Year of the Unicorn (32 page)

From my hand I looked to my body. No body-merely a mist through which I could see the surface whereon I rested. Then Herrel had been wrong-we had not had bodies to focus upon left here-to draw us back to our right world!

There was a shimmer-No, I had not moved-it formed beyond me, at the other side of the divan-

Herrel?

I tried to call his name. There was no answer from my throat and lips. Why should there by-I no longer possessed throat or lips! I was not Gillan for all my willing.

That shimmer which lay in Herrel's place moved. He must be sitting up.

-Herrel?-I tried to reach him by the other way as we had sometimes spoken together in the spectre world.-What has happened?-The bar of light stood upright by the divan.

-I think-I think-Slowly, painfully words came to me (and what was me?)-that they believed us dead. Our bodies have been moved elsewhere.-

Had I had then the power I would have shrieked aloud. If he spoke the truth what would now become of us?

-Come!-

-Where?-

He had already moved the door, that light which was now Herrel and no man.

-To find what we seek.-

We were back in the familiar world where there was night and day and, suitable to our state as wraiths, it was now night. These Grey Towers must be very old, old and steeped in a life afar from the Dales. It was in all I looked upon-that age and difference.

Along a short hall, and then down a stair which wound and wound about the skin of the Tower, Herrel led and I followed. I heard no sound, saw no one move. Slumber must have claimed those who abode here. And for a fleeting moment I thought of Kildas, of Solfinna, and that company among whom I had once ridden. Did they look upon these ancient walls as now I did, as a shell which held nothing of warmth or welcome? Or would they abide ever under the spells their Were mates wove, seeing only that which would make them happy and content?

We came out at last in a hallway which was paved and walled with stone. At set intervals on the walls were the carved representations of beasts. It seemed that their eyes measured and surveyed us as we passed, even as I had once been measured and studied by those long dead kings set up as Guardians on the frontier of Arvon. But of their findings concerning me I could not guess.

On we went into a space which was shadow hidden as to its width or length. At the far end light burned and towards that Herrel sped, I ever behind. Green was that light and it came from the Were flames I had seen before, those which had burned about me on the mound in the road's parting. Here, too, they burned about two who slept on one bed.

Once more I looked upon Gillan, and this was a Gillan in more splendour than I had ever seen her, or arrayed her with my own hands. She wore a robe of pleasant green overworked with silver, and among the twists of that silver 'broidery were set small milky gems, which a net of the same jewels confined her hair. Her hands were crossed on her breast, and she had, I thought, a beauty which had never been hers in life. For now that I looked down upon this sleeper it no longer seemed true that I was Gillan and this was the envelope of flesh and bone fashioned by birth to hold me.

Beside her was Herrel, his helm by his head so that his face was plainly to be seen. He wore mail and between his clasped hands rested the hilt of a bared sword.

-They do me full honour-He who stood beside me spoke soundlessly.-That honour they never granted me-awake.-

-But these, they are dead!-

-Are we? I say nay to that!-

He was so very sure. Yet when I looked upon her lying so, I thought the truth was as I said. And there was not reason to doubt it.

-Gillan!-Sharp as any warning given when an enemy creeps upon a comrade-in-arms who sees him not.-You are she. Think not otherwise or you are lost. Now!-

The shimmer moved up to those who lay there. By what feat of sorcery he wrought the next I never knew. But those upright flames nearest him bent horizontally and over them he swept me with him.

What is death? Twice in the spectre land I had tasted it, perhaps in my world this third time. But still I can not put into words what it is. If I were dead indeed when we so returned to the Towers that night, then death itself was rent asunder by what brought us there.

Gillan was again Gillan, I did not need to open my eyes to know that at long last I was whole. But I did, I raised hands across a firm body finely clad, saw the small, moon radiance of the gems I wore as they glistened with my movements. "Herrel?"

"Yes-"

He put aside his sword to hold out his hands to me, draw me close. So for a moment we were breast to breast, and I met his eager lips with a need as great as his. Then he held me off a little, his eyes searching, but his lips smiling.

"It would seem, my dearest lady, that we comrade together very well in war; now let us try that state in peace."

I laughed softly. "Right willing shall you find me for such purpose, my valiant lord!"

He slipped from the couch and then raised me to stand beside him. The long folds of the fine robe they had put on me fell heavily about my limbs, hampering my feet. I pulled at the cloth impatiently with my left hand, my right being prisoned in his.

"I go very fine," I commented. "Too fine-"

"Beauty deserves beauty. " Herrel did not say that lightly and I think my hand trembled a little for his pressure about it tightened.

"Mayhap, but I would go freer!" For suddenly those weighty robes tied me to the past, and that should be gone. I withdrew my hand from his, my fingers sought clasps and ties, and I shed that dragging magnificence, tossing back upon the empty couch its gemmed skirts, standing in the shorter under-robe.

"Shall we go?" His hand once more sought mine. "Where, my lord?"

He was smiling again. "Now that I can not answer you, for in truth I do not know. Save we shall ride away from these Towers and this company to seek our own fortune. Do you nay-say that?"

"No. Choose you a road, my dear lord, and it shall be mine. But you do not take your helm, your sword-"

"Nor this-" one-handedly he unbuckled his belt, tossed to lie with my discarded robe. By the empty pillow still rested his cat-crested helm. "Those I shall not use again." And there was such a note in his voice that I did not question him.

As two who would join some formal dance, Herrel led me by the hand down that long chamber until we came forth by another door into a courtyard where we strode under the stars and the moon. Seven great towers were about us. But nothing there moved as Herrel brought me to a stable wherein were those dun coated, shadow spotted horses of the Pack. My mare he brought out and saddled, and his own stallion, and leading them we came once more into the open. Before us was a gate.

"When we ride out, my lady, we go into the unknown-"

"Have we not travelled other unknowns, dear lord?"

"Just so!" He laughed. "So be it."

"Who goes?"

From the dusky overhang of the gate came one who wore a rearing stallion on his helm, and the moon was bright on the drawn sword in his hand.

"Yes," answered my husband, "who goes, Hyron? Give us names if you know us."

The Captain of the Were Riders looked upon us. If I had expected a sign of amaze or wonder from him, I was to be disappointed.

"So you found the way to return-" he said.

"We found it. And now we pass through another gate-" Herrel pointed to the portal behind Hyron.

"You are Were blood, these towers are your home."

Herrel shook his head. "I do not know now what I am, for we have been a journey like to change any living thing. But of these towers I am not, nor is Gillan. So we shall go to seek that which we are-for that we must learn."

Hyron was silent for a moment, and then he said in a troubled voice. "You are one of us-"

"No." for the second time Herrel repudiated his half blood.

"You will go to your mother?"

"Do you fear that? You who have chosen not to be my father?" Herrel retorted. "I tell you, I will have none of you, dame or sire. Do you think to hold the gate against us?"

Hyron stepped aside. "The choice is yours." His tone was now as emotionless as his face. He did not speak again, nor did Herrel as we rode forth. And we did not look back, but Herrel said:

"That, lady wife, was the last gate between the past and the future. And who we are, what we have now is but Gillan and Herrel-"

"Which is enough." I made him answer, and so it was.

The End

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