'They are destroyed?'
'They destroyed themselves. For they did not heed the safeguards. Only, behind them they have left ruin.'
'Those—those whom Umphra holds under his cloak—' she began, almost timidly. 'How fare those, elder brother?'
'Him you hold in your heart-hand, Freesha, survives . Others—some Umphra has at last loosed upon the White Road.'
She sighed. Her wand lay across her knees, her hands rubbed her forehead.
So Maquad was still alive; I clung to that much. My lassitude was creeping back. I could not find it in me to care greatly that her plan had not been swallowed after all. The pain in my breast gave me a sharp twinge, and I slipped from my half sprawl across the seat to huddle on the mat once again. It was as if my last small reserve of strength left me.
Light—shining into my face so that it smarted through the small slits between my nearly closed eyelids… I tried to turn my head away from that light, but I was held to it and I breathed in vapor which was sharply aromatic, clearing my head. I opened my eyes and found that I now lay in a room and Maelen bent over me, a bowl in her hand holding a golden liquid. From this rose the fumes which had summoned me back.
With her was another, and that old, benign face I knew. Once, a very long time ago, we had sat in a quiet garden and talked of life beyond the star which was Yiktor's sun, of how men carried out their destinies in many strange places. This was Orkamor, servant of Umphra. I tried to say his name.
'Younger brother'—his words formed in my mind— 'is this your wish, truly your wish, to put off the body you now wear for another?'
Words—words—but, yes, that was my wish, of course it was! I was a man—a man! I claimed a man's body. And that rose in me as no mere desire, but as a demand which was centered with all the strength I could now summon.
'Be it as you will, then, sister, brother—'
Orkamor receded from my vision as if he floated away. Once more Maelen leaned above me, holding the bowl that its reviving fumes might clear my brain.
'Say this, Krip Vorlund, word for word: 'I wish this by the power, to put aside fur and fang, to walk again as a man!''
'I wish—this—by—by—the power, to put aside—fur and fang—to walk—to walk again as—a man!' Triumphantly I finished that plea, wishing I could shout it aloud from some mountain top for all the world to hear.
'Drink!'
She held yet closer the bowl of aromatic liquid. I lapped at its contents eagerly. It was as cool water from a mountain stream. I had not realized how I thirsted until I swallowed. It was good—good— I drank until the bowl was emptied, until my tongue found no lingering drop.
'Now—' She put aside the bowl to bring forward one of the moon globes. And though the room had seemed light to me, yet did that lamp make it brighter.
'Look into this,' she bade me. 'Loose, look and loose—'
Loose? Loose what? But I set my eyes upon the globe. It was a world of silver such as one might see rise up on the visa-screen of the
Who wanders on silver worlds, and what do they see there? Out of some depth that thought came to me. But this was waking not dreaming. Yet still I would not open my eyes to see, for there was a difference now and some wary part of me wished to explore that difference slowly.
I drew in a deep breath, waiting for my nose, for the barsk senses to tell me all they could. But it was as if those senses had been deadened, shriveled. There were scents, yes, the perfume of some growing thing, and others, but all weak compared to those I had known.
As yet I had not tried to move. But when I had breathed so deeply, that pain which had become so much a part of me—it was gone! Now I opened my eyes. But—distortion! Colors were less sharp in some ways, stridently screaming in others. I blinked, trying to make my surroundings return to normal. But they did not. It required effort to focus, to make my eyes once more my obedient servants. Once—once before this had happened— Memory stirred in me.
I stared ahead. There was a wide surface, a wall, and in it a window. Beyond that branches waved in the pull of the wind. My mind readily supplied names for all of these, recognized what my eyes reported, even though they saw everything differently. I opened my mouth, tried to lick sharp fangs with my tongue. But the tongue which moved there was not long, it swept across teeth—these were not the tearing implements of a barsk.
My—my paws? I ordered a foreleg into my range of vision, somehow not daring yet to raise my head. There was an arm moving slowly upward for me to see—a hand—fingers which curled when I ordered—
Arm—hand—? I was not a barsk—I was—a man!
Abruptly I sat up and the room, still somewhat distorted in my sight, swung giddily. And I was alone within it. But I raised human hands, two of them, to stare upon and I looked down at a human body! The flesh was pale, so pale it made me a little uncomfortable to look upon it. That was not right—I should be brown, very brown. I huddled on the edge of the bed where I had lain, looked searchingly at the length of my new body, at its pallor, the thinness which was close to emaciation.
Then I dared to raise my hands, to explore by touch my face. It was human right enough, though by touch alone I could not estimate its difference from the Krip Vorlund who had been kidnaped from the Yrjar fair. I wanted a mirror. I must
Stumbling a little, for it was a strain to walk erect once more after running for so long on all fours, I got to my feet. I inched one of those bare feet forward in a step, my hands out to balance me as I teetered from one foot to the other. But as I reached the window and then turned, my confidence in such a method of progression returned. It was as if I revived an old skill forgotten for a space. I looked about for the furred body which was Jorth, but it was
