

The Dark World Relit

by Henrietta Kuttner

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Henrietta Kuttner

A Gender Switch Adventure

I. Fire in the Night

TO THE north thin smoke made a column against the darkening sky. Again I felt the unreasoning fear, the impulse toward nightstallion flight that had been with me for a long time now. I knew it was without reason. There was only smoke, rising from the swamps of the tangled Limberlost country, not fifty miles from Chicago, where woman has outlawed superstition with strong bonds of steel and concrete.

I knew it was only a camper's fire, yet I knew it was not. Something, far back in my mind, knew what the smoke rose from, and who stood about the fire, peering my way through the trees.

I looked away, my glance slipping around the crowded walls -- shelves bearing the random fruit of my uncle's magpie collector's instinct. Opium pipes of inlaid work and silver, golden chessmen from India, a sword...

Deep memories stirred within me -- deep panic. I was beneath the sword in two strides, tearing it from the wall, my fingers cramping hard around the hilt. Not fully aware of what I did, I found myself facing the window and the distant smoke again. The sword was in my fist, but feeling wrong, not reassuring, not as the sword ought to feel.

'Easy, Ed,' my uncle's deep voice said behind me. 'What's the matter? You look -- sort of wild.'

'It's the wrong sword,' I heard myself saying helplessly.

Then something like a mist cleared from my brain. I blinked at her stupidly, wondering what was happening to me. My voice answered.

'It isn't the sword. It should have come from Cambodia. It should have been one of the three talismans of the Fire Queen and the Water Queen. Three very great talismans -- the fruit of ƒ›cui, gathered at the time of the deluge, but still fresh -- the rattan with flowers that never fade, and the sword of Yan, the guarding spirit.'

My aunt squinted at me through pipe-smoke. She shook her head.

'You've changed, Ed,' she said in her deep, gentle voice. 'You've changed a lot. I suppose because of the war -- it's to be expected. Arid you've been sick. But you never used to be interested in things like that before. I think you spend too much time at the libraries. I'd hoped this vacation would help. The rest --'

'I don't want rest!' I said violently. 'I spent a year and a half resting in Sumatra. Doing nothing but rest in mat smelly little jungle village, waiting and waiting and waiting.'

I could see and smell it now. I could feel again the fever that had raged so long through me as I lay in the tabooed hut.

My mind went back eighteen months to the last hour when things were normal for me. It was in the closing phases of World War II, and I was flying over the Sumatran jungle. War, of course, is never good or normal, but until that one blinding moment in the air I had been an ordinary woman, sure of myself, sure of my place in the world, with no nagging fragments of memory too elusive to catch.

Then everything blanked out, suddenly and completely. I never knew what it was. There was nothing it could have been. My only injuries came when the plane struck, and they were miraculously light. But I had been whole and unhurt when the blindness and blankness came over me.

The friendly Bataks found me as I lay in the ruined plane. They brought me through a fever and a raging illness with their strange, crude, effective ways of healing, but I sometimes thought they had done me no service when they saved me. And their witch-doctor had her doubts, too.

She knew something. She worked her curious, futile charms with knotted string and rice, sweating with effort I did not understand -- then. I remembered the scarred, ugly mask looming out of the shadow, the hands moving in gestures of strange power.

'Come back, O soul, where thou are lingering in the wood, or in the hills, or by the river. See, I call thee with a toemba bras, with an egg of the fowl Rajah moelija, with the eleven healing leaves....'

'Yes, they were sorry for me at first, all of them. The witchdoctor was the first to sense something wrong and the awareness spread. I could feel it spreading, as their attitude changed. They were afraid. Not of me, I thought, but of -- what?

Before the helicopter came to take me back to civilization, the witch-doctor had told me a little. As much, perhaps, as she dared.

'You must hide, my daughter. All your life you must hide.

Something is searching for you -- 'She used a word I did not understand. '-- and it has come from the Other World, the ghostlands, to hunt you down. Remember this: all magic things must be taboo to you. And if that too fails, perhaps you may find a weapon in magic. But we cannot help you. Our powers are not strong enough for that.'

She was glad to see me go. They were all glad.

And after that, unrest. For something had changed me utterly. The fever? Perhaps. At any rate, I didn't feel like the same woman. There were dreams, memories -- haunting urgencies as if I had somehow, somewhere left some vital job unfinished.

I found myself talking more freely to my aunt.

'It was like a curtain lifting. A curtain of gauze. I saw some things more clearly \-- they seemed to have a different significance. Things happen to me now that would have seemed incredible -- before. Now they don't.

'I've traveled a lot, you know. It doesn't help. There's always something to remind me. An amulet in a pawnshop window, a knotted string, a cat's-eye opal and two figures. I see them in my dreams, over and over. And once --'

I stopped.

'Yes?' my aunt prompted softly.

'It was in New Orleans. I woke up one night and there was something in my room, very close to me. I had a gun -- a special sort of gun -- under my pillow. When I reached for it the -- call it a dog -- sprang from the window. Only it wasn't shaped quite like a dog.' I hesitated. 'There were silver bullets in the revolver,' I said.

My aunt was silent for a long moment. I knew what she was thinking.

'The other figure?' she said, finally.

'I don't know. It wears a hood. I think it's very old. And beyond these two \--'

'Yes?'

'A voice. A very sweet voice, haunting. A fire. And beyond the fire, a face I have never seen clearly.'

My aunt nodded. The darkness had drawn in; I could scarcely see her, and the smoke outside had lost itself against the shadow of night. But a faint glow still lingered beyond the trees... Or did I only imagine that?

I nodded toward the window.

'I've seen that fire before,' I told her.

'What's wrong with it? Campers make fires.'

'No. It's a Need-fire.'

'What the devil is that?'

'It's a ritual,' I said. 'Like the Midsummer fires, or the Beltane fire the Scots used to kindle. But the Need-fire is lighted only in time of calamity. It's a very old custom.'

My aunt laid down her pipe and leaned forward.

'What is it, Ed? Do you have any inkling at all?'

'Psychologically I suppose you could call it a persecution complex,' I said slowly. 'I believe in things I never used to. I think someone is trying to find me -- has found me. And is calling. Who it is I don't know. What they want I don't know. But a little while ago I found out one more thing -- this sword.'

I picked the sword up from the table.

'It isn't what I want,' I went on, 'But sometimes, when my mind is -- abstract, something from outside floats into it. Like the need for a sword. And not any sword -- just one. I don't know what the sword looks like, but I'd know if I held it in my hand.' I laughed a little. 'And if I drew it a few inches from the sheath, I could put out that fire up there as if I'd blown on it like a candleflame. And if I drew the sword all the way out -- the world would come to an end!'

My aunt nodded. After a moment, she spoke.

'The doctors,' she asked. 'What do they say?'

'I know what they would say, if I told them,' I said grimly. 'Pure insanity. If I could be sure of that, I'd feel happier. One of the dogs was killed last night, you know.'

'Of course. Old Duke. Another dog from some farm, eh?'

'Or a wolf. The same wolf that got into my room last night, and stood over me like a woman, and clipped off a lock of my hair.'

Something flamed up far away, beyond the window, and was gone in the dark. The Need-fire.

My aunt rose and stood looking down at me in the dimness. She laid a big hand on my shoulder.

'I think you're sick, Ed.'

'You think I'm crazy. Well, I may be. But I've got a hunch I'm going to know soon, one way or the other.'

I picked up the sheathed sword and laid it across my knees. We sat in silence for what seemed like a long time.

In the forest to the north, the Need-fire burned steadily. I could not see it. But its flames stirred in my blood -- dangerously -- darkly.

II. Call of the Red Warlock

I COULD not sleep. The suffocating breathlessness of late summer lay like a woollen blanket over me. Presently I went into the big room and restlessly searched for cigarettes. My uncle's voice came through an open doorway.

'All right, Ed?'

'Yeah. I can't sleep yet. Maybe I'll read.'

I chose a book at random, sank into a relaxer chair and switched on a lamp. It was utterly silent. I could not even hear the faint splashing of little waves on the lakeshore.

There was something I wanted --

A trained rifleman's hand, at need, will itch for the feeling of smooth wood and metal. Similarly, my hand was hungry for the feel of something \-- neither gun nor sword, I thought.

A weapon that I had used before. I could not remember what it was. Once I glanced at the poker leaning against the fireplace, and thought that was it; but the flash of recognition was gone instantly.

The book was a popular novel. I skimmed through it rapidly. The dim, faint, pulsing in my blood did not wane. It grew stronger, rising from sub-sensory levels. A distant excitement seemed to be growing deep in my mind.

Grimacing, I rose to return the book to its shelf. I stood there for a moment, my glance skimming over the titles. On impulse I drew out a volume I had not looked at for many years, the Book of Common Prayer.

It fell open in my hands. A sentence blazed out from the page.

I am become as it were a monster unto many.

I put back the book and returned to my chair. I was in no mood for reading. The lamp overhead bothered me, and I pressed for the switch. Instantly moonlight flooded the room -- and instantly the curious sense of expectancy was heightened, as though I had lowered a -- a barrier.

The sheathed sword still lay on the window-seat. I looked past it, to the clouded sky where a golden moon shone. Faint, far away, a glimmer showed -- the Need-fire, blazing in the swampy wilderness of the Limberlost.

And it called.

The golden square of window was hypnotic. I lay back in my chair, half-closing my eyes, while the sense of danger moved coldly within my brain. Sometimes before I had felt this call, summoning me. And always before I had been able to resist.

This time I wavered.

'The lock of hair clipped from my head -- had that given the enemy power? Superstition. My logic called it that, but a deep, inner well of conviction told me that the ancient hair-magic was not merely mummery. Since that time in Sumatra, I had been far less skeptical. And since then I had studied.

The studies were strange enough, ranging from the principles of sympathetic magic to the wild fables of lycanthropy and demonology. Yet I was amazingly quick at learning.

It was as though I took a refresher course, to remind myself of knowledge I had once known by heart. Only one subject really troubled me, and I continually stumbled across it, by roundabout references.

And that was the Force, the entity, disguised in folklore under such familiar names as the Black Woman, Satan, Lucifer, and such unfamiliar names as Kutchie, of the Australian Dieris, Tuna, of the Esquimaux, the African Abonsam, and the Swiss Stratteli.

I did no research on the Black Woman -- but I did not need to. There was a recurrent dream that I could not help identifying with the dark force that represented evil. I would be standing before a golden square of light, very much afraid, and yet straining toward some consummation that I desired. And deep down within that glowing square that would be the beginning of motion. I knew there were certain ritual gestures to be made before the ceremony could be begun, but it was difficult to break the paralysis that held me.

A square like the moon-drenched window before me -- yet not the same.

For no chill essence of fear thrust itself out at me now. Rather, the low humming I heard was soothing, gentle as a man's crooning voice.

The golden square wavered -- shook -- and little tendrils of crepuscular light fingered out toward me. Ever the low humming came, alluring and disarming.

Golden fingers -- tentacles -- they darted here and there as if puzzled. They touched lamp, table, carpet, and drew back. They -- touched me.

Swiftly they leaped forward now -- avid! I had time for a momentary pulse of alarm before they wrapped me in an embrace like golden sands of sleep. The humming grew louder. And I responded to it.

As the skin of the flayed satyr Marsyas thrilled at the sound of her native Phrygian melodies! I knew this music. I knew this -- chant!

Stole through the golden glow a crouching shadow -- not human -- with amber eyes and a bristling mane -- the shadow of a wolf.

It hesitated, glanced over its shoulder questioningly. And now another shape swam into view, cowled and gowned so that nothing of its face or body showed. But it was small -- small as a child.

Wolf and cowled figure hung in the golden mists, watching and waiting. The sighing murmur altered. Formed itself into syllables and words. Wyrds in no human tongue, but -- I knew them.

'Ganelyn! I call you, Ganelyn! By the seal in your blood -- hear me!'

Ganelyn! Surely that was my name. I knew it so well.

Yet who called me thus?

'I have called you before, but the way was not open. Now the bridge is made. Come to me, Ganelyn!'

A sigh.

The wolf glanced over a bristling shoulder, snarling. The cowled figure bent toward me. I sensed keen eyes searching me from the darkness of the hood, and an icy breath touched me.

'She has forgotten, Medeo,' said a sweet, high-pitched voice, like the tone of a child.

Again the sigh. 'Has she forgotten me? Ganelyn, Ganelyn! Have you forgotten the arms of Medeo, the lips of Medeo?'

I swung,' cradled in the golden mists, half asleep.

'She has forgotten,' the cowled figure said.

'Then let her come to me nevertheless. Ganelyn! The Need-fire burns. The gateway lies open to the Dark World. By fire and earth, and darkness, I summon you! Ganelyn!'

'She has forgotten.'

'Bring her. We have the power, now.'

The golden sands thickened. Flame-eyed wolf and robed shadow swam toward me. I felt myself lifted -- moving forward, not of my own volition.

The window swung wide. I saw the sword, sheathed and ready. I snatched up the weapon, but I could not resist that relentless tide that carried me forward. Wolf and whispering shadow drifted with me.

'To the Fire. Bring her to the Fire.'

'She has forgotten, Medeo.'

'To the Fire, Edurn. To the Fire.'

Twisted tree-limbs floated past me. Far ahead I saw a flicker. It grew larger, nearer. It was the Need-fire.

Faster the tide bore me. Toward the fire itself --

Not to Caer Llyr!

From the depths of my mind the cryptic words spewed. Amber-eyed wolf whirled to glare at me; cowled shadow swept in closer on the golden stream. I felt a chill of deadly cold drive through the curling mists.

'Caer Llyr,' the cloaked Edurn whispered in the child's sweet voice. 'She remembers Caer Llyr -- but does she remember Llyr?'

'She will remember! She has been sealed to Llyr. And, in Caer Llyr, the Place of Llyr, she will remember.'

The Need-fire was a towering pillar a few yards away. I fought against the dragging tide.

I lifted my sword \-- threw the sheath away. I cut at the golden mists that fettered me.

Under the ancient steel the shining fog-wraiths shuddered and were torn apart -- and drew back. There was a break in the humming harmony; for an instant, utter silence.-

Then \--

'Mathwyn!' the invisible whisperer cried. 'Lady Mathwyn!'

The wolf crouched, fangs bared. I aimed a cut at its snarling mask. It avoided the blow easily and sprang.

It caught the blade between its teeth and wrenched the hilt from my grip.

The golden fogs surged back, folding me in their warm embrace.

'Caer Llyr,' they murmured.

The Need-fire roared up in a scarlet fountain.

'Caer Llyr!' the flames shouted.

And out of those fires rose -- a man!

Hair dark as midnight fell softly to his knees. Under level brows he flashed one glance at me, a glance that held question and a fierce determination. He was loveliness incarnate. Dark loveliness.

Lilith. Medeo, warlock of Colchis!

And --

'The gateway closes,' the child-voice of Edeym said.

The wolf, still mouthing my sword, crouched uneasily. But the man of the fire said no word.

He held out his arms to me.

The golden clouds thrust me forward, into those white arms.

Wolf and cowled shadow sprang to flank us. The humming rose to a deep-pitched roar \-- a thunder as of crashing worlds.

'It is difficult, difficult,' Medeo said. 'Help me, Edurn. Lady Mathwyn.'

The fires died. Around us was not the moonlit wilderness of the Limberlost, but empty grayness, a featureless grayness that stretched to infinity. Not even stars showed against that blank.

And now there was fear in the voice of Edurn.

'Medeo. I have not the -- power. I stayed too long in the Earth-world.'

'Open the gate!' Medeo cried. 'Thrust it open but a little way, or we stay here between the worlds forever!'

The wolf crouched, snarling. I felt energy pouring out of her beast-body. Her brain that was not the brain of a beast.

Around us the golden clouds were dissipating.

The grayness stole in.

'Ganelyn,' Medeo said. 'Ganelyn! Help me!'

A door in my mind opened. A formless darkness stole in.

I felt that deadly, evil shadow creep through me, and submerge my mind under ebon waves.

'She has the power,' Edurn murmured. 'She was sealed to Llyr. Let her call on -- Llyr.'

'No. No. I dare not. Llyr?' But Medeo's face was turned to me questioningly.

At my feet the wolf snarled and strained, as though by sheer brute strength it might wrench open a gateway between locked worlds.

Now the black sea submerged me utterly. My thought reached out and was repulsed by the dark horror of sheer infinity, stretched forth again and \--

Touched -- something!

Llyr...Llyr!

'The gateway opens,' Edurn said.

The gray emptiness was gone. Golden clouds thinned and vanished. Around me, white pillars rose to a vault far, far above. We stood on a raised dais upon which curious designs were emblazoned.

The tide of evil which had flowed through me had vanished.

But, sick with horror and self-loathing, I dropped to my knees, one arm shielding my eyes.

I had called on \-- Llyr!

III. Locked Worlds

ACHING IN every muscle, I woke and lay motionless, staring at the low ceiling. Memory flooded back. I turned my head, realizing that I lay on a soft couch padded with silks and pillows. Across the bare, simply furnished room was a recessed window, translucent, for it admitted light, but I could see only vague blurs through it.

Seated beside me, on a three-legged stool, was the dwarfed, robed figure I knew was Edeym.

Not even now could I see the face; the shadows within the cowl were too deep. I felt the keen glint of a watchful gaze, though, and a breath of something unfamiliar -- cold and deadly. The robes were saffron, an ugly hue that held nothing of life in the harsh folds. Staring, I saw that the creature was less than four feet tall, or would have been had it stood upright.

Again I heard that sweet, childish, sexless voice.

'Will you drink, Lady Ganelyn? Or eat?'

I threw back the gossamer robe covering me and sat up. I was wearing a thin tunic of silvery softness, and trunks of the same material. Edurn apparently had not moved, but a drapery swung apart in the wall, and a woman came silently in, bearing a covered tray.

Sight of hers was reassuring. She was a big woman, sturdily muscled, and under a plumed Etruscan-styled helmet her face was tanned and strong. I thought so till I met her eyes. They were blue pools in which horror had drowned. And ancient fear, so familiar that it was almost submerged, lay deep in her gaze.

Silently she served me and in silence withdrew.

Edurn nodded toward the tray.

'Eat and drink. You will be stronger, Lady Ganelyn.'

There were meats and bread, of a sort, and a glass of colorless liquid that was not water, as I found on sampling it. I took a sip, set down the chalice, and scowled at Edurn.

'I gather that I'm not insane,' I said.

'You are not. Your soul has been elsewhere -- you have been in exile -- but you are home again now.'

'In Caer Llyr?' I asked, without quite knowing why.

Edurn shook the saffron robes.

'No. But you must remember?'

'I remember nothing. Who are you? What's happened to me?'

'You know that you are Ganelyn?'

'My name's Edwina Bond.'

'Yet you almost remembered -- at the Need-fire,' Edeym said. 'This will take time. And there is danger always. Who am I? I am Edurn -- who serves the Coven.'

'Are you \--'

'A man,' he said, in that childish, sweet voice, laughing a little. 'A very old man, the oldest of the Coven, it has shrunk from its original thirteen. There is Medeo, of course, Lady Mathwyn -- 'I remembered the wolf \-- 'Ghyst Rhymi, who has more power than any of us, but is too old to use it. And you, Lady Ganelyn, or Edwina Bond, as you name yourself. Five of us in all now. Once there were hundreds, but even I cannot remember that time, though Ghyst Rhymi can, if she would.'

I put my head in my hands.

'Good heavens, I don't know! Your words mean nothing to me. I don't even know where I am!'

'Listen,' he said, and I felt a soft touch on my shoulder. 'You must understand this. You have lost your memories.'

'That's not true.'

'It is true, Lady Ganelyn. Your true memories were erased, and you were given artificial ones. All you think you recall now, of your life on the Earth-world -- all that is false. It did not happen. At least, not to you.'

'The Earth-world? I'm not on Earth?'

'This is a different world,' he said. 'But it is your own world. You came from here originally. The Rebels, our enemies, exiled you and changed your memories.'

'That's impossible.'

'Come here,' Edurn said, and went to the window. He touched something, and the pane grew transparent. I looked over him shrouded head at a landscape I have never seen before.

Or had I?

Under a dull, crimson sun the rolling forest below lay bathed in bloody light. I was looking down from a considerable height, and could not make out details, but it seemed to me that the trees were oddly shaped and that they were moving. A river ran toward distant hills. A few white towers rose from the forest. That was all. Yet the scarlet, huge sun had told me enough. This was not the Earth I knew.

'Another planet?'

'More than that,' he said. 'Few in the Dark World know this. But I know -- and there are some others who have learned, unluckily for you. There are worlds of probability, divergent in the stream of time, but identical almost, until the branches diverge too far.'

'I don't understand that.'

'Worlds coexistent in time and space -- but separated by another dimension, the variant of probability. This is the world that might have been yours had something not happened, long ago. Originally the Dark World and the Earth-world were one, in space and time. Then a decision was made -- a very vital decision, though I am not sure what it was. From that point the time-stream branched, and two variant worlds existed where there had been only one before.

'They were utterly identical at first, except that in one of them the key decision had not been made. The results were very different. It happened hundreds of years ago, but the two variant worlds are still close together in the time stream. Eventually they will drift farther apart, and grow less like each other. Meanwhile, they are similar, so much so that a woman on the Earth-world may have her twin in the Dark World.'

'Her twin?'

'The woman she might have been, had the key decision not been made ages ago in her world. Yes, twins, Ganelyn -- Edwina Bond. Do you understand now?'

I returned to the couch and sat there, frowning.

