I tried to say my name. Only what came from my beast’s mouth was a strange, guttural cry.
Now she pointed two fingers at me and spoke other Wise Words, watching me intently as she did so.
Once more I tried to speak. This time, to my sudden fear, I found that I could not move even my mouth. She had laid some spell upon me. Nor did she watch me longer, seeming to think that I was well held against any interference in her concerns. Leaving the pillar she neared the edge of the glade. There she set down her basket for a moment, to take up a hooded cloak within which she concealed her form, so that from moon silver she became in a short moment a gray shadow.
With the basket once more in her hold, she slipped away among the trees. I could have wept like a man who had lost his hope, or howled like a beast from which his rightful prey has been reft. But the bonds she laid upon me were as imprisoning as if she had lifted the crystal pillar and enclosed my body in it.
As I struggled with all my will to break free, the bonds began to loosen. At length I could move, if slowly. My strength returned little by little. As soon as I could stagger, I drew myself to the point where I had seen her disappear and there I set my beast sense to nose out her path.
Though I wavered along at first, sometimes striking against the tree trunks, my tread became firmer. I had to keep a slow pace lest I lose the track I followed. Even with the keenness of my sense of smell I found elusive the traces left by the one I sought, as if she had attempted to hide her trail.
Then the scent that guided me was gone, hidden in a wealth of odors, some sweet, some acrid, some spicy, the like of which I had not known before. I had come to the edge of another clearing many times the size of the one in which my youthful Wise Woman had performed her sorcery. This was no common forest glade, but rather a carefully tended garden.
The beds of growing things (things differing from the Harvest I had helped to garner from the fields of the Keep) spread outward from the foot of a Tower. Under the moon I could see that it also was unlike the buildings of the Clan in which I had been reared.
The forest structure was not round nor square, the two most common forms of towers, but five-pointed, like a large representation of the floor-painted star I had seen in Ursilla’s private chamber.
Between each of the points was set a slender pole, reaching as high as some narrow windows that were visible in the second and third stories. The rods or poles gleamed with a faint light that surrounded the Tower itself with a haze. I guessed they might be some form of protection perhaps far more effective than any known to the Clans. The stone of the Tower itself under its radiance had a glisten quite unlike the rough look of normal blocks, and was a dull blue-green.
There was also a glow of light in several of the windows that I could see as I crept about the outer rim of the clearing to view the Tower from all sides. That this was the home of my Moon Witch I did not doubt. Nor did I believe she lived there alone. As I approached the other side of the Tower from the place where I had first sighted it, I came upon a paddock with a stable shelter beyond. These were like the ones I had known and had none of the strange quality of the Tower. Several horses grazed in the paddock, two of them with colts by their sides.
They must have caught my scent as I moved, for their heads came up and the stallion trumpeted. As I did not approach any closer, he quieted and only trotted along the fence between me and his herd. That the rest of them did not show the frenzy my presence had always evoked in their species before surprised me. They returned to their grazing, and even the stallion stood quietly when I paused, his head turned so his eyes could watch my every move. Beyond his watchfulness, he displayed no fear.
I made the entire circuit of the clearing. The Tower had a single entrance to the north, a small door nigh indistinguishable from the wall, set in one of the crevices between the points. And about the whole of the building there was a feeling of secretiveness and—withdrawal was the only word that came into my mind—as if those who sheltered there had, by choice, little to do with the ways of men.
It was in my mind that they doubtless also possessed devices to ensure their privacy. Still, we who are of the Old Race know when anything is of the Shadow. And about the Star Tower there was no stench of evil to warn one away. I found a place under a bush beyond the garden where I could stretch my length and yet watch the door. In me hope was growing, if but feebly, once again.
Now and again I blinked at the dimly lighted window visible from my lair and wondered whether the Witch Maid was behind it. Why had she culled the moonflowers? What spells did she now raise with their aid? If I could only have answered her question!
I arose, circled a little, and lay down again. The night was far along now. Already the moon had passed from overhead. Now the dim light, behind the window above, had been snuffed out. Only the haze from the poles wreathed around the Star Tower.
My head sank forward to rest upon my paws. A small breeze swept toward me, coming over the garden to load itself with the odors of herbs. Now I knew this to be an herb garden, larger than any I had ever seen, and with the familiar were mixed many I could not put name to. Paths marked with water-worn stones divided the ground into beds for easier access to reach their crops.
Some plants there were already fading, falling early into the dormant sleep of the cold season lying yet a moon or so before us. Others waxed more vigorous as if the dying of the growing year was an incentive for them to produce more abundantly.
I knew only Ursilla’s spell-weaving. In it, she made use of herbs and spices—small amounts of the latter she bought from traders. But the ones she grew were only a handful compared to this abundance. And the Moon Maid had been gathering flowers—Did she practice a Magic that was centered on growing things—Green Magic?
Some men speak ignorantly of White Magic and Black, meaning that which is wrought for the benefit of mankind and that of the Great Shadow, which ever threatens him. But those well into the Mysteries do not speak so—rather they aver that Magic is divided otherwise, and each part has both a dark and a light side.
There is Red Magic that deals with the health of the body, physical strength, the art of war also. Secondly comes Orange Magic, which is a matter of self-confidence and strong desire. Yellow is the Magic of the mind, needing logic and philosophy, that which the Thaumaturgists most speak in.
Green is the hue not only of Nature’s growing things and fertility, but also of beauty and the creating of beauty through man’s own efforts. Blue summons the emotions, the worship of whatever gods men believe in, prophecy. Indigo is concerned with the weather, with storms and the foretelling by stars.
Purple is a force that is drawn upon warily, for it carries the seeds of lust, hate, fear, power—and it is far too easily misused. Violet is pure power among the spirits, and few, even of the Voices, can claim to harness it. While Brown is the Magic of the woods and glades, of the animal world.
Those of the woodlands about which I knew aught were learned in the Green and Brown. And of all Magics, these are the closest to the earth, the less easily misused.
However, no one with the talent ever draws upon one Magic alone, but mingles this spell with that, seeking to draw the innate energy of what is most inclined to the result the sorcerer desires. All can be misused, thus coming under the Shadow. But he or she who chooses that path reaches for a Power that may recoil eleven-fold upon them if they have a stronger desire than they have talent.
The Green Magic of the place soothed me as I breathed in the odor of the herbs, and with it the subtle rightness of the garden. If I could only make known to those who dwelt here the curse laid upon me, it could well be that they would have that which would aid me.
That night I carried hope with me into slumber, no longer caring that the predawn light was banishing the haze of the rods by the Tower and that the day world stirred toward wakefulness. To one thought did I hold as I slipped helplessly into what was near a drugged sleep—that here I might find—not friends, for that much I did not hope—but someone who would understand—and—just perhaps—offer me aid.