'Leave off,' he said with a laugh. But his laughter drove her further into her rage, and she turned her head and sank her teeth into his hand.
Mika yelled in pain and surprise.
Tam leaped for her, snarling. This! This was something he could understand! Demons were one thing, but no human threatened Mika and emerged unscathed!
'No, Tam!' shouted Mika as he stepped in front of the wolf and flung the princess from him with ease, scarcely believing her ferocity. He examined his bleeding hand, putting it to his mouth and sucking the blood. What had happened to the sweet gentle beauty he had believed her to be? If this was her true nature, it was no wonder she had never married!
The momentum of his push carried her back toward the entrance to the tunnel. Back toward Horns-buck who was still standing in the beam of sunlight, gazing at his hands, still in the grip of confusion.
'Lotus Blossom,' he said in wonderment as the princess careened into him, his face spreading in a beatific smile.
'Oh, Lotus Blossom your stupid fat self,' screamed the princess, and ripping his knife from his belt, she turned and threw the knife at Mika with all her strength.
The knife flew through the air, straight as a sable-wood arrow. Tam, knowing only that she was still a threat, leaped into the air at the same moment and caught the knife square in the center of his chest.
Things seemed to go very, very slowly from that moment on. Mika felt, saw, each and every separate movement around him as though it had been caught in a crystal and hung up to view at his leisure.
The princess bared her teeth in unreasoning hatred and came toward him again.
Hornsbuck sat down and began singing a raucous nomad drinking song.
RedTail crawled into Hornsbuck's lap and sighed deeply.
Tam crumpled like a body without bones, and his blood ran red over the hilt of the knife and puddled on the dusty floor.
Mika sank to his knees and lifted Tam in his arms, cradling the massive head and holding the wolf to him like a child. Tam's eyes were open, the magnificent gold now dark with pain. He looked at Mika and held him in his gaze as though imprinting his vision on his faltering heart and mind.
'Tam,' whispered Mika, willing the wolf to live with all of his being. He started to rise, time still frozen, and saw the princess coming at him.
Without thinking, without premeditation, Mika held out his hand, the one that held the gem, and said the magic words, the wolf spell, at the very moment she sank her nails into his arm.
Time fragmented. Splintered apart. Then slowly reassembled. Everything was the same, but everything was different.
Hornsbuck sat on the floor still singing his song.
RedTail lifted his muzzle and howled.
The roan stamped his foot and snorted, tentatively nibbling a weed that had sprung up behind the broken altar. The warm sun filtered down on the strange tableau in the ruined temple. Shone down on Mika as he walked slowly out of the temple cradling Tam in his arms. Shone down on the small female wolf that followed closely at his heels, her thin pointed muzzle bumping into his legs at his every step. She whined uncertainly, as though afraid of being left behind. Her tail was held low, curled between her long delicate hind quarters.
She whimpered as the man walked away as though she did not exist. Then she sat down on her black furry haunches and lifted her dainty muzzle to the warm sun and howled. The sound echoed through the empty ruin, reverberating from one rounded wall to the next, a peculiar keening wail that held an oddly human quality of pain and grief.
As the last echo faded from the air, the wolf lowered her head. She turned her eyes, one green, one blue, and sought out the retreating figure of the man. Rising slowly, she stared after him for a long uncertain moment, then hesitantly, she crept forward, and followed in his footsteps.
