I pressed my hand harder against the wallet. If there was any power radiating out of that I needed it now! The Horn-Crowned One! Gunnora! I grasped at fragments of memory, sought to weave those into a shield.
There was a woman—there was swirling substance—there was a woman—back and forth the struggle of the Dark One who ruled this nest of evil went. Perhaps she—or it—was not aware at first of what small defense I had. The lure was still strong, my body pulled me forward, the lustful heat in me arose high and higher. I fought both myself and that illusion, tearing myself apart with a fear that I would never be able to find words for.
Once I was on my knees, crawling like the animal which more than half of me had become, toward that light and her who had managed to wholly materialize there for a longer period. Only there was no woman there—that I held to, as a dying man holds to the last spark of life. For I truly believe that had I been conquered by my body then, I would have been dead after a fashion which is too evil to think upon!
The Horn-Crowned! Kurnous—Kurnous—! I had no wine to summon him; I had nothing but a part of me and memory. To summon Gunnora in my thoughts—no! Hastily I walled that away. Gunnora, herself, had a small part of this kind of magic. To think of her would open the door again. The Hunter—the Killer—the slayer—
That figure in the light changed. No woman postured and beckoned there now. Instead there was a man, tall, well favored, and wearing on his head a crown of interlaced antlers. He had the calm, proud face of a great and well beloved lord, and he held out his hand to welcome me. Me, the kinless, the clanless. Never alone again. I need only take that hand and I would not be just liegeman, but sword brother, close kin! This was not Garn, but one infinitely above him, a lord one would follow eagerly on great quests, joining to rid the land of the shadow which lay upon it, to serve in glory! This was he I had called upon in ignorance, now come to me in all his—
Still, with my eyes fastened on him, I fumbled with the lashings of my wallet, to take that cup forth—prove that I was one pledged to him! This was how he had saved me again from the prowlers in the dark. This was—
I had the wallet open. My fingers reached in and touched the cup, my forefinger slipping into the bowl.
The man wavered. No! Not to go! I could prove—I could—
Once more he wavered. Then I saw her—that girl—she was pushing ahead of me. Her hands were up, out, she was reaching. . . .
There was no man, no Horn-Crowned warrior. There was a woman, not she who had nearly drawn me into her net, no, this was a girl, slender, lithe, her body partly covered by a moon-silver tunic which fastened on one shoulder and came to mid thigh. On her head she wore the crescent of the new moon. She was gone. The man began once more to form.
I had pulled loose the cup, held it beneath my chin, awkwardly. What ancient wisdom had come out of the past to make me aware that this was what I must do? There was nothing in that cup, still there came to my nostrils from its interior a sharp, clean scent—the leaves of certain trees, under the morning sun, the sharpness of herbs crushed beneath foot.
It was as if a veil had been swept away and I really saw!
Cloud bubbled and frothed within the oval, veiling and then revealing the form of Gruu, who lay on his side unmoving. There were streaks of red in that murk, darker shadows, as if small things wavered back and forth through it. Still Gathea moved toward it, her hands outheld. She had already passed me. However, that hold upon us which had kept us from any movement was broken now. Still cradling the cup close to me with one hand, I threw myself forward and flung out my other hand across her path when she came close to that coiling matter.
Her face was rapt, her eyes all for the frothing within the oval. At first she simply pushed against my hold as if she did not expect or know what it might be. I knew that thus, one-armed, I could not hold her back. I dropped my arm, laced fingers of my left hand instead in her belt, jerked backward myself, so brought her with me, even as a tendril of the mist reached for her.
She tripped and fell and I went with her, my body rolling over her as she began a frenzied struggle for freedom. I do not think she even knew me for who I was, but rather only as a barrier between her and what she must have. With fist, tooth and nail, she fought me, and I could but use my strength to pin her to the ground, attempt to dodge those raking nails. For I knew that the cup was my salvation and only while I held it to me, and breathed in that strange scent which still arose from it, would my head remain clear and that weaver of illusions could not take me to its self.
Somehow I held, and then hoping that it would serve her as it had me, and because I felt a little safer with my back to that oval of light, I forced the cup itself closer to her face where her head turned from side to side and she snapped her teeth as if seeking to tear my arm, as Gruu himself might do in a frenzy.
We were still caught in that struggle when—
My grip on Gathea became desperate, my hold on the cup even more. We no longer lay on the pavement of that place of darkness. There was cold so sharp that I believe no living thing could have stood it for more than the instant. Then we were in light again, a red light which leaped and flamed. As the cold had struck at us, so now did heat lick out to sear our bodies.
Gathea lay still, her eyes closed. But I could feel the quick rise and fall of her breast under gasping breaths. I raised myself to my knees and looked around. The heat was so intense it seemed that every breath I drew must black and char my lungs. There was rock under us—that, too, blistering hot, so I hastened to pull Gathea up from it, hold her against me lest she burn. I smelled singeing of hair and as I turned my head I saw Gruu, still stretched motionless nearby.
We were surrounded by a wall of flame which burned red and yellow. Now and then, as if blown by a breeze we could not ourselves feel, it sent long tongues reaching for us. The fire was bright, its wall held no breaks, so I could not see what lay beyond it. All I could think now was that our defiance had angered the tower presence so that it had abruptly banished us through some mastery of power into this prison which was like to complete the matter by reducing us swiftly to fire-blackened bones.
“Dains!” Gathea opened her eyes. They still did not focus upon me, but searched beyond. I was sure she sought whatever vision the tower presence had formed for her beguiling. She frowned as apparently true sight returned. Then she looked at me with an anger that would send me hurtling into that blazing wall if she could aim it rightly. “Dains—she was there! She called me—at last!”
She raised both hands and fended me off so sharply that I was indeed pushed too near the fire, had to jump away and to my feet. The cup I kept held of with a fierce grip.
“It was all an illusion,” I retorted. She had claimed to know so much of sorcery, why had she not seen that for herself when Gruu had been drawn, when twice I had faced what was intended to bind me also to the dark?
“What did you see?” I continued, fronting her and speaking with the heat which was not of any flame wall, but arose out of my own spirit. “Gruu went to another cat. I saw first a woman—” I was not going to go into detail there—“and then the Horn-Crowned One. You—did you see your goddess—your Moon Daughter?”
I think that Gathea had no mind to listen to me at first, that she was still so bemused over the illusion that she had only anger for me and used it to drown out my voice. She raised her hand, balled into a fist, as if she would beat me, and then as she took a step, she snagged her boot on Gruu’s limp body and fell forward, sprawling over the cat.