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 stood 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 spurring 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 further. 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.