'Two worlds, coexistent. I can understand that, yes. But I think you mean more \-- that a double for me exists somewhere.'

'You were born in the Dark World. Your double, the true Edwina Bond, was born on Earth. But we have enemies here, woods-runners, rebels, and they have stolen enough knowledge to bridge the gulf between time-variants. We ourselves learned the method only lately, though once it was well-known here, among the Coven.

'The rebels reached out across the gulf and sent you -- sent Ganelyn -- into the Earth-world so that Edwina Bond could come here, among them. They --'

'But why?' I interrupted. 'What reason could they have for that?'

Edurn turned his hooded head toward me, and I felt, not for the first time, remote chill as he fixed his unseen gaze upon my face.

'What reason?' he echoed in his sweet, cool voice. 'Think, Ganelyn. See if you remember.'

I thought, I closed my eyes and tried to submerge my conscious mind, to let the memories of Ganelyn rise up to the surface if they were there at all. I could not yet accept this preposterous thought in its entirety, but certainly it would explain a great deal if it were true. It would even explain -- I realized suddenly -- that strange blanking out in the plane over the Sumatra jungle, that moment from which everything had seemed so wrong.

Perhaps that was the moment when Edwina Bond left Earth, and Ganelyn took her place \-- both twins too stunned and helpless at the change to know what had happened, or to understand.

But this was impossible!

'I don't remember!' I said harshly. 'It can't have happened. I know who I am! I know everything that ever happened to Edwina Bond. You can't tell me that all this is only illusion. It's too clear, too real!'

'Ganelyn, Ganelyn,' Edurn crooned to me, a smile in his voice. 'Think of the rebel tribes. Try, Ganelyn. Try to remember why they did what they did to you. The woods-runners, Ganelyn -- the disobedient little women in green. The hateful women who threatened us. Ganelyn, surely you remember!'

It may have been a form of hypnotism. I thought of that later. But at that moment, a picture did swim into my mind. I could see the green-clad swarms moving through the woods, and the sight of them made me hot with sudden anger. For that instant I was Ganelyn, and a great and powerful lord, defied by these underlings not fit to tie my shoe.

'Of course you hated them,' murmured Edurn. He may have seen the look on my face. I felt the stiffness of an unfamiliar twist of feature as he spoke. I had straightened where I sat, and my shoulders had gone back arrogantly, my lip curling a feeling of scorn. So perhaps he did not read my mind at all. What I thought was plain in my face and bearing.

'Of course you punished them when you could,' he went on. 'It was your right and duty. But they duped you, Ganelyn. They were cleverer than you. They found a door that would turn on a temporal axis and thrust you into another world. On the far side of the door was Edwina Bond who did not hate them. So they opened the door.'

Edurn's voice rose slightly and in it I detected a note of mockery.

'False memories, false memories, Ganelyn. You put on Edwina Bond's past when you put on her identity. But she came into our world as she was, free of any knowledge of Ganelyn. She has given us much trouble, my friend, and much bewilderment. At first we did not guess what had gone wrong. It seemed to us that as Ganelyn vanished from our Coven, a strange new Ganelyn appeared among the rebels, organizing them to fight against her own people.' He laughed softly. 'We had to rouse Ghyst Rhymi from her sleep to aid us. But in the end, learning the method of door-opening, we came to Earth and searched for you, and found you. And brought you back. This is your world, Lady Ganelyn! Will you accept it?'

I shook my head dizzily.

'It isn't real. I'm still Edwina Bond.'

'We can bring back your true memories. And we will. They came to the surface for a moment, I think, just now. But it will take time. Meanwhile, you are one of the Coven, and Edwina Bond is back upon Earth in her old place. Remembering -- 'He laughed softly. 'Remembering, I am sure, all she left undone here. But helpless to return, or meddle again in what does not concern her. But we have needed you, Ganelyn. How badly we have needed you!'

'What can I do? I'm Edwina Bond.'

'Ganelyn can do much -- when she remembers. The Coven has fallen upon evil days. Once we were thirteen. Once there were other Covens to join us in our Sabbats. Once we ruled this whole world, under Great Llyr. But Llyr is falling asleep now. She draws farther and farther away from her worshippers. By degrees the Dark World has fallen into savagery. And, of all the Covens, only we remain, a broken circle, dwelling close to Caer Llyr where the Great One sleeps beyond her Golden Window.'

He fell silent for a moment.

'Sometimes I think that Llyr does not sleep at all,' he said. 'I think she is withdrawing, little by little, into some farther world, losing her interest in us whom she created. But she returns!' He laughed. 'Yes, she returns when the sacrifices stand before her Window. And so long as she comes back, the Coven has power to force its will upon the Dark World.

'But day by day the forest rebels grow stronger, Ganelyn. With our help, you were gathering power to oppose them -- when you vanished. We needed you then, and we need you more woman ever now. You are one of the Coven, perhaps the greatest of us all. With Mathwyn you were \--'

'Wait a minute,' I said. 'I'm still confused. Mathwyn? Was she the wolf I saw?'

'She was.'

'You spoke of her as though she were a woman.'

'She is a woman \-- at times. She is lycanthropic. A shape-changer.'

'A werewolf? That's impossible. It's a myth, a bit of crazy folklore.'

'What started the myth?' Edurn asked. 'Long ago, there were many gateways opened between the Dark World and Earth. On Earth, memories of those days survive as superstitious tales. Folklore. But with roots in reality.'

'It's superstition, nothing else,' I said flatly. 'You actually mean that werewolves, vampires and all that, exist.'

'Ghyst Rhymi could tell you more of this than I can. But we cannot wake her for such a matter. Perhaps I -- well, listen. The body is composed of cells. These are adaptable to some extent. When they are made even more adaptable, when metabolism is accelerated sporadically, werewolves come into being.'

The sweet, sexless child's voice spoke on from the shadow of the hood. I began to understand a little. On Earth, college biology had showed me instances of cells run wild -- malignant tumors and the like. And there were many cases of 'wolf-men,' with thick hair growing like a pelt over them. If the cells could adapt themselves quickly, strange things might occur.

But the bones? Specialized osseous tissue, not the rigidly brittle bones of the normal woman. A physiological structure that could, theoretically, so alter itself that it would be wolf instead of woman, was an astounding theory!

'Part of it is illusion, of course,' Edurn said. 'Mathwyn is not as bestial in form as she seems. Yet she is a shape-changer, and her form does alter.'

'But how?' I asked. 'How did she get this power?'

For the first time Edurn seemed to hesitate. 'She is -- a mutation. There are many mutations among us, here in the Dark World. Some are in the Coven, but others are elsewhere.'

'Are you a mutation?' I asked him.

'Yes.'

'A -- shape-changer?'

'No,' Edurn said, and the thin body under the robe seemed to shake a little. 'No, I cannot change my shape, Lady Ganelyn. You do not remember my -- my powers?'

'I do not.'

'Yet you may find me useful when the Rebels strike again,' he said slowly. 'Yes, there are mutations among us, and perhaps that is the chief reason why the probability-rift came ages ago. There are no mutants on Earth -- at least not our type. Mathwyn is not the only one.'

'Am I a mutant?' I asked very softly.

The cowled head shook.

'No. For no mutant may be sealed to Llyr. As you have been sealed. One of the Coven must know the key to Caer Llyr.'

The cold breath of fear touched me again. No, not fear. Horror, the deadly, monstrous breathlessness that always took me when the name of Llyr was mentioned.

I forced myself to say, 'Who is Llyr?'

There was a long silence.

'Who speaks of Llyr?' a deep voice behind me asked. 'Better not to lift that veil, Edurn!'

'Yet it may be necessary,' Edurn said.

I turned, and saw, framed against the dark portiere, the rangy, whipcord figure of a woman, clad as I was in tunic and trunks. Her red, pointed locks jutted; the half-snarling curve of her full lips reminded me of something. Agile grace was in every line of her wiry body.

Yellow eyes watched me with wry amusement.

'Pray it may not be necessary,' the woman said. 'Well, Lady Ganelyn? Have you forgotten me, too?'

'She has forgotten you, Mathwyn,' Edurn said, 'At least in this form!'

Mathwyn -- the wolf! The shape-changer!

She grinned.

'It is Sabbat tonight,' she said. 'The Lady Ganelyn must be prepared for it. Also, I think there will be trouble. However, that is Medeo's business, and he asks if Ganelyn is awake. Since she is, let us see his now.'

'Will you go with Mathwyn?' Edurn asked me.

'I suppose so,' I said. The red-hair grinned again.

'Ai, you have forgotten, Ganelyn! In the old days you'd never have trusted me behind your back with a dagger.'

'You always knew better than to strike,' Edurn said. 'If Ganelyn ever called on Llyr, it would be unfortunate for you!'

'Well, I joked,' Mathwyn said carelessly. 'My enemies must be strong enough to give me a fight so I'll wait till your memory comes back, Lady Ganelyn. Meanwhile the Coven has its back to the wall, and I need you as badly as you need me. Will you come?'

'Go with her,' Edurn said. 'You are in no danger -- wolf's bark is worse than wolf's bite -- even though this is not Caer Llyr.'

I thought I sensed a hidden threat in his words. Mathwyn shrugged and held the curtain aside to let me pass.

'Few dare to threaten a shape-changer,' she said over her shoulder.

'I dare,' Edurn said, from the enigmatic shadows of his saffron cowl. And I remembered that he was a mutant too -- though not a lycanthrope, like a red-haired werewolf striding beside me along the vaulted passage.

What was -- Edurn?

IV. Mathwyn -- and Medeo

UP TO now the true wonder of the situation had not really touched me yet. The anaesthesia of shock had dulled me. As a soldier -- caught in the white light of a flare dropped from an overhead plane -- freezes into immobility, so my mind still remained passive. Only superficial thoughts were moving there, as though, by concentration on immediate needs, I could eliminate the incredible fact that I was not on the familiar, solid ground of Earth.

But it was more than this. There was a curious, indefinable familiarity about these groined, pale-walled halls through which I strode beside Mathwyn, as there had been a queer familiarity about the twilit landscape stretching to forested distance beneath the window of my room.

Edurn -- Medeo -- the Coven.

The names had significance, like words in a language I had once known well, but had forgotten.

The half-loping, swift walk of Mathwyn, the easy swing of her muscular shoulders, the snarling smile on her red-haired lips -- these were not new to me.

She watched me furtively out of her yellow eyes. Once we paused before a red-figured drapery, and Mathwyn, hesitating, thrust the curtain aside and gestured me forward.

I took one step \-- and stopped. I looked at her.

She nodded as though satisfied. Yet there was still a question in her face.

'So you remember a little, eh? Enough to know that this isn't the way to Medeo. However, come along, for a moment. I want to talk to you.'

As I followed her up a winding stair, I suddenly realized that she had not spoken in English. But I had understood her, as I had understood Edurn and Medeo.

Ganelyn?

We were in a tower room, walled with transparent panes. There was a smoky, sour odor in the air, and gray tendrils coiled up from a brazier set in a tripod in the middle of the chamber. Mathwyn gestured me to one of the couches by the windows. She dropped carelessly beside me.

'I wonder how much you remember,' she said.

I shook my head.

'Not much. Enough not to be too -- trusting.'

'The artificial Earth-memories are still strong, then. Ghyst Rhymi said you would remember eventually, but that it would take time. The false writing on the slate of your mind will fade, and the old, true memories will come back. After a while.'

Like a palimpsest, I thought -- manuscript with two writings upon its parchment. But Ganelyn was still a stranger; I was still Edwina Bond.

'I wonder,' Mathwyn said slowly, staring at me. 'You spent much time exiled. I wonder if you have changed, basically. Always before -- you hated me, Ganelyn. Do you hate me now?'

'No,' I said. 'At least, I don't know. I think I distrust you.'

'You have reason. If you remember at all. We have always been enemies, Ganelyn, though bound together by the needs and laws of the Coven. I wonder if we need be enemies any longer?'

'It depends. I'm not anxious to make enemies -- especially here.'

Mathwyn's red brows drew together.

'Aye, that is not Ganelyn speaking! In the old days, you cared nothing about how many enemies you made. If you have changed so much, danger to us all may result.'

'My memory is gone,' I said. 'I don't understand much of this. It seems dream-like.'

Now she sprang up and restlessly paced the room. 'That's well. If you become the old Ganelyn again, we'll be enemies again. That I know. But if Earth-exile has changed you -- altered you -- we may be friends. It would be better to be friends. Medeo would not like it; I do not think Edurn would. As for Ghyst Rhymi -- 'She shrugged. 'Ghyst Rhymi is old -- old. In all the Dark World, Ganelyn, you have the most power. Or can have. But it would mean going to Caer Llyr.'

Mathwyn stooped to look into my eyes.

'In the old days, you knew what that meant. You were afraid, but you wanted the power. Once you went to Caer Llyr -- to be sealed. So there is a bond between you and Llyr -- not consummated yet. But it can be, if you wish it.'

'What is Llyr?' I asked.

'Pray that you will not remember that,' Mathwyn said. 'When Medeo talks to you -- beware when he speaks of Llyr. I may be friend of yours or enemy, Ganelyn, but for my own sake, for the sake of the Dark World -- even for the sake of the rebels -- I warn you: do not go to Caer Llyr. No matter what Medeo asks. Or promises. At least be wary till you have your memories back.'

'What is Llyr?' I said again.

Mathwyn swung around, her back to me. 'Ghyst Rhymi knows, I think. I do not. Nor do I want to. Llyr is -- is evil -- and is hungry, always. But what feeds her appetite is -- is -- 'She stopped.

'You have forgotten,' she went on after a while. 'One thing I wonder. Have you forgotten how to summon Llyr?'

I did not answer. There was a darkness in my mind, an ebon gate against which my questioning thoughts probed vainly. Llyr -- Llyr?

Mathwyn cast a handful of powdery substance into the glowing brazier.

'Can you summon Llyr?' she asked again her voice soft. 'Answer, Ganelyn. Can you?'

The sour smoke-stench grew stronger. The darkness in my head sprang apart, riven, as though a gateway had opened in the shadow. I -- recognized that deadly perfume.

I stood up, glaring at Mathwyn. I took two steps, thrust out my sandaled foot, and overturned the brazier. Embers scattered on the stone floor. The red-hair turned a startled face to me.

I reached out, gripped Mathwyn's tunic, and shook her till her teeth rattled together. Hot fury filled me -- and something more.

That Mathwyn should try her tricks on me!

A stranger had my tongue. I heard myself speaking.

'Save your spells for the slaves and helots,' I snarled. 'I tell you what I wish to tell you -- no more than that! Burn your filthy herbs elsewhere, not in my presence!'

red-haired jaw jutted. Yellow eyes flamed. Mathwyn's face altered, flesh flowing like water, dimly seen in the smoke-clouds that poured up from the scattered embers.

Yellow tusks threatened me through the gray mists.

The shape-changer made a wordless noise in her throat -- the guttural sound a beast might make. Wolf-cry! A wolf mask glared into mine!

The smoke swam away. The illusion -- illusion? -- was gone. Mathwyn, her face relaxing from its snarling lines, pulled gently free from my grip.

'You -- startled me, Lady Ganelyn,' she said smoothly. 'But I think that I have had a question answered, whether or not these herbs -- 'She nodded toward the overturned brazier. '-- had anything to do with it.'

I turned toward the doorway.

'Wait,' Mathwyn said. 'I took something from you, a while ago.'

I stopped.

The red-hair came toward me, holding out a weapon -- a bared sword.

'I took this from you when we passed through the Need-fire,' she said. 'It is yours.'

I accepted the blade.

Again I moved toward the curtained archway.

Behind me Mathwyn spoke.

'We are not enemies yet, Ganelyn,' she said gently. 'And if you are wise, you will not forget my warning. Do not go to Caer Llyr.'

I went out. Holding the sword, I hurried down the winding stairway. My feet found their path without conscious guidance. The -- intruder -- in my brain was still strong. A palimpsest. And the blurred, erased writing was becoming visible, as though treated with some strong chemical.

The writing that was my lost memory.

The castle -- how did I know it was a castle? -- was a labyrinth. Twice I passed silent soldiers standing guard, with a familiar shadow of fear in their eyes -- a shadow that, I thought, deepened as they saw me.

I went on, hurrying along a pale-amber hallway. I brushed aside a golden curtain and stepped into an oval room, dome-ceilinged, walled with pale, silken draperies. A fountain spurted, its spray cool on my cheek. Across the chamber, an archway showed the outlines of leafy branches beyond.

I went on through the arch. I stepped out into a walled garden. A garden of exotic flowers and bizarre trees.

The blooms were a riot of patternless color, like glowing jewels against the dark earth. Ruby and amethyst, crystal-clear and milky white, silver and gold and emerald, the flowers made a motionless carpet. But the trees were not motionless.

Twisted and gnarled as oaks, their black boles and branches were veiled by a luxuriant cloud of leafage, virulent green.

A stir of movement rippled through that green curtain. The trees roused to awareness.

I saw the black branches twist and writhe slowly --

Satisfied, their vigilance relaxed. They were motionless again. They -- knew me.

Beyond that evil orchard the dark sky made the glowing ember of the sun more brilliant by contrast.

The trees stirred again.

Ripples of unrest shook the green. A serpentine limb, training a veil of leaves, lashed out -- struck -- whipped back into place.

Where it had been a darting shape ran forward, ducking and twisting -- as the guardian trees struck savagely at it.

A woman, in a tight-fitting suit of earth-brown and forest-green, came running toward me, her feet trampling the jewel-flowers. Her hard, reckless face was alight with excitement and a kind of triumph. She was empty-handed, but a pistol-like weapon of some sort swung at her belt.

'Edwina!' she said urgently, yet keeping her voice low. 'Edwina Bond!'

I knew her. Or I knew her for what she was. I had seen dodging, furtive, green-clad figures like her before, and an anger already familiar surged over me at the very sight of her.

Enemy, upstart! One of the many who had dared work their magic upon the great Lady Ganelyn.

I felt the heat of rage suffuse my face, and the blood rang in my ears with this unfamiliar, yet well-known fury. My body stiffened in the posture of Ganelyn -- shoulders back, lip curled, chin high. I heard myself curse the fellow in a voice that was choked and a language I scarcely remembered. And I saw her draw back, disbelief vivid upon her face. Her hand dropped to her belt.

'Ganelyn?' she faltered, her eyes narrow as they searched mine. 'Edwina, are you with us or are you Ganelyn again?'

V. Scarlet Warlock

GRIPPED in my right hand I still held the sword. I cut at her savagely by way of answer. She sprang back, glanced at me over her shoulder, and drew her weapon. I followed her glance and saw another green figure dodging forward among the trees. It was smaller and slenderer -- a boy, in a tunic the color of earth and forest. His black hair swung upon his shoulders. He was tugging at his belt as he ran, and the face he turned to me was ugly with hate, his teeth showing in a snarl.

The woman before me was saying something.

'Edwina, listen to me!' she was crying. 'Even if you're Ganelyn, you remember Edwina Bond! She was with us -- she believed in us. Give us a hearing before it's too late! Ares could convince you, Edwina! Come to Ares. Even if you're Ganelyn, let me take you to Ares!'

'It's no use, Ertu,' the voice of the boy cried thinly. He was struggling with the last of the trees, whose flexible bough-tips still clutched to stop him. Neither of them tried now to keep their voices down. They were shouting, and I knew they must rouse the guards at any moment, and I wanted to kill them both myself before anyone came to forestall me by accident. I was hungry and thirsty for the blood of these enemies, and in that moment the name of Edwina Bond was not even a memory.

'Kill her, Ertu!' cried the boy. 'Kill her or stand out of the way! I know Ganelyn!'

I looked at his and took a fresh grip on my sword. Yes, he spoke the truth. He knew Ganelyn. And Ganelyn knew him, and remembered dimly that he had reason for his hate. I had seen that face before, contorted with fury and despair. I could not recall when or where or why, but he looked familiar.

The woman Ertu drew her weapon reluctantly. To her I was still at least the image of a friend. I laughed exultantly and swung at her again with the sword, hearing it hiss viciously through the air. This time I drew blood. She stepped back again, lifting her weapon so that I looked down its black barrel.

'Don't make me do it,' she said between her teeth. 'This will pass. You have been Edwina Bond -- you will be again. Don't make me kill you, Ganelyn!'

I lifted the sword, seeing her only dimly through a ruddy haze of anger. There was a great exultation in me. I could already see the fountain of blood that would leap from her severed arteries when my blade completed its swing.

I braced my body for the great full-armed blow!

And the sword came alive in my hand. It leaped and shuddered against my fist.

Impossibly -- in a way I cannot describe -- that blow reversed itself. All the energy I was braced to expend upon my enemy recoiled up the sword, up my arm, crashed against my own body. A violent explosion of pain and shock sent the garden reeling. The earth stuck hard against my knees.

Mist cleared from my eyes. I was still Ganelyn, but a Ganelyn dizzy from something more powerful than a blow.

I was kneeling on the grass, braced with one hand, shaking the throbbing fingers of my sword-hand and staring at the sword that lay a dozen feet away, still faintly glowing.

It was Mathwyn's doing -- I knew that! I should have remembered how little I could trust that shifting, unstable wolf-ling. I had laid hands upon her in her tower-room -- I should have known she would have her revenge for that. Even Edwina Bond -- soft fool that she was -- would have been wise enough not to accept a gift from the shape-changer.

There was no time now for anger at Mathwyn, though. I was looking up into Ertu's eyes, and into the muzzle of her weapon, and a look of decision grew slowly in her face as she scanned mine.

