Wheel of Stars Read online

  13

  It would seem that these dire weather predictions were working out to the satisfaction of the most pessimistic during the following weeks. There would be a milder spell during which Whitebridge resumed the limited winter life, only to face in turn another series of bone-freezing storms and high blizzards from the north. Some weeks Gwennan could get to the library only one or two days. However, business was brisk there when she opened—for the town was turning to books in the threat of a long winter shut-in.

  Jim Pyron still burrowed in the Crowder papers, now and then lingering by Gwennan’s desk to share some new discovery. It was he who brought news she would rather not have heard, stirring up memories she had thought well under control.

  “Young Lyle showed up at Cranston’s last night—” he told her. “I’d always heard that the Lyles had their own storehouse, but he did buy supplies. Though I think mainly that was an excuse. He was after something else—”

  “Oh?” She knew her voice was cool, on the verge of snappish, but Gwennan wanted to hear no more of the Lyles.

  “He—well, Gwen, he may have thought he was being smart about it, but I think he wanted to find what you were doing. He wrangled the talk around some, though he didn’t come right out to ask any questions.”

  “Just what was he told?” Now her tone was sharp.

  “Someone mentioned that you and the New-tons were sticking out the bad days together. Which is only sensible. You know, Gwen—there’s something about that fellow. He wants something and he wants it bad. You were friendly with the Lady, weren’t you, before she left? Maybe he thinks you know something she told you—something which he needs to know—”

  Into Gwennan’s mind flashed that last letter. She could remember every word of it—always would, she was sure. The letter and the pendant—it was the latter which Tor Lyle wanted. Perhaps if she gave it to him she could be rid of any further participation in Lyle concerns. That was one way—but even as she guessed that she also was sure it was not one she could follow.

  “I certainly have nothing to tell him,” she retorted. “Did he suggest that I have?”

  The fact that Tor Lyle was trying to check on her brought back with a rush the old uneasiness which she had thought she had escaped.

  No! she was not going to remember, to start again any dealings with the Lyles, those wild dreams, hallucinations or such, which they appeared able to control.

  “It isn’t so much what he says.” The girl realized that Jim was watching her closely. That she resented also. “It is just that he is fishing. Not that it gets him anywhere. He certainly hasn’t the liking of the town. Arrogant cuss—though he tries to be agreeable. Only he’s too impatient, I would say—and his temper gets away from him now and then. I’d be careful, Gwen. The Lyles have a queer standing in this town, always have had.

  “None of them have ever thrown their weight around very much. On the other hand, no one has ever denied that they do have a lot of power if they want to use it. Most of them have kept their distance, the Crowder accounts make that very clear. It is as if they live one life and the town another—distant acquaintances, you might say. This Tor Lyle is something rather new — he pushes—too much at times. And there’s something about him—as if—”

  “As if he is laughing at us inside—” Gwennan returned without thinking, then was heartily sorry the minute the words were out of her mouth.

  “Then you have come up against him! Gwen—be careful. I’m glad you’re with the Newtons. You’re altogether too isolated out on the far fringe of town that way.”

  “Why should I have anything to fear from Tor Lyle?” she demanded, her chin up, anger rising still higher in her.

  Jim Pyron looked away from her, down at the two old ledgers he had collected that afternoon. “Perhaps you don’t,” he answered slowly. “It’s just that fellow—well, he’s strange, even for a Lyle. Maybe he’ll take off again soon. Few of them ever spend the winters here. At least,” now he laughed, “this weather has gotten rid of the Devil for us—too cold for his Satanic Majesty—or his emissary. There have been no more chicken killings or bad smells around. Maybe the blizzards have done us one favor. About time you closed up, isn’t it? Paul take you home?”

  She nodded, very glad for the change of subject. Though she was going to make no comments about devils and the like. Again memory had risen in a surge which she wanted to push away. She had a momentary mental picture of that monstrous crew which had followed Tor’s other personality in the green-lit world and perhaps had even answered to his drawing in this. Just how much was he responsible for what had appeared at her window that night? Why had such a creature sought her out? Was that also because of an order from Tor?

  She spent Thanksgiving with the Newtons. Jim Pyron’s guess concerning Tor Lyle’s leaving town apparently had been true, for the last of the Lyles had not been seen again. Gwennan trusted that he had indeed disappeared, after the way of his clan, to seek a warmer climate for the rest of the winter.

  As December began, the weather, oddly enough, for all its fury earlier, grew milder. Gwennan, back in her own home, kept to the round of duties she had followed for years. She made only one trip to the front parlor, bundling up the books there and taking them back to the library, firmly intent on seeing them returned through the interloan system to those establishments which owned them. She had left the papers of her notes, stuffed into a large manuscript envelope, lying on the seat of one of the very uncomfortable chairs, the same chair over the back of which she had thrown the cloak.

  The scent that clung to it had grown sharper in the cold room rather than faded. That strange fabric, now fully exposed, gave forth continually its own odor, as might a blooming flower. And her first impression of the fabric, that it had once been a living thing and not woven from any thread she knew, persisted.

