The Jargoon Pard

8 Of the Maid in the Forest and the Star Tower

By twilight I had slept a little and my hunger was once more awake. Though I ranged along the stream for some distance trying my fishing skill again, I had no luck. Either my first successes were due to some fleeting pity from Fortune, or else the fish had been warned by them, though the latter hardly seemed likely in such a short time. Eat I must, and food that might have sustained me in my true form—berries, cresses and the like—would not suffice now. I must have meat, and the pard was fast taking command, induced by hunger into attempting a true hunt.

I was still padding along the riverbank when a rank smell alerted my animal senses. It was meat—on the hoof and not too distant. As they had during my escape from the Keep, the set of beast instincts claimed me. I was now all pard and not man.

Two bounds carried me to the top of a ridge of stone. A light breeze blew toward me, bearing a heavy reek from my destined prey. My eyes, better adjusted to this twilight than human ones would be, marked well what snorted, grunted, snuffled and rooted below. A family of wild pigs, a fearsomely tusked boar in command, was moving toward the stream.

Even the pard hesitated to challenge such a formidable opponent. The boars were noteworthy as one of the greatest perils of the forest, rightly feared by even those who would dare to tree a snow cat. Their tusks were wickedly sharp, and the creatures had a sly cunning that they used well when trailed. It was known that they sometimes doubled back to set an ambush for any hunter foolish enough to track them in their own territory.

Surprise would be my best weapon. I crept along the stone, flowing forward in that silence native to the feline species when they find need to employ it.

Though the younger pigs, even the sow, looked to be better eating, I knew that the boar must be my quarry, since with him disabled or dead, the greatest danger would be gone. My muscles tensed for the leap.

The sow, with her piglets and two half-grown older offspring, had snorted on a length ahead. The boar was tearing up the ground with his tusks as if he dug for some delicacy he had sniffed lying below the surface.

I sprang, giving voice to no cry. And I landed true, the weight of my body bearing the rank-smelling animal under me to the ground. My jaws made a single, sharp snap, and I delivered a blow with one paw, putting into it all the force I could summon. The boar lay still, his neck broken, dead in an instant.

Then I heard grunting and raised my head, voicing a warning snarl of my own. The sow now faced me, her litter sheltered behind her, rage plain to read in every line of her body.

I snarled again, watching the small, red eyes. Would she attack? While not having the strength of her mate, she was still such a fighter when cornered as to make any attacker think twice. I crouched lower over the body of the boar, readying for a charge if she showed fight.

The young pigs squealed, uttering a thin, ear-troubling sound, and the two older ones pawed the ground. Yet they made no move, seeming to wait for some unheard order from their dam.

When the sow did not rush, I decided she was only on guard for her young. I took hold of the body of my kill, retreated slowly backward, ever watching the sow. She continued to grunt, lowering her head to tear at the trampled soil with her lesser tusks. Though the picture of seething rage, she did not move toward me.

At last she raised her heavy head, gave a final grunt, and whirled with a speed I thought uncommon to her species. Driving her litter before her, flanked by the two older pigs, she had the whole family on the run. I was left to drag my kill to the top of the ridge and there satisfy my hunger, firmly closing my human mind to what I did, allowing the pard full control.

Before I had finished, I heard small rustlings and knew that at a safe distance around me the scavengers, drawn by the scent of my feast, were gathering. When I was gone they would move in to fight and squabble over what remained, until only well-picked bones would lie among the rocks.

I had eaten, now I would drink—but farther on. I had no wish to once more front the sow and her litter. Though I had faced her down once, if I came again and seemed to threaten her piglets, I could well have such a struggle as would mean grave danger. Again Fortune had favored me in that quick, sure kill from which I had come unmarked. There was no reason to exhaust my luck by too frequent testings of it.

The moon was rising slowly. Its reflection did not yet shimmer on the water as I drank deeply and then sat down to lick clean my fur. My hunger and thirst satisfied, my beast nature was lulled. I was ready to think again.

The plan for seeking out some forest Wise One to aid me seemed very thin and difficult to follow. Yet I dared not so soon return to the vicinity of the Keep where I was certain Maughus and his huntsmen waited. Or would my mother and Ursilla bring such pressure to bear that he would have to abandon his plan for ridding himself of the obstacle that I was? There was no way of guessing what passed behind me. It was better to turn all thoughts to what might lie about or before me at this moment.

