My body seemed weightless, as fragile as a leaf caught up by the wind’s blast. I even closed my eyes, for the pressure of the dark through which we were drawn seemed painful against them, as if it would strike me permanently blind. We were drawn and that which drew us gathered strength, lapping us as lightly about as if we were encased in a net of ropes which drew tighter and tighter across and around our bodies.
Then—that feeling of rushing through the air vanished. We hung, still prisoners in the dark, for I ventured to open my eyes to see nothing. There was a purpose; I could sense it. Within me something marveled at how quickly I was able to sense the unknown. I had no teaching, as Gathea had pointed out. Then what had awakened me to this knowledge of things-which-were-not and the patterns wrought by Power?
We hung, as I say, helpless, waiting the need—or the pleasure—of a pressure so beyond my comprehension that I could not begin to guess at its nature. All that linked me to the real was my hand interlocked with Gathea’s. I wanted to ask questions, my words were smothered before they reached my lips by the heavy pressure of the black upon my chest and throat.
I think that I was not far then from retreating out of myself, seeking even death as a shelter, if one’s will can carry so far as that. The faint light which had outlined the face on the cup had vanished, perhaps blown from us during that wild journey. I could still feel it, know that, like Gathea’s hand, it was locked to me for good or ill.
There was another wrenching, we were on the move again. Once more I experienced that icy cold, that sensation of blasting through some unbelievable barrier. Now there was light—dim—gray—yet still enough to cut through the curtain, make me blink. It was below, as if we were aloft in the sky, but it grew larger, brighter, and we were falling toward it being wafted downward, upheld by will—whose will and why?
There was a shock, wrenching my body with such force that I was torn loose from Gathea. That power which imprisoned me carried me away at another angle. Now I might have looked through the eyes of a bird or some winged thing which held itself aloft by swiftly beating wings.
Below stood a circle of stone, silver bright, for there were moon’s rays across it. In the center was a block of shining white, so vividly aglow in this light that I would have hidden my eyes from its glare had I had the ability to raise my hands. Again no part of my body would obey my will. On the stone lay someone, a woman. Her hair was outspread behind her head, flowing back over the edge of the stone. She wore no clothing and at first I thought that she might be dead, for I could determine no sign of life in that quiet shape.
Now I saw that there were four pillars set at the four corners of the pavement, each bearing a moon sign—even as there had been in the shrine among the dale hills. Under each of these wavered a thin form which seemed unstable, wraithlike, weaving in and out of human outline. They thickened, became more stable the closer I was borne to their stations.
As bare of body as the woman they were plainly masculine. Each held a staff within his hands, and they did not stand steadily, but changed from one foot to another constantly, as if they marched or danced, still keeping their places. There was a shadow of excitement building here, it reached out to me, sought to enter my mind, my body.
Out of the shadows beyond that place of gleaming silver came a fifth shadow, dark, a body like a black blot which soiled the silver, tarnished the fresh cleanness of the moonlight. In my hands the cup came alive, it was warm, growing hotter. It might have been filling with anger, with outrage.
I was to be a tool, a weapon in the hands of the Dark to forge a needed spell, to turn Light awry. And I could not fight against the pressure.
That black shadow wavered and weaved in a dance which led from one of the pillar men to the next, halting for a moment before each one to throw skeletal arms high in some invocation, while each this shadow so visited became more and more real as if fresh and powerful life were drawn into it. Still all this time the woman lay on the altar bespelled or in deep slumber, knowing, I believed, nothing of what chanced.
Downward the compulsion which had pulled me here forced me now. I was close enough to see their faces—all save that of the moving shadow who made the circling about, raising the power. That I could feel, streaming about me like a swift current.
If the dancing men saw me they gave no sign of it. I had reached the ground now, my feet were on the pavement, those moon silver blocks by the altar. I looked down and saw—Iynne!
Gone was the girl who had ridden in Garn’s train. She was changed in a manner which I did not understand. Her lips, dark against the pallor of her face, showing not red, but black in the light, curved in a slight smile. I could believe that she was dreaming, finding in sleep some great happiness never experienced by the timid maid I had always known and who shrank from others, perhaps so cowed by her father’s strong possessiveness that she dared not lift her eyes unless he might order it so.
Iynne! A—sacrifice. I needed no one to tell me that. Whatever was being wrought here was no act of the Light, rather of evil—of a Dark as black as that place from which I had been drawn.
I stood, the cup between my hands, feeling its growing heat. Its metal heart might have been filled with leaping flames, so did it burn my flesh. This was its defense against what would happen here. That silver face on the side blazed, from its eyes shot brilliant spears of light—white as the moon above us—yet in their way different.
That dancing shadow, still formless in its many swaddlings of night black, save for the skeletal arms, turned from the last man and came jigging and prancing toward me. The head was hooded; I could catch no sign of a face within that shadow. Still I knew that this one was aware of my coming, that it was in league with the presence which had sent me here.
Once more those arms were flung up and out, the wide sleeves fell away from arms which were skin over bone—ancient skin, ancient bone—to uncover them near to the shoulder. The crooked fingers which might be of extreme age, long of nail, knobbed and twisted, swooped down, reaching at the cup across the sleeping girl. I held to that fiercely, knowing that in my hold alone was this talisman safe.
I set my will, not against that which brought me here, for I believed that opposed to that I would have no chance at all. Rather I strove to center what strength I had upon continued possession of the Horned Man’s goblet. To that I bent every effort.
Fingers drove nails into my flesh and I jerked free. Perhaps I had taken by surprise whatever power had sent me here as a captive, perhaps the goblet I held, and determined to go on holding, roused in me strengths I did not know that I had.
The thing which would grasp the goblet made a second attack. Now its efforts loosed the full cowl over its head. The material fell away. Another woman—a travesty of her sex. She was very old and her aging had not been by good and well sought ways. Thus her deeply wrinkled face was a mask of ancient hatreds, imprinted by vices beyond reckoning. Across a nearly bald skull straggled a few wisps of greasy white hair, and, as she opened her mouth to spit and curse at me, I saw but one or two yellow teeth, more like Gruu’s fangs than those grown in any human mouth.
She was malevolent and she was powerful. What she desired to do moved her to greater strength than I would have thought possible, judging by her bony body. Having failed in her first grab at the cup, she rounded the altar on which Iynne slept, coming straight for me, her eyes pits of rage, born of both cunning and madness, her crooked hands out to rip my face to tatters.