“Kill!” As she cried that for the third time, the pard broke free, raging within me. I had left only the animal’s reaction to the immediate peril to guide me.
15
Of How I Chose Not the Beast’s Way and of the Secret of Ursilla
Kill, Ursilla had bade me. And the rage was unleashed within the pard. But, even as I crouched for the spring that would carry me to my enemy, the man stirred once again in my mind. Were I to so kill—yes, that deed would be but another key to lock me inside the beast. Maughus was my enemy, a threat to me—yes. But as such he must be fronted man to man. If I drew his blood with claw and fang, I trapped myself in the wilder breed.
The Lady Eldris was screaming. If Maughus had not called his men to follow him hither, the cries would. How I Chose surely bring them. I saw death dark before me. Still the stubborn core of man within the beast would not loose my body to attack.
I squalled a cat’s battle cry, pard nature striving to evade man’s control. No creature faces death tamely. Would the steel blade sing in to let free my life? Or, at the last moment, could I indeed strike back?
Only the fact that Maughus must give support to the Lady Eldris perhaps saved me from the final choice. His face a mask of hatred as deep and hot as that of the pard, he edged back, out of the room. For the Lady Eldris was clawing at him, shrieking and crying that he must wait, that he should let his henchmen deal with me.
Backward she jerked and pulled. He could not loose her hold unless he beat her away. Even his anger could not lead him to do that. Now they were both beyond the threshold. I heard a word uttered from where Ursilla stood. The door, without any hand laid upon it, clanged shut.
“Why did you not kill?”
I turned my head. Still the Wise Woman tugged at the case that had held the rune rolls. Her whole body was tense with effort as she strove to move the tall set of shelves.
I growled, for I could no longer answer her in words. That part of her spell had failed.
“It is slay or be slain now,” Ursilla continued. “Though Maughus has wrought far worse than he knows this day. And Eldris—Ah, there shall be an answer for my Lady also!”
There followed a grating sound that was louder than the clamor from outside the door, which was muffled by the stout portal now closed. I believed those without brought force to knock the wood down. Maughus’s men must have arrived.
However, my attention was for Ursilla and what she had done. At long last some hidden catch had responded to her urging, and the whole of the case swung open to form a second door. Ursilla hurried from it back to the cupboard. There, she gathered up the front of her robe, making a clumsy bag into which she tipped boxes and flasks she chose from her store with flying fingers.
Last of all, she caught up her wand of Power. With it she pointed first to me and then to the hidden door.
“In!” she commanded.
That any Keep as old as Car Do Prawn must have its secrets, I had guessed long ago, though I had not had any proof such existed. Ursilla had made good use of her time during the years she had dwelt here, and I did not doubt that she knew exactly where we were going.
The pounding at the outer door grew heavier. Already the latch had given way. It was only Ursilla’s spell that held it fast. How long that could last—who knew?
I slipped through the entrance to the secret way, found beyond stairs that led downward. Cramped and narrow was the passage for it must be contained within the wall itself. My furred shoulders brushed stone on either side. There came dim light from behind and I saw that the tip of Ursilla’s wand gave forth a limited glow, providing us with a torch by which to see the way, though there was naught here to sight save rough, dark stone and steps endlessly descending.
How far we went I had no way of measuring. But I was certain that shortly we were below the level of the earth outside the Keep. Still the way led down. Now I heard Ursilla’s voice, muffled, echoing a little.
“Brave Maughus! He shall beat his way in and find naught. Then will those with him begin to speak of how a Wise Woman can easily escape such blunderers with the use of her Power. They shall look sidewise at Maughus and straightly at any shadow. For a man may dream up wonders and people his world with them until he can believe they come into view full rounded and alive. No, I do not think Maughus shall rest easy this night to come.”
She laughed, not soundlessly, but with a rusty, creaky chuckle, which to my ears was worse than any cursing.
“Yes, not easy shall Maughus rest, nor any within this Keep. There shall be that loosed which will trouble them in many ways.”
Then the words I could understand ceased, as she began a queer singsong that made my pard’s hair rise along the backbone and nearly brought a protesting squall out of me, save that I did not want to draw upon myself at that moment any of her attention. As long as she occupied her talent with some means of making Maughus unhappy, her mind would not turn toward my further subjection.
That she was not pleased when my pard nature had not driven me to attack my kinsman, I knew well. Doubtless, there would be a reckoning over that. From now on she would be suspicious of my every move, uncertain of her control over me, which could lead to such ensorcellment as I would never escape. The journey through the inner core of Car Do Prawn was only a short breathing space between assaults as far as I was concerned.
I began to wonder at the nature of the goal before us. The stairway was so deep now within the earth (we certainly were well below even the level of the storerooms that made up the cellars of the Keep) that I could not imagine where it would end or its purpose. Had this passage been meant for a secret escape in time of trouble, surely it would have had some outlet nearer to the surface of the ground.
Though there appeared air vents within the walls, and though the way felt damp and there was an acrid odor I could not identify, which increased as we went, still there was breathable air. However, the deeper we went, the more I knew that we were coming to one of those places in which Power of a sort had its being.
I could sense neither the evil that marked the core of any Shadow dwelling place nor the peace that radiated from such sites as the Star Tower. This was something else, carrying with it a heaviness of the spirit, as if the weight of untold ages were centering in and burdening one small place.
Ursilla had ceased her singsong chant and moved in silence except for the rustle of her skirts as they brushed the wall. The light from her wand still gave us a faint sight of what lay about us.
Then, when I had begun to believe that the steps would bring us to the fabled Earth Center from which all life was said to stream long ago, they ended in a passageway.
This was a little wider than the stairs, but it also sloped gradually downward. Here the walls were not smooth, but, at intervals, were broken by carven panels. I could see little of the carvings, in the gloom, even given the pard’s superior sight. And there was naught in any I did sight that was familiar to me.
Dust had gathered in the pits and grooves of the carvings, just as it lay under our feet. Only there it had been tracked and marked as if we were not the first to come this way since it settled. And ever grew the feeling that this was an alien place, which did not welcome intrusion. It was far older than Car Do Prawn itself, I was now sure, perhaps dating back to the First Age of Arvon before the warring of the Lost Lords. That would put such an age on it as few men could reckon.
“Wait!” Ursilla’s voice startled me, I had grown so used to her silence, the silence of this place. “Here I must lead the way.”