As I lingered by the stream, my ears and eyes reported what action they could detect. I heard movement among the trees, picked up scents. Huge-winged night moths hovered over the water feeding on smaller winged things that rose from the reeds or stream edge. Now and then another airborne marauder swooped upon the moths to take a victim. About me the land, air, water seethed with life, as I had never been aware of it when I had walked as a man.

Since I still had no other guide, I decided to travel along the stream. There were game trails that came down to the water here and there. Perhaps I might find one that also served men or beings enough like men to be approached. On so slender a hope I must hang for a time.

Though I picked up many scents as I prowled, never was there one that my pard self did not recognize as animal. If I did cross the territory of any of the forest people, such was not made known to me, even by my new, keener senses. At length, I began to despair of ever finding an intelligence of the sort to comprehend my troubles.

It was when my hope had reached the lowest point, was near vanishing indeed, that I heard low singing not born from the rippling water to my left. The notes, rising and falling in a cadence near that of a chant, drew me.

I lifted my head as high as I might, awaking twinges again from the claw wounds on my back, sniffing the night air. Human! There was before me someone of the species I had once been before the curse of the belt imprisoned me. And any human who chose the forest for a place of dwelling should surely be in touch with the Power!

Among the trees I stalked, the chant growing ever louder as I went. I could distinguish words now, but they had no mind-meaning. Still, that they were of the Power was made manifest by the tingling in my hide, the answering excitement they engendered. No man can pass unshaken when some sorcery is at work nearby.

At last I crouched behind a fallen tree, gazing out into a glade where the moon shone clearly upon a pillar of glistening, flashing quartz—gemlike with life-fire beneath its light. For life of a sort coiled and flowed within its length, moving with the constant play of some imprisoned flame.

At the column foot, encircling it, grew a mass of plants, each one crowned with a single silver-white flower, which mirrored in miniature the moon above, under which they opened their petals as if they thirsted for the same light. They gave forth a subtle perfume as fresh as any springtime breeze, though this was the autumn season.

From behind the pillar of cold flame came the singer. She rested against one hip a wide, flat basket into which she dropped bloom heads she snapped from among the flowers. And as she made her choice she chanted.

In the moonlight her body was as white and fair as the harvest she was culling. Her only garment was a belt about her slender waist, from which depended a short fringe of skirt giving forth soft tinklings at her every move. This fringe was fashioned of silvery disks strung on fine chains, a number spaced on each chain.

Between her small, young breasts hung the symbol of the horned moon, appearing carved of the same flaming crystal as the pillar about which she paced. Her long, dark hair was fastened at the nape of her neck with a band of silver, but strands brushed behind her fringed skirt, so long were the locks.

I had never seen her like, even among the forest folk. My pard nose told me she was human as to scent, yet no maid from the Clans would walk alone in the forest rapt in a ceremony of Power, performing some rite in the moonlight. She must be a Wise Woman. Yet, she was as different from Ursilla as the first beams of dawn light are from the dregs of a long and dusty day.

Three times more she wove her path around the pillar, plucking the flower heads until her basket was heaped high. Then she took it in both hands and, standing so she half-faced me, she held her harvest high, her face turned up to the moon as she chanted louder. She might be so giving thanks for what she had garnered.

Had she beauty? I did not know, I could not judge her by the standards of the Keep. But there was that in me which struggled for freedom from my furred curse. In that moment when I looked upon her so, I was all inwardly a man, and a man drawn by the fairest that lies in women.

So great was her Power (her own Power and not that of the Wise Ones) upon me, that, without thinking, I arose and advanced into the moonlight, forgetting the guise I wore and all else. She had lowered the basket, and now she looked straight at me.

There was startlement in her face.

That brought me to myself, would have sent me cowering once more into cover. She steadied her basket once again against her hip. Now her right hand moved in one of the signs that the initiated use for protection, of recognition.

The line she drew so in the air was visible, glowing as brightly as any flame torch for an instant. She spoke aloud as if asking me some question. But her words were strange ones I could not understand.

