I had been scared before. Now I was panicked, wild with a
nerve-destroying fright. I'm not a coward. I set up a radar transmitter
in Okinawa within ninety feet of a nest of Japs. That was something
real. I could face it. But under two suns and a pair of little moons,
with weird people I knew were not human--all right; I was a coward. I
steadied myself in the saddle, trying with every scrap of my will to
calm myself. If this was a nightmare, well, I'd had some beauties--
But it wasn't. I knew that. The frost hurting my face, the sound of
shod steel on stones, the vivid colors around me, told me I was wide
awake. Dreams are not techni-colored. And through all this I was riding
hell-for-leather, my knees gripped on the saddle, guiding the horse
with the grip of my thighs--and I'd never been on a horse's back in my
life. Rode--and rode--
We had ridden about seven miles, and stopped twice to breathe the
horses, but we were still beneath the great archway of trees. The
sky's pink sunset light had faded; the land was flooded with a blue,
fluorescent starlight, a light I'd never seen before. I strained my
eyes upward through the black foliage. I suppose I had some confused
idea of guessing _when_ I was by the stars. But the view to the
North was hidden by mountains, and I don't know one constellation
from another, with that single exception. A glance at Karamy, in this
fright, un-nerved me; I touched the reins, dropped back till I rode
between Gamine and the girl in flame-color. "Adric," the spell-singer
saluted coolly, and the girl in the winged cloak threw back her hood;
I saw dark eyes watching me from a pure, sweet young face. Before the
luminous innocence of those eyes I wanted to cry out in protest. I was
not Adric, warlock of Narabedla. I was just a poor guy named Mike, I
was just--me. I rode beside Gamine for minutes, trying to think what I
would say.
Gamine's musical voice was not raised, yet it carried perfectly to my
ears. "You seem wholly yourself again."
I didn't answer. What was there to say? Still, there seemed to be
sympathy in the sharply-edged tones. "You will remember--perhaps too
much--at the Dreamer's Keep."
"Gamine," I asked, "Who is _Narayan_?"
I saw the blue robes quiver a little; across from Gamine, I saw a
curious flickering look pass across the face of the girl in the orange
winged cloak. But Gamine's answer was perfectly even and disinterested.
"The name is not familiar to me. Have you heard it, Cynara?"
The girl did not answer, only moved her dark head a little.
"I should know," I mused. But the name _Cynara_ had touched
another of those live wires within my mind. Narayan. Cynara. Cynara and
Narayan! If I could only remember! Suddenly I turned. "Gamine--who are
you?" Gamine sat quiet, eerily motionless on the tall horse. The robed
figure seemed to blend into the starlit shadows around us. I had the
sudden feeling of having re-lived this moment before, then the veiled
shoulders twitched impatiently.
"Is this an inquisition?"
Rebuked, and stung by the arrogant voice, I touched my heel to my
horse's flank and rode forward to rejoin Karamy. Gamine! The hell with
Gamine!
For several minutes the road had been climbing, and now we topped the
summit of a little rise and abruptly the trees came to an end. By tacit
consent we all drew our horses to a walk. We stood atop the lip of a
broad bowl of land, perhaps thirty miles across, filled to the brim
with thick dark forest. Far out in this valley lay a cleared space, and
in the center of that space lay a great tower; but not a slender and
fairylike spire like the Towers of Rainbow City. This was a massive
donjon thrusting heavy shoulders upward into the moon-washed sky.
The Keep of the Dreamers.
Something in me murmured, "This is the forest where the Dreamer
walks!"--or had the murmured voice come from Gamine, motionless
behind me? Karamy rode eagerly, her face drawn tautly together, her
slim tanned hands clenched on the reins. All this while I was Mike
Kenscott--but a Mike who watched himself without knowing what he would
do next, like those puzzling nightmares where a man is both actor and
audience to some mummery being played. I watched myself say and do
things as if I were two men at once. In effect, I suppose I was....
Karamy turned in her saddle, facing me.
"Adric," she murmured, "Lead me where the Dreamer walks!"
I knew, with a sudden surety, that because of some bond between the
freed Dreamer and myself, I could do this. But again, something outside
myself told me what to say. "That bond is broken, Karamy. Did you
not break it yourself? How can I guide you then?" And for my reward
I saw unsureness leap in her cat's eyes. That shot had told. Karamy
_had_ been guessing, then!
The answer had shaken her. But this woman was a past mistress at
subtlety. She murmured, "It can be forged again. That I swear."
Ah, but I knew how far to trust even Karamy's oaths!
We had dipped down into the bowl of forest and we were riding through
thick woods, along a road that struggled windingly, with many curves
and sharp corners. Adric knew this country; his knowledge made Mike
Kenscott shiver. He had hunted here, and for no fourlegged game. As if
Karamy read my thoughts I hear her low laughter. "So. My wrist aches
for the feel of a falcon. We'll hunt here again--soon, you and I!"
I was partly bewildered by her words, but they gave me a shivering
excitement, an insidious thrill.
Behind me, I heard Gamine's chanting take on a new note. The words were
still indistinguishable, but the very tune screamed warning. A pulse
began to twitch jerkily in my neck.
Without any warning, the road twisted. Karamy and I spurred our horses
and rounded the curve in one swift, racing burst of speed--and were
fairly in the trap before we knew it.
It was the agonized whinny of my horse, and the jolt of my body
righting itself automatically from the plunging animal beneath me,
that made me realize we had ridden straight on a chevaux-de-frise. I
yelled, cursing, shouting to Karamy to get back, get back, but her own
momentum carried her on; I saw her light body fly out of the saddle and
disappear. The others, rounding the curve in a wild dash, were fairly
on the barrier already, and the place was a bedlam, a scramble, with
riderless horses milling in a melee of curses and the screaming of
women and the threshing of feet. I was out of my saddle in an instant,
thrusting Gamine's mount back from the stabbing points fixed invisibly
against the dark barrier in the road, shouting to Evarin and Idris.
Evarin leaped to my side, catching at Karamy's wild horse, while I
tore madly at the barrier where the woman had been thrown. Idris
bore down on me, mounted. "Go round!" he shouted. I plunged through
the underbrush at the side of the road, with hasty feet twice snaked
by long creepers. Past the barrier, the road lay open and deserted,
and Karamy lay in a shimmer of crumpled silk, motionless. "Gamine,
Evarin--" I bellowed, "No one's here! Quick, Karamy is hurt--"
The head and shoulders of Idris' horse thrust through the thick
brushwood. "Is she dead?" the dwarf muttered. I bent, thrusting my
hand to her breasts. "Her heart's beating. Only stunned. Get down," I
ordered. Idris scrambled, monkey-fashion, from the saddle. I lifted the
woman in my arms, but she did not move or open her eyes. Idris touched
my arm.
"Put her on the saddle," he suggested, and together we laid her across
the pommel. Suddenly, the dwarf cried out.
"What?" I asked sharply.
"I hear--"
I never knew what Idris heard. His head vanished, as if snatched away
by a giant's hand; a rough grip collared me, choking fingers clawed at
my throat, a thousand rockets went off in my head and I lay sprawling
in the brushwood, eating dust, with an elephant sitting on my chest and
threatening hands gouging my throat. My last coherent thought before
the breath went out of me, was--
"I'm waking up!"