Andre Norton - Horn Crown

I had drawn a little apart from the row of men who were asleep, waiting to take their turn at night sentry duty. I rested some distance from the wains. Thus it was that I saw in the moonlight the Wise Woman stride, tall and with a hurried step, along the sands. Behind her but a step or two came Gathea, a bundle in her arms held close to her breast, as if she carried a child or some treasure which must be closely guarded, even from the moon’s rays.

North they went along the sands and I knew that no sentry would dare to speak with them, or even perhaps let them know that he saw them passing. For it was very plain that the Wise Woman was now about some business of her own craft. Yet there was one who moved in the shadows, came to a line of rocks which were the last bit of cover before the open beach.

I edged over on my side, pushed away the cloak which covered me. It was important to me, though I did not question why, that I know who it was who had followed those two up the beach and now watched their going from his own hiding place.

Though I might not be as skilled as a Sword Brother, I had hunted game, yes, and taken much training in the methods of fighting known best to us—a sudden surprise and quick attack meaning more than any sustained battle. Now, on hands and knees, taking advantage of another upthrust tooth of rock, I found a vantage point from which I could spy upon that watcher.

For what seemed like a very long time we remained so—he in his hiding, I in mine. Then he came away from his post—for the women were gone and there was nothing to be seen under the moon now but the ever restless inward sweep of the waves. I could not see his face, but by his walk I knew him. Why had Thorg followed the Wise Woman and her handmaid? He had broken custom and would have brought on him swift punishment had he been sighted. Not perhaps from the men, but the women of his own house and clan might have set upon him, as was their right. For in the things of women’s knowledge no man might meddle and their vengeance to protect that right was keen and swift.

He was gone back toward Tugness’s camp and I did not follow him. I was left to wonder why he had dared flout custom. He could not have an eye for Gathea—the very thought of that was enough to unsteady one. Still—

I shook my head against my own wild thoughts and dozed until I was called to the last sentry go, when dawn was not far away and I was able to see the sun rise. It was an odd rising, for to seaward rested a vast bank of clouds close to the water, yet in the early morning those clouds looked solid, like an island, as far as one could see, lying offshore. There were peaks and lowlands, and all in heavy shadow so that I would have sworn one could take boat and go out to set foot on a land freshly born in the night offshore. Never had I seen such a cloudbank and it held me amazed. Then when I heard a faint clink behind me I had sword out before I swung around, and felt foolish to see Quaine standing there, his hands once more hooked in his belt, staring as I had out to sea.

I resheathed my sword as he spoke.

“One would think that land—”

“I do not know the sea,” I said. “Perhaps that is common in the dawning hereabouts.”

He shook his head. “No—it is like having the far sight Look!”

There was urgency in his voice and I followed with my eyes the hand he flung out. I had noticed that there were mountains upon that cloud land, stark against the reddening sky. Now against the side of one of those was defined more sharply than any of the other smooth contours of the cloud place, what was surely very like a keep, a square-walled fortress from which arose two towers, one a fraction shorter than the other. So complete and solid did that appear that I would have sworn the place existed. The coming of the light, though it faded the dark of the rest of the cloudbank, did not change the darkness of that blot.

It had been solid, easy to see, then it was gone! Not wafted away by the slow change and drift of clouds, but winking out, as if it were a torch of lamp which had been blown into nothingness. Still so clear was its outline in my mind that I could have taken a stick and drawn its outline on the smooth sands.

I looked to Quaine, for I was sure that this was no freak of night but something strange, perhaps a part of those wonders of this land concerning which we had been warned. Also I had so strong a feeling that somewhere the keep I had seen did exist that I was moved by a wish to search it out. I spoke part of my thought aloud:

“The keep—it—it was real—”

Quaine looked at me sharply, a look I expected mainly from Garn when I was at fault in a matter. “What did you see?” he asked and his voice was soft, like a whisper, which barely sounded above the constant wash of the waves.

“A keep, double-towered. But how could such stand upon clouds—?”

“Clouds can form many things if one watches them,” he returned. I felt ashamed as might a child who sees all that lies in a songsmith’s tale taking shape about him, making monsters from rocks, and magic by his own inner thinking.

Yet Quaine continued to stand and watch the cloud island until it was fully revealed for what it was. There had been no dark spot where that keep had been for a long time, and I could hear our camp stirring into wakefulness. Then the Sword Brother turned away from the sea and gazed again at me as if he sought in some way to search out my thoughts.

“This is a strange land.” Again he spoke very low as if he were sharing a secret. “There is much in it which we cannot understand. The wise man will leave such alone. But—” He hesitated and then continued. “To some of us curiosity is good. We have that in us which must learn more and more. Only here there are no trail guides and the fool may well vanish into his folly. Walk you with care, young Elron. I think that perhaps you are one with the Burden—”

“The Burden?” I repeated without understanding.

“The wise, or those who think them so, call it that There are others who might name, it a ‘gift.’ It is how you use it or abuse it which counts—and how you learn what you must learn. I will say this to you—do not go recklessly in this land. It is doubly perilous to those who have more than first sight.”

He strode off abruptly even as he uttered that last word of warning—a warning against what I could not tell. Nor did I understand why he spoke of a “burden” and a “gift.” I was only a very small part of my lord’s following, just as his House was a very poor and weak one. What I had mainly were the clothes on my back, the sword and mail shirt and helm which had been my father’s before me, and a thin pack of possessions in one of the wains: a ballad book of old runes which I could puzzle out, though the runes were different from those we used today; a tunic of good wool for feast days; some body linen and a belt knife, jeweled and fancifully hilted, which had been my mother’s. Certainly no burden—

As we moved out that morning I kept remembering that keep I had seen among the cloud mountains. Had Quaine seen it also? When he had asked me to tell him of my discovery he had not acknowledged it, although he had drawn my attention to it at first. The Sword Brothers had their own form of knowledge. They had explored this land before we had braved the Gate. It could be that something of what they had learned they kept to themselves, or shared only with the senior members of the council.

Still I carried with me as I rode slowly on, matching the pace of the wains, two mysteries to mull over: first why Thorg had followed the Wise Woman and her maid as if he were a spy trailing some enemy; second, what I had seen in the clouds. For a part of me stubbornly declared, past all calm reasoning, that I had seen something which was different and to be noted only because we traveled a land steeped in all that was alien to what we had always known.