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root. Though Hurn could not see, he knew that lightnings played
around his withered body. He felt its tingle upon his skin, and his hair
strained at the roots with the energies loosed upon that mountain-top.
A fell power gripped Hurn, closed about him, and he cried at the
top of his strong old voice, "Yhitagh, Arr-igharaith! Yhitagh! Emm-
arrhaith! Yhitagh! Ehmfallor!"
Hurn felt the stone of the peak split beneath him, as his spirit was
wrenched free. Even as he went, he knew he was accompanied, for
the dark thing that was Yhitagh moved before him up the narrow way
of death.
* * * *
Yahirn stood with her man and her kin. About them were fallen
trees, buckled stones, great crannies opened in the soil of that weird
mountain. The cart was level, untouched, and the folk stood where
Hurn had left them.
As the looked, the cloud moved upward, a thin gleam of pale
sunlight rifting through it. The foliage glowed greener than life, and
the stream took up its old song.
There was a new avenue, where trees had stood before. The top of
the mountain was cleft, its rocky peak shorn away. No voice moved
Ardath Mayhar The Crystal Skull 63
on the height except for their own. The only wind was a little breeze
that flitted among them like a butterfly.
"Hurn is gone," said Kirn. "He has left us a goodly place in which
to live. Gather the children together. We will make fire and cook
food and live here in safety as long as we wish."
Yahirn looked at her man with love and sadness. Then she bent to
gather fallen branches, and the wind lifted her head-cloth, as if in a
caress or a farewell.
(Pub. Eldritch Tales, #2, 198)
Ardath Mayhar The Crystal Skull 64
YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN
(This one grew out of a dream. I do have interesting dreams!)
A swirl of oak leaves danced out of the wood, across the road, and
slapped pettishly at the windshield. For an instant, the cool October
moon stared through their mottling shadows into my face. Then they
blew on, and the road shone dimly in the glare of the headlights.
It was familiar, yet there was a difference. The sharp curve that my
hands were braced for had turned into a gentle arc, banked to hold a
car on the road. The uphill grade was cut down. I no longer would
have had to shift into second to keep the engine from clattering,
though my powerful Lincoln took any grade without a problem.
The cut that had lowered the road left banks rising as high as the
top of the car on either side. There it was dark, for the moon was still
low and it was early evening. At the darkest point, something pale and
small flashed through the cone of light and was gone. A cat? Perhaps
the umpteenth great-grandchild of the Angora that my mother had
doted on and tormented?
Then I was at the top of the hill, looking out across clear space that
had been thick stands of oak and ash and pine, when I left home. The
house shone in the moonlight, tall and commanding. Mama always
resented the forest that hid her imposing home ... she must have had it
cut at last.
I wished it back with all my heart, but the shorn meadow
glimmered mockingly as the moon rose higher and the stars stared
down. The house stared, too, from bleak, malicious windows.
I eased off on the gas, slid the lever into neutral. The car eased to a
stop. How many years was it since I left that house behind? Almost
thirty ... I had left my girlhood behind me, since last standing here. It
was no rebellious nineteen-year-old who now returned to claim the
heritage she never wanted and would never have possessed except for
the deaths of two well-loved brothers.
Sitting there, sheltered from the pitiless moonlight, I thought of Ed
and Vance. My big brothers, always sources of pride and frustration
Ardath Mayhar The Crystal Skull 65
to me. Kind, off-handedly patient with my unfeminine presence, they
bridged, to some extent, the hostile gap between my helpless
smallness and Mama's powerful will. They meant me well, even
while leaving me out of plans, ignoring my questions and comments 
and me. I never quarrelled with either of them, and now I was
grateful for that. That unforgiving house could not charge me with
disliking my brothers!
I shook myself from that dazed recollection. Fanciful notions, for
one considering herself a skeptic! Now I owned that tall house, lock,
stock, and barrel. I could burn it down, if I chose, for the insurance
had lapsed while the lawyers tried to locate me to hand over this
unexpected and unwanted heritage. They had had no cash to pay
insurance or upkeep. There had been barely enough to bury Vance
decently.
I smiled, thinking of the way in which my brother had enjoyed the
wealth Dad had killed himself acquiring for Mama. He spent it to the
last dime, and I was glad of it.
I paid the lawyers' fees myself and didn't begrudge a dime of it. I
made more than enough, in the first half of my life, to entertain any
fancy I chose during the last half, even if it meant a cash loss.
Making that success refuted, in my mind, Mama's assessment of
me, which had been a mix of fury at my plainness and frustration at
my wrongheaded love of adventure and business. Before she died, I
let her know, by way of Ed and Vance, that I had more than made
good. Rags to riches described my career, though the rags had been
Mama's idea, when I resisted her steamrollering of my life.
Not that Ed and Vance submitted to her. They had that easy grace
that agrees tacitly with anything you say without betraying the fact
that they intend to do whatever they damned well please when the
time comes. I had been too honest ... or perhaps pig-headed was the
best word for it.
Centuries ago, if I had been a boy, at the age of nineteen I would
have sewn a cross on my cloak and found a Crusade to follow. I
wanted conflict, challenge, a cause to give my life meaning. Mama
gave me conflict enough, that was true, for we had been at daggers'
Ardath Mayhar The Crystal Skull 66
points for a year when at last I left, dramatically and on foot, bearing
my few possessions on my back in the best fairytale tradition.
I laughed, sitting there in the Lincoln and thinking of the night I
walked down this road, the trees on either hand making dapples of
moonlight across the gravel. I cranked the engine and eased forward,
toward the house. Then I was full of fury, determined to prove
myself. Now I could only wish that someone was left who might care
if I proved anything. My victory was empty.
The house was empty, too. A daily cleaning woman had done for
Vance, in contrast to the teams of servants who came and went under
Mama's hard-handed rule. The daily maid had cooked for him, which
was fortunate. If no one had invented pork and beans, Vance would
have starved, if left on his own.
I pulled around the circular drive and into the portico at the back.
No limousine had ever pulled into its shelter to discharge important
guests for a function over which Mama presided. If Dad had lived, it
might have happened, but Mama was too impatient. She heckled him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]