The trail took her deeply into the woods; without the trail, Kethry knew she'd have been lost. There were no signs of any habitation, no traces of the hand of man in this direction-except for certain rock out-croppings that didn't quite look natural. Gradually, as the sun rose higher and crept toward the zenith, it dawned on Kethry that these outcroppings were becoming more frequent, as if they marked some kind of long-vanished roadway.
She's going out to these "ruins." She must be going there every day. But why? And why in bear-form?
She was never to have an answer to that question, because as she rounded the torn-up, snow-covered roots of a fallen tree, something stepped out of the shelter of a duster of pines to block her progress.
"You!" Mara spat. "You've come to steal it, haven't you?"
Her eyes were dull and deeply sunken; her hair was lank and unwashed. As she lumbered clumsily toward Kethry, the sorceress got a whiff of an unpleasant reek-half unwashed clothing and stale sweat, half an animallike musk.
"Mara, I-" Kethry swallowed. I'll say I haven't got the vaguest notion what she's talking about, she'll know I'm lying. "-my partner and I are here by merest chance. We're on our way down to the Dhorisha Plains. Mara, I'll be blunt; you look awful. That's why Egon asked me to follow you. He's worried about you. Are you ill? Can I help?"
Mara's hands came up to her throat. "Liar! He wants it, too! He sent you to take it away from me!"
Kethry raised her chin and looked squarely into those mad, glazed eyes. "Mara, Egon is a Master craftsman. He doesn't need magic. And I don't need some stupid trinket to shape-change; I can do it myself. I don't because it's dangerous-"
"Oh, yes, I remember you! Dear, bright, pretty Kethry! You never needed anything, did you? They gave you everything you ever wanted -- power, magic, secrets -- all those old men just fell over themselves to give you what they kept from me, didn't they? And the young men gave you -- other things -- didn't they?" Mara's face contorted into a snarling mask of hate. "Well, I've got secrets now, secrets they tell me. They made me their lover, just like those old men made you -- they come to me when I change, and they make love to me, and they whisper their secrets-"
As she babbled on about her "secrets" and her "lovers," Kethry realized with a sense of growing horror what must have happened. She'd changed, possibly for the first time, during mating season. And now she had convinced herself that the male bears that had mated with her were the long-gone shape-changing builders of the ruins--
Never particularly stable, perhaps it had been the shock of mating as an animal -- and being unable to cope with it -- that had pushed her over the edge.
"--well, you can't have it!" Mara shrieked at the top of her lungs. "It's mine, it's mine, it's--"
The words blurred, the voice deepened, the shapeless bundle of fur took on a shape. The words were lost in the roar of the enraged bear that balanced manlike on hindlegs, and advanced -- no longer clumsy -- on Kethry. "Mara-Mara!"
There was an oddly shaped metal pendant slung about the bear's neck on a blackened thong. Kethry reached for it with her own magic, to try and nullify it -- and met nothing.
This "talisman" was not magic at all! Mara's shape-changing was not the result of some ancient sorcery; it was only that she believed the medallion could work the change.
And in magic, as Kethry had often told her partner, belief is the most important component.
"Mara, I don't want your talisman! It's worthless--"
The bear ignored the words, dropping to all fours and continuing to advance, saliva dripping from her snarling jaws.
Kethry flung a sleeping-spell at the shape-changer. It was the most powerful spell she had in her depleted arsenal at the moment. She'd used so much trying to escape Wethes' makeshift prison--
The bear ignored the spell; ignored the mage-barrier she hied to erect to hold it off.
She convinced herself she can change shape -- she probably convinced herself she can defend against spells, too--
So she really can.
Kethry stumbled backward, stumbled and fell over the blade strapped to her side.
Need!
She tried to draw the sword-
-and discovered that she couldn't. It would not clear the sheath. It wouldn't allow itself to be used against a woman.
The bear reared up on hind legs again, as Kethry backed into the tangle of roots and frozen earth and found herself trapped. She drew her belt knife; a futile enough gesture, but she was not going to go down without a fight.
And an arrow skimmed over her right shoulder to bury itself in the bear's throat.
The bear screamed, and pawed at the shaft, and a second joined the first -- then a third, this one thudding into the shaggy chest.
A fourth landed beside the third.
The bear screamed again, and Kethry hid her face in her hands. When she looked again, the bear was down, its eyes glazing in death, a half-dozen arrows neatly targeting every vulnerable spot.
"Next time you take a walk in the woods, lady," Tarma said harshly, grabbing her by her shoulder and hauling her to her feet, "don't go alone. I take it this isn't what it looks like?"
"It's Mara," Kethry replied, trying to control her shaking limbs. "She learned to shape-change--"
The Shin'a'in nodded. "Uh-huh; what I thought. Especially when you didn't give her the business-end of Need. Hanging about with a magicker taught me enough to put two and two together once in a while on my own." She prodded the stiffening carcass with the tip of her bow. "She going to change back? I'd hate to get strung up for murder."
Kethry held back tears and shook her head. "No. She froze herself into that shape -- Goddess, how did you manage to get here in time?"
"I got Egon's deer almost before I left cleared lands; came back, and found you gone." The Shin'a'in poked at the medallion around the bear's neck. "What's this? Is this--"
"No," Kethry said bitterly. "It's just a bit of trash she found. She was so busy looking for 'secrets' that she never learned the secrets in her own mind. That's what killed her, not your arrows."
"That could be said about an awful lot of people." Tarma cocked an eye up at the sun. "What say we make a polite farewell and get the hell out of here?"
"Expediency?" Kethry asked, trying not to sound harsh.
Tarma shrugged.
The sorceress looked down at the corpse. She'd offered Mara her help; it had been refused. Staying to be accused of murder -- or worse -- wouldn't bring her back.
Expediency.
"Let's go," Kethry said.
A TALE OF HEROES
(Based on an idea by Robert Chilson)
Rob Chilson and I were in a discussion at a convention about fantasy cliches; he wondered why no one ever bothered to point out the viewpoint of the poor chambermaid in all of the stories about iron-thewed, rock-headed Barbarian Swordsmen. That was an idea I couldn't pass up. And who better to help with the concept than Tarma and Kethry?