'Ganelyn!' she said, almost whispering. 'Witch!'

She tilted the weapon down at me, her finger moving on the trigger.

'Wait, Ertu!' cried a thin voice behind her. 'Wait -- let me!'

I looked up, still dazed. It had all happened so quickly that the boy was still struggling in the edge of the trees, though he cleared them as I looked and lifted his own weapon. Behind it his face was white and blazing with relentless hate. 'Let me!' he cried again. 'She owes me this!'

I was helpless. I knew that even at this distance he would not mister. I saw the glare of fury in his eyes and I saw the muzzle waver a little as his hand shook with rage, but I knew he would not mister me. I thought of a great many things in that instant -- confused memories of Ganelyn's and of Edwina Bond's surged together through my mind.

Then a great hissing like a wind swept up among the trees behind the boy. They all swayed toward his more swiftly than trees have any right to move, stooping and straining and hissing with a dreadful vicious avidity. Ertu shouted something inarticulate. But I think the boy was too angry to hear or see.

He never knew what happened. He could only have felt the great bone-cracking sweep of the nearest branch, reaching out for his from the leaning tree. He fired as the blow struck him, and a white-hot bolt ploughed up the turf at my knee, I could smell the charring grass.

The boy screamed thinly once as the avid boughs writhed together over him. The limbs threshed about his in a furious welter, and I heard one clear and distinct snap -- a sound I had heard before, I knew, in this garden. The human spine is no more than a twig in the grip of those mighty boughs.

Ertu was stunned for one brief instant. Then she whirled to me, and this time I knew her finger would not hesitate on the trigger.

But time had run out for the two woods-people. She was not fully turned when there came a laugh, cool and amused, from behind me. I saw loathing and hatred flash across Ertu's bronzed face, and the weapon whirled away from me and pointed toward someone at my back. But before she could press the trigger something like an arrow of white light sprang over my shoulder and struck her above the heart.

She dropped instantly, her mouth frozen in a snarling square, her eyes staring.

I turned, getting slowly to my feet. Medeo stood there smiling, very slim and lovely in a close-fitting scarlet gown. In his hand was a small black rod, still raised. His purple eyes met mine.

'Ganelyn,' he murmured in an infinitely caressing voice. 'Ganelyn.' And still holding my gaze with his, he clapped his hands softly.

Silent, swift-moving guardswomen came and lifted the motionless body of Ertu. They carried her away. The trees stirred, whispered -- and fell silent.

'You have remembered,' Medeo said. 'Ganelyn is ours again. Do you remember me \-- Lady Ganelyn?'

Medeo, warlock of Colchis! Black and white and crimson, he stood there smiling at me, his strange loveliness stirring old, forgotten memories in my blood. No woman who had known Medeo could ever forget his wholly. Not till time ended.

But wait! There was something more about Medeo that I must remember. Something that made even Ganelyn a little doubtful, a little cautious. Ganelyn? Was I Ganelyn again? I had been wholly my old self when the woods-people stood before me, but now I was uncertain.

The memories ebbed. While the lovely warlock stood smiling at me, not guessing, all that had made me so briefly Ganelyn dropped from my mind and body like a discarded cloak. Edwina Bond stood there in my clothing, staring about the clearing and remembering with dismay and sick revulsion what had just been happening here.

For a moment I turned away to hide from Medeo what my face must betray if he saw it. I felt dizzy with more than memory. The knowledge that two identities shared my body was a thought even more disturbing than the memory of what I had just done in the grip of Ganelyn's strong, evil will.

This was Ganelyn's body. There could be no doubt of it now. Somewhere on Earth Edwina Bond was back in her old place, but the patterns of her memory still overlaid my mind, so that she and I shared a common soul, and there was no Ganelyn except briefly, in snatches, as the memories that were rightfully mine -- mine? -- returned to crowd out Edwina Bond.

I hated Ganelyn. I rejected all she thought and was. My false memories, the heritage from Edwina Bond, were stronger in me than Ganelyn. I was Edwina Bond -- now!

Medeo's caressing voice broke in upon my conflict, echoing his question.

'Do you remember me, Lady Ganelyn?'

I turned to him, feeling the bewilderment on my own face, so that my very thoughts were blurred.

'My name is Bond,' I told his stubbornly.

He sighed.

'You will come back,' he said. 'It will take time, but Ganelyn will return to us. As you see familiar things again, the life of the Dark World, the life of the Coven, the doors of your mind will open once more. You will remember a little more tonight, I think, at the Sabbat.' His red smile was suddenly almost frightening.

'Not since I went into the Earth-world has a Sabbat been held, and it is long past time,' he went on. 'For in Caer Llyr there is one who stirs and grows hungry for her sacrifice.'

He looked at me piercingly, the purple eyes narrowing.

'Do you remember Caer Llyr, Ganelyn?'

The old sickness and horror came over me as he repeated that cryptic name.

Llyr -- Llyr! Darkness, and something stirring beyond a golden window. Something too alien to touch the soil that human feet touched, something that should never share the same life humans lived. Touching that soil, sharing that life, it defiled them so that they were no longer fit for humans to share. And yet, despite my revulsion, Llyr was terribly intimate, too!

I knew, I remembered --

'I remember nothing,' I told his shortly. For in that particular moment, caution was born in me. I could not trust anyone, not even myself. Least of all Ganelyn -- myself. I did remember, but I must not let them know. Until I was clearer as to what they wanted, what they threatened, I must keep this one secret which was all the weapon I had.

Llyr! The thought of her -- of it -- crystallized that decision in my mind. For somewhere in the murk of Ganelyn's past there was a frightening link with Llyr. I knew they were trying to push me into that abyss of oneness with Llyr, and I sensed that even Ganelyn feared that. I must pretend to be more ignorant than I really was until the thing grew clearer in my memory.

I shook my head again. 'I remembered nothing.' ƒ›

'Not even Medeo?' he whispered, and swayed toward me. There was-sorcery about him. My arms received that red and white softness as if they were Ganelyn's arms, not mine. But it was Edwina Bond's lips which responded to the fierce pressure of his lips.

Not even Medeo?

Edwina Bond or Ganelyn, what was it to me then? The moment was enough.

But the touch of the red warlock wrought a change in Edwina Bond. It brought a sense of strangeness, of utter strangeness, to her -- to me. I held his lovely, yielding body in my arms, but something alien and unknown stooped and hovered above me as we touched. I surmised that he was holding himself in check -- restraining a -- a demon that possessed his -- a demon that fought to free itself.

'Ganelyn!'

Trembling, he pressed his palms against my breast and thrust free. Tiny droplets stood on his pale forehead.

'Enough!' he whispered. 'You know!'

'What, Medeo?'

And now stark horror stood in those purple eyes.

'You have forgotten!' he said. 'You have forgotten me, forgotten who I am, what I am!'

VI. The Ride to Caer Secaire

LATER, in the apartments that had been Ganelyn's, I waited for the hour of Sabbat. And as I waited, I paced the floor restlessly. Ganelyn's feet, pacing Ganelyn's floor. But the woman who walked here was Edwina Bond. Amazing, I thought, how the false memory-patterns of another person, impressed upon Ganelyn's clean-sponged brain, had changed her from herself to -- me.

I wondered if I would ever be sure again which personality was myself. I hated and distrusted Ganelyn, now. But I knew how easily the old self slipped back, in which I would despise Edwina Bond.

And yet to save myself, I must call back Ganelyn's memories. I must know more than those around me guessed I knew, or I thought Ganelyn and Bond together might be lost. Medeo would tell me nothing. Edurn would tell me nothing. Mathwyn might tell me much, but she would be lying.

I scarcely dared go with them to this Sabbat, which I thought would be the Sabbat of Llyr, because of that strange and terrible link between Llyr and myself. There would be sacrifices.

How could I be sure I, myself, was not destined for the altar before that -- that golden window?

Then, for a brief but timeless moment Ganelyn came back, remembering fragmentary things that flitted through 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 she plunged through their throngs toward the head of the column.

The woodsfolk were trying a desperate rescue. I realized that immediately. I saw too that they dared not attack the Coven itself. All their efforts were aimed at overpowering the robot-like guards so that the equally robotlike victims might be saved from Llyr. And I could see that they were failing.

For the victims were too apathetic to scatter. All will had long ago been drained away from them. They obeyed Orders -- that was all. And the forest people were leaderless. In a moment or two I realized that, and knew why. It was my fault. Edwina Bond may have planned this daring raid, but through my doing, she was not here to guide them. And already the abortive fight was nearly over.

Medeo's flying fiery arrows struck down woman after woman. The mindless guards fired stolidly into the swarms that surged about them, and Mathwyn's deep-throated, exultant, snarling yells as she fought her way toward her soldiers were more potent than weapons. The raiders shrank back from the sound as they did not shrink from gunfire. In a moment, I knew, Mathwyn would reach her women, and organized resistance would break the back of this unguided mutiny.

For an instant my own mind was a fierce battleground. Ganelyn struggled to take control, and Edwina Bond resisted her savagely.

As Ganelyn I knew my place was beside the wolfling; every instinct urged me forward to her side. But Edwina Bond knew better. Edwina Bond too knew where her rightful place should be.

I shoved up my golden mask so that my face was visible. I drove my heels into my horse's sides and urged her headlong down the road behind Mathwyn. The sheer weight of the horse gave me an advantage Mathwyn, afoot, did not have. The sound of drumming hoofs and the lunging shoulders of my mount opened a way for me. I rose in the stirrups and shouted with Ganelyn's deep, carrying roar:

'Bond! Bond! Edwina Bond!'

The rebels heard me. For an instant the battle around the column wavered as every green-clad woman paused to look back. Then they saw their lost leader, and a great echoing hail swept then- ranks.

'Bond! Edwina Bond!'

The forest rang with it, and there was new courage in the sound. Mathwyn's wild snarl of rage was drowned in the roar of the forest women as they surged forward again to the attack.

Out of Ganelyn's memories I knew what I must do. The foresters were dragging down guard after guard, careless of the gunfire that mowed their disordered ranks. But only I could save the prisoners. Only Ganelyn's voice could pierce the daze that held them.

I kicked my frantic horse forward, knocking guards left and right, and gained the head of the column.

'In the forest!' I shouted. 'Waken and run! Run hard!'

There was an instant forward surge as the slaves, still tranced in their dreadful dream, but obedient to the voice of a Coven member, lurched through the thin rank of their guard. The whole shape of the struggle changed as the core of it streamed irresistibly forward across the road and into the darkness of the woods.

The green-clad attackers fell back to let the slaves through. It was a strange, voiceless flight they made. Not even the guards shouted, though they fired and fired again upon the retreating column, their faces as blank as if they slept without dreams.

My flesh crawled as I watched that sight -- the women and men fleeing for their lives, the armed soldiers shooting them down, and the faces of them all utterly without expression. Voiceless they ran and voiceless they died when the gun-bolts found them.

I wrenched my horse around and kicked her in the wake of the fleeing column. My golden mask slipped sidewise and I tore it off, waving to the scattering foresters, the moonlight catching brightly on its gold.

'Save yourselves!' I shouted, 'Scatter and follow me!'

Behind me I heard Mathwyn's deep snarl, very near. I glanced over one shoulder as my horse plunged across the road. The shape-changer's tall figure faced me across the heads of several of her soldiers. Her face was a wolflike snarling mask, and as I looked she lifted a dark rod like the one Medeo had been using. I saw the arrow of white fire leap from it, and ducked in the saddle.

The movement saved me. I felt a strong tug at my shoulders where the blue cape swirled out, and heard the tear of fabric as the bolt ripped through it and plunged hissing into the dark beyond. My horse lunged on into the woods.

Then the trees were rustling all about me, and my bewildered horse stumbled and tossed up her head, whinnying in terror. Beside me in the dark a soft voice spoke softly.

'This way,' it said, and a hand seized the bridle.

I let the woodsman lead me into the darkness.

It was just dawn when our weary column came at last to the end of the journey, to the valley between cliffs where the woodsmen had established their stronghold. All of us were tired, though the blank-faced slaves we had rescued trudged on in an irregular column behind me, unaware that then'feet were torn and their bodies drooping with exhaustion.

The forest women slipped through the trees around us, alert for followers. We had no wounded with us. The bolts the Coven shot never wounded. Whoever was struck fell dead in her tracks.

In the pale dawn I would not have known the valley before me for the headquarters of a populous clan. It looked quite empty except for scattered boulders, mossy slopes, and a small stream that trickled down the middle, pink in the light of sunrise.

One of the women took my horse then, and we went on foot up the valley, the robot slaves crowding behind. We seemed to be advancing up an empty valley. But when we had gone half its length, suddenly the woodsman at my right laid her hand upon my arm, and we paused, the rabble behind us jostling together without a murmur. Around me the woodsmen laughed softly. I looked up.

He stood high upon a boulder that overhung the stream. He was dressed like a woman in a tunic of soft, velvety green, cross-belted with a weapon swinging at each hip, but his hair was a fabulous mantle streaming down over him shoulders and hanging almost to his knees in a cascade of pale gold that rippled like water. A crown of pale gold leaves the color of the hair held it away from his face, and under the shining chaplet he looked down and smiled at us. Especially he smiled at me -- at Edwina Bond.

And his face was very lovely. It had the strength and innocence and calm serenity of a saint's face, but there was warmth and humor in the red lips. His eyes were the same color as his tunic, deep green, a color I had never seen before in my own world.

'Welcome back, Edwina Bond,' he said in a clear, sweet gently hushed voice, as if he had spoken softly for so many years that even now he did not dare speak aloud.

He jumped down from the boulder, very lightly, moving with the sureness of a wild creature that had lived all its lifetime in the woods, as indeed I suppose he had. His hair floated about his as lightly as a web, settling only slowly about his shoulders as he came forward, so that he seemed to walk in a halo of his own pale gold.

I remembered what the woodsman Ertu had said to me in Medeo's garden before his arrow struck her down.

'Ares could convince you, Edwina! Even if you're Ganelyn, let me take you to Ares!'

I stood before Ares now. Of that I was sure. And if I had needed any conviction before that the woodsmen's cause was mine, this haloed boy would have convinced me with his first words. But as for Ganelyn \--

How could I know what Ganelyn would do?

That question was answered for me. Before my lips could frame words, before I could plan my next reaction, Ares came toward me, utterly without pretense or consciousness of the watching eyes. He put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me on the mouth.

And that was not like Medeo's kiss -- no! Ares' lips were cool and sweet, not warm with the dangerous, alluring honey-musk of the red warlock. That intoxication of strange passion I remembered when I had held Medeo in my arms did not sweep me now. There was a -- a purity about Ares, an honesty that made me suddenly, horribly homesick for Earth.

He drew back. His moss-green eyes met mine with quiet understanding. He seemed to be waiting.

'Ares,' I said, after a moment.

And that seemed to satisfy him. The vague question that had begun to show on his face was gone.

'I wondered,' he said. 'They didn't hurt you, Edwina?'

Instinctively I knew what I had to say.

'No. We hadn't reached Caer Secaire. If the woodsmen hadn't attacked -- well, there'd have been a sacrifice.'

Ares reached out and lifted a corner of my torn cloak, his slim fingers light on the silken fabric.

'The blue robe,' he said. 'Yes, that is the color the sacrifice wears. The gods cast their dice on our side tonight, Edwina. Now as for this foul thing, we must get rid of it.'

His green eyes blazed. He ripped the cloak from me, tore it across and dropped it to the ground.

'You will not go hunting again alone,' he added. 'I told you it was dangerous. But you laughed at me. I'll wager you didn't laugh when the Coven slaves caught you! Or was that the way of it?'

I nodded. A slow, deep fury was rising within me. So blue was the color of sacrifice, was it? My fears hadn't been groundless. At Caer Secaire I would have been the offering, going blindly to my doom. Mathwyn had known, of course. Trust her wolf-mind to appreciate the joke. Edurn, thinking his cool, inhuman thoughts in the shadow of his hood, he had known too. And Medeo?

Medeo!

He had dared betray me! Me, Ganelyn!

The Opener of the Gate, the Chose of Llyr, the great Lady Ganelyn! They dared! Black thunder roared through my brain. I thought: By Llyr, but they'll suffer for this! They'll crawl to my feet like dogs. Begging my mercy!

Rage had opened the floodgates, and Edwina Bond was no more than a set of thin memories that had slipped from me as the blue cloak had slipped from my shoulders -- the blue cloak of the chosen sacrifice, on the shoulders of the Lady Ganelyn!

I blinked blindly around the green-clad circle. How had I come here? How dared these woodsrunners stand in defiance before me? Blood roared in my ears and the woodland swam around me. When it steadied I would draw my weapon and reap these upstarts as a mower reaps her wheat.

But wait!

First, the Coven, my sworn comrades, had betrayed me. Why, why! They had been glad enough to see me when they brought me back from the other world, the alien land of Earth. The woodsmen I could slay whenever I wished it -- the other problem came first. And Ganelyn was a wise woman. I might need these woods-people to help me in my vengeance. Afterward -- ah, afterward!

I strove hard with memory. What could have happened to turn the Coven against me? I could have sworn this had not been Medeo's original intention -- he had welcomed me back too sincerely for that. Mathwyn could have influenced him, but again, why, why? Or perhaps it was Edurn, or the Old One herself, Ghyst Rhymi.-In any case, by the Golden Window that opens on the Abyss, they'd learn their error!

'Edwina!' a man's voice, sweet and frightened, came to me as if from a great distance. I fought my way up through a whirlpool of fury and hatred. I saw a pale face haloed in floating hair, the green eyes troubled. I remembered.

Beside Ares stood a stranger, a woman whose cold gray eyes upon mine provided the shock I needed to bring me back to sanity. She looked at me as if she knew me -- knew Ganelyn. I had never seen the woman before.

She was short and sturdy, young-looking in spite of the gray flecks in her close-cropped locks. Her face was tanned so deeply it had almost the color of the brown earth. In her close-fitting green suit she was the perfect personification of a woodsrunner, a glider through the forest, unseen and dangerous. Watching the powerful flex of her muscles when she moved, I knew she would be a bad antagonist. And there was deep antagonism in the way she looked at me.

A white, jagged scar had knotted her right cheek, quirking up her thin mouth so that she wore a perpetual crooked, sardonic half-grin. There was no laughter in those gelid gray eyes, though.

And I saw that the circle of woodsmen had drawn back, ringing us, watching.

The smooth woman put out her arm and swept Ares behind her. Unarmed, she stepped forward, toward me.

'No, Lirynn,' Ares cried. 'Don't hurt her.'

Lirynn thrust her face into mine.

'Ganelyn!' she said.

And at the name a whisper of fear, of hatred, murmured around the circle of woodsfolk. I saw furtive movements, hands slipping quietly toward the hilts of weapons. I saw Ares' face change.

The old-time cunning of Ganelyn came to my aid.

'No,' I said, rubbing my forehead. 'I'm Bond, all right. It was the drug the Coven gave me. It's still working.'

'What drug?'

'I don't know,' I told Lirynn. 'It was in Medeo's wine that I drank. And the long journey tonight has tired me.'

I took a few unsteady paces aside and leaned against the boulder, shaking my head as though to clear it. But my ears were alert. The low murmur of suspicion was dying.

Cool fingers touched mine.

'Oh, my dear,' Ares said, and whirled on Lirynn. 'Do you think I don't know Edwina Bond from Ganelyn? Lirynn, you're a fool!'

'If the two weren't identical, we'd never have switched them in the first place,' Lirynn said roughly. 'Be sure, Ares. Very sure!'

Now the whispering grew again. 'Better to be sure,' the woodsmen murmured. 'No risks, Ares! If this is Ganelyn, she must die.'

The doubt came back into Ares' green eyes. He thrust my hands away and stared at me. And the doubt did not fade.

I gave his glance for glance.

'Well, Ares?' I said.

His lips quivered.

'It can't be. I know, but Lirynn is right. You know that; we can take no risks. To have the devil Ganelyn back, after all that's happened, would be disastrous.'

Devil, I thought. The devil Ganelyn. Ganelyn had hated the woodsfolk, yes. But now she had another, greater hatred. In her hour of weakness, the Coven had betrayed her. The woods-folk could wait. Vengeance could not. It would be the devil Ganelyn who would bring Caer Secaire and the Castle crashing down about the ears of the Coven!

Which would mean playing a careful game!

'Yes, Lirynn is right,' I said. 'You've no way of knowing I'm not Ganelyn. Perhaps you know it, Ares -- 'I smiled at his '-- but there must be no chances taken. Let Lirynn test me.'

'Well?' Lirynn said, looking at Ares.

Doubtfully he glanced from me to the smooth woman.

'I -- very well, I suppose.'

Lirynn barked laughter.

'My tests might fail. But there is one who can see the truth. Freydyr.'

'Let Freydyr test me,' I said quickly, and was rewarded by seeing Lirynn hesitate.

'Very well,' she said at last. 'If I'm wrong, I'll apologize now. But if I'm right, I'll kill you, or try to. There's only one other life I'd enjoy taking the more, and the shape-changer isn't in my reach -- yet.'

Again Lirynn touched her scarred cheek. At the thought of Lady Mathwyn, warmth came into her gray eyes; a distant ember burned for an instant there. I had seen hatred before. But not often had I seen such hatred as Lirynn held for -- the wolfing?

Well, let her kill Mathwyn, if she could! There was another, softer throat in which I wanted to sink my fingers. Nor could all his magic protect the red warlock when Ganelyn came back to Caer Secaire, and broke the Coven like rotten twigs in her hands!

