew sharper, brighter.

The crone, with an agility which I would have thought beyond her years, hurled herself backwards once again, withdrawing from the outer wash of that light. She screamed, and the sound of her voice within my head made me cringe in turn, for it was pain such as I did not think I could bear.

Yet I stood my ground. The pressure which had brought me here was gone. I could if I wished have thrown aside the cup with its torment of fire, run from that confrontation. But in my heart I knew that I would not do. What strange battle was mine I could only guess. But I held as the light washed on and farther out.

The crone stumbled back and back. She stood now on the very edge of the pavement. There she halted as if determined to make a last stand. I well knew that she was summoning up the full force of her power. Though I had been long the prisoner of something beyond my comprehension, I was still warrior trained. I caught that small motion of her head, saw that, for a moment, her eyes did not hold on me, but had flashed to the girl.

It was my turn to attack. I so discovered that I had not lost all the ways and skills of a swordsman. An instant and I was between the crone and the girl. Also I shot a glance at the nearest of the men—would those four now move in upon me at the service of this sorceress? They were bare of body and had no weapons I could see, save those staffs they held. However, who might tell what other arms they might have which were not of my knowing at all?

The two I could see had not moved. Still they stood by the pillars, dancing from foot to foot, their eyes not for me, nor for the crone, but facing inward, though I could not be sure whether they watched Iynne or not—

A bolt of light flashed at me. I again swung up the goblet. Not only from the eyes of the Horned Lord did the answering radiance stream now, it welled from within the cup itself, fountaining into the air, sparking outwards, forming a veil between me and the crone. While on the pavement the flood of light also swirled outwards. It reached the bare feet of the nearest man. For the first time he awakened to what was happening. He twisted, his gaze breaking as he looked down at the stream now about his ankles.

Handsome he had been beyond the common; now his features writhed and moved in a sickening manner. His fine body might have been caught in a furnace of heat, shriveling, becoming stunted. He cried out like a wordless beast in agony as his staff turned into a silver flame ignited by the flood. He hurled it from him.

No man stood tall there now. Rather there crouched at the foot of the pillar a hairy, crooked thing with a great toad-wide mouth, a mixture of beast and reptile. He strove to hop or throw himself away from the flood of light that held him full captive.

I looked to the other man. He also had been wrought upon. What struggled in the morass overflowing from the cup I held was part bird, such a bird lived in no land I knew, tall as the man had been, rapacious of beak—bearing resemblance in part to those black fowl which we had seen in Garn’s dale, save that this was a giant of their species.

The crone—she retreated another step, off the moon-drenched pavement. The creeping flow of light halted at the edge of the stone, did not reach her. She was in a half crouch as if trying to overleap that rippling spread of light, still coming at me. For, though I might have baffled her for the moment, I knew that she was far from defeated. Nor was she done with whatever game she had attempted to play here.

Her mouth worked as it had when she had thrown at me those fiery curses. Only this time there were no words to be seen. Instead she brought her two hands together, and the sound which followed that gesture of flesh meeting flesh was as loud as a clap of thunder.

She was gone!

I backed against the altar. The two things at the bases of the pillars could not move in spite of their struggles. I swung around to view the other two. The radiance was creeping in their direction also. But it was not to reach and entrap them. Though they showed no sign that they could see the danger seeping toward their feet, they both suddenly snuffed out as had the crone.

Leaning back against the altar stone, I tried to view what lay outside that silver square. That I had been borne out of the other place where the Presence in the tower had sent us, I was sure. This was my own world—though what portion of it I could not begin to guess. This was certainly not that shrine in the hill above Garn’s dale. While Gathea and Gruu—where were they? Had they been left behind in that nothing place? If so—how might they be brought forth?

There was a sigh from behind me. I swung around. Iynne’s eyes were open, she was waking up, that shadow smile still on her lips, her eyes languorous, as if she had come from such a dream as no true maiden might hold in her mind.

“Iynne!”

That we must get from this place filled with a play of unknown forces was the first thought in my mind. The cup I clutched had cooled, no longer giving forth its own glare of light. Even the face on it was fading back into the dulled markings which concealed the power it wielded, in spite of my inept handling.

The girl pulled herself up on the altar stone, her motions still the slow ones of a person aroused from so deep a sleep—so far a venture into dreaming—that she did not wholly focus on what lay about her.

Her hands stroked down over her body to lie below her waist, clasped there as if they pressed against her some treasure past all believing. She began to croon softly, her eyes never lifting to mine, a soft murmur which spun me across years and distance. Just so had I heard long ago in my first childhood remembrances Iynne’s nurse soothe her charge—a sleep-song for a babe.

“Done—” Still she did not appear to see me, her gaze was either turned inward or flew out beyond this place, to fasten on a promised future richer than the moonlight, which was all that clothed her slender body. “It is done! The god has come to me and I shall bear his will. A child who shall be greater than any lord—greater—greater—” Her voice trilled away once more into that croon of a cradle song.

Were her wits utterly cleaved from her? I placed the cup carefully on the ground, shuffled from my shoulder the roll of travel cloak which had been buckled about the wallet cord. Shaking this loose I dropped it around her shoulders as she sat still on the altar stone, smiling so gently, her hands protecting the new life which she believed must lie within her body.

“A son—a son who will ride forth in time to summon Great Forces, who will draw power into his two hands and make of it what weapon is needful for the hour. Greatly have I been honored—”

“Iynne!”

I made her name as sharp a call as I could, wanting to shake her into awareness of where she was and that I was with her. Now her head jerked, turned in my direction. I saw her eyes widen and knew that the illusion which sleep had left her was breaking.

“Elron!” Recognition at last. Her hands went to the cloak, wrapping it about her swiftly. “But—” She stared around her, as if looking to see who had accompanied me here. Then she must have seen those monsters who still writhed, if now feebly, in the hold of the cup’s overpour. I saw her shock. She screamed, her voice shrill and high in the night.

“Elron! What are those?” Contentment was wiped away by a look of fear and loathing mingled. “There is—” I saw her nostrils expand, her head lift a little—”evil here! I must not be touched by that. I bear a god—a son of power within me!”