Otherwise by John Crowley Page B

reaching crag, Inviolable in its high seat, placid and strong; even thought they heard, one cold still day, its low bells ring. But then they turned a twisting mile down the valley, between two high naked rocks men called the Knees, and the weather grew enough warmer to raise thick, bitter fogs; Inviolable was lost. By dawn on Lowday, the day before Yearend, the day of the Possessors’ Eve, they were deep in the river Wanderer’s rocky home.
    Somewhere below their narrow way, Wanderer chased herself noisily through her halls, echoing in flumes and gorges, spitting at cave-mouths; but they could see nothing of her, for her breath was white and dense almost as haysmoke, and cold as Finn.
    Fauconred wouldn’t? stop. It was baffling and frightening to try to pass this way in a fog, and hurry too, with the river’s roar filling up your head; but it was worse to stop, so that the horses, stuck on a ledge, might panic and leap. It took all his strength and lungs to force them further down, to where at last the high wall beside them broke and a pass led down away, high-sided, obscure, but a pass: the Throat they called it, and it spoke with Wanderer’s great voice even as it swallowed them. The Throat took away their own voices too, when they were inside it, amplified them in a weird way, so that every man who spoke looked behind him with a start for the source of his own words.
    It was the Visitor, whose ears had proved sharp as a dog’s, who first heard the other horsemen in the pass.
    “It’s only the Throat,” Fauconred said, “our own hooves echoing.”
    “No. Make them stop, and listen. Down there, coming up.”
    Fauconred tried to read an imagining fear in the Visitor’s face, but there was only attention. The fear was his own. He shouted a halt, and the horsegatherers sang out to still the herd. Then they waited for their own echoes to cease.
    It was there, the noise of someone somewhere. The Visitor said ahead, Fauconred said behind, the horsegatherers and guard stared wildly here and there, their panic spreading to the horses and confusing every ear. Mist drawn into the Throat went by in ragged cloaks to hide and then reveal them to each other. And then they saw, far down the Throat, gray shapes moving at a mad pace toward them, gesticulating, pale as smoke.
    A rasp of steel unsheathing. Fauconred knew that if they were men, they must be charged, hard, for he could not be forced back through the Throat and live. If they were not men… He shouted his redjackets forward and charged hard, hoping they dared follow.
    The pale riders drew closer, coalescing out of fog and thunder of hooves. For sure they were men, yes, living men—were—were a war party, arms drawn, were a Red party—Redhand! “Redhand!” he shouted, and twisted his mount hard. They nearly collided. Fauconred just managed to keep his riders from tangling with his master’s. He turned to laugh with Redhand out of relief, and looked into his face, a gray, frightening mask, eyes wide and mad. “Redhand…” He seemed a man, yet as Fauconred watched him stare around him unseeing, drawn sword clutched tight, he felt a chill of fear: Hollowed… some dream shape they could take…
    The form Redhand spoke. “Turn your men.” The harsh voice was an exhausted croak, expressionless. “Make for the Outward road.”
    Fauconred saw the iron chain of the Redhands hung on his neck. “What’s happened?”
    “War with the Queen.”
    “Red Senlin…”
    “Slain. Slain before Forgetful… Why don’t you turn?” he asked without inflection. Someone came up suddenly beside Fauconred, and Redhand flung out his sword arm with a cry: “Who is it… what…”
    “The one I sent to tell you of. The… Visitor.”
    “Keep him for right’s sake from me!…” The Visitor drew back, but Redhand’s wide eyes still fixed him. Fauconred thought to speak, did not. There was a moment of freak silence in the Throat, and Redhand burst into strange, racking