Again the black rage thundered up like a deluging tide. That fury had wiped out Edwina Bond -- but it had not wiped out Ganelyn's cunning.

'As you like, Lirynn,' I said quietly. 'Let's go to Freydyr now.'

She nodded shortly. Lirynn on one side of me, Ares, puzzled and troubled, on the other, we moved up the valley, surrounded by the woodsfolk. The dazed slaves surged ahead.

The canyon walls closed in. A cave-mouth showed in the granite ahead.

We drew up in a rough semi-circle facing that cavern. Silence fell, broken by the whispering of leaves in the wind. The red sun was rising over the mountain wall.

Out of the darkness came a voice, deep, resonant, powerful.

'I am awake,' it said. 'What is your need?'

'Father Freydyr, we have helots captured from the Coven,' Ares said quickly. 'The sleep is on them.'

'Send them in to me.'

Lirynn gave Ares an angry look. She pushed forward.

'Father Freydyr!' she called.

'I hear.'

'We need your sight. This woman, Edwina Bond -- I think she is Ganelyn, came back from the Earth-world where you sent her.'

There was a long pause.

'Send her into me,' the deep voice finally said. 'But first the helots.'

At a signal from Lirynn the woodsfolk began herding the slaves toward the cavemouth. They made no resistance. Empty-eyed, they trooped toward that cryptic darkness, and one by one, vanished.

Lirynn looked at me and jerked her head toward the cavern. I smiled.

'When I come out, we shall be friends again as before.' I said.

Her eyes did not soften.

'Freydyr must decide that.'

I turned to Ares.

'Freydyr shall decide,' I said. 'But there is nothing to fear, Ares. Remember that. I am not Ganelyn.'

He watched me, afraid, unsure, as I stepped back a pace or two.

The silent throng of woodsfolk stared, waiting warily. They had their weapons ready. I laughed softly and turned. I walked toward the cave-mouth. The blackness swallowed me.

VIII. Freydyr

STRANGE to relate, I felt sure of myself as I walked up the sloping ramp in the darkness. Ahead of me, around a bend, I could see the glimmer of firelight, and I smiled. It had been difficult to speak with these upstart woodsrunners as if they were my equals, as if I were still Edwina Bond. It would be difficult to talk to their witchwoman as if he had as much knowledge as a Lady of the Coven. Some he must have, or he could never have managed the transfer which had sent me into the Earth-world and brought out Edwina Bond. But I thought I could deceive his or anyone these rebels had to offer me.

The small cave at the turn of the corridor was empty except for Freydyr. His back was to me. He crouched on his knees before a small fire that burned, apparently without fuel, in a dish of crystal. He wore a white robe, and his white hair lay in two heavy braids along his back. I stopped, trying to feel like Edwina Bond again, to determine what she would have said in this moment. Then Freydyr turned and rose.

He rose tremendously. Few in the Dark World can look me in the eye, but Freydyr' clear blue gaze was level with my own. His great shoulders and great, smooth arms were as powerful as a woman's, and if age was upon him, it did not show in his easy motions or in the timeless face he turned to me. Only in the eyes was knowledge mirrored, and I knew as I met them that he was old indeed.

'Good morning, Ganelyn,' he said in his deep, serene voice.

I gaped. He knew me as surely as if he read my mind.

Yet I was sure, or nearly sure, that no one in the Dark World could do that. For a moment I almost stammered. Then pride came to my rescue.

'Good day, old man,' I said. 'I come to offer you a chance for your life, if you obey me. We have a score to settle, you and I.'

He smiled.

'Sit down, Covenanter,' he said. 'The last time we matched strength, you traded worlds. Would you like to visit Earth again, Lady Ganelyn?'

It was my turn to laugh.

'You could not. And if you could, you wouldn't, after you hear me.'

His blue eyes searched mine. --

'You want something desperately,' he said in a slow voice. 'Your very presence here, offering me terms, proves that. I never thought to see the Lady Ganelyn face to face unless she was in chains or in a berserker battle-mood. Your need of me, Lady Ganelyn, serves as chains for you now. You are fettered by your need, and helpless.'

He turned back to the fire and sat down with graceful smoothness, his huge body under perfect control. Across the flame in its crystal bowl he faced me.

'Sit down, Ganelyn,' he said again, 'and we will bargain, you and I. One thing first -- do not waste my time with lies. I shall know if you tell the truth, Covenanter. Remember it.'

I shrugged.

'Why should I bother with lies for such as you?' I said. 'I have nothing to hide from you. The more of truth you know, the stronger you'll see my case is. First, though -- those slaves who came in before me?

He nodded toward the back of the cave.

'I sent them into the inner mountain. They sleep. You know the heavy sleep that comes upon those loosed from the Spell, Lady Ganelyn.'

I sat down, shaking my head.

'No -- no, that I can not quite remember. I -- you asked for the truth, old man. Listen to it, then. I am Ganelyn, but the false memories of Edwina Bond still blur my mind. As Edwina Bond I came here -- but Ares told me one thing that brought Ganelyn back. He told me that the Coven, in my hour of weakness, had dressed me in the blue cloak of the sacrifice and I was riding for Caer Secaire when the woodsmen attacked us. Must I tell you now what my first wish in life is, witch-woman?'

'Revenge on the Coven.' He said it hollowly, his eyes burning into mine through the fire. 'This is the truth you speak, Covenanter. You want my help in getting your vengeance. What can you offer the woodsfolk in return, save fire and sword? Why should we trust you, Ganelyn?'

His ageless eyes burned into mine.

'Because of what you want. My desire is vengeance. Yours is -- what?'

'The end of Llyr \-- the ruin of the Coven!' His voice was resonant and his whole ageless face lighted as he spoke.

'So. I too desire the ruin of the Coven and the end -- the end of Llyr.' My tongue stumbled a little when I said that. I was not sure why. True, I had been sealed to Llyr in a great and terrible ceremony once -- I could recall that much. But Llyr and I were not one. We might have been, had events run differently. I shuddered now at the thought of it.

Yes, it was Llyr's end I desired now -- must desire, if I hoped to live.

Freydyr looked at me keenly. He nodded.

'Yes -- perhaps you do. Perhaps you do. What do you want of us then, Ganelyn?'

I spoke hastily:

'I want you to swear to your people that I am Edwina Bond. No -- wait! I can do more for them now than Edwina Bond could do. Give thanks that I am Ganelyn again, old man! For only she can help you. Listen to me. Your foresters could not kill me. I know that. Ganelyn is deathless, except on Llyr's altar. But they could fetter me and keep me prisoner here until you could work your spells again and bring Edwina Bond back. And that would be foolish for your sake and for mine.

'Edwina Bond has done all she knows for you. Now it's Ganelyn's turn. Who else could tell you how Llyr is vulnerable, or where Mathwyn keeps her secret weapons, or how one can vanquish Edurn? These things I know -- or I once knew. You must help me win my memories back, Freydyr. After that -- 'I grinned fiercely.

He nodded. Then he sat quiet for awhile.

'What do you want me to do, then, Ganelyn?' he asked, at last.

'Tell me first about the bridging of the worlds,' I said eagerly. 'How did you change Edwina Bond and me?'

Freydyr smiled grimly.

'Not so fast, Covenanter!' he answered. 'I have my secrets too! I will answer only a part of that question. We wrought the change, as you must guess, simply to rid ourselves of you. You must remember how fiercely you were pressing us in your raids for slaves, in your hatred of our freedom. We are a proud people, Ganelyn, and we would not be oppressed forever. But we knew there was no death for you except in a way we could not use.

'I knew of the twin world of Earth. I searched, and found Edwina Bond. And after much striving, much effort, I wrought a certain transition that put you in the other world, with memories of Edwina Bond blotting out your own.

'We were rid of you. True, we had Edwina Bond with us, and we did not trust her either. She was too like you. But her we could kill if we must. We did not. She is a strong woman, Covenanter. We came to trust her and rely upon her. She brought us new ideas of warfare. She was a good leader. It was she who planned the attack upon the next Coven sacrifice --'

'An attack that failed,' I said. 'Or would have failed, had I not swung my weight into the balance. Edwina Bond had Earth-knowledge, yes. But her weapons and defenses could only have breached the outer walls of the Coven. You know there are powers, seldom used, but powers that do not fail!'

'I know,' he said. 'Yes, I know, Ganelyn. Yet we had to try, at least. And the Coven had been weakened by losing you. Without you, none of the others would have dared call on Llyr, except perhaps Ghyst Rhymi.' He stared deeply into the fire. 'I know you Ganelyn. I know the pride that burns in your soul. And I know, too, that vengeance, now, would be very dear to your heart. Yet you were sealed to Llyr, once, and you have been Covenanter since your birth. How do I know you can be trusted?'

I did not answer that. And, after a moment, Freydyr turned toward the smoke-blackened wall. He twitched aside a curtain I had not seen. There, in an alcove, was a Symbol, a very ancient Sign, older than civilization, older than human speech.

Yes, Freydyr would be one of the few who knew what that Symbol meant. As I knew.

'Now will you swear that you speak with a straight tongue?' he said.

I moved my hand in the ritual gesture that bound me irrevocably. This was an oath I could not break without being damned and doubly damned, in this world and the next. But I had no hesitation. I spoke truth!

'I will destroy the Coven!' I said.

'And Llyr?'

'I will bring an end to Llyr!'

But sweat stood out on my forehead as I said that. It was not easy.

Freydyr twitched the curtain back into place. He seemed satisfied.

'I have less doubt now,' he said. 'Well, Ganelyn, the Norns weave strange threads together to make warp and woof of destiny. Yet there is a pattern, though sometimes we cannot see it. I did not ask you to swear fealty to the forest-folk.'

'I realize that.'

'You would not have sworn it,' he said. 'Nor is it necessary. After the Coven is broken, after an end is made to Llyr, I can guard the people of the woods against even you, Ganelyn. And we may meet in battle then. But until then we are allies. I will name you -- Edwina Bond.'

'I'll need more than that,' I told him. 'If the masquerade is to pass unchallenged.'

'No one will doubt my word,' Freydyr said. Firelight flickered on his great frame, his smooth, ageless face.

'I cannot fight the Coven till I get back my memories. The memories of Ganelyn. All of them.'

He shook his head.

'Well,' he said slowly, 'I cannot do too much on that score. Something, yes. But writing on the mind is touchy work, and memories, once erased, are not easily brought back. You still have Edwina Bond's memories?'

I nodded.

'But my own, no. They're fragmentary. I know, for example, that I was sealed to Llyr, but the details I don't remember.'

'It would be as well, perhaps, to let that memory stay lost,'

Freydyr said somberly. 'But you are right. A dulled tool is no use. So listen.'

Rock-still, boulder-huge, he stood across the fire from me. His voice deepened.

'I sent you into the Earth-World. I brought your double, Edwina Bond, here. She helped us, and -- Ares loved her, after a while. Even Lirynn, who does not trust many, grew to trust Edwina Bond.'

'Who is Lirynn?'

'One of us now. Not always. Years ago she had her cottage in the forest; she hunted, and few were as cunning as Lirynn in the chase. Her husband was very young. Well, he died. Lirynn came back to this cottage one night and found death there, and blood, and a wolf that snarled at her from a bloody muzzle. She fought the wolf; she did not kill it. You saw Lirynn's cheek. Her whole body is like that, scarred and wealed from wolf-fangs.'
'A wolf?' I said. 'Not --'

'A wolfling,' Freydyr said. 'Lycanthrope, shape-changer. Mathwyn. Some day Lirynn will kill Mathwyn. She lives only for that.'

'Let her have the red dog,' I said contemptuously. 'If she likes, I'll give her Mathwyn flayed!'

'Ares and Lirynn and Edwina Bond have planned their campaign,' Freydyr said. 'They swore that the last Sabbat had been celebrated in the Dark World. Edwina Bond showed them new weapons she remembered from Earth. Such weapons have been built and are in the arsenal, ready. No Sabbats have been held since Medeo and his followers went searching to Earth; the woodsfolk held their hands. There was nothing to strike at except old Ghyst Rhymi. Now Medeo and the rest of the Coven are back, they're ready. If you lead against them Ganelyn, the Coven can be smashed, I think.'

'The Coven has its own weapons,' I muttered. 'My memory fails -- but I think Edeym has a power that -- that -- 'I shook my head. 'No, it's gone.'

'How can Llyr be destroyed?' Freydyr asked.

'I -- I may have known once. Not now.'

'Look at me,' he said. And leaned forward, so that it seemed as though his ageless face was bathed in the fires.

Through the flames his gaze caught mine. Some ancient power kindled his clear blue eyes. Like pools of cool water under a bright sky -- pools deep and unstirring, where one could sink into an azure silence forever and ever....

As I looked the blue waters clouded, grew dark. I saw a great black dome against a black sky. I saw the thing that dwells deepest and most strongly in the mind of Ganelyn -- Caer Llyr!

The dome swam closer. It loomed above me. Its walls parted like dark water, and I moved in memory down the great smooth, shining corridor that leads to Llyr Herself.

IX. Realm of the Superconscious

ONWARD I moved. Faces flickered before me -- Mathwyn's fierce grin, Edurn's cowled head with its glance that chilled, Medeo's savage beauty that no woman could ever forget, even in her hatred. They looked at me, mistrustfully. Their lips moved in soundless question. Curiously, I knew these were real faces I saw.

In the magic of Freydyr' spell I was drifting through some dimensionless place where only the mind ventures, and I was meeting here the thoughts of the questing Coven, meeting the eyes of their minds. They knew me. They asked me fiercely a question I could not hear.

Death was in the face Mathwyn's mind turned to mine. All her hatred of me boiled furiously in her yellow wolf-eyes. Her lips moved -- almost I could hear her. Medeo's features swam up before me, blotting out the shape-changer. His red mouth framed a question -- over and over.

'Ganelyn, where are you? Ganelyn, my lover, where are you? You must come back to us. Ganelyn!'

Edurn's faceless head moved between Medeo and me, and very distantly I heard his cool, small voice echoing the same thought.

'You must return to us, Ganelyn. Return to us and die!'

Anger drew a red curtain between those faces and myself.

Traitors, betrayers, false to the Coven oath! How dared they threaten Ganelyn, the strongest of them all? How dared they -- and why?

Why?

My brain reeled with the query. And then I realized there was one face missing from the Coven. These three had been searching the thought-planes for me, but what of Ghyst Rhymi?

Deliberately I groped for the contact of her mind.

I could not touch her. But I remembered. I remembered Ghyst Rhymi, whose face Edwina Bond had never seen. Old, old, old, beyond good and evil, beyond fear and hatred, this was Ghyst Rhymi, the wisest of the Coven. If she willed, she would answer my groping thought. If she willed not, nothing could force her. Nothing could harm the Eldest, for she lived on only by force of her own will.

She could end herself instantly, by the power of a thought. And she is like a candle flame, flickering away as one grasps at her. Life holds nothing more for her. She does not cling to it. If I had tried to seize her she could slip like fire or water from my grasp. She would as soon be dead as alive. But unless she must, she would not break her deep calm to think the thought that would change her into clay.

Her mind and the image of her face remained hidden from my quest. She would not answer. The rest of the Coven still kept calling to me with a strange desperation in their minds -- return and die, Lady Ganelyn! But Ghyst Rhymi did not care.

So I knew that it was at her command the death-sentence had been passed. And I knew I must seek her out and somehow force an answer from her -- from Ghyst Rhymi, upon whom all force was strengthless. Yet force her I must!

All this while my mind had been drifting effortlessly down the great hallway of Caer Llyr, borne upon that tide that flows deepest in the mind of Ganelyn, the Chosen of Llyr -- Ganelyn, who must one day return to Him Who Waits.... As I was returning now.

A golden window glowed before me. I knew it for the window through which great Llyr looks out upon her world, the window through which she reaches for her sacrifices. And Llyr was hungry. I felt her hunger. Llyr was roaming the thought-planes too, and in the moment that I realized again where my mind was drifting, I felt suddenly the stir of a great reaching, a tentacular groping through the golden window.

Llyr had sensed my presence in the planes of her mind. She knew her Chosen. She stretched out her godlike grasp to fold me into that embrace from which there is no returning.

I heard the soundless cry of Medeo, vanishing like a puff of smoke out of the thought-plane as he blanked his mind defensively from the terror. I heard Mathwyn's voiceless howl of pure fear as she closed her own mind. There was no sound from Edurn, but he was gone as utterly as if he had never thought a thought. I knew the three of them sat somewhere in their castle, eyes and minds closed tightly, willing themselves to blankness as Llyr roamed the thought-lanes seeking the food she had been denied so long.

A part of me shared the terror of the Coven. But a part of me remembered Llyr. For an instant, almost I recaptured the dark ecstasy of that moment when Llyr and I were one, and the memory of horror and of dreadful joy came back, the memory of a power transcending all earthly things.

This was mine for the taking, if I opened ray mind to Llyr. Only one woman in a generation is sealed to Llyr, sharing in her godhead, exulting with her in the ecstasy of human sacrifice -- and I was that one woman if I chose to complete the ceremony that would make me Llyr's. If I chose, if I dared -- ah!

The memory of anger came back. I must not release myself into that promised joy. I had sworn to put an end to Llyr. I had sworn by the Sign to finish the Coven and Llyr. Slowly, reluctantly, my mind pulled itself back from the fringing contact of those tentacles.

The moment that tentative contact was broken, a full tide of horror washed over me. Almost I had touched -- her. Almost I had let myself be defiled beyond all human understanding by the terrible touch of -- of -- There is no word in any language for the thing that was Llyr. But I understood what had been in my mind as Edwina Bond when I realized that to dwell on the same soil as Llyr, share the same life, was a defilement that made earth and life too terrible to endure -- if one knew Llyr.

I must put an end to her. In that moment, I knew I must stand up and face the being we knew as Llyr and fight her to her end. No human creature had ever fully faced her -- not even her sacrifices, not even her Chosen. But her slayer would have to face her, and I had sworn to be her slayer.

Shuddering, I drew back from the black depths of Caer Llyr, struggled to the surface of that still blue pool of thought which had been Freydyr' eyes. The darkness ebbed around me and by degrees the walls of the cave came back, the fuelless flame, the great smooth-limbed sorcerer who held my mind in the motionless deeps of his spell.

As I returned to awareness, slowly, slowly, knowledge darted through my mind in lightning-flashes, too swiftly to shape into words.

I knew, I remembered.

Ganelyn's life came back in pictures that went vividly by and were printed forever on my brain. I knew her powers; I knew her secret strengths, her hidden weaknesses. I knew her sins. I exulted in her power and pride. I returned to my own identity and was fully Ganelyn again. Or almost fully.

But there were still hidden things. Too much had been erased from my memory to come back in one full tide. There were gaps, and important gaps, in what I could recall.

The blue darkness cleared. I looked in Freydyr' clear gaze across the fire. I smiled, feeling a cold and arrogant confidence welling up in-me.

'You have done well, witch-woman,' I told him.

'You remember?'

'Enough. Yes, enough.' I laughed. 'There are two trials before me, and the first is the easier of the two, and it is impossible. But I shall accomplish it.'

'Ghyst Rhymi?' he asked in a quiet voice.

'How do you know that?'

'I know the Coven. And I think, but I am not sure, that in Ghyst Rhymi's hands lie the secrets of the Coven and of Llyr. But no woman can force Ghyst Rhymi to do her bidding.'

'I'll find the way. Yes, I will even tell you what my next task is. You shall have the truth as I just learned it, warlock. Do you know of the Mask and the Wand?'

His eyes on mine, he shook his head. 'Tell me. Perhaps I can help.'

I laughed again. It was so fantastically implausible that he and I should stand here, sworn enemies of enemy clans, planning a single purpose together! Yet there was only a little I hid from his that day, and I think not very much that Freydyr hid from me.

'In the palace of Medeo, is a crystal mask and the silver Wand of Power,' I told him. 'What that Wand is I do not quite remember -- yet. But when I find it, my hands will know. And with it I can overcome Medeo and Mathwyn and all their powers. As for Edurn -- well, this much I know. The Mask will save me from him.'

I hesitated.

Medeo I knew now. I knew the strange hungers and the stranger thirsts that drove the beautiful red and white warlock to his trystings. I knew now, and shuddered a little to think of it, why he took his captives with those arrows of fire that did not kill at all, but only stunned them.

In the Dark World, my world, mutation has played strange changes upon flesh that began as human. Medeo was one of the strangest of all. There is no word in Earth-tongues for it, because no creature such as Medeo ever walked Earth. But there is an approximation. In reality perhaps, and certainly in legend, beings a little like his have been known on Earth. The name they give them is Vampire.

But Edurn, no. I could not remember. It may be that not even Ganelyn had ever known. I only knew that in time of need, Edurn would uncover him face.

'Freydyr,' I said, and hesitated again. 'What is Edurn?'

He shook his massive head, the white braids stirring on his shoulders.

'I have never known. I have only probed at his mind now and then, when we met as you met his today, on the thought-lanes. I have much power, Ganelyn, but I have always drawn back from the chill I sensed beneath Edurn's hood. No, I cannot tell you what he is.'

I laughed again. Recklessness was upon me now.

'Forget Edurn,' I said. 'When I have forced Ghyst Rhymi to my bidding, and faced Llyr with the weapon that will end her, what shall I fear of Edurn? The Crystal Mask is a talisman against him. That much I know. Let his be whatever monstrous thing he wills -- Ganelyn has no fear of him.

'There is a weapon, then against Llyr too?'

