So what do I do about it?
She fell asleep finally, without being able to come to any conclusion.
Kethry watched her partner dress the next morning, still in a decidedly unsettled state of mind. "Swordlady," Egon said hesitantly, as Tarma prepared to set off at dawn to make good her side of the bargain, "there's something I need to tell you. About the game."
Tarma didn't even stop lacing up her boots. "Go ahead," she said. "I'm listening."
"There's a bear about."
Now she left her lacing, to raise her head and stare at him. "A what? Are you sure? That -- that's hardly usual."
"Aye," the old man replied, shifting from one foot to the other. "But we've seen it about, not more than a day or two ago."
Tarma took a moment to secure the lacings, and straightened up, her face dead sober. "Do you have any notion what that means, that there's a bear, awake and walking this deep into winter?"
Egon shook his head.
"That is a very sick bear, Egon. Either it didn't eat enough to keep it going through winter-sleep, or something woke it far too early, and only illness can do that. In either case, its body is trying to make it go down for sleeping, and it's going completely against those instincts. It's going to die, Egon -- but before it does, it'll be half mad with starvation. It could be very dangerous to you and yours."
The old man shook his head. "It's left us alone; we're minded to leave it alone. Don't kill it, sword-lady. Leave it bide. Deer, boar, even a mess of rabbit or bird -- just -- not the bear."
Tarma checked the condition of every arrow in her quiver before attaching it to her belt. Then she looked at Egon and frowned. "You're not doing that beast any favor, old man."
Egon's face set stubbornly. "Not the bear."
She shrugged. "On your head. By the time it's trouble, we'll be gone past calling us back." She half-turned to face her partner. "I should be back by afternoon. One more night here, then we'll be off in the morning, if that's all right with you."
Kethry smiled. "Who am I to complain about another night under shelter? Good hunting."
"Thanks, Greeneyes." The Shin'a'in slipped out the door, leaving Kethry and the Guildmaster alone, sitting across the worktable from one another. The silence between them deepened and grew heavier by the minute. The sorceress stared at her hands, trying to decide what to say-and whether now was the right time to say it.
Finally, when Kethry couldn't stand it any longer, she opened her mouth.
"About that bear-" she began.
Egon spoke at exactly the same moment. "Lady, be you-"
They looked at each other and laughed shakily. Kethry nodded, gesturing to Egon that he should speak first.
"Lady, I wasn't sure, you wearin' steel and all, but then seemed you know Mara -- be you witchy? A sorceress, belike?"
"Yes," Kethry said slowly, wondering if he was going to be angry at the idea of having sheltered a mage without knowing it. There were some who would be. Mages were not universally welcomed.
"Thank the God," Egon breathed fervently -- Oh, terrific. He isn't going to throw me out, but -- "It's that Mara, lady. I tol' you she been pokin' about in them ruins? Seemed like maybe she found somethin'. Them ruins, there's stories that the people there was witchy, too. Shape-changers." Egon swallowed. "We-we think maybe Mara found something of theirs."
Kethry put fact on top of surmise, and made a guess. "You think Mara's the bear."
He looked relieved, and nodded. "Aye. Exactly that We figure maybe she found some kind of witchy thing of theirs, what let her shape-change, too. Now she's strange, but she hain't bad, or hain't been before. But she's got stranger since we started seein' the bear. There be bear tracks about her house -- she says 'tis 'cause the bear comes to her feedin', that it's harmless if it's left be -- but we don' think so. So -- I dunno lady, I dunno what t' ask, like."
"You want to know if she's dangerous?" Kethry asked. She got up from her seat and began pacing, her hands clasped behind her. "Yes, dammit, she's dangerous all right. The more so because I don't think she ever really listened to a single word anyone ever told her at mage-school. Do you know why most mages don't shapechange? Why they use illusions instead?"
Egon shook, his head dumbly, his wrinkled face twisted into a knot of concern.
"Because when you shapechange, you become the thing you've changed to. You're subject to its instincts, its limitations. Including the fact that there's not enough room in a beast's head for a human mind. That usually doesn't matter, much. Not so long as you don't spend more than an hour or two as a beast. You don't lose much of your humanity, and you can probably get it back when you revert. But it's not guaranteed that you will, and the stronger the animal's instincts, the more of yourself you'll lose."
"She been spendin' whole days as bear, we think. She don' come t' door when a body calls till after sundown," Egon whispered hoarsely.
"And at a time of the year when bear instincts are strongest." Kethry twisted the Shin'a'in oath-ring on her left hand. "No wonder she put on weight. Bears go into a feeding frenzy in the fall -- and she can't have gained as much as a bear needs to winter-sleep. No wonder she looked like hell." Abruptly she stopped pacing, and went to her bedroll, picking up the sword-belt that held Need and strapping the blade over her breeches and tunic.
"Lady? What be you-"
"Oh, don't worry, Egon." Kethry turned to smile at him wanly. "I'm not going to use this on her." For one thing, I don't think it would let me. "I'm going to go talk to her," the sorceress continued. "Maybe, just maybe, I can help her."
She must be being torn nearly in two by now, Kethry thought unhappily, as she, in turn, slipped out into the dawn-gilded, frozen air. Caught between the bear and the woman -- if I can get her to take Need, I think the blade can rebalance her body for her. I hope. I'm no Healer, and that's what she needs most right now. That assumes she'll let me, of course.
She picked her way across the lumps of frozen snow to the farthest house of the cluster -- a cabin, really. It had never been intended to be used for anything more than living quarters, unlike the rest of the dwellings in the settlement. That cabin was Mara's, so Egon had said. It looked deserted.
Kethry pounded on the door for several moments, and got no answer. With my luck--
She circled around to the back and found what she'd been dreading. The back entrance was unlatched; the cabin was empty. And among the many tracks leaving and entering the cabin from the rear, there were no human footprints among them. Only the half-melted and near-shapeless tracks of a small bear.
Damn!
So many tracks suggested that Mara had fallen into a pattern. And that was bad; it meant she wasn't thinking in her bear-form, she was just acting. Then again, that she was following a pattern meant that if Kethry followed the old tracks, she'd probably be able to find Mara along the trail she'd established.
Whether or not she'd be able to reason with her--
I don't have a choice, Kethry decided. That's why Need's been after me. Mara's going to get trapped in her bear-shape -- and she's going to die.