Here were no tapestries, no rich carvings, but Gunnora’s fancy itself had taken command. For, up from the meeting of wall and flooring around the room had risen a weaving of vines. No matter the season these retained their flowers and their fruits, mingled together, bringing the peace of the outer world in.
The second chamber was the shrine. Destree spread her towel over the end of the table to dry and surveyed the flowers on the vines.
Not blue—no—that faint shadow which had followed her out of the night forbade that. Then—she made a deliberate choice carefully plucking, by their long curls of stem, a handful of the vine’s bounty. The white blossoms which stood so often for a seeker who was not even sure of what he or she sought; the gold for the promise of harvest, which was Gunnora’s own high season.
Destree passed into the shrine. Here stood a block of pure white stone such as was to be seen nowhere else in this countryside. Its sides were carved with Gunnora’s seal—the shaft of ripe grain bound by fruited vine. She crossed quickly to that, avoiding the long couch placed directly before it, where seekers for wisdom might sleep and learn.
There was a single slender vase on the altar, shaped skillfully as the rare river lilies. Destree took from it the withered flowers of yesterday and replaced them with her handful of gold and white.
She cupped between her hands her amulet, the heritage which served her so well. Its amber felt warm, as if another hand rested within her hold.
“Lady,” she said slowly. Of course the Great One could already read what lay within her mind; still, as all her species, she clung to speech. “Lady, if there is trouble, let me serve as you have called me to do.”
She was well into her morning tasks when she heard the creaking of farm cart wheels. Stoppering the flask she had been filling, she went to the terrace outside the shrine entrance.
The road up from the village was hardly more than a track and the huge plow beast that pulled the rude cart protested from time to rime with a bellow.
Josephinia! But Destree had meant to deliver the potion herself to the farm. Trimble, the woman’s husband, tramped beside the work beast, prod ready in hand. But there also swung from his belt an axe, the edge of which gleamed after a fresh sharpening. And coming behind, bows in hand, watching alertly from side to side, were Stanwryk and Foss, the two most expert hunters of the valley.
The small procession took on, as it emerged from the curtaining wood, the appearance of travelers abroad in perilous country.
Destree was already hurrying to meet them.
“What is to do?” Her early morning premonition was now well enforced.
“Woods monster, Voice.” Trimble’s voice raised to out rumble the cart. There came a whimper, half pain, and half fear, from his wife bundled between rolls of blankets.
“Aye.” Stanwryk pushed forward eagerly. “Last night, Labert o’ th’ Mill—he heard his sheep in a pother an’ loosed Tightjaw. There is nothing living in the valley willin’ to stand up to that hound, as you well know, Voice. Only then there came such a screeching an’ to-do that Labert took to his house an’ barred his door. This morning…” He paused his spill of words and Foss took up the tale. He was always a man of few words, but today he was freer of speech than Destree had ever heard him.
“First light come and Labert was out—had his bow, he did, an’ his grandsire’s sword. In th’ graze land over th’ mill—a dead sheep, more than half eaten—an’—
Stanwryk demanded his chance again. “Tightjaw—that hound was torn in two—torn in two, I’m sayin’ an’ I seed th’ body for me-self! Just like he was no more than a rabbit under the’ wolf’s teeth. An’ that was not all, Voice. There was tracks, mind you—an’ they warn’t made by no hill cat nor bear. They was like a man’s—but a man with twice the length of foot of Trimble here.”
Trimble clumped forward a step or so. “Voice, since we was children, our paps and mams, afore us, we have heard tales of creatures of th’ Dark who hunt an’ savage all true men. This here shrine of th’ Lady, why, ’tis said it was set right here that there be a strong place of Light against the Dark from the north. But this here night thing which has come upon us, truly it be of the Dark, an’ we asks you, Voice, call now upon th’ Lady that She may hold us under Her cloak.”
“Yes,” Destree said.
How well she knew that things of evil could wander far. Her body tensed. Had she not fought with one remnant of the Black Power—that which was set to swallow the crews of ships it captured, even from other worlds than that of Estcarp? Had another gate gone wild—activated in some fashion so that it had provided a doorway for a thing from an entirely different world? Or had some skulking monstrous creature come prowling far south to establish for itself new hunting grounds? She must somehow discover which and what they faced. For these people of the valley had no defenses against any strong manifestation of the Dark.
Did she—? Her hand went to her amulet. She had the Lady, and promises between them would hold until the world’s end.
As Destree worked with Josephinia’s poor, pain-twisted body, the men waited without the shrine. But when she issued forth again having put her charge under a soothe-sleep, she found only Trimble there, striding distractedly up and down, while the draft animal sampled the sweet, high-growing grass of the shrine field. Foss and Stanwryk were gone.
“Voice!” The farmer hurried toward her, his big hands outstretched as if to wring what he wanted out of her. “What can a man do against th’ Dark Ones? Long ago our kinfolk fled ’ere to be away from such danger. Now—
Destree laid her hand gently on his shoulder. “The Lady takes care of Her own, Trimble. She will show us a way.”
He stared at her as if he wanted to accept her words as a sworn oath.
“Foss—Stanwryk—they have gone to raise th’ valley that we can form a hunt. Pacle’s hounds—” he shook his head slowly. “Voice, there has never been a hound whelped in the valley as dangerous as Tightjaw, nor as sly and clever in th’ hunt. Yet this thing took him with ease.”
He smeared the palm of his hand across his face. “Voice, those who hunt the Dark are many times fools.”
Trimble was no coward, that she well knew. He only spoke bare reason. But how many would listen to it?
“There is another way of hunting.” She glanced over her shoulder to the shrine behind. “Be sure that that will be tried.”
It was well into midday when the clamor of leashed and impatient hounds and horses’ pounding hooves, as well as one man striving to bring them to order, sounded from the cart track. Josephinia had wakened from her sleep and stretched cautiously.
“But there is only a memory of the pain now, Voice,” she said excitedly. “I am as new!”
Destree showed her a flask. “Be sure to drink of what this holds night and morn. Also eat sparingly of meat but well of that which grows in the earth through the Lady’s bounty.”
The ragged body of the assembled hunt came bursting in to shatter the peace of the shrine meadow. Slavering hounds strained at the restraint of collar and the leash. Their handlers were a motley crowd—from lads still to name themselves men to a grandsire or two, they were milling about. Foss pulled off his peaked leather cap and came directly to her.
“Voice—Hubbar’s youngest, he was down by th’ river an’ he saw a thing—a thing of hair an’ huge of body, with fangs for tearing. It was by the water laving one arm—for Tightjaw must have left his mark after all. But when Yimmy came with th’ news an’ we went there it was gone. Now we ask the Lady for arm strength and weapon strength to take it before it kills again!”