By no will of my own did I remember. Somethings I wished I had truly forgotten—but of that there was no chance. I remembered and she learned.
“So—”
My mind seemed sucked dry, though I did not even resent that she used me so. In a dull, dim way it seemed only right that I thus vindicated to her why I intruded in a land which was hers, where there had long been peace, where my very coming had broken a slumberous, happy rest.
“This is not your place, half-man. But your seeking will drive you still. And—”
Her thought withdrew for a moment, leaving me strangely empty, feeling even more that burden of loneliness which lay on me.
“What you would do—that will drive you. Your need is not of our choice, nor can such as me mar or mend. Seek and perhaps you will find more than you now expect. All things are possible when a seed is well planted. Go in peace, though that is not what you will find, for it does not lie within you.”
Again her thought withdrew. I wanted to cry out for her not to leave me. But already the shifting curtain of light closed between us to move in a dizzying pattern, breaking into sparks which flew apart with a burst of light which left me blinded for what seemed a long moment.
Once more I stood beneath the tree, my feet planted on the ancient road. No leaves rustled above me. The tree was quite as if the life which had filled it had withdrawn. Lying at my feet was a single leaf, perfect in its shape, a bright green, as gemlike as the lady’s eyes. About its edge ran a line of red-brown like the trunk of the tree, or like her body which had shown so fair.
Some vision borne out of bodily weakness? No, that I did not believe. I stooped to pick up that one perfect leaf. It was not a tree leaf, or at least not like any I had seen or fingered before. There was weight and thickness to it, a leaf which had been carved out of some precious stone my people did not know, a leaf which would not wither, powder at last into dust, as do those which fall in an ordinary woods.
I loosed the pouch fastening of my wallet and carefully set that leaf within. For what purpose it had been given to me (for I believed firmly that it was a gift) I might not yet know, but it was a treasure which I would ever carry with me.
For a while I could not go on. I stared into that tree, until my longing at last died in the realization that what I had seen would not come again. Horror I had met on the ledge of the winged creatures; here I had met beauty, a vision which tugged at me powerfully and might never now be satisfied. In this land one swung between fear and awe, with no safe middle path.
Still, I went on down that road which wound in and out among those trees, but now no leaf voices called to me. I wanted to be away from them, for even to sight one made me aware of a loss which was an ache, not of the body, but of some inner part of me.
I did not stop to eat, though I hungered, only kept doggedly on, until, at last, I emerged from the wood into open land again. There I left the road, for that still held northward and it was westward I believed I must go. Not too far away another line of heights reached skyward, while the land before me was overgrown with brush and scattered trees. Beyond the fringe of growth something caught my full attention.
A Keep—here?
Stone walls, a tower—the building was so much like those which even the Gate’s power had not erased from my past that I could believe I had returned to the land of my birth, save that no lord’s banner flapped in the wind above that tower, no signs of life were to be seen about its walls.
I wondered once more what had led the Bards to open the Gate for us into this world. Had indeed people of my own kind once before come this way? What had we fled? Why need the knowledge of that be erased from our memories when so much else was allowed to remain? This I looked upon now might well be the hold of any of the greater lords; it was more impressive certainly than Gam’s. If it had not been built by those of my own blood then it had been the abiding place of some so like us that we might find allies here, kin in part.
The very familiarity of that fortress-hall drew me. I set a faster pace to push through the brush. There had once been fields here. Stone walls, some of them tumbled into mere scattered rubble, cut through grass and shrubs so that in my headlong path I had to climb, seeing what could have been stunted patches of grain already sun-warmed to a yellow for harvesting.
I caught a handful of the bearded heads and rubbed them in my palm, then chewed them as I had done with the harvest of fields I had known since childhood. They had a familiar taste. How close were the worlds which the Gate had bound together. At least this untended harvest would testify that seed grains which our landsmen had brought with them would grow here, promising better for the future—if the alien life did not battle against us, for invaders and strangers have no homestead rights.
As I chewed on that mouthful of grain I walked on toward the building ahead. The closer I got the more it appeared to be one of our own homesteads. I believed as I studied it that those who had built here had also had need for defense, since there were stout walls, windows which were narrow and well above the ground.
Only, the massive gate was not only open, but had broken free of one hinge, half of it hanging askew, allowing free entrance, making it plain that this was a deserted place. The stone from which it had been built was not native to the heights behind me, for it was of a plain rose-red displaying none of the somber veining of those rocks. Also it glinted here and there in the last rays of the sun (fast being shut off by the stand of highland beyond) as if bits of burnished silver were entrapped to give it alien beauty, belying the plainness of the structure into which it had been wrought.
Over the gate where that door hung open was a panel which flashed with even greater brilliance. Just so might the insignia of a House be set in the grander Keeps of the clans, save that this was wrought into the form, sharp against its background, of a cat, a silver and white cat like Gruu himself. The creature did not snarl defiance against any assault as one might expect by its placement—rather it sat upright, its tail curled about so that the tip lay snug over the forepaws.
Green eyes (as brilliant as those of my lady of the leaves) had been set skillfully in the head so one could not escape the half belief they had life, that this beast surely saw all who passed under its niche. Why, I could not tell, I brought up my right hand in a warrior’s salute to that motionless sentry who had kept faith for so long.
I pushed under the cat’s perch to a large inner courtyard. Directly facing me stood the bulk of the structure, topped by the tower, which would certainly house, not only the great hall for the assemblance of all who sheltered here once, but also the private apartments of the lord, the armory, and the special storerooms, while around the inner side of the wall were clustered smaller buildings—stables, storehouses, and some which must have been for dwellings of landsmen and servitors, barracks for my lord’s meiny, and the like.
There was no sign (save that drooping door) that time had rested any heavy hand here. From the outward show, one of our clans might well have marched within to make a home in greater comfort than they would certainly know for a score of years in the sea-girt dales. Always supposing that they did not bring down upon them such enemies as the winged ones—or those Silver Singers of the night.
I went boldly. Perhaps because this was so like a dwelling of my own people, I did not have the uneasiness which had ridden me ever since I had followed Gathea’s guidance into this sorcery-shadowed land. The door to the tower structure was wide open and there was a banking of blown earth and winter-withered leaves against it to testify that it had been more than one season since any had sought to close it.