I did not climb the ridges. Thankfully, I did not descend into the valleys, as I saw some of the other Shadow people do, to be swallowed up and lost. The current of air bore me on and on. Things rooted on the stone writhed, tossed long tendrils into the air. Those the shadow figures strove to avoid, as one flees a poisonous growth.
The light had become so bright as to dazzle whatever sense I used for sight in this place. Then it began to pulse. I knew—then I knew—that the light was formed by words, that it was my summons through some spell laid upon me.
There was no escape. Bound by strong ensorcellment, I was drawn to the source. Before it, I hung helplessly, forced to face the glare. Thus I perceived that what I confronted was a window, an opening in the fabric of this world. Through that the spell forced me to look—
The glare was five-pointed, a huge star the lines of which were formed by orange fire. In the center of the blaze stood one whom I could not distinguish, so bright and searing was the light about the muffled figure.
But the sorcery she wrought reached out for me.
Ursilla!
So she willed me back into her control. She would—
Frantically, I fought. Man and beast forged themselves into one for resistance. I had no real defense to set against her witchery, nothing but my will. However, that will was strengthened by what lies within all living things, the refusal to accept extinction without a battle. Perhaps such defense was the stronger in me during that moment because of my dual nature. I only knew that if I answered the call Ursilla gave, that which was truly Kethan would cease to be. There would remain only the part of me she could render totally submissive to her command.
The star formed a furnace of fire, scorching me. Ursilla's anger at my stubbornness fed the fire. She would turn to other weapons, and those she had to hand, ready. Though she did not speak, her purpose was made clear to me. If I obeyed now—then a portion of Kethan would survive. If I caused her to exert the force necessary to chain me fully to her purpose, then the inner core of me would become one of the shadowy seekers running hopelessly across this alien land. What might return to my own time and place would be a husk she could fill with another entity utterly obedient to her.
The orange fire of dominance and rule was changing, deepening into another more forbidding hue. Ripples of the other color flooded out from the points. There was very little left now—the purple of dire danger spread. Return to her—or be destroyed!
Yet the united spirit in me, fearful, terrified as it was, could not surrender. I knew the penalty, but there was part of the identity of Kethan that could not obey, that could not allow Ursilla to have her way. I did not know from whence that utter abhorrence of her offered bargain came, only that it held me firm.
Then—
There was a great tearing across the star, now almost entirely ominous purple. The points burst apart, even as the Shadow country was pulled away, as if a fabric were being rent with calm intent. Into one of the gaps of utter darkness that appeared within the rents, I swayed, dropped, unable to control my going.
The sensation of heat continued, though it was no longer as severe as the burning tongues that had whipped from the star point to sear me. I opened my eyes into the light of midday, where the sun hung like a ball of fire overhead.
My transition had been too abrupt. I was still dazedly lost between the Shadow world and the real. But, as my senses returned, I saw the woman who stood on one of the paths radiating out from the points of the Star Tower, those that divided the herb garden into sections.
Memory returned slowly. I raised my head, knew that I was still a pard, caught in the beast trap. Something had saved me from Ursilla, for the moment—that I understood. I gazed wonderingly up at the woman, sure that my escape was her doing.
She was not my Moon Girl, though she was as slender of body. And her face was youthful, save for her eyes, which carried years of full wisdom mirrored in them. Though she was plainly a woman, yet she wore breeches, a jerkin, both of green to blend with the plants knee-high around her.
Her hair was tightly plaited, the braids wound about her head to form a soft crown of dark brown in which there was a tinge of ruddy light. Also, her skin was an even brown, as if her life was spent much in the open.
Beside her feet was a basket in which lay bunches of newly gathered herbs. But my gaze centered on what she held between her two hands, its tip pointed straight at me. Just so might a man hold a spear, to warn off an enemy, or in defense.
I recognized a wand of Power, yet this was unlike the rune-engraved one that Ursilla kept in her most private box, for it was not carved of bone with mystic words inlaid in black and red. Instead, the woman's rod more resembled a freshly peeled branch, straight, unknotted. At the tip, turned toward me, was a single outstretched leaf, shaped like a spearpoint, of a very bright green.
As I stared at the woman, just as straightly did she regard me, her eyes as searching as Ursilla's could ever be. This, too, was a Wise Woman, though I sensed that the Powers she served were not the same as the ones to which Ursilla gave homage when she called.
“Who are you?” The woman did not lower her wand-spear. I believed that were I to make some hostile move, I would speedily discover it far more than a peeled branch with only a leaf at its tip.
I could shape no words. When I tried, there was only that sound akin to a strangled grunting.
She held her head a fraction to one side as if she listened.
“Sorcery,” she spoke again. “Strong of the Power, but not well done. In the night I felt you come. Now—you draw that which is not of our world. That we cannot allow. To let even a hint of Darkness brush close to us—o!” She shook her head vigorously.
I gave my beastly cry for help. If this Wise Woman had destroyed Ursilla's attempt to reach me (for I was certain she had been the one to rend apart the Shadow world), then perhaps she could save me—point a way to my escape from this body.