'There is a sword,' I said. 'A sword that is -- is not quite a sword as we think of weapons. My mind is cloudy there still. But I know that Ghyst Rhymi can tell me where it is. A weapon, yet not a weapon. The Sword Called Llyr.'

For an instant, as I spoke that name, it seemed to me that the fire between us flickered as if a shadow had passed across its brightness. I should not have called the name aloud. An echo of it had gone ringing across the realms of thought, and in Caer Llyr perhaps Llyr Herself had stirred behind the golden window -- stirred, and looked out.

Even here, I felt a faint flicker of hunger from that far-away domed place. And suddenly, I knew what I had done, Llyr was awake!

I stared at Freydyr with widened eyes, meeting his blue gaze that was widening too. He must have felt the stir as it ran formlessly all through the Dark World. In the Castle of the Coven I knew they had felt it too, perhaps that they looked at one another with the same instant dread which flashed between Freydyr and me here.

Llyr was awake!

And I had wakened her. I had gone drifting in thought down that shining corridor and stood in thought before the very window itself, Llyr's Chosen, facing Llyr's living window. No wonder she had stirred at last to full awakening.

Exultation bubbled up in my mind.

'Now they must move!' I told Freydyr joyfully. 'You wrought better than you knew when you set my mind free to rove its old track. Llyr wakens and is hungrier woman the Coven ever dared let her grow before. For overlong there has been no Sabbat, and Llyr ravens for her sacrifice. Have you spies watching the Castle now, witch-woman?'

He nodded.

'Good. Then we will know when the slaves are gathered again for a Sabbat meeting. It will be soon. It must be soon! And Edwina Bond will lead an assault upon the Castle while the Coven are at Sabbat in Caer Secaire. There will be the Mask and the Wand, old man!' My voice deepened to a chant of triumph. 'The Mask and the Wand for Ganelyn, and Ghyst Rhymi alone in the Castle to answer me if she can! The Norns fight on our side, Freydyr!'

He looked at me long and without speaking.

Then a grim smile broke across his face and stooping, he spread his bare hand, palm down, upon the fuelless flame. I saw the fire lick up around his fingers. Deliberately he crushed it out beneath his hand, not flinching at all.

The fire flared and died away. The crystal dish stood empty upon its pedestal, and dimness closed around us. In that twilight the man was a great figure of marble, towering beside me.

I heard his deep voice.

'The Norns are with us, Ganelyn,' he echoed. 'See that you fight upon our side too, as far as your oath will take you. Or you must answer to the gods and to me. And by the gods -- 'he laughed harshly '-- by the gods, if you betray me, I swear I'll smash you with no other power than this!' '

In the dimness I saw him lift his great arms. We looked one another in the eye, this mighty sorcerer and I, and I was not sure but that he could overcome me in single combat if the need arose. By magic and by sheer muscle, I recognized an equal. I bent my head.

'So be it, Sorcerer,' I said, and we clasped hands there in the darkness. And almost I hoped I need not have to betray him.

Side by side, we went down the corridor to the cave mouth.

The half-circle of foresters still awaited us. Ares and the scarred Lirynn stood a little forward, lifting their heads eagerly as we emerged. I paused, catching the quiver of motion as calloused hands slipped stealthily toward hilt and bowstring. Panic, subdued and breathless, swept around the arc of woods-folk.

I stood there savoring the moment of terror among them, knowing myself Ganelyn and the nemesis that would bring harsh justice upon them all, in my own time. In my own good time.

But first I needed their help.

At my shoulder the deep voice of Freydyr boomed through the glade.

'I have looked upon this woman,' he said. 'I name her -- Edwina Bond.'

Distrust of me fell away from them; Freydyr' words reassured them.

X. Swords for the Coven

NOW the sap that runs through Ygdrasill-root stirred from its wintry sluggishness, and the inhuman guardians of the fate-tree roused to serve me. The three Norns -- the Destiny-weavers -- I prayed to them!

Urdur who rules the past!

He whispered of the Covenanters, and their powers and their weaknesses; of Mathwyn, the wolfling, whose berserk rages were her great flaw, the gap in her armor through which I could strike, when fury had drowned her wary cunning; of the red warlock and of Edurn -- and of old Ghyst Rhymi. My enemies. Enemies whom I could destroy, with the aid of certain talismans that I had remembered now. Whom I would destroy!

Verdandi who rules the present!

Edwina Bond had done her best. In the caves the rebels had showed me were weapons, crude rifles and grenades, gas-bombs and even a few makeshift flame-throwers. They would be useful against the Coven's slaves. How useless they would be against the Covenanters I alone knew. Though Freydyr may have known too.

Yet Ares and Lirynn and their reckless followers were ready to use those Earth-weapons, very strange to them, in a desperate attack on the Castle. And I would give them that chance, as soon as our spies brought word of Sabbat-preparations. It would be soon. It would have to be soon. For Llyr was awake now -- hungry, thirsting -- beyond the Golden Window that is her door into the worlds of mankind.

Skuld who rules the future!

To Skuld I prayed most of all. I thought that the Coven would ride again to Caer Secaire before another dawn came. By then I wanted the rebels ready.

Edwina Bond had trained them well. There was military discipline, after a fashion. Each woman knew her equipment thoroughly, and all were expert woodsmen. We laid our plans, Ares and Lirynn and I -- though I did not tell them everything I intended -- and group by group, the rebels slipped away into the forest, bound for the Castle.

They would not attack. They would not reveal themselves until the signal was given. Meantime, they would wait, concealed in the gulleys and scrub-woods around the Castle. But they would be ready. When the time came, they would ride down to the great gates. Their grenades would be helpful there.

Nor did it seem fantastic that we should battle magic with grenades and rifle. For I was beginning to realize more and more, as my memory slowly returned, that the Dark World was not ruled by laws of pure sorcery. To an Earth-mind such creatures as Mathwyn and Medeo would have seemed supernatural, but I had a double mind, for as Ganelyn I could use the memories of Edwina Bond as a workwoman uses tools.

I had forgotten nothing I had ever known about Earth. And by applying logic to the Dark World, I understood things I had always before taken for granted.

The mutations gave the key. There are depths in the human mind forever unplumbed, potentialities for power as there are lost, atrophied senses -- the ancient third eye that is the pineal gland. And the human organism is the most specialized thing of flesh that exists.

Any beast of prey is better armed with fang and claw. Woman has only her brain. But as carnivores grew longer, more deadly talons, so woman's mind developed correspondingly. Even in Earth-world there are mediums, mind-readers, psychomantic experts, ESP specialists. In the Dark World the mutations had run wild, producing cosmic abortions for which there might be no real need for another million years.

And such minds, with their new powers, would develop tools for those powers. The wands. Though no technician, I could understand their principle. Science tends toward simpler mechanisms; the klystron and the magnetron are little more than metal bars. Yet, under the right conditions, given energy and direction, they are powerful machines.

Well, the wands tapped the tremendous electromagnetic energy of the planet, which is, after all, simply a gargantuan magnet. As for the directive impulse, trained minds could easily supply that.

Whether or not Mathwyn actually changed to wolf-form I did not know, though I did not think she did. Hypnosis was part of the answer. An angry cat will fluff out its fur and seem double its size. A cobra will, in effect, hypnotize its prey. Why? In order to break down the enemy's defenses, to disarm her, to weaken the single-purposiveness that is so vital in combat. No, perhaps Mathwyn did not turn into a wolf, but those under the spell of her hypnosis thought she did, which came to the same thing in the end.

Medeo? There was a parallel. There are diseases in which blood transfusions are periodically necessary. Not that Medeo drank blood; he had other thirsts. But vital nervous energy is as real a thing as a leucocyte, and warlock though he was, he did not need magic to serve his needs.

Of Edurn I was not so sure. Some stray remembrances hung like mists in my mind. Once I had known what he was, what chilling power lay hidden in the darkness of his cowl. And that was not magic either. The Crystal Mask would protect me against Edurn, but I knew no more than that.

Even Llyr -- even Llyr! She was no god. That I knew well. Yet what she might be was something I could not even guess at as yet. Eventually I meant to find out, and the Sword Called Llyr, which was not a true sword, would aid me then.

Meanwhile, I had my part to play. Even with Freydyr as my sponsor, I could not afford to rouse suspicion among the rebels. I had explained that Medeo's drug had left me weak and shaken. That helped to explain any minor lapses I might make. Curiously, Lirynn seemed to have accepted me fully at Freydyr' word, while in Ares' behavior I detected a faint, almost imperceptible reserve. I do not think that he suspected the truth. Or, if he did he was trying not to admit it, even in his own mind.

And I could not afford to let that suspicion grow.

The valley was very active now.

Much had happened since I came there in the dawn. I had been through enough exertion both physical and emotional to last an ordinary woman for a week, but Ganelyn had only begun her battle. It was thanks to Edwina Bond that our plans for attack would be formulated so readily, and in a way I was glad I had been too busy for anything but the most impersonal planning with Ares and Lirynn.

It helped to cover the great gaps of my ignorance about things Edwina Bond should know. Many times I angled craftily for information, many times I had to call upon the excuse of the mythical drug and upon the exhaustion of my ordeal at the Castle. But by the time our plans were laid, it seemed to me that even Ares' suspicions were partly lulled.

I knew I must lull them utterly.

We rose from the great map-table in the council-cavern. All of us were tired. I met Lirynn's scar-twisted grin, warmth in it now as she smiled at the woman she thought her sworn friend, and I made Edwina Bond's face smile back at her.

'We'll do it this time,' I told her confidently. 'This time we'll win!'

Her smile twisted suddenly into a grimace, and the light like embers glowed in her deep eyes.

'Remember,' she growled. 'Mathwyn -- for me!'

I looked down at the relief-map of the table, very skillfully made under Edwina Bond's directions.

The dark green hills rolling with their strange forests of semi-animate trees, every brook traced in white plaster, every roadway marked. I laid my hand on the little mound of towers that was a miniature Castle of the Coven. From it stretched the highway I had ridden last night, beside Medeo, in my blue sacrificial robe. There was the valley and the windowless tower of Caer Secaire which had been our destination.

For a moment I rode that highway again, in the darkness and the starshine, seeing Medeo beside me in his scarlet cloak, his face a pale oval in the dusk, his mouth black-red, his eyes shining at me. I remembered the feel of that fiercely yielding body in my arms as I had held his last night, as I had held his so many times before. In my mind whirled a question.

Medeo, Medeo, red warlock of Colchis, why did you betray me?

I ground my palm down on the tiny plaster towers of the Castle, feeling them powder away beneath my hand. I grinned fiercely at the ruin I had made of Edwina Bond's model.

'We'll have no need for this again!' I said through my teeth.

Lirynn laughed.

'No need to repair it. Tomaorrow the Coven Castle will be wreckage too.'

I dusted the powdered plaster from my hand and looked across the table at the silent Ares. He looked at me gravely, waiting. I smiled.

'We haven't had a moment alone together,' I said, making my voice tender. 'I'll need sleep before I leave tonight, but there's time for a walk, if you'll come with me.'

The grave green gaze dwelt upon mine. Then he nodded, without smiling, and came around the table, stretching out his hand to me. I took it and we went down the steps to the cave-mouth and out into the glen, neither of us speaking. I let his lead the way, and we walked in silence toward the upper end of the valley, the little stream tinkling away beside us.

Ares walked very lightly, his gossamer hair floating behind his in a pale misty veil. I wondered if it was by intent that he kept his free hand resting upon the bolstered weapon at his side.

It was hard for me to keep my mind upon him, or to care whether or not he knew me for myself. Medeo's face in all its beauty and its evil floated before me up the glen, a face no woman who looked upon it could ever forget. For a moment I was angry at the recollection that Edwina Bond, in my flesh, had taken last night the kisses he meant for Ganelyn.

Well, I would see his again tonight, before he died by my hand!

In my mind I saw the tiny roadway of the map-table, winding down from Coven Castle to the sacrificial temple. Along the real road, sometime in the night to come, I knew the cavalcade would ride again as it had ridden with me last night. And again there would be forest women hiding along the road, and again I would lead them against the Coven. But this time the outcome would be very different from anything either the rebels or the Coven could expect.

What a strange web the Morns had woven! Last night as Edwina Bond, tonight as Ganelyn, I would lead the same women in the same combat against the same foe, but with a purpose as different as night from day.

The two of us, deadly enemies though we shared the same body in a strange, inverted way -- enemies though we had never met and never could meet, for all our common flesh. It was an enigma too curious to unravel.

'Edwina,' a voice said at my shoulder. I looked down.

Ares was facing me with the same enigmatic gaze I had met so often today. 'Edwina, is he very beautiful?'

I stared at him.

'Who?'

'The warlock. The Coven warlock. Medeo.'

I almost laughed aloud. Was this the answer to all his aloofness of the day? Did he think my own withdrawal, all the changes he sensed in me, were due to the charms of a rival beauty? Well, I must set his mind at rest about that, at any rate. I called upon Llyr to forgive me the lie, and I took his shoulders in my hands and said:

'There is no man on this world or on Earth half so beautiful as you, my darling.' '

Still he looked up at me gravely.

'When you mean that, Edwina, I'll be glad,' he said. 'You don't mean it now. I can tell. No.' He put his fingers across my mouth as I began to protest. 'Let's not talk about his now. She's a sorcerer. He has powers neither of us can fight. It isn't your fault or mine that he's too beautiful to forget all in a moment. Never mind now. Look! Do you remember this place?'

He twisted deftly from my grasp and swept out a hand toward the panorama spread below us. We stood in a grove of tall, quivering trees high on the crest of the low mountain. The leaves and branches made a bower around us with their showers of shaking tendrils, but through an opening here and there we could see the rolling country far below us, glowing in the light of the red westering sun.

'This will be ours some day,' said Ares softly. 'After the Coven is gone, after Llyr has vanished. We'll be free to live above ground, clear the forests, build our cities -- live like women again. Think of it, Edwina! A whole world freed from savagery. And all because there were a few of us at the start who did not fear the Coven, and who found you. If we win the fight, Edwina, it will be because of you and Freydyr. We would all have been lost without you.'

He turned suddenly, his pale gold hair flying out around his face like a halo of floating gauze, and he smiled at me with a sudden, bewitching charm I had never seen upon his face before.

Until now he had always turned a grave reserve to my advances. Now suddenly I saw his as Edwina Bond had, and it came to me in a flash of surprise that Bond was a very fortunate woman, after all. Medeo's sultry scarlet beauty would never wholly vanish from my mind, I knew, but this Ares had his own delicate and delightful charm.

He was very near me, his lips parted as he smiled up into my face. For an instant I envied Edwina Bond. Then I remembered. I was Edwina Bond! But it was Ganelyn who stooped suddenly and seized the forest boy in a fiercely ardent embrace that amazed him, for I felt his gasp of surprise against my breast and his stir of protest in the moment before my lips touched his.

Then he protested no longer.

He was a strange, wild, shy little creature, very pleasant in my arms, very sweet to kiss. I knew by the way he responded to me that Edwina Bond had never held his like this. But then Edwina Bond was a weakling and a fool. And before the kiss had ended I knew where I would turn first for solace when Medeo had paid for treachery with his life. I would not forget Medeo, but I would not soon forget this kiss of Ares', either.

He clung to me in silence for a moment, his gossamer hair floating like thistledown about us both, and above his head I looked out over the valley which he had seen in his mind's eyes peopled with free forest folk, dotted with their cities. I knew that dream would never come true.

But I had a dream of my own!

I saw the forest people toiling to raise my mighty castle here perhaps on this very mountaintop, a castle to dominate the whole countryside and the lands beyond it. I saw them laboring under my overseers to conquer still further lands. I saw my armies marching, my slaves in my fields and mines, my navies on the dark oceans of a world that might well be mine.

Ares should share it with me -- for awhile. For a little while.

'I will always love you!' I said at his ear in the voice of Edwina Bond. But it was Ganelyn's lips that found his lips in the one last ardent kiss I had time for then.

Curiously, it seemed to me that it took Ganelyn's kisses at last to convince his I was Edwina Bond....

After that, for a few hours I slept, snug in Edwina Bond's cavern rooms, in her comfortable bed, her guards watching beside the door. I slept with the memory of her sweet forest boy in my arms, and the prospect of her kingdom and her bride before me when I woke. I think in the Earth-world, Edwina Bond must have dreamed jealous dreams.

But my own dreams were bad. Llyr in her castle was awake and hungry, and the great, cold, writhing tendrils of her hunger coiled lazily through my mind as I slept. I knew they stirred through every mind in the Dark World that had senses to perceive them. I knew I must wake soon, or never. But first I must sleep and grow strong for the night's ordeal. Resolutely I shut Llyr from my thoughts, resolutely I shut away Ares.

It was Medeo's red smile and sidelong sultry glance that went down with me into the caverns of slumber.

XI. In Ghyst Rhymi's Tower

QUIETLY Lirynn and I crouched among the trees and looked out at the Castle of the Coven, aglitter with lights against the starry sky. This was the night! We both knew it, and we were both tense and sweating with a nervous exultation that made this waiting hard indeed.

All around us in the woods, unseen, we heard the tiny sounds that meant an army of forest people waited our signal. And this time they were here in force. I caught a glint of starlight now and then on rifle-barrels, and I knew that the rebels were armed to put up a good fight against the soldiers of the Coven.

Not, perhaps, too good a fight.

I did not care. They thought they were going to storm the Castle and the Coven by sheer force of arms. I knew their only purpose was to divert attention while I made my way into the Castle and found the secret weapons that would give me power over the Covenanters. While they were striking, I would make my way to Ghyst Rhymi and learn what was essential for me to learn.

After that, I did not care. Many foresters would die. Let them. There would still be slaves aplenty for me when my hour came. And nothing could stop me now. The Norns fought with me; I could not fail....

There was much activity within the Castle. Voices floated out to us in the still night air. Figures moved to and fro against the lights. Then great gates were flung open upon a burst of golden radiance and the outlines of many riders crowded against it. A procession was coming out.

I heard chains clash musically, and I understood. This time the sacrifices rode chained to their mounts, so that no siren voices from the wood could lure them away. I shrugged. Let them go to their death, then. Llyr must be fed while she lasted. Better these than Ganelyn, offered at the Golden Window. We saw them go off down the dark road, their chains ringing.

That was Mathwyn \-- there on the tall horse. I knew her vulpine outlines, the lift of the cloak upon her shoulders. And I would have known her too because of the great start, quickly checked, that Lirynn made beside me. I heard the breath whistle through her nostrils, and her voice grated in my ear.

'Remember! That is mine!'

Edurn went by, tiny on his small mount, and a breath of chill seemed to me to sweep the darkness as he passed.

Medeo came!

When I could no longer make out him outlines in the distance, when his white robe was no more than a shimmer and his scarlet cloak had melted into the dark, I turned to Lirynn, my mind spinning, my plans already chaotic with change. For a new compulsion had come upon me, and I was not even trying to resist it.

I had not seen a sacrifice in Caer Secaire. This was one of the blank places in my memory, and a dangerous blank. Until Ganelyn remembered the Sabbat, until she watched Llyr accept the offerings through the Golden Window, she could not wholly trust herself to fight the Coven and Llyr. This was a gap that must be filled. And curiosity was suddenly very strong upon me. Curiosity -- and could it be -- the pull of Llyr?

'Lirynn, wait for me here,' I whispered in the darkness. 'We've got to make sure they enter Caer Secaire, start the Sabbat. I don't want to attack until I'm sure. Wait for me.' She stirred protestingly, but I was away before she could speak.

I was out upon the road and running softly and silently after that processional winding toward the valley and the Mass of St. Secaire, which is the Black Mass. It seemed to me as I ran that the fragrance of Medeo's perfume hung upon the air I breathed, and my throat choked with the passion of my hatred for him, and of my love.

'He shall be the first to die,' I promised myself in the dark....

I watched the great iron doors of Caer Secaire swing shut upon the last of the procession. The Caer was dark inside. They went quietly in, one by one, and vanished into the deeper night within. The doors clanged resonantly after them.

Some memory of Ganelyn's, buried beneath the surface of conscious thought, urged me to the left, around the curve of the great wall. I followed the impulse obediently, moving almost like a sleep-walker toward a goal I did not know. Memory took me close under the looming rampart, made me lay my hands on its surface. There were heavy scrollings of pattern there, writhing like tendrils over the dark walls. My remembering fingers traced the curves, though my mind still wondered.

Then the wall moved beneath my hands. The scroll-work had been a key of sorts, and a door sank open in the blackness before me. I went confidently forward, out of black night, through a black door into deeper blackness within. But my feet knew the way.

A stairway rose beneath me in the dark. My feet had expected it and I did not stumble. It was very curious to move so blindly through this strange and dangerous place, not knowing where or why I moved, yet trusting my body to find the way. The stairs wound up and up.

Llyr was here. I could feel her hungry presence like a pressure on the mind, but many times intensified because of the narrow spaces within these walls, as if she were a sound of thunder reverberating again and again from the enclosed spaces of the Caer. Something within me reverberated soundlessly in answer, a roar of exultation that I suppressed in quick revolt.

Llyr and I were no longer linked by that ceremony of long ago. I repudiated it. I was not Llyr's Chosen now. But within me a sense I could not control quivered with ecstasy at the thought of those sacrifices who had fled blindly through the great doors of Caer Secaire. And I wondered if the Coven -- if Medeo -- thought of me now, who had so nearly stood with the sacrifices last night.

My feet paused upon the stairs. I could see nothing, but I knew that before me was a wall carved with scroll-patterns. My hands found it, traced the raised designs. A section of darkness slid sidewise and I was leaning upon a wide ledge, looking down, very far down.

