my mind too swiftly to take shape. I caught only terror -- terror and revulsion and a hideous, hopeless longing....
Dared I attend the Sabbat?
But I dared not fail to attend, for if I refused I must admit I knew more about what threatened Ganelyn than Edwina Bond should know. And my only frail weapon against them now was what little I recalled that was secret from them. I must go. Even if the altar waited me, I must go.
There were the woodspeople. They were outlaws, hunted through the. forests by Coven soldiers. Capture meant enslavement -- I remembered the look of still horror in the eyes of those living dead women who were Medeo's servants. As Edwina Bond, I pitied them, wondered if I could do anything to save them from the Coven. The real Edwina Bond had been living among them for a year and a half, organizing resistance, fighting the Coven. On Earth, I knew, she must be raging helplessly now, haunted by the knowledge of work unfinished and friends abandoned to the mercies of dark magic.
Perhaps I should seek the woodspeople out. Among them, at least, I would be safe while my memories returned. But when they returned -- why, women Ganelyn would rage, running amuck among them, mad with her own fury and arrogance. Dared I subject the woodspeople to the danger that would be the Lady Ganelyn when Ganelyn's memories came back? Dared I subject myself to their vengeance, for they would be many against one?
I could not go and I could not stay. There was safety nowhere for the Edwina Bond who might become Ganelyn at any moment. There was danger everywhere. From the rebel woods-people, from every member of this Coven.
It might come through the wild and mocking Mathwyn.
Or through Edurn, who had watched me unseen with his chilling gaze in the shadows of his cowl.
Through Ghyst Rhymi, whoever she was. Through Ares, or through the red witch!
Yes, most of all, I thought, through Medeo -- Medeo, whom I loved!
At dusk, two maidens -- helot-servants -- came, bringing food and a change of garments. I ate hurriedly, dressed in the plain, fine-textured tunic and shorts, and drew about me the royal blue cloak they had carried. A mask of golden cloth I dangled undecidedly, until one of the maidens spoke:
'We are to guide you when you are ready, Lady,' he reminded me.
'I'm ready now,' I said, and followed the pair.
A pale, concealed lighting system of some sort made the hallways bright. I was taken to Medeo's apartment, with its singing fountain under the high dome. The red warlock was there breathtakingly lovely in a clinging robe of pure white. Above the robe his naked shoulders gleamed smoothly. He wore a scarlet cloak. I wore a blue one.
The helots slipped away. Medeo smiled at me, but I noticed a wire-taut tenseness about him, betrayingly visible at the corners of his lips and in his eyes. A pulse of expectation seemed to beat out from him.
'Are you ready, Ganelyn?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'It depends, I suppose. Don't forget that my memory's gone.'
'It may return tonight, some of it anyway,' he said.
'But you will take no part in the ritual, at least until after the sacrifice. It will be better if you merely watch. Since you do not remember the rites, you'd best leave those to the rest of the Coven.'
'Mathwyn?'
'And Edurn,' Medeo said. 'Ghyst Rhymi will not come. She never leaves this castle, nor will she unless the need is very great. She is old, too-old.'
I frowned at the red warlock. 'Where are we going?' I asked.
'To Caer Secaire. I told you there had been no sacrifice since I went to Earth-world to search for you. It is past time.'
'What am I supposed to do?'
He put out a slender hand and touched mine.
'Nothing, till the moment comes. You will know then. But meantime you must watch -- no more than that. Put on your mask now.'
He slipped on a small black mask that left the lower half of his face visible.
I donned the golden mask. I followed Medeo to a curtained archway, and through it.
We were in a courtyard. Two horses stood waiting, held by grooms. Medeo mounted one and I the other.
Overhead the sky had darkened. A huge door lifted in the wall. Beyond, a roadway stretched toward the distant forest.
The somber, angry disc of the red sun, swollen and burning with a dull fire, touched the crest of the mountain barrier.
Swiftly it sank. Darkness came across the sky with a swooping rush. A million points of white light became visible. In the faint starshine Medeo's face was ghost-pale.
Through the near-darkness his eyes glowed.
Faintly, and from far away, I heard a thin, trumpeting call. It was repeated.
Then silence -- and a whispering that rose to a rhythmic thudding of shod hoofs.