Slowly, I drew myself forward. Out of the bush where I had sheltered, I crept belly down. Perhaps with my body I could display my need, ask voicelessly for her aid. Thus I abased myself as best I could.
The leaf point was no longer held unflinchingly aimed at my head. In her hands the wand swung a little, back and forth. Bright as the day was, its tip wrote on the air symbols in trails of green smoke that quickly dissipated.
“No,” she denied me. “When the Dark strikes and evil walks the land, then we do not open our gates to any sorcery that carries the stench of the Shadow about it. I know not who you are, nor why you have brought your trouble hither. And there is naught that I can do for you. To let you remain—Even,” she hesitated, “even if you could. I do not believe that one such as you can enter into our safety. If you can—then that might be another matter—”
Her first firm denial appeared to weaken a little. I crept on. But, as I would set paw upon the edge of that same path in which she stood, there was a flash of green. The glimmer did not spring from her wand, but from the ground before me, while the paw that I had so reached out tingled with pain. I had stubbed it against some unseen wall of protection. What she had said was plainily the truth, her circle of Green Magic rejected me.
The shock of the rejection loosed the control of my man nature. For a moment I was no longer Kethan encased in a beast body that was a prison. Rather, I was a pard aroused to the full anger such a creature felt when its fierce desire was thwarted. My tail lashed, I raised my voice in a roar of animal rage. I sprang, only to be defeated by that invisible defense.
Now the woman's expression changed. She raised her wand in one hand and brought it down in a lashing blow on the air. But across the painful scratches the bird had inflicted on my back there was a sudden hot agony, although her wand had been far from physically touching my body.
I screamed a cat's full-throated scream, the pain feeding my anger, pressing the man back into close confinement in my mind. Kill—Kill! Almost I could hear the words as if such a command had been sh
outed in the ears now folded back against my skull. Again I snarled and struck out at the barrier that kept me from what was now surely my prey.
Once again her wand lashed the air. The blow fell truly across my wounded back and flanks. Dimly, even the beast could recognize that I was helpless, that to continue our unequal struggle would mean only more pain for me. With a last snarl, I slunk in retreat to the woods. Nor did I look back.
As I went, the man once more fought his way to freedom. The pard was under my control. My sense of failure was as grievous to my mind as the strokes had been across my body. My aborted attack had certainly closed all ways of communication with those in the Star Tower. And I was as certain, as if the woman herself had sworn it by some Name of the Power, that only there I might have found a measure of aid.
Now I did not care where I went. There was no lasting hope I might locate some other inhabitant of the forest who would be willing to play my friend. There were others who might offer me shelter—for their own purposes. But those I must avoid with as much energy as I would Ursilla.
The woman of the Tower had delivered me from Ursilla's attack. However, she had done that only because the stir of such sorcery had in some way threatened her own safety. That I could count on such a gift of Fortune again, I greatly doubted. Ursilla might not weave the same spell, but she had others as powerful, perhaps many of them.
My unplanned wandering had brought me back, I saw, to the small glade where the pillar and the moonflowers stood. In the sunlight, the latter were tightly closed, showing only gray-green buds and a few badly withered, dead flower heads, while the pillar itself lacked the core of fire that had blazed high during the night. I hesitated under the branches of one of the trees that made up the waning of the enchanted place. Was this also closed to me? I had the haunting belief that some Power that was benign might shield me from Ursilla's seeking. Where I could find such—?
I sank to the crouch the pard used preparing for a leap upon a quarry. Then, as I had done when I uselessly abased myself before the Wise Woman of the Tower, I crept forward inch by inch.
This time there was no heady perfume from the tightly closed flowers, no sense of enchantment and beauty. It would seem that the sorcery had departed, for I was able to enter into the moon garden, even reach the pillar, feeling no discharge of energy as I had the night before.
I touched nose to the pillar. It was stone, not crystal—dead stone. Nothing lingered here any longer to feed my hope.
Slowly, I retreated. The river again—for I was hungry. However, my hunger was only partly of the flesh. All my life, though I had lived close among my fellows, I had been as one set apart. That loneliness I had only half known for what it was, but in this hour the full desolation of it settled upon me, as a yoke of sword steel set about my throat, chaining me to that which was myself, which could never be one in thought or life with any other.
There were the Wereriders—
Dully, I considered whether I might search them out, hope to claim a measure of acceptance from those who also were two shapes throughout their lives. But they were shape-changers by inheritance and choice, bred to that strangeness. Whereas with me it was truly, as my mother had warned me, a curse to separate me from the normal world.
Was this of the Lady Eldris's planning, so that I should be removed from Maughus's path by this estrangement? I could accept that. Just as I accepted Thaney's cry of “Kill!” when she had looked upon me over her brother's shoulder and his sword was bared ready to slay. I had no tie with my betrothed to regret.
My mind picture of Thaney as I last saw her faded. There was another now, so sharply etched in my mind that I might be viewing her again just as I had watched her in the moonlight, all crystal and life, holding her basket of flowers on high. Witch Girl—Moon Singer—Yet she was of the Star Tower, firm closed against me.