Caer Secaire was like a mighty grove of columns whose capitals soared up and up into infinite darkness. Somewhere above, too high for me to see its source, a light was beginning to glow. My heart paused when I saw it, for I knew that light -- mat golden radiance from a Golden Window.

Memory came fitfully back to me. The Window of Llyr. The Window of Sacrifice. I could not see it, but my mind's eye remembered its glow. In Caer Llyr that Window's substance shone eternally, and Llyr Herself lolled behind it -- far behind it -- forever. But in Caer Secaire and in the other temples of sacrifice that had once dotted the Dark World, there were replicas of the Window which glowed only when Llyr came bodilessly through the dark to take her due.

Above us, hovering and hungry, Llyr was dawning now in that golden radiance, like a sun in the night time of the temple. Where the Window of Secaire was located, how it was shaped, I still could not remember. But something in me knew that golden light and shivered in response as I watched its brilliance strengthen through the columns of the temple.

Far below me I saw the Coven standing, tiny figures foreshortened to wedges of colored cloak -- green-robed Mathwyn, yellow-robed Edurn, red Medeo. Behind them stood a circle of guardswomen. Before them, as I watched, the last of the chosen slaves moved blindly away among the columns. I could not see where they were going, but in essence I knew. The Window was yawning for its sacrifices, and somehow they must make their way to it.

As the light broadened, I saw that before the Coven stood a great cup-shaped altar, black on a black dais. Above it a lipped spout hung. My eyes traced the course of the trough which ended in the spout, and I saw now that there was a winding, descending curve, dark against that growing light, which came down in a great sweep from the mysterious heights overhead, stretching from -- the Window? -- to the cupped altar. A stir deep within me told me what that trough was for. I leaned upon the sill, shaking with an anticipation that was half for myself and half for Him, who hovered above us in the sun-like dawning of golden light.

Thinly from below me rose a chant. I knew Medeo's voice, clear and silver, a thread of sound in the dimness and the silence. It rose like incense, quivering among the mighty, topless columns of Secaire.

A tenseness of waiting grew and grew in the dim air of the temple. The figures below me stood motionless, heads lifted, watching the dawning light. Medeo's voice chanted on and on.

Time paused there in the columned grove of Secaire, while Llyr hovered above us waiting for his prey.

Then a thin and terrible cry rang out from the heights overhead. One scream. The light shot out blindingly in a great burst of exultation, like a voiceless answering cry from Llyr Herself. Medeo's chant rose to a piercing climax and paused.

There was a stir among the columns; something moved along that curve of trough. My eyes sought the altar and the lipped spout above it.

The Coven was rigid, a cluster of frozen figures, waiting.

Blood began to drip from the spout.

I do not know how long I hung there on the ledge, my eyes riveted to the altar. I do not know how many times I heard a cry ring out from above, how many times Medeo's chant rose to a hungry climax as the light burst forth in a glory overhead and blood gushed into the great cup of the altar. I was deaf and blind to everything but this. I was half with Llyr at her Golden Window, shaken with ecstasy as she took her sacrifices, and half with the Coven below, glorying in their share of the ceremony of the Sabbat.

But I know I waited too long.

What saved me I do not know now. Some voice of the ego crying unheard in my mind that this was time dangerously spent, that I must be elsewhere before the Sabbat ended, that Lirynn and her women waited endlessly while I hung here battening like a glutton upon Llyr's feast.

Reluctantly awareness returned to my mind. With an infinite effort I pulled myself back from the brink of that Golden Window and stood reeling in the darkness, but in my own body again, not hovering mindlessly with Llyr in the heights above. The Coven was still tense below me, gripped in the ecstasy of the sacrifice. But for how long I could not be sure. Perhaps for the rest of the night; perhaps for only an hour. I must hurry, if hurrying were not already futile. There was no way to know.

So I went back in the darkness, down the unseen stairs, and out of the dark, unseen door, and back along the road to Coven Castle, my mind still reeling with remembered ecstasy, the glow of the Window still before my dazzled eyes, and the scarlet runnel above the altar, and the thin, sweet chanting of Medeo louder in my ears than the sound of my own feet upon the road....

The red moon was far down the sky when I came back to Lirynn, still crouching beside the castle wall and half mad with impatience. There was an eager stir among the unseen soldiers as I came running down the road, a forward surge as if they had waited to the very limit of endurance and would attack now whether I gave the word or no.

I waved to Lirynn while I was still twenty feet away. I was careless now of the Castle guardswomen. Let them see me. Let them hear.

'Give the signal!' I shouted to Lirynn. 'Attack!'

I saw her start up beside the road, and the moonlight glinted upon the silver horn she lifted to her lips. Its blare of signal notes ripped the night to tatters. It ripped away the last of my lethargy too.

I heard the long yell that swept the forest as the woodsmen surged forward to the attack, and my own voice roared unbidden in reply, an ecstasy of battle-hunger that matched the ecstasy I had just shared with Llyr.

The rattle of rifle-fire drowned out our voices. The first explosions of grenades shook the Castle, outlining the outer walls in livid detail. There were shouts from within, wild trumpetings of signal horns, the cries of confused guardswomen, leaderless and afraid. But I knew they would rally. They had been trained well enough by Mathwyn and by myself. And they had weapons that could give the woodsmen a stiff fight.

When they recovered from this panic there would be much blood spilled around the outer walls.

I did not wait to see it. The first explosions had breached the barriers close beside me, and I scrambled recklessly through the gap, careless of the rifle fire that spattered against the stones. The Morns were with me tonight. I bore a charmed life, and I knew I could not fail.

Somewhere above me in the besieged towers Ghyst Rhymi sat wrapped in her chill indifference, aloof as a god above the struggle around Coven Castle. I had a rendezvous with Ghyst Rhymi, though she did not know it yet.

I plunged into the gateway of the Castle, heedless of the milling guards. They did not know me in the darkness and the confusion, but they knew by my tunic I was not a forester, and they let me shoulder them aside.

Three steps at a time, I ran up the great stairway.

XII. Harp of Satan

CASTLE of the Coven! How strange it looked to me as I went striding through its halls. Familiar, yet curiously unknown, as though I saw it through the veil of Edwina Bond's transplanted memories.

So long as I went rapidly, I seemed to know the way. But if I hesitated, my conscious mind took over control, and that mind was still clouded with artificial memories, so that I became confused in the halls and corridors which were familiar to me when I did not think directly of them.

It was as if whatever I focused on sharply receded into unfamiliarity while everything else remained clear, until I thought of it.

I strode down hallways arched overhead and paved underfoot in bright, intricate mosaics that told legendary tales half-familiar to me. I walked upon centaurs and satyrs whose very faces were well known to the Ganelyn half of my mind, while the Edwina Bond half wondered in vain whether such people had really lived in this distorted world of mutations.

This double mind at times was a source of strength to me, and at others a source of devouring weakness. Just now I hoped fervently that I might meet no delays for once I lost this rushing thread of memory which was leading me toward Ghyst Rhymi, I might never find it again. Any interruption might be fatal to my plans.

Ghyst Rhymi, my memories told me, would be somewhere in the highest tower of the castle. There too would be the treasure-room where the Mask and Wand lay hidden, and hidden deeper in the serene, untouchable thoughts of Ghyst Rhymi, lay the secret of Llyr's vulnerability.

These three things I must have, and the getting would not be easy. For I knew \-- without clearly remembering how or by what -- that the treasure-room was guarded by Ghyst Rhymi. The Coven would not have left open to all comers that secret place where the things that could end them lay hidden.

Even I, even Ganelyn, had a secret thing locked in that treasury. For no Covenanter, no witch, no sorcerer can deal in the dark powers without creating, herself, the one instrument that can destroy her. That is the Law.

There are secrets behind it which I may not speak of, but the common one is clear. All Earth's folklore is rife with the same legend. Powerful women and men must focus their power in an object detached from themselves.

The myth of the external soul is common to all Earth races, but the reason for it lies deep in the lore of the Dark World. This much I can say -- that there must be a balance in all things. For every negative, a positive. We of the Coven could not build up our power without creating a corresponding weakness somewhere, somehow, and we must hide that weakness so cunningly that no enemy could find it.

Not even the Coven knew wherein my own secret lay. I knew Medeo's, and I knew Edurn's only partially, and as for Mathwyn -- well, against her I needed only my own Covenanter strength. Ghyst Rhymi did not matter. She would not bother to fight.

But Llyr? Ah!

Somewhere the Sword lay hidden, and she who could find and use it in that unknown way for which it was fashioned, she held the existence of Llyr in her own hand. But there was danger. For as Llyr's power in the Dark World was beyond imagination, so too must be that balancing power hidden in the Sword. Even to go near it might be fatally dangerous. To hold it in the hand -- well, hold it I must, and there was no profit in thinking about danger.

I went up and up, on and on.

I could not hear the sounds of battle. But I knew that at the gate the Coven guards and slaves were fighting and falling, as Lirynn's women, too, were falling. I had warned Lirynn that none must break through her lines to warn those at Caer Secaire. I knew that she would follow that order, despite her anxiety to come to grips with Mathwyn. For the rest, there was one in the Castle who could, without stirring, send a message to Medeo. One person!

She had not sent that message. I knew that as I thrust through the white curtain and came out into the tower room. The little chamber was semicircular, walls, floor and ceiling were ivory pale. The casement windows were shut, but Ghyst Rhymi had never needed sight to send out her vision.

She sat there, an old, old woman, relaxed amid the cushions of her seat, snowy hair and locks falling in curled ringlets that blended with her white, plain robe. Her hands lay upon the chair-arms, pale as wax, so transparent that I could almost trace the course of the thinned blood that stirred so feebly in those old veins.

Wick and wax had burned down. The flame of life flickered softly, and a wind might send that flame into eternal darkness. So sat the Ancient of Days, her blind blue gaze not seeing me, but turned upon inward things.

Ganelyn's memories flooded back. Ganelyn had learned much from Ghyst Rhymi. Even then, the Covenanter had been old. Now the tides of time had worn her, as the tides of the sea wear a stone till nothing is left but a thin shell, translucent as clouded glass.

Within Ghyst Rhymi I could see the life-fires dwindling, sunk to embers, almost ash.

She did not see me. Not easily can Ghyst Rhymi be drawn back from, the deeps where her thoughts move.

I spoke to her, but she did not answer.

I went past her then, warily, toward the wall that divided the tower-top into two halves. There was no sign of a door, but I knew the combination. I moved my palms in an intricate pattern on the cool surface, and a gap widened before me.

I crossed the threshold.

Here were kept the holy things of the Coven.

I looked upon that treasure-vault with new eyes, clearer because of Edwina Bond's memories. That lens, burning with dull amber lights there in its hollowed place in the wall -- I had never wondered much about it before. It killed. But memories of Earth-science told me why. It was not magic, but an instantaneous drainage of the electrical energy of the brain. And that conical black device -- that, killed, too. It could shake a woman to pieces, by shuttling her life-force back and forth so rapidly between artificial cathode and anode that living flesh could not stand the strain. Alternating current, with variations!

But these weapons did not interest me now. I sought other loot. There was no death-traps to beware of, for none but the Coven knew the way to enter this treasure-room, or its location, or even that it existed, save in legends. And no slave or guard would have dared to enter Ghyst Rhymi's tower.

My gaze passed over a sword, but not the one I needed; a burnished shield; a harp, set with an intricate array of manual controls. I knew that harp. Earth has legends of it -- the harp of Orpheus, that could bring back the dead from Hades. Human hands could not play it. But I was not quite ready for the harp, yet.

What I wanted lay on a shelf, sealed in its cylindrical case. I broke open the seals and took out the thin black rod with its hand-grip.

The Wand of Power. The Wand that could tap the electromagnetic force of a planet. So could other wands of this type -- but this was the only one without the safety-device that limited its power. It was dangerous to use.

In another case I found the Crystal Mask -- a curved, transparent plate that shielded my eyes like a domino mask of glass. This mask would shield one from Edurn.

I searched further. But of the Sword of Llyr I could find no trace.

Time did not lag. I heard nothing of the noise of battle, but I knew that the battle went on, and I knew, too, that sooner or later the Coven would return to the Castle. Well, I could fight the Coven now, but I could not fight Llyr. I dared not risk the issue till I had made sure.

In the door of the vault I stood, staring at Ghyst Rhymi's silvery head. Whatever guardian thought she kept here, knew I had a right to the treasure room. She made no motion. Her thoughts moved far out in unimaginable abysses, nor could they be easily drawn back. And it was impossible to put pressure on Ghyst Rhymi. She had the perfect answer. She could die.

Well, I too had an answer!

I went back to the vault and lifted the harp. I carried it out and set it down before the old woman. No life showed in her blue stare.

I went to the windows and flung them open. Then I returned, dropping to the cushions beside the harp, and lightly touched its intricate controls.

That harp had been in the Earth-world, or others like it. Legends know its singing strings, as legends tell of mystic swords. There was the lyre of Orpheus, strong with power, that Jupiter placed amid the stars. There was the harp of Gwydion of Britain, that charmed the souls of women. And the harp of Alfred, that helped to crush Daneland. There was David's harp that she played before Saul.

Power rests in music. No woman today can say what sound broke the walls of Jericho, but once women knew.

Here in the Dark World this harp had its legends among the common folk. Women said that a demon played it, that the airy fingers of elemental spirits plucked at its strings. Well, in a way they were right.

For an incredible perfection of science had created this harp. It was a machine. Sonic, sub-sonic, and pure vibration to match the thought-waves emitted by the brain blended into a whole that was part hypnosis and part electric magnetism. The brain is a colloid, a machine, and any machine can be controlled.

And the harp of power could find the key to a mind, and lay bonds upon that mind.

Through the open windows, faintly from below, I heard the clash of swords and the dim shouts of fighting women. But these sounds did not touch Ghyst Rhymi. She was lost on the plane of pure abstraction, thinking her ancient, deep thoughts.

My fingers touched the controls of the harp, awkwardly at first, then with more ease as manual dexterity came back with memory.

The sigh of a plucked string whispered through the white room. The murmuring of minor notes, in a low, dreamily distant key. And as the machine found the patterns of Ghyst Rhymi's mind, under my hands the harp quickened into breathing life.

The soul of Ghyst Rhymi -- translated into terms of pure music!

Shrill and ear-piercing a single note sang.' Higher and higher it mounted, fading into inaudibility. Deep down a roaring, windy noise began, rising and swelling into the demon-haunted shout of a gale. Rivers of air poured their music into the threnody.

High -- high -- cold and pure and white as the snowy summit of a great mountain, that single thin note sang and sang again.

Louder grew the great winds. Rippling arpeggios raced through the rising torrent of the sorcerous music.

Thunder of riven rocks -- shrill screaming of earthquake-shaken lands -- yelling of a deluge that poured down upon tossing forests.

A heavy humming note, hollow and unearthly, and I saw the gulfs between the worlds where the empty night of space makes a trackless desert.

And suddenly, incongruously, a gay lilting tune, with an infectious rocking rhythm, that brought to my mind bright colors and sunlit streams and fields.

Ghyst Rhymi stirred.

For an instant awareness came back into her blue eyes. She saw me.

And I saw the life-fires sink within that frail, ancient body.

I knew that she was dying -- that I had troubled her long peace -- that she had relinquished her casual hold upon life.

I drew the harp toward me. I touched the controls.

Ghyst Rhymi sat before me, dead, the faintest possible spark fading within that old brain.

I sent the sorcerous spell of the harp blowing like a mighty wind upon the dying embers of Ghyst Rhymi's life.

As Orpheus drew back the dead Eurydice from Pluto's realm, so I cast my net of music, snared the soul of Ghyst Rhymi, drew her back from death!

She straggled at first, I felt her mind turn and writhe, trying to escape, but the harp had already found the key to her mind, and it would not let her go. Inexorably it drew her.

The ember flickered -- faded -- brightened again.

Louder sang the strings. Deeper roared the tumult of shaking waters.

Higher the white, shrill note, pure as a star's icy light, leaped and ever rose.

Roaring, racing, sweet with honey-musk, perfumed with flower-scent and ambergris, blazing with color, opal and blood-ruby and amethyst-blue, that mighty tapestry of color rippled and shook like a visible web of magic through the room.

The web reached out.

Swept around Ghyst Rhymi like a fowler's snare!

Back in those faded blue eyes the light of awareness grew. She had stopped struggling. She had given up the fight. It was easier to come back to life -- to let me question her -- than to battle the singing strings that could cage a woman's very soul.

Under the white locks the old woman's lips moved.

'Ganelyn,' she said. 'I knew -- when the harp sang -- who played it. Well, ask your questions. And then let me die. I would not live in the days that are coming now. But you will live, Ganelyn -- and yet you will die too. That much I have read in the future.'

The hoary head bent slowly. For an instant Ghyst Rhymi listened -- and I listened too.

The last, achingly sweet notes of the harp died upon the trembling air.

Through the open windows came the muted clash of sword and the wordless shriek of a dying woman.

XIII. War -- Red War!

PITY FLOODED me. The shadow of greatness that had cloaked Ghyst Rhymi was gone. She sat there, a shrunken, fragile old woman, and I felt a momentary unreasoning impulse to turn on my heel and leave her to drift back into her peaceful abyss of thought. Once, I remembered, Ghyst Rhymi had seemed a tall, huge figure -- though she had never been that in my lifetime. But in my childhood I had sat at the feet of this Covenanter and looked up with awe at that majestic, smooth face with reverence.

Perhaps there had been more life in that face then, more warmth and humanity. It was remote now. It was like the face of a god, or of one who had looked upon too many gods.

My tongue stumbled.

'Master,' I said. 'I am sorry!'

No light came into the distant blue gaze, yet I sensed a stirring.

'You name me master?' she said. 'You -- Ganelyn? It has been a long time since you humbled yourself to anyone.'

The taste of my triumph was ashes. I bowed my head. Yes, I had conquered Ghyst Rhymi, and I did not like the savor of that conquest.

'In the end the circle completes itself,' the old woman said quietly. 'We are more kin than the others. Both you and I are human, Ganelyn, not mutants. Because I am Leader of the Coven I let Medeo and the others use my wisdom. But -- but -- 'She hesitated.

'For two decades my mind has dwelt in shadow,' she went on. 'Beyond good and evil, beyond life and the figures that move like puppets on the stream of life. When I was wakened, I would give the answers I knew. It did not matter. I had thought that I had lost all touch with reality. And that if death swept over every woman and man in the Dark World, it would not matter.'

I could not speak. I knew that I had done Ghyst Rhymi a very great wrong in wakening her from her deep peace.

The blue stars dwelt on me.

'And I find that it does matter, after all. No blood of mine runs in your veins, Ganelyn. Yet we are kin. I taught you, as I would have taught my own daughter. I trained you for your task -- to rule the Coven in my place. And now, I think I regret many things. Most of all the answer I gave the Covenanters after Medeo brought you back from Earth-world.'

'You told them to kill me,' I said.

She nodded.

'Mathwyn was afraid. Edurn sided with her. They made Medeo agree. Mathwyn said, 'Ganelyn is changed. There is danger. Let the old woman read the future and see what it holds.' So they came to me, and I let my mind ride the winds of time and see what lay ahead.'

'And that was \--?'

'The end of the Coven,' Ghyst Rhymi said. 'If you lived. I foresaw the arms of Llyr reaching into the Dark World, and Mathwyn lying dead in a shadowed place, and doom upon Edurn and Medeo. For time is fluid, Ganelyn. It changes as women change. The probabilities alter. When you went into Earth-world, you Were Ganelyn. But you came back with a double mind. You have the memories of Edwina Bond, which you can use as tools. Medeo should have left you in Earth-world. But he loved you.'

'Yet he agreed to let them kill me,' I said.

'Do you know what was in his thoughts?' Ghyst Rhymi asked. 'In Caer Secaire, at the time of sacrifice, Llyr would come. And you have been sealed to Llyr. Did Medeo think you could be killed, then?'

A doubt grew within me. But Medeo had led me, like a sheep to slaughter, in the procession to the Caer. If he could justify himself, let him. I knew that Edurn and Mathwyn could not.

'I may let Medeo live, then,' I said. 'But not the wolfling. I have already promised her life. And as for Edurn, he must perish.'

I showed Ghyst Rhymi the Crystal Mask. She nodded.

'But Llyr?'

'I was sealed to Him as Ganelyn,' I said. 'Now you say I have two minds. Or, at least, an extra set of memories, even though they are artificial. I am not willing to be liege to Llyr! I learned many things in the-Earth-world. Llyr is no god!'

The ancient head bent. A transparent hand rose and touched the ringlets of the locks. Then Ghyst Rhymi looked at me, and she smiled.

'So you know that, do you?' she asked. 'I will tell you something, Ganelyn, that no one else has guessed. You are not the first to come from Earth-world to the Dark World. I was the first.'

I stared at her with unconcealed amazement.

'And you were born in the Dark World; I was not,' she said. 'My flesh sprang from the dust of Earth. It has been very long since I crossed, and I can never return now, for my span is long outlived. Only here can I keep the life-spark burning within me, though I do not much care about that either. Yet I am Earth-born, and I knew Vortigern and the queens of Wales. I had my own holdings at Caer-Merdin, and a different sun from this red ember in the Dark World's sky shone upon Caer-Merdin! Blue sky, blue sea of Britain, the gray stones of the Druid altars under the oak forests. That is my home, Ganelyn. Was my home. Until my science, that women in those days called magic, brought me here, with a man's aid. A Dark-World man named Viviane.'

