Feena hesitated for a heartbeat, then scrambled after it. Behind her, the roaring darkness lashed at the floor where she had stood, gouging long strips out of it.
The moment she plunged in among the stacks, though, the roar seemed to sweep away into the distance. A glance over her shoulder showed what seemed like a corridor of books stretching out behind her until it twisted around a corner. How had she moved so far? She looked back around. The tail she had glimpsed was gone again and not even her wolfs nose could sniff out anything more than dust and crumbling parchment. Had she imagined the other wolf? The whispers were building again, growing in volume as if the dark force had plunged into the maze after her. If it caught her…
She whined desperately, Help!
Here!
She moved forward. Growls guided her through turns and at intersection with other book-lined corridors.
Here! Here!
She followed, though she saw nothing. She had to run to keep upat least until the same flowing transformation as before caught her a second time. Suddenly she was a wolf, loping along easily on four legs.
But as she dashed past one intersection, the whispers surged and shadows boiled out. The darkness had found her. Feena half-turned, ready to meet it, but before she could, a form flashed past heranother wolf, but one as black as the night itself.
It vanished down the cross-corridor. The wolf-voice guiding her gave a short, commanding bark: Keep moving!
Feena moved on. The whispers faded again and after a moment Feena realized that even if she couldn't see or smell the wolf guiding her, she could hear it. Nails clicked in rapid rhythm ahead of herand behind her! Two sets behind her, in fact. Feena twisted her neck to look past her flanks. Two wolves were pacing after her, one light gray and lean, the other white and heavier, with the bright eyes of a young animal.
Her racing heart stuttered. She had never seen these wolves before, yet she knew their names:
Niree Swifthands.
Brant Hallower.
The black wolf that had defended her: Rade.
The voice that called her, the gray tail she'd first glimpsed, was Tyver the Peacemaker.
It was the last of the New Moon Pact, She stumbled, and Niree darted forward and nipped at her legs. Feena jumped forward. The corridor gave one last twist and opened up.
She was back at the reading table. The moon glow of the paperweight had returned, though, and the paperweight itself was sitting on the table once more. The gouged floor and the shattered bookshelf had been restored. Everything was exactly the way it had been.
Except that two womenEnshu Venerun and Qualise Domo, she knew intuitivelyand a man stood waiting for her by the table. Feena slid to a sharp stop, her paws scrabbling against the floor. The man, Tyver in his human form, crouched down to face her. He took her handabruptly she was human againand helped her stand. His grip was cold but firm.
'Have faith and be strong, Feena Archwood,' he said, 'for Selune is with you.'
Feena gasped with sudden certainty. 'Dhauna's dreamsthey were real! They were warnings!'
'They are real,' said Qualise. 'They're your dreams now, High Moonmistress.'
'I'm not' Feena began to protest, but her voice froze. The rite had been performed. Dhauna had named her successorand with her death, the mantle of leadership passed on.
Feena swallowed and said, 'Moonmaiden grant me strength.'
'The strength is in you,' said Qualise. 'Understand that and you understand much.'
She stepped aside so that Feena could see the table. The great white book that detailed the pact's trial was gone. In its place was another, slim and elegant instead of bloated and thick. Feena stared at it in wonder. The new book was bound in fine black leather with Selune's phases set in silver down the center of the cover. Where other representations of the phases began with a crescent and grew through half and gibbous to the full moon's bright disk before returning to a crescent, the black book turned that order inside out. On its cover, the full moon shone at the top, shrinking to gibbous, then to the half moon, then to a crescent. In the center of the cover, a hair-thin ring of silver made an empty circlethe new moon.
Somewhere close, the tide of whispers was growing again. She twisted around. Rade had joined Niree and Brant. All three wolves faced outward, a growling wall of fangs and muscle. Feena spun back to the other members of the vanished pact.
'What is the darkness?' she asked. 'Was Dhauna right? Is it heresy? Does Selune really want the New Moon Pact reborn to fight heresy in her faith?'
'Yes and no,' said Tyver. 'No and yes,' said Qualise.
'All things come,' said Enshu, 'in their proper time.' Feena looked at her. She was a stout woman with a strong face crossed by a scar. She reached out thick hands and drew Feena forward, guiding her to the chair beside the table. 'Dhauna Myritar tried to move too fast. Now your time is too short.'
'I don't understand,' Feena gasped.
The whispers pressed in on all sides. The New Moon Pact was pulling together to make a circle around her. A look of urgency crossed Enshu's face.
'Some things should never be understood,' she snarled and shoved Feena hard back into the chair.
Feena woke to voices. Real voices.
All thought of the dream vanished. Someone was at the door of the archives. Nomore than just someone. Feena caught sour tones. It was Velsinore.
The clergy of Moonshadow Hall had returned. How long had she been asleep? Feena stifled a curse and touched the paperweight, dismissing its glow with a thought. The white book was still on the table, just as it should have been. Feena flipped it closed, then scrambled out of her chair and flung herself silently in among the shelves, sliding deep into their maze. When Velsinore's voice became more than a whisper, Feena stopped and pressed herself down against the floor. The robe billowed loosely around herloose enough to accept a change in form. Narrowing her eyes in concentration, Feena shifted and became a wolf. Sharp ears twitched, listening.
Out in the center of the chamber, Velsinore spoke a prayer and light blossomed.
'Gather them all, sisters!' the tall priestess commanded. 'They'll go in the vaults with the others.'
Priestesses murmured, and Feena caught the slither of parchment on parchment. They were gathering the scrolls and books Dhauna had left laid out on the table. Someone grunted under a weight. The white book! However flawed the account might be, it was the only record of the New Moon Pact. Feena's ears pressed back and a low growl escaped her.
One of the priestesses gasped in alarm and parchment crackled sharply.
'Velsinore!'
Feena tensed in alarm, but Velsinore only grunted, angry. 'Be careful, Chandri! It might be something among them that drove Dhauna and Julith to madness.' She grunted again, and said, 'Perhaps it's time these archives were purged.'
'Velsinore,' asked one of the other priestesses timidly, 'what will happen to Julith now?'
'Selune will judge her, Tam.' Velsinore's voice was calm. Her footsteps retreated. 'After the funeral, when the moon is waxing againSelune will judge her.'
'What about what the Sharran told her?' bleated Chandri.
Velsinore's footsteps stopped.
For a moment there was silence, then Velsinore said, 'Attend to your work, sisters. When Selune waxes, we'll put an end to the Sharran and his kind. Now hurry there's a lot to do.'
Her footsteps began again, marching out of the archives. Other footsteps scurried in her wake. After a moment, the archives were silent once more, though Velsinore's light remained.
Feena put her jaw down on her paws and allowed herself a thin growl. Obviously Julith and presumably Keph along with her had been captured, but she wondered what the young man could have said to put Tam and Chandri into such a state of alarm. She whined and slapped her tail on the floor. She needed to get out of the archives and find out what was going on. Feena started rise, to change back into a woman.
Silver flashed in the corner of her eye.
Feena sank back down and peered in at the lowest level of the shelves she crouched beside. Back behind
