The Valley of Creation

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.

He leaped broad awake then, on a surging shock of fear, and opened his eyes on a world he had never seen before.

It was a world without color. A world of gray shadings, black and white. He could perceive objects clearly but he perceived them on a strange plane. His field of vision was low and horizontal and there was no perspective. The big shimmering glass gallery appeared as a flat picture painted on a gray wall.

But he could see. With terrible clarity he could see himself, Eric Nelson, sleeping in a wooden chair six feet away! Instinctively a cry of horror rose to Nelson's lips, and was voiced as a howl.

Wolf-cry—

His body slept, but he was not in it and he spoke with the voice of a wolf.

Eric Nelson hung for a moment on the brink of madness and then clutched desperately at an explanation. Drugs — Kree had given him some vicious drug and he was having hallucinations. Some of his fear turned to anger against Kree. It was a cursed eerie sensation to stand looking at your own body. He wanted to get back into it, quickly.

He started to move toward it but it did not seem like the motion of will or thought. It was like physical motion. It was like walking on four feet!

Sinuous play of ropy muscles, lithely springy joints, the cushioned step of padded paws, the light click of claws on the glassy floor-

Dimly reflected in the glassy wall he saw the whole picture. Eric Nelson slumped sleeping in the chair, Nsharra seated with the eagle perched behind her and Tark at her feet, the great black stallion Hatha, the crouching tiger and Kree — all of them watching. Watching the young dog-wolf Asha pad slowly toward the sleeping man.

Nelson stopped and the reflection of Asha stopped too. He could see the wolf-face looking back at him from the dim mirror of the wall and a cold certainty that was beyond fear grew in his heart.

He began to tremble. He felt his lips draw back, and the mirrored Asha bared white fangs at him. Again Nelson cried out in a wolf's voice and he saw the reflection of Asha lift its head and howl.

Nelson went on toward his sleeping body, tried to touch it. And the image in the wall showed him the young dog-wolf pawing at the chest of the sleeping man and whimpering.

Quorr laughed, a coughing, snarling burst of mockery.

Nsharra spoke, her urgent thought-voice ringing quite clear in Nelson's mind.

'Father, speak to him! Explain to him, before his heart breaks!'

Nelson crouched watching them. He did not stir except that his head moved from side to side in little nervous jerks. He could feel the slow light breathing of his hitman body as his paws touched it.

Kree's thought came slowly. 'It is true, outlander. You now inhabit the body of the wolf, Asha.'

The strong wild thought of the stallion interrupted. 'The power of the ancients! The punishment of those who transgress the Brotherhood!'

Again Quorr, the tiger, looked at Nelson and laughed.

'You should be proud, outlander! For you, the Guardian has made an exception, giving you the useful body of a Clan-brother. If we sin, we are banished into the bodies of the little hunted things that are born only to be eaten.'

Then, sharp and clear, Ei the great eagle called out to Nelson. 'Courage, outlander!' And Nsharra's softer echo said, 'Courage, Eric Nelson.'

It was then that Nelson's anger began to creep warm across his icy fear. But still he could not believe.

Stunned, bewildered, his thought went out to Kree. 'It isn't possible. No science could do that — my brain in a