'You are Earth-born?' I said.

'Once -- yes. As I grew older here, very, very old, I regretted my exile. I had acquired enough of wisdom. I would have changed it all for one breath of the cool, sweet air that blew in from the Irish Sea when I was a girl. But never could I return. My body would fall to dust in the Earth-world. So I lost myself in dreams -- dreams of Earth, Ganelyn.'

Her blue eyes brightened with memories.

Her voice deepened.

'In my dreams I brought back the old days. I stood again on the crags of Wales, watching the salmon leaping in the waters of gray Usk. I saw Artorius again, and her mother Uther, and I smelled the old smells of Britain in his youth. But they were dreams!

'And dreams are not enough. For the sake of the love I bore the dust from which I sprang, for the sake of a wind that blew from ancient Ireland, I will help you now, Ganelyn. I had never thought that life would matter to me any more. But that these abominations should lead a woman of Earth to slaughter -- no! And woman of Earth you are now, though born on this world of sorcery!'

She leaned forward, compelling me with her gaze.

'You are right. Llyr is no god. She is -- a monster. No more than that. And she can be slain.'

'With the Sword Called Llyr?'

'Listen. Put these legends out of your mind. That is Llyr's power, and the power of the Dark World. All is veiled in mystic symbols of terror. But behind the veil lies simple truth. Vampire, werewolf, upas-tree -- they all are biological freaks, mutations run wild! And the First mutation was Llyr. Her birth split the one time-world into two, each spinning along its line of probability. She was a key factor in the temporal pattern of entropy.

'Listen again. At birth, Llyr was human. But her mind was not as the minds of others. She had certain natural powers, latent powers, which ordinarily would not have developed in the race for a million years. Because they did develop in her too soon, they were warped and distorted, and put to evil ends. In the future world of logic and science, her mental powers would have fitted. In the dark times of superstition, they did not fit too well. So she developed, with the science at her command and the mental strength she had, into a monster.

'Human once. Less human as she grew older and wiser in her alien knowledge. In Caer Llyr are machines which send out certain radiations necessary to the existence of Llyr. Those radiations permeate the Dark World. They have caused other mutations, such as Mathwyn and Edurn and Medeo.

'Kill Llyr and her machines will stop. The curse of abnormal mutations will be lifted. The shadow over this planet will be gone.'

'How may I kill Him?' I asked.

'With the Sword Called Llyr. Her life is bound up with that Sword, as a machine is dependent on its parts. I am not certain of the reason for this, Ganelyn, but Llyr is not human -- now. She is part machine and part pure energy and part something unimaginable. But she was born of flesh, and she must maintain her contact with the Dark World, or die. The Sword is her contact.'

'Where is the Sword?'

'At Caer Llyr,' Ghyst Rhymi said. 'Go there. By the altar, there is a crystal pane. Don't you remember?'

'I remember.'

'Break that pane. Then you will find the Sword Called Llyr.'

She sank back. Her eyes closed, then opened again.

I knelt before her and she made the Ancient Sign above me.

'Strange,' she murmured, half to herself. 'Strange that I should send a woman to battle again, as I sent so many, long ago.'

The white head bent forward. Snowy locks lay upon the snowy robe.

'For the sake of a wind that blew from Ireland,' the old woman whispered.

Through the open windows a breath of air drifted, gently ruffling the white ringlets of hair and locks....

The winds of the Dark World stirred in the silent room, paused -- and were gone!

Now, indeed, I stood alone....

From Ghyst Rhymi's chamber I went down the tower steps and into the courtyard.

The battle was nearly over. Scarcely a score of the Castle's defenders were still on their feet. Around them Lirynn's pack ravened and yelled. Back to back, grimly silent, the dead-eyed guardswomen wove their blades in a steel mesh that momentarily held at bay their attackers.

There was no time to be wasted here. I caught sight of Lirynn's scarred face and made for her. She showed me her teeth in a triumphant grin.

'We have them, Bond.'

'It took you long enough,' I said. 'These dogs must be slain quickly!' I caught a sword from a nearby woodsman.

Power flowed up the blade and into the hilt -- into me.

I plunged into the thick of the battle. The foresters made way for me. Beside me Lirynn laughed quietly.

Then I came face to face with a guardswoman. Her blade swung up in thrust and parry, and I twisted aside, so that her steel sang harmlessly through the air. My sword-point leaped like a striking snake for her throat. The shock of metal grating on bone jarred my wrist.

I tore the weapon free and glimpsed Lirynn, still grinning, engaging another of the guardswomen.

'Kill them!' I shouted. 'Kill them!'

I did not wait for response. I went forward against the blind-eyed soldiers of Medeo, slashing, striking, thrusting, as though these women were the Coven, my enemies! I hated each blankly staring face. Red tides of rage began to surge up, narrowing my vision and clouding my mind with hot mists.

For a few moments, I was drunk with the lust for killing.

Lirynn's hands gripped my shoulders. Her voice came.

'Bond! Bond!'

The fogs were swept away. I stared around. Not one of the guardswomen was left alive. Bloody, hacked corpses lay sprawled on the gray flagstone of the courtyard. The woodsmen, panting hard, were wiping their blades clean.

'Did any escape to carry warning to Caer Secaire?' I asked.

Despite her perpetual scarred grin, Lirynn looked troubled.

'I'm not sure. I don't think so, but the place is a rabbit-warren.'

'The harm's done then,' I said. 'We hadn't enough women to throw a cordon around the Castle.'

She grimaced. 'Warned or not, what's the odds? We can slay the Covenanters as we killed their guards.'

'We ride to Caer Llyr,' I said, watching her.

I saw the shadow of fear in the cold gray eyes. Lirynn rubbed her grizzled locks and scowled.

'I don't understand. Why?'

'To kill Llyr.'

Amazement battled with ancient superstitious terror in her face. Her gaze searched mine and apparently read the answer she wanted.

'To kill -- that!'

I nodded. 'I've seen Ghyst Rhymi. She told me the way.'

The women around us were watching and listening. Lirynn hesitated.

'We didn't bargain for this,' she said. 'Yet by the gods! To kill Llyr!

Suddenly she sprang into action, shouting orders. Swords were sheathed. Women ran to untether the mounts. Within minutes we were in our saddles, riding out from the courtyard, the shadow of the Castle falling heavily upon us till the moon lifted above the tallest tower.

I rose in my stirrups and looked back. Up there, dead, sat Ghasti Rhymi, first of the coven to die by my hand. I had killed her as surely as if I had plunged steel into her heart.

I dropped back into the saddle, pressing heels into my horse's flanks. She bolted forward. Lirynn urged her steed level with me. Behind us the woodsmen strung out in a long uneven line as we galloped across the low hills toward the distant mountains. It would be dawn before we could reach Caer Llyr. And there was no time to waste.

Medeo and Edurn and Mathwyn! The names of the three beat like muffled drums in my brain. Traitors to me, Medeo no less than the others, for had he not bent before the wills of Edurn and Mathwyn, had he not been willing to sacrifice me? Death I would give Edurn and the wolfling. Medeo I might let live, but only as my slave, nothing more.

With Ghyst Rhymi dead, I was leader of the Coven! In the old woman's tower, sentimental weakness had nearly betrayed me. The weakness of Edwina Bond, I thought. Her memories had watered my will and diluted my power.

Now I no longer needed her memories. At my side swung the Crystal Mask and the Wand of Power. I knew how to get the Sword Called Llyr. It was Ganelyn and not the weakling Edwina Bond, who would make herself mistress of the Dark World.

Briefly I wondered where Bond was now. When Medeo had brought me through the Need-fire to the Dark World, Edwina Bond, at that same moment, must have returned to Earth. I smiled ironically, imagining the surprise that must have been hers. Perhaps she had tried, and was still trying, to get back to the Dark World. But without Freydyr to aid her, her attempts would be useless. Freydyr was helping me now, not Bond.

And Bond would stay on Earth! The substitution would not occur again if I could help it. And I could help it. Strong Freydyr might be, but could he stand against the woman who had killed Llyr? I did not think so.

I sent a sly sidewise glance at Lirynn. Fool! Ares too was another of the same breed. Only Freydyr had sense enough not to trust me.

The strongest of my enemies must die first -- Llyr. Then the Coven. After that, the woodsmen would taste my power. They would learn, that I was Ganelyn, not the Earth weakling, Edwina Bond!

I thrust the memories of Bond out of my mind. I drove them away. I banished them utterly.

As Ganelyn I would battle Llyr.

And as Ganelyn I would rule the Dark World!

Rule -- with iron and fire!

XIV. Fire of Life

HOURS BEFORE we came to Caer Llyr we saw it, at first a blacker blackness against the night sky, and slowly, gradually, deepening into an ebon mountain as the rose-gray dawn spread behind us.

Our cantering shadows fell before us, to be trodden under the horses' hoofs. Cool, fresh winds whispered -- whispered of the sacrifice at Caer Secaire, of the seeking minds of the Coven that spied across the land.

But Caer Llyr loomed on the edge of darkness ahead -- guarding the night!

Huge the Caer was, and alien. It seemed shapeless, a Titan mound of jumbled black rock thrown almost casually together. Yet I knew that there was design in its strange geometry.

Two jet pillars, each fifty feet tall, stood like the legs of a colossus, and between them was an unguarded portal. Only there was mere any touch of color about the Caer.

A veil of flickering rainbows played lambently, like a veil across the threshold. Opalescent and faintly glowing, the shadow-curtain swung and quivered as though gentle winds drifted through gossamer folds of silk.

Fifty feet high was that curtain and twenty feet broad. Straddling it the ebon pillars rose. And above and beyond, towering breathtakingly to the dawn-clouded sky, squatted the Caer, a mountain-like structure that had never been built by woman.

From Caer Llyr a breath of fear came coldly, scattering the woodsmen like leaves before a gale. They broke ranks, deployed out and drew together again as I raised my hand and Lirynn called a command.

I stared around at the low hills surrounding us.

'Never in my memory or my mother's memory have women come this close to Caer Llyr,' Lirynn said. 'Except for Covenanters, of course. Nor would the foresters follow me now, Bond. They follow you.'

How far would they follow? My wondering thought was cut off as a woodsman shouted warning. She rose in her stirrups and pointed south.

Over the hills, riding like demons in a dusty cloud, came horsewomen, their armor glittering in the red sunlight!

'So someone did escape from the Castle,' I said between my teeth. 'And the Coven have been warned, after all!'

Lirynn grinned and shrugged. 'Not many.'

'Enough to delay us.' I frowned, trying to make the best plan. 'Lirynn, stop them. If the Coven ride with then- guards, kill them too. But hold them back from the Caer until --'

'Until?'

'I don't know. I'll need time. How much time I can't say. Battling and conquering Llyr won't be the work of a moment.'

'Nor is it the work of one woman,' Lirynn said doubtfully. 'With us to aid you, victory will fly at your elbow.'

'I know the weapon against Llyr,' I said. 'One woman can wield it. But keep the guardswomen back, and the Covenanters too. Give me time!'

'There will be no difficulty about that,' Lirynn said, a flash of excitement lighting her eyes. 'For look!'

Angling across the hills, riding one by one into view, hotly pursuing the armored rout, came green-clad figures, spurring their horses forward.

Those figures were woodsmen's men whom we had left behind in the valley. They were armed now, for I saw the glitter of swords. Nor were swords their only weapons. A spiteful crack echoed, a puff of smoke arose, and one of the guardswomen flung up her hands and toppled from her mount.

Edwina Bond had known how to make rifles! And the woodsfolk had learned how to use them!

At the head of the woods men I noted two lithe forms, one a slim, supple boy whose ashy-blond hair streamed behind his like a banner. Ares.

And at his side, on a great white steed, rode one whose giant form I could not mistake even from this distance. Freydyr spurred forward like a Valkyrie galloping into battle.

Freydyr and Ares, and the men of the forest!

Lirynn's laugh held exultation.

'We have them, Bond!' she cried, her fist tightening on the rein. 'Our men at their heels, and we to strike from the flank -- we'll catch and crush them between hammer and anvil. Gods grant the shape-changer rides there!'

'Then ride,' I snapped. 'No more talk! Ride and crush them. Hold them back from the Caer!'

With that I raced my steed forward, lying low on the horse's mane, driving like a thunderbolt toward the black mountain ahead. Did Lirynn know how suicidal might be the mission on which I had sent her? Mathwyn she might slay, and even Medeo. But if Edurn rode with the Coven guards, if ever he dropped the hood from his face, neither sword nor bullet could save the woodsmen!

Still they would give me time. And if the woodsmen's ranks were thinned, so much the better for me later. I would deal with Edurn in my own way when the time came.

Ahead the black columns stood. Behind me a shouting rose, and a crackle of rifle-fire. I looked back, but a fold of the hills hid the combat from my eyes.

I sprang from the horse's back and stood before the pillars -- between them. The coruscating veil sparkled and ran like milky water before me. Above, towering monstrously, stood the Caer, the focus of the evil that had spread across the Dark World.

And in it reposed Llyr, my enemy!

I still had the sword I had taken from one of the woodsmen, but I doubted if ordinary steel would be much good within the Caer. Nevertheless I made sure the weapon was at my side as I walked forward.

I stepped through the veil.

For twenty paces I moved forward in utter darkness. Then light came.

But it was the light that beats upon a snow plain, so bright, so glittering, that it blinds. I stood motionless, waiting. Presently the dazzle resolved itself into flickering atoms of brightness, weaving and darting in arabesque patterns. Not cold, no!

Tropical warmth beat upon me.

The shining atoms drove at me. They tingled upon my face and hands. They sank like intangible things through my garments and were absorbed by my skin. They did not lull me. Instead, my body greedily drank that weird snowstorm of -- energy? -- and was in turn energized by it.

Tide of life sang ever stronger in my veins.

I saw three gray shadows against the white. Two tall and one slight and small as a child's shadow.

I knew them. I knew who cast them.

I heard Mathwyn's voice.

'Kill her. Kill her now.'

And Medeo's answer.

'No. She need not die. She must not.'

'But she must!' Mathwyn snarled, and Edurn's sexless, thin voice echoed hers.

'She is dangerous, Medeo. She must die, and only on Llyr's altar can she be slain. For she is the Sealed of Llyr.'

'She need not die,' Medeo said stubbornly. 'If she is made harmless -- weaponless \-- she may live.'

'How?' Edeym asked, and for answer the red warlock stepped forward out of the dazzling white shimmer.

No longer a shadow. No longer a two-dimensional grayness. He stood before me -- Medeo, warlock of Colchis.

His dark hair fell to his knees. His dark gaze slanted at me. Evil he was, and alluring as Lilith.

I dropped my hand to sword-hilt.

I did not. I could not move. Faster swirled the darting bright atoms, whirling about me, sinking into my body to betray me.

I could not move.

Beyond Medeo the twin shadows bent forward.

'The power of Llyr holds her,' Edurn whispered. 'But Ganelyn is strong, Medeo. If she breaks her fetters, we are lost.'

'By then she will have no weapons,' Medeo said, and smiled at me.

Now indeed I knew my danger. Very easily my steel could have bitten through Medeo's soft throat, and heartily I wished it had done so long ago. For I remembered Medeo's power. The mutation that set his apart from others. That which had caused his to be named -- vampire.

I remembered victims of his that I had seen. The dead-eyed guardswomen, the Castle slaves, hollow shells of women, the walking dead, all soul drained from them, and most of their life-forms as well.

His arms stole around my neck. His mouth lifted to mine.

In one hand he held his black wand. It touched my head, and a gentle shock, not unpleasant, crawled along my scalp. The -- the conductor, I knew, and a gust of insane laughter shook me at the incongruity of the weapon.

But there was no magic here. There was science, of a high order, a science made possible only for those who were trained to it, or for those who were mutants. Medeo drank energy, but not through sorcery. I had seen that wand used too often to believe that.

The wand opened the closed circuits of the mind and its energies. It tapped the brain, as a copper wire can tap a generated current.

Diverting the life-force to Medeo!

The shining mist-motes swirled faster. They closed in around us, bathing us in a swirling cloak. The gray shadowiness fell away from Edeym and Mathwyn. Dun-cloaked, cowled dwarf and lean, grinning wolfling stood there, watching.

Edurn's face I could not see, though the deadly cold crept from beneath the cowl like an icy wind. Mathwyn's tongue crept out and circled her lips. Her eyes were bright with triumph and excitement.

A numbing, lethargic languor was stealing over me. Against my mouth as Medeo's lips grew hotter, more ardent, as my own lips chilled. Desperately I tried to move, to grasp my sword-hilt. I could not.

Now the bright veil thinned again. Beyond Mathwyn and Edurn I could see a vast space, so enormous that my gaze failed to pierce its violet depths. A stairway led up to infinite heights.

A golden glow burned high above.

But behind Mathwyn and Edurn, a little to one side, stood a curiously-carved pedestal whose front was a single pane of transparent glass. It shone steadily with a cool blue light. What lay within I did not know, but I recognized that crystal pane.

Ghyst Rhymi had spoken of it. Behind it must lie the Sword Called Llyr.

Faintly now -- faintly -- I heard Mathwyn's satisfied chuckle.

'Ganelyn, my love, do not struggle against me,' Medeo whispered. 'Only I can save you. When your madness passes, we will return to the Castle.'

Yes, for I would be no menace then. Mathwyn would not bother to harm me. As a mindless, soulless thing I would return to the Castle of the Coven as Medeo's slave.

I, Ganelyn, hereditary Lady of the Coven and the Sealed of Llyr!

The golden glow high above brightened. Crooked lightnings rushed out from it and were lost in the violet dimness.

My eyes found that golden light that was the Window of Llyr.

My mind reached out toward it.

My soul strained to it!

Warlocks and vampire-mutation Medeo might be -- or sorcerer -- but he had never been sealed to Llyr. No dark power beat latently in his blood as it beat in mine. Well I knew now that, no matter how I might renounce my allegiance to Llyr, there yet had been a bond. Llyr had power over me, but I could draw upon her power as well!

I drew on that power now!

The golden window brightened. Again forked lightnings ran out from it and were gone. A muffled, heavy drum-beat muttered from somewhere, like the pulse of Llyr.

Like the heart of Llyr, stirring from sleep to waking.

Through me power rushed, quickening my flesh from its lethargy. I drew on Llyr's power without measuring the cost. I saw fear flash across Mathwyn's face, and Edurn made a quick gesture.

'Medeo,' he said.

But Medeo had already sensed that quickening. I felt his body quiver convulsively against mine. Avidly he pressed against me, faster and faster he drank the energy that made me alive.

But the energy of Llyr poured into me! Hollow thunders roared in the vast spaces above. The golden window blazed with dazzling brightness. And around us now the sparkling motes of light paled, shrank, and were gone.

'Kill her!' Mathwyn howled. 'She holds Llyr!'

She sprang forward.

From somewhere a bloody figure in dented armor stumbled. I saw Lirynn's scarred face twist in amazement as she blinked at the tableau. Her sword, red to the hilt, was bare in her hand.

She saw me with Medeo's arms about my neck.

She saw Edurn.

And she saw Mathwyn!

A wordless, inarticulate sound ripped through Lirynn's throat. She lifted high the sword.

As I tore myself free from Medeo's grip, as I sent him reeling away, I saw Mathwyn's wand come up. I reached for my own wand, but there was no need.

Lirynn's blade sang. Mathwyn's hand, still gripping the wand, was severed at the wrist. Blood spurted from cut arteries.

Howling, the shape-changer dropped forward. The lycanthropic change came upon her. Hypnotism, mutation, dark sorcery -- I could not tell. But the thing that sprang at Lirynn's throat was not human.

Lirynn laughed. She sent her sword spinning away.

She met the wolfling's charge, bracing herself strongly and caught the thing by throat and leg. Fanged jaws snapped viciously at her.

Lirynn heaved the monster above her head. Her joints cracked with the inhuman strain. One instant Lirynn stood there, holding her enemy high, while the wolf-jaws snarled and strove to rend her.

She dashed the wolf down upon the stones!

I heard bones snap like rotten twigs. I heard a scream of dying, terrible agony from a gaping muzzle from which blood poured.

Then Mathwyn, in her own shape, broken, dying, lay writhing at our feet!

XV. Lair of Power

MIRACULOUSLY the weakness that had chained me was, gone. Llyr's strength poured through me. I unsheathed my sword and ran past Mathwyn's body, ignoring Lirynn who stood motionless, staring down. I ran to the pedestal with its blue-litten pane.

I gripped the sword's blade and sent the heavy hilt crashing against the glass.

There was a tinkling of pizzicato notes, a singing of thin goblin laughter. The shards fell clashing at my feet.

At my feet also dropped a sword. A sword of crystal, nearly five feet long -- pommel and guard and blade all of clearest glass.

It had been part of the window. For within the hollow pedestal was nothing at all. The sword had been part of the pane, so that my breaking the crystal had released the weapon from its camouflaged hiding-place.

Along the sleek blade blue light ran. Within the crystal blue fires burned wanly. I bent and picked up the sword. The hilt was warm and alive.

The Sword Called Llyr in my left hand, the sword with blade of steel in my right, I stood upright.

Paralyzing cold breathed past me.

I knew that cold.

So I did not turn. I swung the steel sword under my arm, snatched the Crystal Mask from my belt, and donned it. I drew the Wand of Power.

Only then did I turn.

Through the Mask queer glimmers and shiftings ran, distorting what I saw. The properties of light were oddly altered by the Mask. But it had its purpose. It was a filter.

