Then—
From somewhere there came a faint and very faraway answer to the whistle. Maybe it was not distance that separated us, but rather time—or so the thought touched me. Three times did Ursilla sound that call, three times was she answered. Each answer grew stronger, as if what she so summoned drew closer.
She turned halfway about to point the tip of her wand at the brazier she had so carefully filled. From the wand came a burst of vivid fire, like a lightning flash, to bedazzle the eyes. That within the brazier was kindled and flared up. However, the flame did not last. Back it sank to smolder, and what followed were puffs of smoke.
Though the cold wind we had felt here earlier had long since died away, and there was no troubling of the air I could detect, the smoke streamed at a sharp angle toward the figure with the man-toy, wreathing it around until the bulk was nigh hidden except for the gleam of the featureless ball face. There the colors grew richer and stronger, their rippling changes swifter. I held my head lowered, fearing to allow my gaze to center there. For in me grew the idea that this might be the fashion in which this very ancient force could work upon its victims.
Ursilla allowed the whistle to drop from her lips, to hang upon her breast as the Moon Witch's crescent pendant lay—
The Moon Witch!
I was shaken by the conviction, even as memory presented me with a picture of her, that I must not think of her, nor of any who were of the Star Tower, not in this place! Could the influences Ursilla summoned so recklessly, reach far enough out when they were called to break the peace of that forest refuge? I did not know, but neither did I want my own unthinking action to provide any bridge.
Now Ursilla's thin body swayed from side to side, though her feet remained fixed in one position on the pavement. The smoke cloud swayed with her, sending out tendrils right and then left. They appeared to hang in the air for a moment, then clasp the figures on either side of the one she fronted.
In such a manner did the smoke spread to enclose them all, to wall us in. When the last gap was united, no more smoke came from the brazier. What had burned was now only a nearly consumed, dusty powder.
Now the globes were blazing. I heard my mother breathing in heavy gasps. Her fear was like a visible cloak, blowing out from her shoulders in some gale. Then—
There was no longer any sense of fear, or even of identity from her. When I turned my head to look, she stood blank-eyed. Yet her body also swayed in perfect time with Ursilla's. Whether the Lady Heroise willed or no, she was now a part of whatever the Wise Woman would do here.
But I was not. There was that within me which held stubbornly against this witchery. I knew who I was and whyfor I was here. Those facts I held in my mind, keeping my eyes from the glowing globes. Now I refused to watch directly either Ursilla or my mother, lest their absorption also entangle me.
Ursilla raised her wand, pointed out. This time no fire sprang from its tip. Instead, she moved the rod into the edge of the smoke as if she wielded some huge pen and was writing on the insubstantial surface with it. What she saw in answer to what she did, I had no way of knowing.
I would give quick glances at her actions, looking away again within the instant, for fear that I might be entrapped. To me all her gestures were meaningless.
Yet there was a force at work here. My skin tingled, a cold grew outward from my spine to seize my legs. I wanted to throw up my beast head and howl aloud my fear and awe. Elemental was the force. It might have been churned up from the age-old rock about us. That this energy had aught to do with my species was false. Nor could it, I believed, be channeled by such as Ursilla. I half expected to see the seated figures rise and trample upon the three of us for disturbing their quiet with our petty desires.
Ursilla's arm fell to her side, the point of her wand rapped against the floor. The smoke thinned more and more, drawing away from the figures, drifting in ragged wisps out into the darkness of the cavern. A short cry from my mother brought my attention.
She had sunk to her knees, her two hands hiding her face. Her body was visited by great shudders. But Ursilla still sood erect, facing the figure she had chosen to evoke, if that was what she had done here.
Slowly she turned. Her face was almost as masklike as those of the seated figures. Her eyes were wide open and never have I witnessed such a glow in any human eyes. Almost, one could believe that there was a massing of twisting colors behind them, even as there was behind the face-globes.
She spoke then and her voice was calm, with a remoteness of tone that I had never heard in any voice before.
“It is begun, well begun. Now is the time for you to play your part.”
Her wand swept up, not pointing to the Lady Heroise, but rather to me. I was taken by surprise and had no defense ready.
There was no crackle of fire bursting from the rod this time. Instead what came was a command—a command and the knowledge to carry it out, implanted in my mind. Nor could I gainsay the order. Her desire ruled my body, both beast and Kethan.
“Go!”
Again she pointed with her wand. Not back in the direction from which we had come, but out past the figure she had paid homage to—into the darkness.
Within me, it was as if both Kethan and the pard now were locked into a third entity, with the order Ursilla had given in full control of my body and mind. It seemed as if Kethan watched what happened, as a man might look out from the window of a Keep cell.
Even as she ordered, so did I go. Out into the dark I sped, without even the wan glow of the wand light to show me any path. I did not need it. There was a sense of direction implanted in the order itself that drew me like a collar about my throat, the leash fastened thereto tugging me along.
Dark was the cavern, a velvety black that even a moonless night might not achieve. And it was very large, for though I ran hard, my paws spuring dust as I went, still there seemed no end to this journeying.