  She found herself at times tempted to bring the garment out, examine it more closely. But she had strength of will enough not to yield to that temptation, congratulating herself on her ability to shut off firmly any further desire to learn what had influenced her weeks ago. Deliberately she kept to Miss Nessa’s narrow routine.

  Christmas had never been a particularly exciting or joyous season as far as her aunt had been concerned. Perhaps the very old New England custom of considering it a popish holiday, not to be celebrated in any way, had filtered down among the Daggert clan—at least to Miss Nessa’s generation. Gwennan bought a handful of cards, realizing, as she spread them out on the table, just how few people she really knew—even in this village where she had lived for most of her life.

  She dutifully addressed one to the family of each board member as was fitting, found one for Miss Graham and her mother, remembered the Newtons. And, having sealed and stamped that small pile, put them aside. There were a few gifts—to the Grahams, the Newtons—selected from catalogues luckily far enough ahead so that the recent tie-up of mail had not interfered with their delivery. She surveyed her preparations for the holiday, and, for the first time, saw them as limited.

  Of course there was the baking. Miss Nessa at least had seen that as a duty. The mince tarts would go with her to the Newtons for Christmas dinner, then there was her one timid recognition of the season as far as the town was concerned—the cookies for the plate she would keep filled in the library during the Christmas week.

  Though she was no such cook as many of the townswomen were, Gwennan managed, as she believed, very well on the score of what she did—again Miss Nessa’s training. There were no decorations to be put up in the house, of course—but she achieved greens for the library, while Miss Graham’s class had sent class made Santas and other seasonal cutouts which she placed to the best advantage.

  Midwinter day—

  Gwennan stood now by the table where she had carefully set out mixing bowls, cookie tins, all ingredients she had been gathering over the weeks for this supreme effort.

  Midwinter day—

  The significance of that broke into
her mind as a painful blow. She put her hands to the side of her head, cowered against the table. No! She would not! She owed nothing to Lady Lyle—except memories now flooding through her with force enough to set her shaking, sick, with fear rising cold in her.

  Midwinter day—

  She had not promised. She had never promised! Certainly she could not be forced to do as she had been instructed when she had given no promise! She had not asked for Lady Lyle’s legacy—she wanted nothing but to be left alone. Left alone!

  Midwinter day—

  Even as Gwennan fought desperately, she knew that she had no hope of winning. She had been so very sure that she freed herself from the compulsion, that she was no longer any tool of the Lyle’s. At this moment she learned how futile had been her attempt to build walls and barriers—that she had been allowed a shadow of freedom as a cat might allow a mouse to run a little before the lazy and powerful paw closed upon it again. She was not free—she was caught.

  Weakly Gwennan dropped into the nearest chair. She had never been given to tears. Even as a child she had greeted both pain and sore disappointment with tight lips and an inner resolve not to cry. Now she felt her eyes filling as if she had no control over her emotions at all. These others had set their mark on her—she was as much a servant to the Lyles as the dark-faced, silent people she had seen under their roof on her few visits there. That was the other side of all the wonders that house held—this slavery—for slavery it truly was—which held fast those the Lyles wished to bend to their own service.

  She fought, pulling on every atom of her own will and determination. Gwennan made herself get up, she did not even try to wipe away those slowly welling tears—let them run. She could still fight and she would. Her hands moved, uncertainly at first and then with greater purpose. She measured, stirred, cut out the fanciful shapes provided by the very old set of tin cutters she had found far back in the cupboard during a spring cleaning turn-out. She put cookies on the sheets into the oven, took them forth again, gold and crisp under their scattering of green or red sugar—and she fought—seeking always to twist and turn for freedom.

  But, as she piled the cool cookies into the gay tin boxes set ready for them, the girl knew that she had already lost the battle with that first sharp stab of memory. Tomorrow morning she must do just as Lady Lyle had meant when that letter had been written. She would once again play a Lyle game and there was no escaping it.

  That night she went early to bed—setting the alarm with fingers which were stiff enough to ache. Before she did that, she had gone into the parlor and taken up the cloak and the envelope which contained the pendant watch. As she clasped the latter in her hand once again, she saw that the dial was alive—that both sets of symbols, large and small were visible, that the light bars were dimly aglow. Though she would rather have opened the window beside her and hurled that thing out into the nearest snow drift, she lifted the chain and allowed it to encircle her neck once more. That warmth which seemed native to the silvery metal lay against her skin directly between her breasts.

  Gwennan feared, expected, dreams to haunt her that night. Instead her sleep was deep, untroubled. She awoke before the alarm sounded, quickly and completely, as if a voice had summoned her. Methodically she dressed in her warmest clothes, nor did she stop to eat or drink.

  Instead she caught up the cloak, and, on the doorstep, under the fading stars, she pulled it around her. Once more it enfolded her—eagerly—if one could say that of a piece of cloth (if cloth this was), closed around her as if she and no one else had ever been intended to wear it. The scent arose, now sharper. That was no perfume of winter but rather one which promised spring and the reawakening of the earth to new life.

  The lane was only partially cleared when she turned into that path. Here were no signs that anyone had passed—at least no one from the Lyle House. The field wall was a mound, white and smoothly humped. Overhead the sky greyed, no clouds showing—a clear day to come.

