But we must needs carry our kills back to the Pack, Flach thought. Otherwise
No! Nepe protested. You must get far away!
Then Flach saw a dragon flying, pursuing what appeared to be a great circle around the region where the Pack was camped. This was not normal behavior for a dragon; obviously it was acting as an agent for the Adepts. Any wolf who strayed too far would be a target of suspicion. Nepe was ready to throw things at walls, but she had to concede that normal wolf behavior was in order. They had to head home to the Pack.
Darkness closed before they reached it. This was a decent pretext to halt and camp. Flach and Sirelba shared their rabbits with the other two, saving the pelts and skeletons for evidence. Then the four settled down to sleep. But by morning the Adept party was at the wolf camp. Nepe learned this when Mach sent the message; they had moved quickly in order to prevent any wolves from departing. Flach could not return.
He explained this to the others. “Then we will help thee flee,” Sirelba growled in wolf talk. “We will lead the pursuit astray so that thou canst get free.”
But it would take more than that. Flach knew the powers of his father, and realized that no simple diversion would suffice. They would all four shortly be captive.
Now we must exchange, Nepe said with regret.
Now we must needs exchange, Flach agreed. We shall assume human form, for I doubt thou canst be a wolf.
Flach concentrated and sang a spell of exchange. Nepe simply willed herself into Phaze and into his body. They had never tried this before, but both knew how their fathers did it; they had tuned in on the patterns of magic and concentration many times, and knew them well. They imitated those patterns.
Nepe suffered vertigo. Then she stumbled and almost fell. She was in human form, standing under a tree in the company of three other children of her age. All were clothed, and so was she; that started her, until she realized that it was the way of Phaze. One was a lovely dark-haired girl; another was a tawny-haired girl; and the third was a shaggy brown-haired boy. The first girl would be Sirelba, the second Terel, and the boy Forel.
“I am Nepe,” she said as she recovered her equilibrium.
“We know, “ Sirelba said. “But we shall call thee Bareisi, that thy nature be not betrayed in speech. What be thy ruse for escape?”
Nepe gazed around, still awed by her success. This really was Phaze! “Are we private?”
“Aye. We be beyond the range of yon dragon, and we can sniff hostile magic when it intrudes. But we know not how long before the net closes. Needs must we act soon, ere the magic come.”
Nepe knew that the three were oath-friends to Flach, and that they would never betray him. But she had a reservation. “You know that Flach—I mean Bareisi—was never one of your kind. Can your Oaths of Friendship be binding?”
“They be binding,” the girl assured her. “Species matters not. Many o’ this Pack be oath-friend to Neysa Unicorn.”
“And your Commitment—how can it be honored if you help Bareisi get away, and he hides elsewhere and you never see him again?”
“I will wait till he come to me,” Sirelba said simply. “An he can, he will come. An he can not, I will seek him.”
“What if he is dead?”
“I will avenge him.”
“As will we,” Terel said. “As he would for us.”
Nepe was impressed. “How do you feel about him? I mean, I know you made an oath, but you must have some private impressions.”
“I love him,” Sirelba said. “Ne’er could we be lifemates, because we be counted as from the same packlet; we must breed outside it. So I glean o’ him what I can: first mating. An he die ere it be done, our other oath-friend Forel will do it. An I die, Terel will fill for me. But I would die for him regardless. He be the best male o’ my generation I know, though he be not true wolf.”
“But I am not he. What of me?”
“Thou dost be his other self. We help thee as we help him. Canst thou save his body from capture?”
“I hope so. But I will need your closest cooperation.”
“Thou willst have it. What—“
Sirelba paused, and the other two reacted similarly. “The net!” Forel whispered.
“Stay close!” Nepe said. “I must do magic, and I’ve never done it before!” Then she chanted:
0 Fog and 0 Smoke
The curse o’ Proton-frame—
Pollution invoke
That we may play a game!
Immediately there was a stirring in the air, as of a storm forming. It was working! She had known it should, but feared it would not. There was no storm; instead it was more like a dust devil stirred up by a gust across a dry plain. The effect expanded rapidly, rising to cloud the sky and spreading to include the small group.
“Drop to the ground!” Nepe cried. “Breathe through the turf! Keep your eyes closed until it thins!” She made an example by flinging herself down and burrowing her face into the ground.
The others stood for a moment bemused. Then the swirling black vapors caught them, and they broke into paroxysms of coughing. Suddenly they understood: this was poison! They got down and sought the filtration of the natural soil, while the foul cloud washed over them.
It took some time for the awful fog to thin. Finally Nepe sat up. Her eyes were bleary and her breathing labored, but she could handle it, having known what to expect. “It will ease gradually,” she gasped. “Now we must arrange our escape.”
Forel roused himself. “But the net!” He coughed, then recovered. “They watch!”
She smiled. “Not any more. I made a spell of magic pollution; we experience only the peripheral effects.”
“The what?”
She realized that young werewolves would not be exposed to the technical terms of Proton technology. “What we feel is at the edge, and is weak; what is at the center is strong, and that is the pollution—the smoke and fog—that obscures magic. I learned this spell from the Oracle, who put it out on general information at the behest of Citizen Blue. That way I could learn it without giving away my hiding place. It seemed a pointless exercise at the time, and few people even noticed; Blue does crazy things every so often, like making public love in vats of green gelatin. I knew he hoped I would find use for it, and now I have. No magic net can spy on us now—not until the fog clears.”
Forel nodded, smiling. “What makes us cough, gives the Adepts a real illness!”
“Close enough. Now under this cover we must act. They will be checking each creature who seeks to leave this region. I must be of a form they will not suspect.”
“But canst thou change forms as Bareisi could? He knew man, wolf, bat and ‘corn, and in secret worked on others he dared not assume lest he be discovered. Likewise he dared not do magic, though he be talented in it.”
“He worked on ogre, dragon and harpy forms,” she agreed. “And cloud magic. He thought to infiltrate the enemy ranks, where they would not suspect. But he knew that the net would catch him in the change, so he didn’t dare. But no, I can not change forms; my mother Agape was here once, and it took her a long time and much mischief to change forms. I know better than to try. The Adepts will check all creatures anyway, and know who is not natural. That was why Bareisi knew he was trapped.”
Sirelba had roused herself and become somewhat acclimatized to the choking environment. “Harpy form? But he be male!”
“Perhaps you natural form changers are confined to the same sex. We are not sure that holds for Adept form changers. Bareisi wanted to try the harpy form and see whether it was possible. Now that we have exchanged minds, I believe it is possible, for I am a female mind in his body. Only the natural body is fixed; the others can be adapted for size and appearance, and I think sex would be one of the options. But that is not the point: had he so changed, the net would have caught the flare of magic, and the Adepts would have known.”