The Dark World Relit

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 an
d 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