  A clear day and sun rising over the High Stone. Midwinter day—once a festival to which dark shadows clung. So much crowded into Gwennan’s mind. This was the shortest day of all, when the sun must be coaxed back to serve the world—sometimes through cruel sacrifice. There had been blood spilled on the snow once when men, long lost to all but remnants of old knowledge, had tried to draw back the natural warmth and life of their world—bring life anew.

  This snow did not pack nor cling to the hem of her long cloak. In fact the edges appeared to sweep aside any impediment offered by drifts through which it was necessary for Gwennan to make her way. She was at the wall which she had climbed across so many times in the past. The girl leaned forward using both arms, the cloak flaring wide, to sweep a way.

  The fringes of the wood stood stark and black against the white drifts. Once across the wall, Gwennan paused to eye the stand of trees. They appeared so thick set that, even lacking leaves, this shadowed stretch formed a place of concealment—for what? She did not know except that she disliked that thought.

  Knee deep in the snow she floundered on, keeping well away from the trees. There was the mound and the stones. Though they had wide tops snow had not crowned them, nor did drifts lie about the mound itself, as she discovered when she began to climb. Perhaps the winds continually scoured this small height, and kept it so uncovered.

  There was light enough for her to sight the roof of the house. A single small trail of smoke arose there into the quiet air—the only sign of life visible. The wood was utterly silent.

  Gwennan came to a stand between the two shorter stones—the third one towering before her. Reaching under the edge of the cloak she pulled down the zipper fastening her parka and drew out the pendant. That brightness of symbol which had showed when she first put it on was yet flashing—and the warmth of it reached through her mitten into her hand.

  She raised it, dial out, towards those deep rose banners across the sky. The sun was rising.

  At that moment the utter silence of the world was broken. A horn—afar, faint—sounding a call such as might have once summoned worshipers to a temple. It rang proudly, demandingly—

  She started, looked to the wood below, more than half expecting to see something—someone—emerge from there in answer to that summons. But there was no movement. Then the dial shot forth a ray of light. Down that beam traveled a spiral of gold, aimed at the midsection of the tallest stone.

  Where it met the surface it washed outward. Those markings which she had always known were there but could never quite plainly see came instantly alive. There was no show of erosion now. And they tugged at her mind—as if she knew but could not quite remember—not—

  “Fal, Fal—Iaqua—trunc—

  Aspex sim, dontpex—”

  Out of nowhere words came to her. The twisting of the spiral of light fitted itself to the rhythm of them. Also she knew!

  “Strength, Strength—give me of your bounty—Open to true blood, locks be broken!”

  In answer the light of the dial’s twisted beam bathed the whole of the stone, flooding upward towards the sky, downwards to where that wider foot was deep buried in the earth.

  That pillar, which had appeared so rooted, was bending, canting away from her. Was the rock itself bowing to the rising sun? It moved very slowly, reluctantly, still it was plain that a force it could not resist forced obedience.

  Gwennan voiced sounds which were no longer

  words, rather formed vibrations crucial to this time and place—sounds which carried a power greater than any man might exert with either hand or tool. And the pillar answered to them.

  The stone rested near on its side. Where it had stood was a dark opening in the ground. Gwennan’s hand fell. The light from the dial now poured into that dusky well rather than upon the rock which had so long masked it. She sighted a step within, another below that.

  Sweeping the cloak more tightly about her, she began to descend, still clicking with her tongue those weird, rhythmic sounds knowledge other tha
n her conscious memory supplied.

  Rock walls arose about her as rough-hewn as the stone above—there had been no attempt to smooth this path. A damp, earth born odor gathered, to be in turn banished by the scent of her cloak which freshened the stale air. She descended an endless staircase, for, as far as the light from the watch reached, there was nothing but the treads and the walls on either side.

  A grating sound broke through her low chant. Gwennan was startled enough to look back and up, in that moment realizing the great folly of entering what might be a fatal trap. The stretch of sky she could see was narrowing. That stone which had bowed to the sun to allow her to enter was rising again. Before she could retreat it would wall her in.

  Gwennan made an effort to break that compulsion moving her—too late. The rock had returned into its footing at a much quicker pace than it had opened.

  Down and down went the stairway. Now she noted signs that it had not survived perfectly. There were cracks in the walls here and there, one large enough for her to insert a hand. Some of the treads underfoot were broken. There was one bad place where she had to turn sidewise, planting her boots edgewise on a step to negotiate four or five of them at all, they had been so clipped and reduced.

  She became aware of the other light only slowly, her eyes being so completely attuned to that given forth by the watch dial. However, a dim break of the dark did show ahead, to one side. Gwennan reached the last of those steps to front an archway rudely chipped in a wall. Beyond that was the dull coloring of day—a cloudy, stormy day. She faced a hall or tunnel and the light came from squares of what looked to be dirty, much-seamed quartz set in the walls at intervals. It had a dreary appearance as might the inner ways of a prison and she thought of those dungeon halls which had run beneath the temple in Ortha’s time and world. Still, even those had been brighter.