Mow the wand was pointed toward me at heart level.
“Kill,” she said calmly, as if she uttered an order no different from any one might give a servant in hall or stable.
My arm rose, though I fought it with all my will, even as I had fought to be a man not a pard moments earlier. Also, I willed my tight grip upon the sword to loosen, to let it fall once more into the scuffed-up dust of centuries.
My struggle was as fierce as Maughus’s had been, yet I took one step forward, then a second. My sword was pointing now, straight at Aylinn’s white body.
No! I stopped, swayed. Let me be beast for all my days then! This I would not do! Let Ursilla blast me with her sorcery, with all the menace that lurked in this place. Let her kill my body—kill the essence of me that dwelt within that body. This I would not do!
I tottered back and forth, the point of the sword wavering up and down as Ursilla’s will vied with mine for control.
“Run!” I shouted, and it was echoed out and out—“Run—run—run—”
Still Aylinn stood where she was. Her eyes held mine. I could not understand why she did not flee. Had Ursilla, in some way, woven about her the same stasis-spell as held Maughus and his grandam?
“Kill!” Ursilla’s command was shriller. I could feel the anger in it.
I summoned the last of my own will—and held fast.
Then—
Pain such as I had never known before racked my body. I cried out.
Ursilla held the belt over the flames in the brazier, feeding the length of the strap to them little by little. As the fire licked at fur and hide, so did it also eat upon my flesh.
“Kill,” she cried. “Kill or die in torment!”
The victory might well be hers! I could not hold long my concentrated will as the agony ate into my mind and body. But while I could—that I would.
18
Of Sorcery Wrought and Unwrought and How We Learn Our Destiny
Through a red mist of pain I saw Aylinn lift her flower wand in my direction. There followed an instant or two of relief from torment. Only it did not hold. Again the flames engulfed me as they avidly licked the belt Ursilla dangled into their reach.
Then, in spite of my torture, I saw the belt begin to writhe in Ursilla’s hold, even as a living thing might fight for freedom. With a mighty jerk, it tore loose from her fingers and moved through the air. A hand arose, caught it.
Gasping, I stood free of the torment of those last moments. The belt lay in the hands of her whom Aylinn had named Gillan and Green Witch. Beside her crouched the snow cat, eyes aglare in the reflection of the brazier fire. Ursilla tottered. The force of the pull that had brought the belt out of her grasp had upset her not only bodily, but threatened her control of the force she had summoned.
She stared first, unbelievingly, at her empty hand, then raised her head slowly and looked at the two who stood just without the circle of the seated ones. No shadows of the dark concealed them. Perhaps the light, which made them so plain to our eyes, came from the Power, as well as the illumination generated within the circle.
I saw Ursilla’s face change. No years had drawn the flesh from her bones, but, in the few moments she confronted the two, age settled deep upon her, so that her coif framed a face that was close to a skull’s visage.
“Who—are—you—?” Her words grated forth rustily. She might have been speaking against her will.
“Those summoned—” the Green Witch replied. “Did you believe, Wise Woman, you might call one of kin, without others also coming?”
“Kin!” Ursilla was recovering from the shock that confrontation had caused her. She threw back her head, a cackle of hideous laughter loud in this place. “Claim you this one”—she pointed to Aylinn—“as kin? You are wrong, woman! She is no blood of your blood. You and your furred lord did not have the fashioning of her! If you would see the child you truly bore—look to this fool!” Now her pointing finger moved to me.
“So we have heard—” Gillan showed no surprise. “There has been free talk among you and we have ears. Son—” she looked past Ursilla straight at me. “Take what is yours!”
Through the air she tossed the belt and I caught it. It came to my hand as neatly as it had gone to hers earlier. I made haste to fasten about me the singed belt but, as my fingers caressed it, I could not now discover any signs of fire damage upon it.
Ursilla snarled as a beast would snarl. Her wand swept up as if to ward off an attack. But I had already locked the jargoon buckle. The sword was in my hand. My own gaze was for Aylinn. What did it mean to her to have this old truth now bared? She who was one with Gillan and Herrel—
But—still she was one with them! I knew it as I looked upon her, for I could sense the strong Power that united them. Daughter of their bodies she might not have been, but daughter of their hearts and minds, that she truly was. She showed no surprise, her serenity remained. It belonged to one secure in who and what she was.
“Did you think, Wise Woman,” Gillan asked, “that one could pass through the truth of Neave’s own Fane and not learn even what sorcery strives to hide? This is our child by the will of those far greater than we ever, hope to know—”
As I looked upon them, the Green Witch who was my mother, the Were who had fathered me, and Aylinn who was their chosen child, I could understand the justice of their choice. In me there was a cold desolation growing. Not from fear, but from the pressure of the loneliness I had known all my life, but that now was given meaning and completion.
I was no heir to Car Do Prawn. Maughus would have what he had always sought. Now I could be no tool for Ursilla’s shaping either, since the truth was known. I was—apart and alone.
The retreat into self was my mistake. For Ursilla attacked. Her wand flashed up, its tip pointing at Aylinn. Fire burst, enwreathed my Moon Witch, hid her from sight. I heard a cry from out of the fire.
Then I leaped into flames that curled about me, caused a moment of raw agony. My lunge brought me to Aylinn.
I threw out my left arm to bear her back, away from the dancing tongues of flame.
We were together in a circle of fire, fire that burned not orange and red, but with hues a deeper, deadly color—the purple of the Shadow. We could not retreat farther, for our backs were against the rigid knees of the seated figure, about which the purple wall of shifting fire crept closer.
The Moon Witch held her staff against her breast. I could feel the rhythm of a chant throughout her body, though she did not open her lips. As she had done for me, so I tried in turn to do for her—to give her my strength to serve her purpose.
Then I moved swiftly, dropping the useless sword, catching her by her slender waist to toss her up upon the lap of the stone one. There was room there for her above the flames. Perhaps, before they could reach her, Gillan and Herrel might evoke an answer to the horror Ursilla had wrought.
Through the ever narrowing, creeping advance of the fire I could see the others. Ursilla worked feverishly, drawing about her feet with the tip of her wand another circle to enclose her, and the brazier. She threw something from the breast of her robe into the stone cup. More smoke arose to hide her. But her chanting I could hear—the hissing, slurred words to evoke the unknown sorcery of this place. Through the smoke I heard, a moment later, the shrill note of the bone whistle—a frantic summons.
“Kethan—up!” It was Aylinn’s voice. She had curled up in her strange place of refuge and now reached toward me. But there was no room. And the purple flames gave off that which made my breath strangle in my throat, so that I choked and retched, as if all the evils of the world poured from within in a foul fog.
“Up!” Aylinn clawed at my shoulder. Her nails left red lines on my skin. I could feel the force of her will also, drawing me in the same way the spell Ursilla had laid had drawn me, first to her and then back to this cursed place.