At last I came to what seemed the far end of the place, and there I slowed a little as I blundered blindly onto a ramp way that led upward. This time there was no stairway, only a series of ramps, each a fraction steeper than the one behind. The urgency laid upon me kept me at the best pace I could make under the circumstances, climbing, climbing through the dark.
However, the farther I withdrew from the strange place the lighter became the weight upon me. I could not escape the geas Ursilla had set upon me, no. I think it would have taken one well learned in sorcery to break that—if it could be broken, forged as it was from learning forgotten long ago. But behind the geas, I could think again, perhaps plan some way to bring Ursilla's plans to naught.
That I would come out in the Keep, or even near Car Do Prawn, I doubted. I believed that I would have little to fear from Maughus at this moment. But what I had to circumvent was what Ursilla's orders would have me do. I must reserve my strength against the time when I would face that action.
Up and up—how long had we been here? How long did it take to reach the living world? There was only the dark and the way before me, and to each I began to believe there was no end.
Then—far above as if it were a single star in the night, I sighted a wan, grayish glow. There was an end! Heartened by that sight, I again quickened pace, though my limbs were wearied with the strain set upon them, and my ribs ached with every panting breath I drew.
The gray spot was sharper, somewhat brighter. Yet it had none of the promise of sun or even daylight. All I dared hope was that it opened out on the surface. At last I drew my weary body up a slope, which was the sharpest of all, and came out—into twilight.
Around me, shutting off much of the view, were rounded mounds. From the sides of some of them protruded worn blocks of worked stone. I might be in some very old and forgotten temple or Keep. I turned my head to survey the door through which I had come. It was a dark hole in one of the mounds, with nothing to mark it of any importance.
However, the compulsion laid upon me gave me no time to study my surroundings furth
er. Again my invisible leash jerked. There was that which I must do—a way to follow until I found what Ursilla must have to finish the sorcery she would need to buttress her desire.
There was a person—somewhere—Ursilla must have that one—I had no name, not even a mental picture. But the geas would lead me to the one. Then—that one must I bring back.
Just as the man within the pard had refused when Ursilla had cried “Kill!” and my enemy stood before me, so now did all that was me—both man and pard, prepare to fight this command. But not yet. Instinct (or something akin, which had come to me during my own struggles as a Were) told me, warned me—do not waste your forces fighting until the proper time.
I padded swiftly through the coming night, turning this way, that—always guided by the geas, as if my nose sniffed out a plain trail. The land through which I moved was forest-edged. I recognized no part of it however, and I thought that I was farther east than I had ever been before.
The mounds were behind me now, trees closed in. The forest was very silent. I heard no stirrings of any other creatures. This portion of the land might be deserted by all life.
I came to a spring and drank thirstily, washing from my muzzle and throat the dust of that dark cavern. But I did not hunger or hurt. The thinnest sickle of the new moon arose. Seeing it gave me knowledge that we must have spent a far longer time in the cavern than I had judged.
It provided no light, but my pard's eyes probed the dark well, and I needed no guide. Twice I edged by places wherein there was the stink of the Shadow, like pools of corruption. I hated them so I snarled as I slunk past, wishing I could tear them utterly apart.
What dangers lay at their cores I did not guess, and I had neither time nor inclination to explore. However, I dreaded the fact that such appeared to be spreading in the forest.
It was not until I reached the river that I guessed where my quest was drawing me—back toward the Keep! Who there was my quarry? Maughus? Eldris? Even Thaney? I had no love for any of the three, but in the final moment that which was me would struggle in their defense. Or else I would die—though perhaps my body might live on.
As I crossed the river in bounds from one water-washed stone to the next, I began to believe that it was not the Keep to which Ursilla had headed me, but elsewhere. Then I knew—
The Star Tower!
Had Ursilla guessed (or perhaps read from her spells) that the ones therein had given me aid to escape her? Was this her revenge?
I tried to fight, to control the pard's body. To no avail. Though I snarled in fury at my own helplessness, still I moved through the night, heading straight for those who I would least harm. My horror at what Ursilla had done to me was so great that had Maughus stood before me in that moment with his sword, I would have leaped to impale my body on the blade.
Now I strove to reach those ahead with some mind-warning. The trick of mental contact I did not have, but I could hope that part of their own defenses set by the Power would pick up some troubling to alert them.
As sharp as the thrust of the sword I wished would strike me down, there came an answer.
“We know.”
The Were snow cat! As he had spoken with me before, so was he in touch with me now.
“Kill!” I thought to him. Better that I lay dead than Ursilla succeed in whatever deviltry she would do. All I knew was that I must return with the one the Wise Woman had selected. The rest of the peril I could guess.
“Come—”
That was not the snow cat. The woman of the Star Tower spoke then. She must not let down her defenses—!
Feverishly, I tried to project my thoughts, let them see the evil that rode with me to imperil their peace. How much Power Ursilla might wield through me now I could not judge. However, I feared that what she gathered in the cavern was stronger and stranger than anything known now on the surface of Arvon. And that the Star Tower could defend itself against it, I feared, was futile.