That I did not reply as she expected appeared to concern her. Once more she drew the sign as if to assure herself that it had been right. Then, as the lines disappeared, she spoke again, this time using the tongue of the Clans and the open land.

“Who are you, night treader?”

I tried to say my name. Only what came from my beast’s mouth was a strange, guttural cry.

Now she pointed two fingers at me and spoke other Wise Words, watching me intently as she did so.

Once more I tried to speak. This time, to my sudden fear, I found that I could not move even my mouth. She had laid some spell upon me. Nor did she watch me longer, seeming to think that I was well held against any interference in her concerns. Leaving the pillar she neared the edge of the glade. There she set down her basket for a moment, to take up a hooded cloak within which she concealed her form, so that from moon silver she became in a short moment a gray shadow.

With the basket once more in her hold, she slipped away among the trees. I could have wept like a man who had lost his hope, or howled like a beast from which his rightful prey has been reft. But the bonds she laid upon me were as imprisoning as if she had lifted the crystal pillar and enclosed my body in it.

As I struggled with all my will to break free, the bonds began to loosen. At length I could move, if slowly. My strength returned little by little. As soon as I could stagger, I drew myself to the point where I had seen her disappear and there I set my beast sense to nose out her path.

Though I wavered along at first, sometimes striking against the tree trunks, my tread became firmer. I had to keep a slow pace lest I lose the track I followed. Even with the keenness of my sense of smell I found elusive the traces left by the one I sought, as if she had attempted to hide her trail.

Then the scent that guided me was gone, hidden in a wealth of odors, some sweet, some acrid, some spicy, the like of which I had not known before. I had come to the edge of another clearing many times the size of the one in which my youthful Wise Woman had performed her sorcery. This was no common forest glade, but rather a carefully tended garden.

The beds of growing things (things differing from the Harvest I had helped to garner from the fields of the Keep) spread outward from the foot of a Tower. Under the moon I could see that it also was unlike the buildings of the Clan in which I had been reared.

The forest structure was not round nor square, the two most common forms of towers, but five-pointed, like a large representation of the floor-painted star I had seen in Ursilla’s private chamber.

Between each of the points was set a slender pole, reaching as high as some narrow windows that were visible in the second and third stories. The rods or poles gleamed with a faint light that surrounded the Tower itself with a haze. I guessed they might be some form of protection perhaps far more effective than any known to the Clans. The stone of the Tower itself under its radiance had a glisten quite unlike the rough look of normal blocks, and was a dull blue-green.

There was also a glow of light in several of the windows that I could see as I crept about the outer rim of the clearing to view the Tower from all sides. That this was the home of my Moon Witch I did not doubt. Nor did I believe she lived there alone. As I approached the other side of the Tower from the place where I had first sighted it, I came upon a paddock with a stable shelter beyond. These were like the ones I had known and had none of the strange quality of the Tower. Several horses grazed in the paddock, two of them with colts by their sides.

They must have caught my scent as I moved, for their heads came up and the stallion trumpeted. As I did not approach any closer, he quieted and only trotted along the fence between me and his herd. That the rest of them did not show the frenzy my presence had always evoked in their species before surprised me. They returned to their grazing, and even the stallion stood quietly when I paused, his head turned so his eyes could watch my every move. Beyond his watchfulness, he displayed no fear.

I made the entire circuit of the clearing. The Tower had a single entrance to the north, a small door nigh indistinguishable from the wall, set in one of the crevices between the points. And about the whole of the building there was a feeling of secretiveness and—withdrawal was the only word that came into my mind—as if those who sheltered there had, by choice, little to do with the ways of men.

It was in my mind that they doubtless also possessed devices to ensure their privacy. Still, we who are of the Old Race know when anything is of the Shadow. And about the Star Tower there was no stench of evil to warn one away. I found a place under a bush beyond the garden where I could stretch my length and yet watch the door. In me hope was growing, if but feebly, once again.

Now and again I blinked at the dimly lighted window visible from my lair and wondered whether the Witch Maid was behind it. Why had she culled the moonflowers? What spells did she now raise with their aid? If I could only have answered her question!

I arose, circled a little, and lay down again. The night was far along now. Already the moon had passed from overhead. Now the dim light, behind the window above, had been snuffed out. