Over the arch was a broad band of smooth stone, a half circle, on which there stood out, with the same boldness of the gateway cat, a series of runes. Warning? . Welcome? dan name? I might guess but I would never know.
Again I passed on into the great hall. What remained of furnishing there was also stone. There was the dais with high-backed seats of honor—four of them—each of a sleek green stone, their backs carven with an intricate design, the details of which I could not distinguish from a distance. There was a table of the same stone, and then, running partway down the hall to make that upper table a bar across its top, a second board—this of rock matching the walls.
The place lay mainly in shadow, since the windows were high set and small. Still, near the tables I could see a massive hearth, smoke blackening up its chimney throat, nearly of a size to take a section of one of those giant forest trees. This was topped with an over-mantel supported on either side by sitting cats which out-topped me in height. That was again carved with runes which glinted brightly in spite of the lack of full light.
Curiosity, together with that odd feeling of familiarity, kept me exploring. I found chambers above, reached by a stairway set in the wall behind the chairs of honor. Those were bare, though two had fireplaces with carven mantels and rune signs. Perhaps once hangings had veiled the walls, but there were none left. Nothing lay on the floors but dust in which my trail boots left the first marking perhaps for years.
I found the kitchen, again furnished with stone tables set out for the convenience of long-vanished cooks—the wing holding this running out to join the wall on the other side of the towered inner keep. Here there was a cleverly set pipe spouting water into a long trough, something no building of my own people had ever had. I tasted the stream, found the water cold and sweet, and drank deeply. Then I returned to the hall, determined that here I would camp this night.
With the coming of dark another wonder was revealed. I had earlier noted that the runes above the fireplace had seemed over bright in the general gloom of the long hall. Now, as that grew darker, they in turn grew brighter. When I examined them as closely as I could (for the panel was set far above my head) I could see there were small scenes carved in and among those, coming to life with the runes.
I made out pictures of hunts. Still, there were no hunters who might be termed men. Rather cats crept, leaped, brought down the prey. And such prey! I had no difficulty in identifying the winged thing I had fought on the ledge. And that was the least strange of the enemies pictured there. To look upon them was warning enough against venturing on into this country. Unless passing years had brought some end to them.
There was a serpent (or at least one first thought “serpent” until I saw the thing better) with a horned and tusked head reared high enough to prove the head was not mounted on a reptile’s supple length, having instead a human torso, sliding into scales once again where a man’s lower limbs might join his body. Its outstretched hands held two blades with which it menaced the cat seeking to attack it, as if it were a swordsman well versed in battle craft.
Again another cat fighter reared its own head in victory, its mouth open to give vent to what I thought might be just such a roar as I had heard Gruu utter. Under his mighty forepaw, pinned flat, a smaller creature which looked to be a mass of bristly hair leaving one root like arm which still strove to bring knotted talons of fingers to bear on its captor—or slayer.
That these representations were accounts of real past battles I believed. I considered the recklessness with which I had set out into a land which still abounded perhaps in such monstrosities. Also I remembered both Gathea and my lady Iynne at that moment, though there was nothing that I might do to help either, until I could come upon some clue as to their path.
There was no wood here that I might light a fire in the vast cave of the hearth, but I sat upon its stone to allow myself that small portion of food I had put aside for the next meal, thinking that tomorrow I would doubtless find good hunting. For surely any animals that grazed would be drawn to the fields to cull that grain. At least I might drink my fill of water and that I did.
Having eaten, I once more went up the length of the hall which was now filled with shadows, so that I drew aside now and then from some darker clot, as I would for people gathering to talk and await the coming of the lord, his signal for the evening meal. In spite of the dusk it was to me a goodly place, one which I would have been full proud to make my own—were I a lord with a clan to house and an old proud name to hold in honor. But I was kinless, nameless—and my life was as like to be as empty of all such in the future as this hall was now, a shadow clan was all I might ever hope to head.
Yet when I had come to the high table I stepped boldly onto the dais and passed along the row of chairs seeking those four set in the middle. The openwork on the backs of those bristled with no horror scenes of cats and prey, but rather was formed by mingling of fruit-bearing stems and tall grain stocks, each bordered by flowers. Those made me think again of my leaf-clad lady and wonder of what manner of folk she was. Or had it been the spirit of the tree itself which had so confronted, weighed, and judged me?
Bold again I pushed to the fourth of those chairs and seated myself, discovering that indeed they had been fashioned for someone like me physically. Hard though that stone was to the touch, yet it did not seem uncomfortable to sit upon. When I placed both elbows on the table and supported my chin on my hands to look down the length of the hall, I saw that here, too, there had been symbols set into the surface of the table itself, gleaming enough so that I could make out their curves of design. I dropped my right hand, on which still showed the brand the blood of the winged thing had left upon me, as, with fingertip, I began to trace the line of the symbol which was before me, my flesh running smoothly and swiftly along the curves and sharp angles to another curve again. Idly so, and why I could not have told, I traced that three times—
Three times—
The lines grew brighter. Perhaps my action had cleared them of clogging dust. I could see other sets, each of which lay before one of the High seats, but none of those was as clear as this.
Somewhere—from out of the very air itself—came sound. It was like the deep note of a horn. Yet there was also in it the beat of a drum. Or was it a call of many voices joined together into a single lingering note? I only knew that I had not heard its like before. In spite of myself I shrank back from the table, braced both hands now on the carved arms of the chair, staring out into the hall (for that had grown very dark), hunting the source of that sound.
Three times it was repeated. The last time I imagined that an echo, or a reply, had followed from farther away. The dark (I could not even see the gleam of those pictures above the fireplace now though their radiance had fought the general gloom from the first) closed in deeper, thicker.
I had a giddy feeling that the whole building into which I had dared intrude was in a state of change, that, though I was now blinded, strange things were happening all about me. My grip on the arms of the chair was so tight that the edges of carving cut cruelly into my hands. The dark was thick—complete. I was falling, or flying, or being drawn, into another place—perhaps another time from which change there was no escape.
11
If that blackness was some witchery, then what I awoke into was not a dream, though I wanted to believe it was. I was still in the chair of honor at that table but I looked down a hall which was alive with company— enough to fill it, vast as it was. Still, when I tried to focus clearly on any of that throng they appeared to veil themselves against my direct gaze. Thus I could only make out but a hazy outline of a form, perhaps the muted color of a robe or jerkin. Never did I see a face clearly. Also I was left with a strong impression that, while many of those forms were like my own, aliens moved easily and companionably among them—some beautiful, some grotesque.