Before me lay the garden clearing and the Star Tower. I breathed in the rich scent of the herbs. And I expected to see the haze of the protective wall about the points, the mist as I had seen it before. Perhaps that would hold even against the force Ursilla had aroused.
However, there was no haze. On the path before me stood three shadowy forms, as if to bid me welcome. I fought with my own body, struggled to stop well short of them. For now it was made plain to me whom I was sent to seek—
The Moon Witch!
“Kill me!” I thought again. There was no hope of self-preservation left now. Either I would die here and now, or such untold evil as I could not imagine would engulf this maid—perhaps the others, too, but certainly her.
None of the three shrank from me and the Wereman did not heed my frantic plea. I saw then they were garbed as they had been when they had backed me with their Power in Ursilla's Tower room. They held high their symbols of Power—the branch with its single green leaf, the rod interwoven with moonflowers, the sword. The latter—its blade should be aimed at my heart, my throat.
I snarled and growled, my fury rising. Why did they not heed me? I came to bring disaster upon them, yet they made no move.
The woman first extended her wand toward me. Perhaps she could aim a force through that—destroy me—
Instead there flowed into my churning thoughts and fears a soothing, as her herbs had soothed my torn skin when I lay under her tending. The urgency Ursilla had laid upon me as a goad, was muffled, muted—
“I am a danger—” I thought. Though I was not sure on my side of any contact, I hoped that the Wereman, at least, could read that warning.
“We know—we have seen.”
His answer formed clearly in my mind. I longed to ask how, but they must have their own ways of reading spells aimed at them.
“I must take—her!”
Again I gave warning. Surely they could understand by now that Ursilla's sorcery had left me no escape. Either I took the Moon Witch back into the buried cavern, or I would die. Of the two choices, the last was the better.
“Not so.” Again came the Wereman's reply. “We have foreread through the water, through the stars, through the fire. Destiny is somehow entangled for us and you with us. We cannot right the scales until we face this sorceress of Car Do Prawn, that is the reading.
“There is ax time,” he continued. “And there is sword time. They are the times of human man. There is wind time and Star times—which are the times of the Great Lords and the Voices. And there is Weretime and spell time—these last twain call and govern us.”
I did not fully understand what he would say. But that our destiny was entwined amazed me, though I did not doubt his words. For if he were no Voice, yet that he governed Powers of his own was something I well knew. Now the woman's voice rang through my thoughts.
“Earth and Air, Fire and Water. By the Dawn of the East, the Moon White of the South, the Twilight of the West, the Black Midnight of the North, by yew, hawthorn, rowan, by the Law of Knowledge, the Law of Names, the Law of True Falsehoods, the Law of Balance—so do we move.”
As her words sped through my mind, leaving nothing but wonder behind them, the Moon Witch advanced from the others, coming straight to me. She laid her hand upon my head as she had done the other time when she had bid me seek out the key of my enchantment. From her light touch more easement of my burden flowed.
“The moon is thin, but it lives,” she said aloud. “It waxes, and so does that which arms me. What you would have me do shall be done. And I think that your sorceress shall not find the facing of what shall come easy.”
Thus, when I turned my back upon the Star Tower, in truth I did not go alone, for the Moon Witch walked beside me. And behind came the woman, as surefooted and swift as the great snow cat that padded at her side. We crossed the river, heading back the way I had come, the same guide drawing me straight as a released arrow.
Yet the easement they had given me allowed a slower pace. We walked the night, we did not race through it. Now an
d again the Moon Witch's hand would brush my head. And each time she did so her touch lightened my heart, strengthened my hopes that what I brought back to Ursilla was not what she wanted, but what she deserved.
The false light of near dawn was about us when we came into the place of tumbled mounds. But when we were nigh to the dark hole of the cavern entrance, the woman cried out.
I turned swiftly to face her. She had halted, had her hand out before her, running it up and down in the air as if she laid her palm against some surface. There was naught there that I could see, and the Moon Witch and I were several paces past that point.
The snow cat reared on his hind legs and rested his huge paws on an invisible barrier. Growling, he extended his claws, raking them as if along a vertical surface.
My hardly won hope was smothered in an instant. I needed no words to tell me that there was a force field in existence here—one that admitted me and my victim, but not the two who would lend us their support.
I tried to retreat, to take with me the Moon Maid. For I mouthed some of the disk-strung strings of her skirt to pull her. However, just as the others could not come forward, so I could not return.
The forward pull on me was so strong that I knew I could not long withstand it. I would be drawn underground, forced to bring the Moon Witch with me. Better that the Wereman had done as I had begged and slain me out of hand. Destiny entwined or not, they could not reach me now, and I could not reach them.
Of How the Lady Heroise Told the Truth and I Confronted Ursilla
“Go!” The snow cat's command startled me. I was as one caught between two imperative orders, each of which dragged at me—in opposite directions.
“Go!” The Tower woman echoed him. “This is not a spell of might, but one worn thin by years, one we can break. However, if you linger, then she who awaits you shall know and perhaps send that to make this barrier the stronger.”