Kree looked somberly at the great wolf. "It is your love for my son and daughter that speaks, Tark. These outlanders and their weapons are our greatest peril."
The stallion, Hatha, looked at Nelson with fiery eyes and Nelson heard his savage thought.
"This man should die. He seeks to help Shan Kar make L'Lan like his outer world, a place where our races are driven, enslaved brutes."
The raging thought of the great tiger Quorr instantly supported Hatha.
"Blood of our dead calls for vengeance! These outlanders have brought death into our land and must taste death!"
Nsharra's thought interrupted, as she rose from her chair.
"Yet this man sinned in ignorance! He knew nothing of the Brotherhood in all his life till he came to L'Lan."
The great eagle turned his head to the others and Nelson barely caught the swift flash of Ei's thought.
"Nsharra speaks truth. The man may have blundered into killing without realizing his crime."
Nelson was astonished. Why should the Winged One, seemingly farthest of them all from humanity, speak for him?
"Have you grown blind who boast sharpest sight, Ei?" raged the tiger. "Can you not see the deadly danger in these men?"
"Yet we could use him as hostage to free Barin!" Tark reminded them again anxiously. There was a silence in which they all looked at Kree. Nelson realized that, in this Council, the Guardian's decision would carry.
Kree spoke slowly. "We can do both things you wish. We can use this outlander as a hostage for Barin and at the same time we can punish him for what he has done. This man came into L'Lan to help shatter the Brotherhood. There is a penalty that we invoke on those who sin against the Brotherhood."
Nelson did not understand. But his brief flicker of relief vanished as he saw the horror that came into Nsharra's eyes.
"Let the man die rather than that!" she exclaimed. "He does not merit that penalty since he knew nothing of the Brotherhood!"
"He will learn and he will learn quickly," Kree said grimly.
"The Guardian is right! The punishment of the ancients for the outlander!" cried Quorr, tiger-eyes blazing.
"Tark, it shall be one of your clan," Kree told the wolf. "But that one must volunteer."
"There will be no lack to volunteer for the Brotherhood!" cried the wolf's thought. He raced swiftly out of the room.
Kree went out too. Tiger, eagle and stallion remained, watching Nelson.
Nsharra's face had an aching pity on it as she looked at Nelson. And that pity awakened true fear in him.
"Nsharra, what are they going to do to me?" he asked her.
"It is the penalty of the ancients," she answered. "Long ago, from the Cavern of Creation, a Guardian brought one of their subtle instruments that he had learned from their records to operate. It has been used rarely to punish those who transgress the Brotherhood."
"But what is it?" he asked thickly. "Torture?"
"Not torture nor death," she whispered. "But worse, a—"
She broke off to hasten across the room toward her father. Kree had returned, wheeling a bulky object in front of him. Nelson felt his fear increasing. He remembered what Shan Kar had said — that the Guardian possessed a queer power of the ancients to effect terrible transformations. A power that had been used only rarely against transgressors but that had left a memory of horror in all L'Lan.
He stared at the big object Kree had brought. It was an upright man-high platinum box mounted on wheels. The only clues to whatever strange apparatus was inside it were two levers upon its face.
From opposite sides of the top of the tall box branched two heavy platinum rods. Each ended in a queerly grooved quartz disk three feet in diameter. Each of the two big disks was parallel to the floor.
Nsharra was appealing to her father. "He does not even know what you plan, father! He will go mad! Does he merit that?"
"Do the beasts of the outer world merit the slavery and death that this man and his kind deal them?" retorted Kree harshly.
Nelson tried to reassure himself. He tried to tell himself that the queer platinum apparatus could be only a meaningless relic, that this was mere primitive mumbo-jumbo.
He couldn't do it. He couldn't conquer the horror that was tightening across his chest like a steel band.
Tark had come back into the room. And with him was another wolf, a young, rangy dog-wolf, lean of flank and bright of eye, big but dwarfed by the great leader of his Clan.
"This is Asha of my Clan," came Tark's thought. "He offers to be the one."
Kree looked at the young wolf. "You know the danger to you, Asha?"
"I know!" rang the dog-wolf's thought. "It is for the Brotherhood. I am willing."
"Then stand there, close to the outlander's chair," ordered Kree, pointing.
Nelson saw the dog-wolf walk over and stand a few feet from him, where the Guardian had indicated. The wolf looked over at him-strangely. Something in that bright unhuman gaze shook Nelson.
He wouldn't let all this flummery of superstitious rites shake his nerve — he wouldn't!
Kree wheeled the tall platinum machine between Nelson's chair and the young wolf. He adjusted it so that one of its branching quartz disks was over Nelson's head, the other over Asha the wolf.
"Let the ancients witness that I use their power not lightly but for the Brotherhood!" intoned the Guardian.
Superstition, traditional ritual-that was all it was, all it could be. But Nelson's heart had begun pounding hard as he saw the horror grow and grow on Nsharra's pale face.
Kree's hand fell. It thrust down both of the levers on the face of the platinum machine. From the two big quartz disks, white light sprang downward. One beam of blinding brilliance struck and bathed Nelson, the other struck the dog-wolf on the other side of the enigmatic machine.
Light? No, force! For Eric Nelson felt himself rocked by a terrific shock as the brilliant beam struck him. His brain shrieked to a nightmare rending sensation. He had a ghastly feeling that he, the real he, was being torn loose from something and dragged through nothingness.
Chapter X
DREAD METAMORPHOSIS
Nelson felt that he was falling, swooping downward like a meteor into bottomless gulfs. It came to him that he was dead and he wondered where his soul was going and what would happen after it got there.
The abyss rushed by him with a soundless scream as he plunged down and down. And then he struck bottom. It seemed to him that the universe tipped over on him, smothering him in utter darkness.
Presently, very faintly, there was light again and sound — a dim, blurred web of it lacing around him. He was vaguely aware of something and, after a while, he realized that he was breathing.
He was breathing heavily. It had a strange hoarse sound in his ears but it was nice to be breathing again. It meant that he was not dead after all. He lay waiting for the terrible giddiness to leave him, so that he could see again.
But he did not really need to see.
Across the dark confusion of his mind, a pattern began to grow. It was woven of unfamiliar things. Rustlings, scratchings, clickings, the different tempos of breathing — noises that should have been almost sub-auditory but instead were clear and sharp.
They were the background of the pattern, the warp. The threads of the woof were brighter, stronger. They were — smells.
The rich dark smell of horse, strong gray wolf-taint, the sullen crimson reek of tiger, the bright sharp acridity of a great bird. And man-smell, in itself a tapestry of odors, more subtle and complex than those of the beasts.
Eric Nelson realized with incredulous horror that not only did he know each separate smell but he knew the particular individuality of each. They had names — Hatha, Tark, Quorr, Ei, Kree and Nsharra.