Slowly I stepped upon the stone I could see well, heading towards that ghost. Or was it another and more subtle illusion, beckoning the wayfarer on for a disastrous fall into the flood below. As I closed upon the broken gap mended by that dim rise, I went down on hands and knees creeping forward, warily testing each stone before me, lest a dislodged block turn and precipitate me down. It was very hard to believe in-that shadow portion.
I reached the end of the solid stone, or what one sight reported solid stone. My hand moved out, expecting to thrust into nothingness, but the shadow was firm substance. I crept on, hardly daring to look about me. For my eyes said that I was coming on to a span of mist, too ephemeral a thing to support my weight. And below the water boiled and frothed about the support pillars. My touch told me that the mist was real, the break was not. Almost it was as confusing as the shifting stones on the heights.
Across what I could see only as a shadow I went, still on hands and knees until I came to the solid stone. As I stood upright, supported by one hand on the parapet, breathing hard, I knew that once again I must ever be on guard, not disarmed by the smiling peace of this land, so that my double sight could aid and warn.
The road wound on, now through fields. No cattle nor sheep grazed there, nor were any crops sown. At intervals I called upon my double sight, but no hazy outlines formed. There were birds in plenty, and they showed no wariness of me, scratching in the dust near my feet, soaring within a hand’s distance, or swinging on some bush limb eyeing me curiously. They were brighter plumaged than the ones I knew from the Dales, and of different species. There was one with stiffly curled tail feathers of red and gold, wings of rust-red, that did not fly at all, but ran beside me for a space in company, calling out at intervals a small questing note as if it expected some coherent answer. It was larger than a barnyard fowl and more assured.
Twice I saw furred things watching me as unafraid. A fox surveyed my passing, sitting up as might a hound. Almost I expected it to bark a greeting. And two squirrels, these a red-gold, rather than the grey that lived in Nor-stead gardens, chattered together, manifestly exchanging opinions concerning me. Were it not for that cord ever drawing me onward, that sense of necessity and need, I would have travelled with a light and joyous heart.
Still caution walked with me and I did not forget to use the sight as a check upon the countryside. The sun arose, was warm, so that the fur rug which had been such a boon in the hills was now a sorry drag upon my arm. I was folding it for the fourth time when I chanced to look upon the ground and a small chill froze me in mid-gesture.
I threw no shadow-that dark mark of any standing or moving thing in a lighted world was no longer mine! Smarkle had accused me of that in the Hound camp, but I had been too intent upon escape for it to make much impression on my mind. But I was real-solid-flesh and bone! Around me trees, bushes, tall clumps of grass all had their proper patch of corresponding shade to mark their presence. But it was as if I were as unsubstantial as that piece of bridge had been in my sight.
Was I only real to myself? But the Hounds had seen me, laid hands upon me, had thought to do even more. To them I had been solid, had had life. That I hugged to me, though I had never thought to be thankful for my meeting with those ravagers and outlaws.
Now I moved my hands, striving to win an answer to that movement on the ground. And the confidence built up during my morning’s wanderings ebbed somewhat. So small a shadow, something we seldom think on. But to lack it-ah, that was another matter. Suddenly it became one of the most important possessions, as needful as a hand, a limb-as needful to one’s sense of sanity.
Even the double sight gave me no shadow. But I used it on the surrounding country and saw-
I was no longer in a world empty of inhabitants. Mist formed grew more visible as I concentrated, stiffened, became opaque and solid seeming. To my left there was a lane turning from the road, and at the end of that lane a farm garth. An old house with a sharply gabled roof, outbuildings, a walled enclosure which might mark a special garden. It was unlike the holdings of the Dales with that steeply pitched roof, with the carvings scalloped around the eaves and dormer windows. The front faced a paved yard in which I saw figures passing. And the more I studied it, the clearer my sight came to be. This was the true sight, the empty fields the illusion.
Without making any real decision I turned into that lane, hurried my steps to the paved yard. And the closer I came the more imposing the house. The roof was covered with slates, the house itself was of stone-that same blue-green stone I had found on the heights. But the carvings were touched with gold and a richer green. Over the main door was set a panel bearing a device like unto the arms of the Dales, yet different, since it made use of intertwined symbols and not the signs of heraldry. And about it was the feeling of age, not an age which drains and exhausts by the passing of years, but an age which adds and enriches.
Those who went about their business outside were two, a man who led horses from the stable to drink at a trough, and a capped maid shooing fowls before her-fowls of brilliant feathers and long slender legs.
I could not see their faces clearly, but plainly they were made like unto me and human seeming. The man wore silver-grey hosen, and an over-jerkin of grey leather, clipped in at the waist with a belt on which gleamed metal. And the maid had a gown of russet, warm as a hearth fire and over it a long, apron-shift of yellow, the same colour as her cap.
The pavement of the yard was solid under my boots. And the maid approached me, sowing grain for the birds from a shallow basket on her arm.
“Please-“ Suddenly I needed contact, for her to see me, answer-I had spoken aloud but she did not glance at me, even turn her head in my direction.
“Please-“ My voice was thin but loud. In my own ears it rang above the sounds made by the fowls. Still she did not look to me. And the man, having watered the horses, returned with them to the stables, passing close by. He looked, yes, but manifestly he did not see. There was no change of expression on his thin face with its slanted brows and pointed chin-like in that much to the Riders’ features.
I could stand their indifference no longer. Reaching out I caught the maid’s sleeve. She gave a little cry, jerked back and stared about her as one bewildered and a little afraid. At her ejaculation the man turned and called query in a tongue I did not know. Though both of them looked to where I stood, yet they did not show that they saw me.
My concentration broke. They began to fade, that age-old house, man and maid, buildings, fowls, horses-thinner and thinner-until they were gone and I stood in the middle of one of the fields utterly alone again. Still in me I knew that my sight was reversed-where once I had seen good slicked over ill, now I saw ill slicked over good. To me this was a land of wraiths-and to them I was the wraith!
I stumbled back to the road and sat down on its verge, my spinning head in my hands. Would I ever be real in this land? Or not so until I found the other Gillan? Was she real here?
The Hound rations were only a few crumbs now. Where would I find sustenance, this wraith who was me? Perhaps I could break the illusion long enough at some garth or manor to find food, though I might have to take it without asking, if those who dwelt there could not see me. Let me only reach that other Gillan, I prayed-to what power might rule in this land-let me be one again-and real-complete!
For a while I no longer tried to see what lay beneath the overriding cover of emptiness. How well these people had chosen their various skins of protection-the Guardians-that horror on the mountain road, and this new blanket to meet the eyes of any invader. A company of Hounds might ride here, mile after mile, and see naught to raid. How much had I passed by chance without knowing that it was there? Keeps, manors, towns?