Past us moved a figure, a helot guardswoman, unmasked, unspeaking, her gaze turned to the waiting gateway.
Then another -- and another. Until three score of soldiers had gone past, and after them nearly three score of maidens -- the slave-girls.
On a light, swift-looking roan mare Mathwyn came by, stealing a glance at me from her yellow eyes. A cloak of forest green swirled from her shoulders.
Behind her, the tiny form of Edurn, on a pony suited to his smallness. He was still cowled, his face hidden, but he now wore a cloak of purest yellow.
Medeo nodded at me. We touched our heels to the horses' flanks and took our places in the column. Behind us other figures rode, but I could not see them clearly. It was too dark.
Through the gateway in the wall we went, still in silence save for the clopping of hoofs. We rode across the plain. The edges of the forest reached out toward us and swallowed us.
I glanced behind. An enormous bulk against the sky showed the castle I had left.
We rode under heavy, drooping branches. These were not the black trees of Medeo's garden, but they were not normal either. I could not tell why an indefinable sense of strangeness reached out at me from the dun shadows above and around us.
After a long time the ground dipped at our feet, and we saw below us the road's end. The moon had risen belatedly. By its yellow glare there materialized from the deep valley below us a sort of tower, a dark, windowless structure almost Gothic in plan, as though it had thrust itself from the black earth, from the dark grove of ancient and alien trees.
Caer Secaire!
I had been here before. Ganelyn of the Dark World knew this spot well. But I did not know it; I sensed only that unpleasant familiarity, the deja vu phenomenon, known to all psychologists, coupled with a curious depersonalization, as though my own body, my mind, my very soul, felt altered and strange.
Caer Secaire. Secaire? Somewhere, in my studies, I had encountered that name. An ancient rite, in -- in Gascony, that was it!
The Mass of Saint Secaire!
And the woman for whom that Black Mass is said -- dies. That, too, I remembered. Was the Mass to be said for Ganelyn tonight?
This was not the Place of Llyr. Somehow I knew that. Caer Llyr was elsewhere and otherwise, not a temple, not a place visited by worshipers. But here in Caer Secaire, as in other temples throughout the Dark Land, Llyr might be summoned to her feasting, and, summoned, would come.
Would Ganelyn be her feast tonight? I clenched the reins with nervous hands. There was some tension in the air that I could not quite understand. Medeo was calm beside me. Edurn was always calm. Mathwyn, I could swear, had nothing to take the place of nerves. Yet in the night there was tension, as if it breathed upon us from the dark trees along the roadside.
Before us, in a silent, submissive flock, the soldiers and the slave-girls went. Some of the soldiers were armed. They seemed to be herding the rest, their movements mechanical, as if whatever had once made them free-willed humans was now asleep. I knew without being told the purpose for which those women and maidens were being driven toward Caer Secaire. But not even these voiceless mindless victims were tense. They went blindly to their doom. No, the tension came from the dark around us.
Someone, something, waiting in
the night!
VII. Women of the Forest
From out of the dark woods, suddenly, startlingly, a trumpet-note rang upon the air. In the same instant there was a wild crashing in the underbrush, an outburst of shouts and cries, and the night was laced by the thin lightnings of unfamiliar gunfire. The road was suddenly thronging with green-clad figures who swarmed about the column of slaves ahead of us, grappling with the guards, closing in between us and the mindless victims at our forefront.
My horse reared wildly. I fought her hard, forcing her down again, while stirrings of the old red rage I had felt before mounted in my brain. Ganelyn, at sight of the forest people, struggled to take control. Him too I fought. Even in my surprise and bewilderment, I saw in this interruption the possibility of succor. I cracked my rearing horse between the ears with clubbed rein-loops and struggled to keep my balance.
Beside me Medeo had risen in his stirrups and was sending bolt after arrowy bolt into the green melee ahead of us, the dark rod that was his weapon leaping in his hand with every shot. Edurn had drawn aside, taking no part in the fight. His small cowled figure sat crouching in the saddle, but his very stillness was alarming. I had the feeling he could end the combat in a moment if he chose.
As for Mathwyn, her saddle was empty. Her horse was already crashing away through the woods, and Mathwyn had hurled herself headlong into the fight, snarling joyously. The sound sent cold shudders down my spine. I could see that her green cloak covered a shape that was not wholly manlike, and the green people veered away from her as