Gruck had retreated to one end of the room and stood watching her as she busied herself adding to the portion of last night’s stew and bringing out a round of the coarse bread Josephinia had left on her visit. Sawing off a hefty slice of this, she offered it to the guest, and a few moments later saw those powerful jaws chomping away on the offering.
The dark yellow cheese seemed to be relished also and the bowl of the reheated stew was eagerly reached for. Destree had put a spoon into that, wanting to know what utensils might be shared between them. It was promptly put to its proper usage.
Last of all she drew from the small cask under the far cupboard a tankard of herb-infused ale. This could be used, as she had learned long since, to relax the body, open the mind. It worked well with those of her species. Now she was daring to try it—as if it might prove a key to unlock that mind-barrier between them.
Resolutely she nodded to Chief. Well fed and now washing a paw, he withdrew to the outer door, ready to play guard as he had before when she herself had gone mind-roving. With a tankard in one hand, she held out the other to Gruck.
Wide eyes fastened on her. Perhaps it would be refused, but she knew no other way she might hope to accomplish what she knew must be done if this stranger—and maybe she herself—were to survive.
Furry fingers closed about the tankard at last. The alien stood so tall that the massive head nearly brushed the lintel of the inner door as she urged him forward. To Destree’s relief and inner joy, the light from the walls glowed brighter—the blue of summer sky, the brown of earth awaiting seed, the green of that which would come of such seeding. She drew a deep breath. Once before she had been welcomed so—on the first day she had found the shrine and dared to enter its sacred heart.
From beside her came a soft hum. Gruck held forth a paw and watched the color play across it. Destree drew her charge yet further in. They reached the lounge bed before the shrine. She motioned to that, seated herself in example.
The huge body settled beside hers. Raising the tankard, she drank three mouthfuls, enough to half-empty it. Then she nodded to the one her companion held. There was no hesitation, Gruck drank, but those strange eyes were now fastened on the altar before them.
More and more the colors spun about them, but there was no sense of vertigo, of being caught up in something which would threaten body or spirit.
Warmth, an out flowing of welcome, of peace.
Then the stirring in her mind—Goddess touch? Perhaps, but secondhand. This was not threatening, but it was very different. This time that strange thought-touch came without any fear or pain to distort it.
No hurt. Those were not her words, nor any message of Gunnora’s. Destree knew too well the aura of those.
Then more slowly, Go—go back?
A question. One she could not answer as she wished.
“A gate”—she began to form her own words—“open—shut-not open—Power gone.”
There was a feeling of withdrawal, of an empty space.
Then: Gruck must stay—here!—The latter part of that was a desolate cry, though it came by thought, not lips.
“Yes…” her feeling of peace was gone, torn asunder by what she had to say.
The feeling that she must speed on, break into that despair, struck her forcibly.
“This is the shrine of Gunnora: I am Her Voice.” Destree was not really aware that she was speaking her thoughts aloud now. “She sent me to aid you, for all living creatures of the Light are dear to Her. And Her Hand is over you and will hold you so.”
Now the mind-touch seemed to twist in his head as if someone fumbled to enter a key into an unknown lock.
I am Gruck. The pattern was rough at first and then grew more smooth. A laborer might be learning the way of a new tool. I am—there was hesitation and then the exchange continued, one who walks the woods, and tends the beasts of the Alatar. Second guardsman of the west.
A paw-hand stirred and went to his belt as if to assure him that that much remained of the past.
I found a strange stone—light shone from it—when I touched it. He was making a supreme effort now to control that time of panic that she now experienced with him, in part. There was first black nothingness and then there was HERE! I hungered for I could find no proper food and—and I killed—but without pain. The hand on his belt moved to touch a rod looped to it. There came another beast—one like one red-minded—and that I had to kill with these. He held out his hands. For I could not mind-touch it and it was akin to those beasts who are mad with the coming of deep summer.
“To defend oneself,” Destree returned carefully, “is no crime. If you had done evil you would not sit here now at the very heart of Gunnora’s place.”
To those who hunted, to you—I am so different of body that you see me as—
Destree’s mind shuddered away from a smudged picture of something indeed so monstrous that she could not believe such lived—save in the very fortress of the Dark itself.
“No!” she was quick to protest. “But, Guardsman Gruck, this I cannot hide from you: There is but one village of people in this valley. They are very simple folk, but long ago their kind were hunted by monsters and so they fled south. They remember the tales of the old days.”
His mind-touch was growing ever stronger and clearer. So I am such a monster returned to harry them? Their hunting will not cease?
Destree sighed. So had her thoughts already turned. Foss would be out and there would be killing, for she did not expect Gruck to surrender his life without battle. But if there was to be no battle?
She could not stand between the valley and the stranger. Already Foss had warned her that any influence she might have had, had waned. Nor could she expect Gunnora’s active aid. What she had now, communication with the refugee, was a mighty gift. But Gunnora was not a warwoman—all her Powers were of peace.
Therefore—there was but one answer. Gruck must go, get as far away from this valley as he could travel. Only… where?
To the west lay wasteland and the sea. But to the northeast there was rumored a land in which the Old Ones still lived, and others with them perhaps as strange in their ways as Gruck. Thus he might find welcome there.
But—Destree closed her eyes and felt the drag of great sorrow and loss—he could not go alone. All she had sought to find here, the little she had done in the name of the Light, was that to be extinguished? Death trod many trails in this land; she had skirted such before she reached this haven. Yet it was Gunnora’s will which had sent her to Gruck, and therefore she was left no choice.
I am one who knows the woodland, he cut into her dreary thoughts. I can find a place, for where there are forests to guard, then it would be as always. His head was up and he was staring again at the altar. Then he was silent.
But Destree felt it filling her, also, that outreaching which was all-encroaching. And she had known that urge from old. It had been that which brought her from the desolation of the Port of Dead Ships to this very shrine.
“There is a reason,” she said slowly, wanting to deny acceptance and knowing that she could not.
In my world—Gruck again touched his belt—there are certain orders laid upon one. Alatar says, “Go you there, let this be done,” and so it is. Nor can one turn aside from duty. I think, you who call yourself Voice, that this Lady Gunnora has already extended a blessing to me, a stranger not of Her following, so that now I am to be sped as if by the Alatar to something which must be done.
Slowly Destree nodded. She had held fiercely to her strength for many years, standing up to foul usage and facing down strong evil.