The river flowed below. I went down upon an out-thrust bar of sand that near divided the stream at that point, dropping my muzzle into the water's coolness, drinking deep. Perhaps it was the assuaging of a thirst, I had not realized I had, that banished all fancies to the back of my mind, alerted me to the necessity of living by the hour that was present, not in the past, or anticipating what might be a darksome future.
Once more I fished and found that Fortune favored me with two scaled bodies that I devoured eagerly, leaving not even an edge of spiky fin for any scavenger. The life about me was that of the normal forest world. I sensed no enemy, neither hunter, nor of the Power.
Jutting from the earth at an angle, I found a rock that was shelter from the heat of the sun. Beneath that I lay down, though I feared to sleep, lest I return into the dream Ursilla had spun for my entrapment. If Kethan so feared, the pard's body was oblivious to such dangers. It is natural for any cat, large or small, to sleep more hours than a man. And I could not escape the needs of my present shape.
I roused again near twilight. Probably the beast instincts acted as a goad to drive me out of a slumber, mercifully this time untroubled by dreams. But, as I raised my head and gazed about, I was aware of danger.
What the danger was, or from whence it came, I could not determine. I only knew that my heart beat faster, my lips wrinkled back in a noiseless snarl that was the reaction of the pard. It was only after a moment or two of seeking to identify by my natural sense what threatened me now that I knew the peril was not of the natural world, but stemmed from another plane of existence. Ursilla! The conclusion that she had traced me, was about to resume the struggle between us, followed the recognition instantly.
My unplanned reaction was flight. I was out of my half cave, on the move with the wide bounds of a feline, before I had more than realized what might be the matter. In the open, came speedily the knowledge that I was not the only quarry who chose to run.
Paying no attention to me, who by nature was their enemy, two of the small forest deer matched my speed, drew away, their eyes showing the whites of fear. Before them, at a hard run, pounded three of the wolves who are so rarely seen by men of the Clans that they are near legend. Smaller things rustled in the shrubs and tall grass that bordered the river at this point, showing furred rumps now and then as they fled.
I was startled when I understood that I alone was not the hunted, and my conviction that this was some play of Ursilla's was shaken. However, the terror that kept me in flight mounted when I tried to pause, until fear was commander in my mind, sending me headlong in a senseless race with all the rest.
There were sometimes hunts, out in the open, where men gathered with beaters to scare up the animals, drive them witless with fright toward waiting marksmen. To my Kethan mind, this present assault upon my nerves bore a distinct relation to that. Yet there came no sound of horn, no brazen clamor behind me. Nor would such have sent me headlong in this fashion.
We were being hunted. Only the hound that coursed us was a thing out of the Dark, the mere emanation of which was enough to start this stampede. When I settled upon that explanation it seemed to me a certain measure of my panic departed and I was able to regain a little control over my reactions to what drove us.
I began, not to slacken speed, for that I soon discovered I was not able to do, but rather to edge toward the right as I went. For I noted an oddity about this fleeing company, they ran along a single path across country—as if they must keep to a foreordained road.
More and more I angled right, until I had reached what I thought was the very edge of the fugitives’ way. There I gathered all my strength for one great leap—not ahead—but to the side—
My pard body arched through the air. Then—
I could not command my muscles. Falling, my full panic was reborn, to fill my whole mind, drive out intelligence, leave only the beast's fear. In a second, I would dash against the earth.
But—
Something closed about me. I lunged, twisted, to find myself tight prisoner, wound about by sticky cords. I was netted!
Of the Snow Cat and What Chanced in the Haunted
Ruin
My struggles were to no avail. Such writhing only drew about me more tightly the cords of the trap into which I had fallen. And, where the bonds crossed my hurts, they stung like living fire until I screamed aloud my pard's squall of pain and terror.
What held me so was part of a web. Fighting to think clearly, to overcome my witless fear by human senses, I could perceive a resemblance, in the now torn strings wrapping me around, to the small webs one finds in the early morning spread in lacy patterns, pearled with dew, in garden and field.
What kind of creature could weave this—a web large enough to hold securely a plunging, fighting pard? That was a chill thought as my struggles grew less, my Kethan mind gaining control.
No man of my own people had ever ventured far into the forest or the hills beyond. Our knowledge of the forbidden country was limited to a handful of second-hand impressions and stories. There were strange creatures aplenty to be seen or met therein, that most men were united in believing. And few of them were ready to welcome my kind—save as prey.
My fighting against the web had tethered me to a tall standing rock. This, I now saw in the light of day, bore deeply incised carvings, which were so old and timeworn that it was difficult to distinguish any real pattern from their curves and lines.
A second such pillar reared some feet away, and it was between the two that the web had been anchored. My struggles had ripped the lines into streamers that had caught about me and the pillar against which I now half hung. Very thin and fragile the threads looked, but I could testify as to their strength.
As I tried to keep control, ceasing my plunging, examining them as best I could, I sensed something else.
Just as I had known that the Star Tower held no evil within its protective barriers, in fact, could be a refuge of sort against the Shadow, here was that reversed. From the pillar beside me came an emanation of cold, of a deadly chill to turn a man's heart and mind into frozen ice. The evil in the chill encased me in a loathsome effluence, as if I now sank slowly into the slime of a pestilent bog.