I set the stretcher down, and I drew my blade as I turned.
There were two of them, cats.
Their markings were precisely those of Siamese cats, only these were the size of tigers. Their eyes were of a solid, sun-bright yellow, pupilless. They seated themselves on their haunches as I turned, and they stared at me and did not blink.
They were about thirty paces away. I stood sideways between them and the stretcher, my blade raised.
Then the one to the left opened its mouth. I did not know whether to expect a purr or a roar. Instead, it spoke. It said, “Man, most mortal.” The voice was not human-sounding. It was too highpitched.
“Yet still it lives,” said the second, sounding much like the first.
“Slay it here,” said the first.
“What of the one who guards it with the blade I like not at all?”
“Mortal man?”
“Come find out,” I said, softly.
“It is thin, and perhaps it is old.”
“Yet it bore the other from the cairn to this place, rapidly and without rest. Let us flank it.”
I sprang forward as they moved, and the one to my right leaped toward me.
My blade split its skull and continued on into the shoulder. As I turned, yanking it free, the other swept past me, heading toward the stretcher. I swung wildly.
My blade fell upon its back and passed completely through its body. It emitted a shriek that grated like chalk on a blackboard as it fell in two pieces and began to bum. The other was burning also.
But the one I had halved was not yet dead. Its head turned toward me and those blazing eyes met my own and held them.
“I die the final death,” it said, “and so I know you, Opener. Why do you slay us?” And then the flames consumed its head.
I turned, cleaned my blade and sheathed it, picked up the stretcher, ignored all questions, and continued on.
A small knowledge had begun within me, as to what the thing was, what it had meant.
And I still sometimes see that burning cat head in dreams, and then I awaken, wet and shivering, and the night seems darker, and filled with shapes I cannot define.
The Keep of Ganelon had a moat about it, and a drawbridge, which was raised. There was a tower at each of the four comers where its high walls met. From within those walls many other towers reached even higher, tickling the bellies of low, dark clouds, occluding the early stars, casting shadows of jet down the high hill the place occupied. Several of the towers were already lighted, and the wind bore me the faint sound of voices.
I stood before the drawbridge, lowered my charge to the ground, cupped my hands about my mouth, and called out:
“Hola! Ganelon! Two travelers are stranded in the night!”
I heard the clink of metal on stone. I felt that I was being studied from somewhere above. I squinted upward, but my eyes were still far from normal.
“Who is there?” the voice came down, big and booming.
“Lance, who is wounded, and I, Corey of Cabra, who bore him here.”
I waited as he called this information to another sentry, and I heard more voices raised as the message was passed along the line.
After a pause of several minutes, a reply came back in the same manner.
Then the guard called down:
“Stay clear! We're going to lower the drawbridge! You may enter!”
The creaking began as he spoke, and in a brief time the thing banged to earth on our side of the moat. I raised my charge once more and walked across it.
Thus did I bear Sir Lancelot du Lac to the Keep of Ganelon, whom I trusted like a brother. That is to say, not at all.
There was a rush of people about me, and I found myself ringed by armed men. There was no hostility present, however, only concern. I had entered a large, cobbled courtyard, lit by torches and filled with bedrolls. I could smell sweat, smoke, horses, and the odors of cooking. A small army was bivouacked there.
Many had approached me and stood staring and murmuring, but then there came up two who were fully arrayed, as for battle, and one of them touched my shoulder.
“Come this way,” he said.
I followed and they flanked me. The ring of people parted as we passed. The drawbridge was already creaking back into place. We moved toward the main complex of dark stone.
lnside, we walked along a hallway and passed what appeared to be a reception chamber. Then we came upon a stairway. The man to my right indicated that I should mount it. On the second floor, we stopped before a heavy wooden door and the guard knocked upon it.
“Come in,” called out a voice which unfortunately seemed very familiar. We entered.
He sat at a heavy wooden table near a wide window overlooking the courtyard. He wore a brown leather jacket over a black shirt, and his trousers were also black. They were bloused over the tops of his dark boots. He had about his waist a wide belt which held a hoof-hilted dagger. A short sword lay on the table before him. His hair and beard were red, with a sprinkling of white. His eyes were dark as ebony.
He looked at me, then turned his attention to a pair of guards who entered with the stretcher.
“Put him on my bed,” he said. Then, “Roderick, tend to him.”
His physician, Roderick, was an old guy who didn't look as if he would do much harm, which relieved me somewhat. I had not fetched Lance all that distance to have him bled.
Then Ganelon turned to me once more. “Where did you find him?” he asked.
“Five leagues to the south of here.”
“Who are you?”
“They call me Corey,” I said.
He studied me too closely, and his worm-like lips twitched toward a smile beneath his mustache. “What is your part in this thing?” he asked.
“I don't know what you mean,” I said.
I had let my shoulders sag a bit. I spoke slowly, softly, and with a slight falter. My beard was longer than his, and lightened by dust. I imagined I looked like an older man. His attitude on appraisal tended to indicate that he thought I was.
“I am asking you why you helped him,” he said.
“Brotherhood of man, and all that,” I replied.
“You are a foreigner?”
I nodded.
“Well, you are welcome here for so long as you wish to stay.”
“Thanks. I will probably move on tomorrow.”
“Now join me in a glass of wine and tell me of the circumstances under which you found him.”
So I did.
Ganelon let me speak without interrupting, and those, piercing eyes of his were on me all the while. While I had always felt laceration by means of the eyeballs to be a trite expression, it did not feel so that night. He stabbed at me with them. I wondered what he knew and what he was guessing concerning me.
Then fatigue sprang and seized me by the scruff of the neck. The exertion, the wine, the warm room-all of these worked together, and suddenly it was as if I were standing off in the comer somewhere and listening to myself, watching myself, feeling dissociated. While I was capable of great exertion in short bursts, I realized that I was still very low when it came to stamina. I also noticed that my hand was trembling.
“I'm sorry,” I heard myself saying. “The day's labors are beginning to get to me...”
“Of course,” said Ganelon. “I will talk with you more on the morrow. Sleep now. Sleep well.”
Then he called in one of the guards and ordered him to conduct me to a chamber. I must have staggered on the way, because I remember the guard's hand on my elbow, steering me.
That night I slept the sleep of the dead. It was a big, black thing, about fourteen hours long.
In the morning, I ached all over.
I bathed myself. There was a basin on the high dresser, and soap and a washcloth someone had thoughtfully set beside it.
My throat felt packed with sawdust and my eyes were full of fuzz. I sat down and assessed myself.