Horn Crown (Witch World: High Hallack Series) by Andre Norton Read Free Book Online Page B

was as if both she and the cat were deaf; neither turned head nor slowed their pace. By the time I reached the edge of that hidden place, the girl was standing between the two trees which fronted the square. Her hands were pressed tight to her breast, her eyes flexed upon the pavement, as if it enshrined some great wonder visible to her alone.
    Behind her crouched the cat, this time its eyes were not half closed, but alert, also watching.
    Gathea took a step forward.
    “No!” I raised my voice, tried to leap over the rim, to forestall her before she ventured onto the pavement.
    I tried to leap, only to sprawl backward in a tumble of limbs and body, the crossbow flying away, myself kicking to regain my balance as might a beetle which has been turned on its back.
    I scrambled to my knees, flung out an arm ahead. I might have driven my fist against a wall of the same rock as lay all about. There was a barrier there—one I could neither see nor force. Now I used the fingertips of both hands, feeling up and up until I stood once more. Both my hands ran across something—something which held me out yet appeared to have let Gathea past.
    When I looked down I saw her standing just on the edge of the square. To her right was lifted on the pillar that dark disc, to her left one of brilliant blue. Her eyes were still fixed in that stare and I watched her lips again move in soundless speech.
    Slowly she went down to her knees, her hands sweeping out, her head bowed forward, as if she paid the most formal of homage to some great lord. Petals still drifted through the air; several fell to lie upon her head.
    Her hands moved once more as she gently swept some of those which lay upon the pavement, gathering them into the hollow of her right palm. Once more her head lifted so I could see her face. Her eyes were closed and she had a listening look as if she heard some message of import which she must remember and deliver to another.
    Again she bowed, but this time she held against her heart the palmful of petals. Then she arose, and, at the same time that she turned away, like one who had completed a task, the surface against which my hands had been pressed vanished.
    I pushed again farther on—to encounter nothing. Still I did not leap down into the dell as I had planned to do. Here, that would have seemed more than discourtesy—an outrage of a sort. I shook my head, trying to free it of such fancies. Only I knew that these were no fancies, that what I thought was real. I dared not intrude upon the Moon Shrine, though there was no threat of evil, merely the realization that it was not for such as me. Tramping in, I would break some beautiful thing which was precious beyond my imagining.
    Now I lingered for Gathea to rejoin me and it was not until she was some distance away that I understood she was headed south. Apparently she had no intention of sharing a path any farther. The cat followed her for a space, while I stood and watched her, uncertain of what to do or say.
    Then that silver body again flashed up into the air in a graceful leap as the cat left her, heading westward and south, apparently seeking its own way along the rim of the other dale. I remained alone as Gathea walked steadily forward, and not once did she look back or speak any farewell.
    When I finally realized that she was on her way back to her mistress I started my patrol once more. How much of what had happened would I report? Never before had I thought to conceal from Garn any part of what I had seen. Only this time I had a feeling that what I had just witnessed had not only been no business of mine, but also it was not for Garn's prying. For he might possibly order perhaps even the destruction of the Moon Shrine (yes, that crossed my mind). He detested, I well knew by now, all elements of the unknown that could not be met by physical force, and he would be angry that Gathea had manifestly found something here of power. I had, too. That invisible wall which had