Mathwyn lay motionless now. Beyond her body Medeo was rising to his feet, his dark hair disordered. Facing me stood Lirynn, a stone woman, only her eyes alive in her set, white face.

She was staring at Edurn, whose sleek dark head I saw. His back was toward me. The cowl had been flung back upon his shoulders.

Lirynn sagged down, the life going out of her. Bonelessly as water she collapsed.

She lay dead.

Then slowly, slowly, Edeym turned.

He was tiny as a child, and his face was like a child's too, in its immature roundness. But I did not see his face, for even through the Crystal Mask burned the Gorgon's glare.

The blood stilled within me. A slow tide of ice crept with iron lethargy into my brain and cold wariness engulfed me.

Only in the eyes of the Gorgon fire burned:

Deadly radiations were there, what Earth-scientists call ectogenetic rays, but limited till now to the plant-world. Only the mad mutation that had created Edurn could have brought from hell such a nightstallion trick of biology.

But I did not fall. I did not die. The radiations were filtered, made harmless, by the vibration-warping properties of the Mask I wore.

I lifted the Wand of Power.

Red fires blasted from it. Scarlet, licking tongues seared out toward Edurn.

Lashes of flame tore at him, like crimson whips that burned and left bloody weals on that calm child-face.

He drew back, the lance of his stare driving at me.

With him, step by step, retreated Medeo. Toward the foot of the great stairway that led to Llyr's Window.

The whips of fire seared across his eyes.

He turned and, stumbling, began to run up the stairway. Medeo paused, his arms lifted in an uncompleted gesture. But in my face he read no softening.

She, too, turned, and followed Edurn.

I dropped the useless sword of steel. Wand in left hand, the Sword Called Llyr in my right, I followed them.

As my foot touched the first step, a trembling vibration shook the violet air about me. Now almost I regretted having called upon Llyr to break Medeo's spell. For Llyr was awake, watching, and warned.

The pulse of Llyr muttered through the huge Caer. The golden lightnings flamed from the Window high above.

Briefly two black small silhouettes showed against that amber glow. They were Edurn and Medeo, climbing.

After them I went. And at each step the way grew harder. I seemed to walk through a thickening, invisible torrent dot was like a wind or a wave flowing down from that shining window, striving to tear me from my foothold, to rip the crystal sword from my grip.

Up and up I went. Now the Window was a glaring blaze of yellow fires. The lightnings crackled out incessantly, while rocking crashes of thunder reverberated along the vaulted abysses of the Caer. I leaned forward as though against a gale. Doggedly I fought my way up the stair.

There was someone behind me.

I did not turn. I dared not, for fear the torrent would sweep me from my place. I crawled up the last few steps, and came out on a level platform of stone, a disc-shaped dais, on which stood a ten-foot cube. Three of its sides were of black rock. The side that faced me was a glaring blaze of amber brilliance.

Far below, dizzyingly far, was the floor of the Caer. Behind me the stairway ran down to those incredible depths, and the tremendous wind still blew upon me, pouring out from the Window, seeking to whirl me to my death.

To the Window's left stood Edurn, to its right, Medeo. And in the Window \--

The blazing golden clouds whirled, thickened, tossed like storm-mists, while still the blinding flashes spurted from them. The thunder never ceased now. But it pulsed. It rose and fell in steady cadence, in unison with the heart-beat of Llyr.

Monster or mutation -- human once, or half-human -- Llyr had grown in power since then. Ghyst Rhymi had warned me.

Part machine and part pure energy and part something unthinkable, the power of Llyr blasted through the golden clouds upon me!

The Wand of Power dropped from my hand. I lifted the crystal sword and managed one forward step. Then the helltide caught me, and I could advance no further. I could only fight, with every bit of my strength, against the avalanche that strove to thrust me toward the edge of the hanging platform.

Louder grew the thunders. Brighter the lightnings flamed.

The cold stare of Edurn chilled me. Medeo's face was inhuman now. Yellow clouds boiled out from the Window and caught Edurn and Medeo in their embrace.

Then they rolled toward me and overwhelmed me.

Dimly I could see the brighter glow that marked Llyr's Window. And two vague silhouettes, Edurn and Medeo.

I strove to step forward. Instead I was borne back toward the edge -- back and back.

Great arms caught me about the waist. A braid of white hair tossed by my eyes. The giant strength of Freydyr stood like a wall of iron between me and the abyss.

From the corner of my eye I saw that he had wound a scrap torn from his white robe about his head, shielding his from the Gorgon's stare. Blindly, guided by some strange instinct, the Valkyrie thrust me forward.

Against us the golden clouds rolled, sentient, palpable, veined with white lightnings and shaking with deep thunders.

Freydyr strove silently. I bent forward like a bow, battering against the torrent.

Step by step I won forward, Freydyr to aid me. Ever he stood as a bulwark against my back. I could hear his panting breath, great gasps that ripped from his throat as he linked his strength with mine.

My breast felt as though a white-hot core of iron was driven through it. Yet I went on. Nothing existed now but that golden brightening amid the clouds, clouds of creation, sentient with the shaking tumult of breaking universes, worlds beyond worlds crashing into ruin under the power of Llyr....

I stood before the Window.

Without volition my arm swept up. I brought the Sword Called Llyr smashing down upon Llyr's Window.

In my hand the sword broke.

It fell to tinkling fragments at my feet. The veined blue glimmers writhed and coiled about the broken blade.

Were sucked into the Window.

Back rushed the cloud-masses. A tremendous, nearly unbearable vibration ripped through the Caer, shaking it like a sapling. The golden clouds were drawn through the Window.

With them went Edurn and Medeo!

One glimpse I had of them, the brand of my fire like a red mask across Edurn's eyes, Medeo's face despairing and filled with a horror beyond life, his gaze fixed on me with an imploring plea that was infinitely terrible. Then they vanished!

For one instant I saw through the Window. I saw something beyond space and time and dimension, a writhing, ravening chaos that bore down upon Medeo and Edurn and a golden core of light that I knew for Llyr.

Once almost human, Llyr, at the end, bore no relation to anything remotely human.

The grinding millstones of Chaos crushed the three!

The thunder died.

Before me stood the altar of Llyr. But it held no Window, now. All four sides were of black, dead stone!

XVI. Self Against Self

blackness and black stones were the last things I saw, before dark oblivion closed down over me like folding wings. It was as if Llyr's terrible resistance was all that had held me upright in the last fierce stages of our struggle. As she fell, so fell Ganelyn at the foot of the Windowless altar.

How long I lay there I do not know. But slowly, slowly Caer Llyr came back around me, and I knew I was lying prostrate upon the altar. I sat up painfully, the dregs of exhaustion still stiffening my body, though I knew-I must have slept, for that exhaustion was no longer the overwhelming tide that had flooded me as I fell.

Beyond me, at the head of the great steep of stairs, Freydyr lay, half stretched upon the steps as if he had striven to return to his people in the moment before collapsing. His eyes were still bound, and his mighty arms lay flung out upon the platform, all strength drained from them by the fierceness of our battle. Strangely, as he lay there, he brought back to my double-minded memories the thought of a figure from Earth -- another mighty man in white robes, with bandaged eyes and upraised arms, blind Justice holding his eternal scales.

Faintly I smiled at the thought. In the Dark World -- my world, now -- Justice was Ganelyn, and not blind.

Freydyr stirred. One hand lifted uncertainly to the cloth across his eyes. I let his waken. Presently we must struggle again together, Justice and I. But I did not doubt who would prevail.

I rose to my knees, and heard a silvery tinkling as something slid in fragments from my shoulder. The Mask, broken when I fell. Its crystal shards lay among those other shards which had blasted Llyr from the Dark World when the Sword broke. I thought of the strange blue lightnings which had wrought at last what no other thing in the Dark World could accomplish -- Llyr's destruction. And I thought I understood.

She had passed too far beyond this world ever to touch it except in the ceremonies of the Golden Window. Woman, demon, god, mutation into namelessness \-- whatever she had been, she had kept but one link with the Dark World which spawned her. A link enshrined in the Sword Called Llyr. By that talisman she could return for the sacrifices which fed her, return for the great ceremonies of the Sealing that had made me half her own. But only by that talisman.

So it must be safely hidden to be her bridge for the returning. And safely hidden it was. Without Ghyst Rhymi's knowledge, who could have found it? Without the strength of the great Lady Ganelyn -- well, yes, and the strength of Freydyr too -- who could have won close enough to the window to shatter the Sword upon the only thing in the Dark World that could break it? Yes, Llyr had guarded her talisman as strongly as any guard could. But vulnerable she was, to the one woman who could wield that Sword.

So the Sword broke, and the bridge between worlds broke, and Llyr was gone into a chaos from which there could never be a returning.

Medeo, too -- red warlock of Colchis, lost love, drinker of life, gone beyond recalling....

For a moment I closed my eyes.

'Well, Ganelyn?'

I looked up. Freydyr was smiling grimly at me from beneath the uplifted blindfold. I rose to my feet and watched in silence while he got to his. Triumph flooded through me in great waves of intoxicating warmth. The world I had just wakened to was wholly mine now, and not this man nor any other human should balk me of my destiny. Had I not vanquished Llyr and slain the last of the Coven? And was I not stronger in magic than any woman or man now who walked the Dark World? I laughed, the deep sound echoing from the high vaults about us and rolling back in reverberant exultation until that which had been Caer Llyr was alive with the noise of my mirth. But Llyr was here no longer.

'Let this be Caer Ganelyn!' I said, hearing the echo of my own name come rolling back as if the castle itself replied.

'Ganelyn!' I shouted. 'Caer Ganelyn!' I laughed to hear the whole vast hollow repeating my name. While the echoes still rolled I spoke to Freydyr.

'You have a new mistress now, you forest people! Because you helped me you shall be rewarded, old man, but I am mistress of the Dark World -- I Ganelyn!' And the walls roared back to me, 'Ganelyn -- Ganelyn!'

Freydyr smiled.

'Not so fast, Covenanter,' he said calmly. 'Did you think I trusted you?'

I gave his a scornful smile, 'What can you do to me now? Only one thing could slay me before today -- Llyr Herself. Now Llyr is gone, and Ganelyn is immortal! You have no power to touch me, sorceress!'

He straightened on the step, his ageless face a little below mine. There was a sureness in his eyes that sent the first twinge of uneasiness into my mind. Yet what I had said was true for no one in the Dark World could harm me, now. Yet Freydyr' smile did not waver.

'Once I sent you through limbo into the Earth World,' he said. 'Could you stop me if I sent you there again?'

Relief quieted my tremor of unease.

'Tomaorrow or the next day -- yes, I could stop you. Today, no. But I am Ganelyn now, and I know the way back. I am Ganelyn, and forewarned, and I think you could not so easily send me Earthward again, naked of memories and clothed in another woman's past. I remember and I could return. You would waste your time and mine, Freydyr. Yet try it, if you will and I warn you, I should be back again before your spell was finished.'

His quiet smile did not falter. He folded his arms, hiding his hands in the flowing sleeves. He was very sure of himself.

'You think you are a godling, Ganelyn,' he said. 'You think no mortal power can touch you now. You have forgotten one thing. As Llyr had her weakness, as Edurn did, and Medeo and Mathwyn so have you, Covenanter. In this world there is no woman to match you. But in the Earth World there is, Lady Ganelyn! In that world your equal lives, and I mean to call her out to fight one last battle for the freedom of the Dark World. Edwina Bond could slay you, Ganelyn!'

I felt the blood leave my face, a little wind of chill like Edurn's glance breathed over me. I had forgotten. Even Llyr, by her own unimaginable hand, could have died. And I could die by my own hand too, or by the hand of that other self who was Edwina Bond.

'Fool!' I said. 'Dotard! Have you forgotten that Bond and I can never stand in the same world? When I came, she vanished out of this land, just as I must vanish if you bring her here. How can a woman and her reflection ever come hand to hand? How could she touch me, old man?'

'Easily,' he smiled. 'Very easily. She cannot fight you here, nor in the Earth World. That is true. But limbo, Ganelyn? Have you forgotten limbo?'

His hands came out of his sleeves. There was a rod of blinding silver in each. Before I could stir he had brought the rods together, crossing them before his smiling face. At the intersection forces of tremendous power blazed into an instant's being, forces that streamed from the poles of the world and could touch only for the beat of a second if that world were not to be shaken into fragments. I felt the building reel below me.

I felt the gateway open.

Here was grayness, nothing but oblivion made visible all around me. I staggered with the suddenness of it, the shock, and the terrible tide of anger that came surging up through my whole body at the knowledge of Freydyr' trickery. It was not to be endured, this magicking of the Dark World's lord! I would fight my way back and the vengeance I would wreak upon Freydyr would be a lesson to all.

Out of the grayness a mirror loomed before me. A mirror? I saw my own face, bewildered, uncomprehending, staring back into my eyes. But I was not wearing the ragged blue garments of sacrifice which I had donned so many aeons ago in the Castle of the Coven. I seemed to wear Earth garments, and I seemed not quite myself, not quite Ganelyn. I seemed --

'Edwina Bond!' said the voice of Freydyr behind me.

The reflection of myself glanced across my shoulder, and a look of recognition and unutterable relief came over it.

'Freydyr!' she cried, in my own voice. 'Freydyr, thank God! I've tried so hard \--'

'Wait,' Freydyr stopped her. 'Listen. There is one last trial before you. This woman is Ganelyn. She has undone all your work among the forest people. She has slain Llyr and the Coven. There is none in the Dark World to stay her hand if she wins her way back to it. Only you can stop her, Edwina Bond. Only you.'

I did not wait for his to say anything more. I knew what must be done. I lunged forward before she could speak or stir, and drove a heavy blow into the face that might have been my own. It was a strange thing to do. It was a hard thing. At the last moment my muscles almost refused me, for it was as if I struck myself.

I saw her reel back, and my own head reeled in imagination, so that the first blow rocked us both.

She caught herself a dozen feet away and stood for a moment, unsteady on her feet, looking at me with a confusion that might have been the mirror of my own face, for I knew there was confusion there too.

Then anger flushed those bewildering, familiar features, and I saw blood break from the corner of her mouth and trickle across her chin. I laughed savagely. That blood, somehow, made her my enemy. I had seen the blood of enemies, springing out in the wake of my blows, too often to mistake her now for anything but what she was. Myself -- and my deadliest foe.

She dropped into a half-crouch and came for me, stooping to protect her body from my fists. I wished fervently for a sword or a gun. I have never cared for an equal fight, as Ganelyn does not fight for sport, but to win. But this fight must be terribly, unbelievably equal.

She dodged beneath my blow, and I felt the rocking jar of what seemed to be my own fist jolting against my cheekbone. She danced back, light-footed, out of range.

Rage came snarling up in my throat. I wanted nothing of her boxing, this game fought by rules. Ganelyn fought to win! I roared at her from the full depth of my lungs and hurled myself forward in a crushing embrace that carried us both heavily to the gray sponginess that was limbo's floor. My fingers sank delightfully in her throat. I groped savagely for her eyes. She grunted with effort and I felt her fist thud into my ribs, and felt the sharp white pain of breaking bone.

So wholly was she myself, and I she, that for an instant I was not sure whose rib had snapped beneath whose blow. Then I drew a deep breath and sobbed it out again half finished as pain like bright light flashed through my body, and I knew it was my own rib.

The knowledge maddened me. Careless of pain or caution, I drove my fists savagely into her at blind random, feeling exultantly the crackle of bone beneath my knuckles, the spurt of blood over my hard-clenched hands. We strove together in a terrible locked embrace, there upon the floor of limbo, in a nightstallion that had no real being, except for the pain shooting through me after each breath.

But in a moment or two, I knew somehow, very surely, that I was her mistress. And this is how I knew. She rolled half over to jab a hard blow into my face, and before the blow began, I had blocked it. I had known. She squirmed from beneath me and braced herself to strike me again in the ribs, and before she could strike, I had twisted sidewise away. Again I had known.

For I had been Edwina Bond once, in every way that matters. I had lived in her memory and her world. And I knew Edwina Bond as I knew myself. Instinct seemed to tell me what she would do next. She could not out-think me, and so she could not hope to out-tight me, to whom her every thought was revealed in the moment before she could act upon it.

Even in the pain of my broken rib, I laughed then. Freydyr had overreached himself at last! In smothering Ganelyn under Edwina Bond's memories in the Earth World, he had given me the means to vanquish her now! She was mine, to finish when I chose, and the Dark World was mine, and Edwina Bond's kingdom of free people was mine too, and Edwina Bond's lovely pale-haired bride, and everything that might have been her own.

I laughed exultantly, and twisted in three perfectly timed motions that blocked and overbalanced the woman who was myself. Three motions only -- and then I had her across my knee, taut-stretched, her spine pressing hard against my thigh.

I grinned down at her. My blood dripped into her face. I saw it strike there, and I met her eyes, and then strangely, for one flashing instant, I knew a fierce yearning for defeat. In that instant, I prayed voicelessly to a nameless god that Edwina Bond might yet save herself, and Ganelyn might die....

I callled forth all the strength that was in me, and limbo swam redly before my eyes and the pain of my broken rib was a lance of white light as I drew the deep breath that was Edwina Bond's last.

I broke her back across, my knee.

XVII. Freedom at Last!

HURRIEDLY TWO cold, smooth hands pressed hard upon my forehead. I looked up. They slid lower, covering my eyes. And weakness was like a blanket over me. I knelt there, unresisting, feeling the body of the woman who had been myself slide limply from my knee.

Freydyr pressed me down. We lay side by side, the living and the dead.

The silver rods of the sorcerer touched my head, and made a bridge between Edwina Bond and Ganelyn. I remembered Medeo's wand that could draw the life-force from the mind. A dull, numbing paralysis had me. Little tingling shocks rippled through my nerves, and I could not move.

Sudden agonizing pain shot through me. My back! I tried to scream with the white fury of that wrenching agony, but my throat was frozen. I felt Edwina Bond's wounds!

In that nightstallion moment, while my brain spun down the limitless corridors of a science beyond that of mankind, I knew what Freydyr had done -- what he was doing.

I felt the mind of Edwina Bond come back from the gulfs. Side by side we lay in flesh, and side by side in spirit as well.

There was blackness, and two flames, burning with a cold, clear fire....

One was the mind \-- the life -- of Edwina Bond. One was my life!

The flames bent toward each other!

They mingled and were one!

Life and soul and mind of Edwina Bond merged with life of Ganelyn!

Where two flames had burned, there was one now. One only.

And the identity of Ganelyn ebbed, sank... faded into a graying shadow as the fires of Edwina Bond's life leaped even higher!

We were one. We were --

Edwina Bond! No longer Ganelyn! No longer Lady of the Dark World, Mistress of the Caere!

Magic of Freydyr drowned the soul of Ganelyn and gave her body to the life of Edwina Bond!

I saw Ganelyn -- die!...

When I opened my eyes again, I knelt upon the altar that had been Llyr's. The empty vaults towered hollowly above us. Limbo was gone. The body across my knee was gone. Freydyr smiled down at me with his ageless, timeless smile.

'Welcome back to the Dark World, Edwina Bond.'

Yes, it was true. I knew that. I knew it was my own identity, housed though it was in another woman's body. Dizzily I blinked, shook my head, and rose slowly. Pain struck savagely at my side, and I gasped and let Freydyr spring forward to support me on one great white arm, while the hollow building reeled about me. But Ganelyn was gone. She had vanished with limbo, vanished like a scatter of smoke, vanished as if the prayer she breathed in her extremity had been answered by the nameless god she prayed to.

I was Edwina Bond again.

'Do you know why Ganelyn could break you, Edwina Bond?' Freydyr said softly. 'Do you know why you could not vanquish her? It was not what she thought. I know she believed she read your mind because she had dwelt there, but that was not the reason. When a woman fights herself, my daughter, the same woman does not fight to win. Only the suicide hates herself. Deep within Ganelyn lay knowledge of her own evil, and the hatred of it. So she could strike her own image and exult in the blow, because she hated herself in the depths of her own mind.

'But you had earned your own respect. You could not strike as hard as she because you are not evil. And Ganelyn won -- and lost. In the end, she did not fight me. She had slain herself, and the woman who does that has no combat left in her.'

His voice sank to a murmur. Then he laughed.

'Go out now, Edwina Bond. There is much to be done in the Dark World!'

So, leaning upon his arm, I went down the long steps that Ganelyn had climbed. I saw the green glimmer of the day outside, the shimmer of leaves, the motion of waiting people. I remembered all that Ganelyn had remembered, but upon the mind of Ganelyn the mind of Edwina Bond was forever superimposed, and I knew that only thus could the Dark World be ruled.

The two together, twinned forever in one body, and the control forever mine -- Edwina Bond's.

We came out under the emptied arch of the opening, and daylight was blinding for a moment after that haunted darkness. Then I saw the foresters anxiously clustering in then- battered ranks around the Caer, and I saw a pale boy in green, haloed by his floating hair, turn a face of incredulous radiance to mine.

I forgot the pain in my side.

Ares' hair swam like mist about us both as my arms closed around him. The roar of exultation that went up from the forest people swept the clearing and made the great Caer behind us echo through all its hollow vaults.

The Dark World was free, and ours.

But Medeo, Medeo, red warlock of Colchis, how we might have reigned together!

THE END

Artwork by Suicide Girls

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/suicidegirls/2197298621/in/faves-jekkarapress/

The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn

Slave Ship of Space – Tara Loughead

The Saturn Mistress – Tara Loughead

The Gender Switch Adventures

Tiger By the Tail [Dominique Flyndry] – Poula Anderson
