Did I hear that with my ears, or did it form only in my brain?
“No—no!” I tried to shriek, which I had not done when Osokun’s men had worked to bring cries from me. But again came only a kind of barking.
“Why do you fear?” The voice sounded puzzled, even annoyed. “I tell you, it is even as I have said, the exchange went well. And just in time. Simmle says that they come. Lie you still.”
Lie still? Exchange? I tried to put my hand to my head which still whirled. But no hand moved, though flesh and muscle obeyed the commands of my brain, I looked again. There was a paw covered with red fur, attached to a long thin leg, and that leg to a body-and the body—I was in that body! But no, this was not true, it could not be! I struggled wildly as in a nightmare. Awake, just let me awake! A man could go mad in such a dream. Awake!
“Let me out!” I might have been a child shut into a terrifying dark cupboard. But no words, only a yip-ping came from my jaws. I realized dimly that this panic was indeed driving me into a darkness from which there might not be any return at all. I fought then, as I have never had reason to fight before-not any outward enemy, but the terror which was imprisoned with me in this alien body.
I felt a touch on my head and jerked away, looked into animal eyes set in a cream-tan animal face. From sharply pointed jaws a tongue issued to lick me.
Reassurance was relayed by my heightened senses from that touch. And somehow it drew me back from the brink of madness. I blinked, tried the better to see the face of my companion, and found that this small concentration did make a difference. The distortion was fading, adjusting. I could see clearer with every second. The licking went on and the comfort soaked into me.
Stand up—1 wanted to stand up. I wavered, staggered. To rise to four feet was not the same as standing upon two. I lifted my head. Scents, my nose drowned in scents; so thickly did they assault my nostrils that it was as if all possible odors had been sprayed into one ship’s cabin and I was locked therein. I choked, thought that I could not breathe. But I did and the scents began to carry messages which I only partially understood. I tried to creep as a man would go on all fours, and tottered a step or two. The animal that had licked my head shouldered against me in support until I managed to stand without wavering. To look about me from this new angle was another thing to be learned, and I had by no means mastered it when there was a disturbance behind me.
The animal at my shoulder snarled, and I heard answering rumbles from the bushes a little beyond. Menace and danger read so sharply in those growls that I pushed around and raised my head to the highest to see who came.
Distortion remained, changes in size bewildered me. Again the scents were overpowering. But I was able to make out Maelen, her back to us, the long folds of her cloak sweeping the ground, confronting a group of men. Two were mounted and held the reins of riderless kasi, three advanced on foot, swords sharp and bright in their hands.
I felt lips wrinkle back from the teeth now mine, an unconscious reaction to the odor of men. For I now discovered that emotions were part of some scents, and here were to be felt anger, cruel triumph, and danger. The snarl of the animal that flanked me grew louder.
“—come for him—”
What had been a gargle of meaningless sounds sorted out into words. Or was it that I read those words as they filtered through the mind of Maelen, who displayed no surprise or dismay.
“What you have made of him, that is here.”
She turned her head as if to point out what they sought with her eyes. Someone sat, or rather lolled, upon the ground. Slack lips hung loose with a thread of spittle spinning from the lower. I blinked, closed my eyes tight, and willed not to see what was there. But when I opened them again, it remained the same.
How many men ever looked upon themselves, not in a mirror’s surface, but as if their bodies had a life apart from their intelligence—their essence? To my belief such was impossible. Yet I stood now on four legs and looked through alien eyes to see and scent what was-me!
Maelen went to that sprawling body, put her hands to its shoulders, urged it up. But it seemed that my husk was just that, a husk which had naught left to animate it. It lived, yes, for I could see the breast through the ragged tunic rise and fall with great shuddering breaths. As she pulled and tugged to get it up it moaned and whined. I howled and one of the sword-bearers started, swung around to eye me.
“Be quiet, Jorth!” Maelen’s words were in my head, and I guessed she spoke to me, not to the shambling thing which she had at last standing, though she had to support it, for it appeared to want to drop to earth again.
Her order was enforced by the beast beside me, who nipped delicately at my ear and from whom came a telepathic warning.
Maelen led the body—somehow I could no longer think of it as my body—a few stumbling steps forward. And the men stared at the drooling, witless thing, stirring uneasily.
“Your work, sword-sworn?” Maelen demanded of them. “So did this one come to me, and you know who I am.”
It would seem that they did, with awe and a little more than awe—fear. I saw two of them make gestures toward her as if to ward off ill fortune.
“Thus do I lay upon you your debt, men of-of—” she looked at them intently “Oskold. This one is under the cloak of Umphra, do you deny it?”
One by one, if reluctantly, they shook their heads. Those with the bared swords sheathed them.
“Then do you with him what must be done.”
I thought, from the looks they shared, that they would object. But if they were so inclined her manner quelled such protests. One of them led out a kas and between them they got the thing that was no longer a man up on the beast’s back and there made fast. Then they turned and rode away into the very early sun, which came from behind a cloud to illumine the dell.
“Why? What?” Yaps from my mouth, but she must have read my thoughts, for once they were gone she came swiftly and knelt before me, putting her hands out to hold my head firmly while she looked into my eyes.
“Our plan is working, Krip Vorlund. Now, give them a small lead, and we follow!”
“What?” I tried to think, not to make beast sounds. “What have you done to me, and why?”
Now she stared again into my eyes, her attitude one of puzzlement. “I have done as you desired, star rover, given you a new body and taken care to save the old, that you might not bubble forth your life’s blood from rents their swords would make. So—” she shook her head slowly, “you did not believe that this could be done, even when you said aye to the doing! But it is done and lies now on the scales of Molaster.”
“My—that body—can I get it back? And—what— what am I now?”
She answered my second question first. There was a small overflow of pool like unto a shallow plate of water. To this I was guided by her hand on the nape of my neck. Over it she passed her wand, and the water Was still and calm so that I looked into it as I might a mirror. I saw an animal head, with a thick mane between the ears and running down the shoulders, red fur with a golden note— “The barsk!”
“Yes, the barsk,” she said. “And the body-they will take it, as they must or else face certain darkness now and ever after, to a place of refuge. We will follow and, once in the Valley of Forgetting, we shall be safe from Oskold. For those were Oskold’s men, which means that much of this country is a death trap, or would be if you still abode in your former shell. Safe from Oskold you may once more be yourself and then move as you see fit.”
She spoke the truth as she knew it. I had one last lingering thread of hope.
“This is a dream,” I said to myself, not to her. Again her eyes met mine and in them, as well as in the words she spoke, was that which cut the thread for me.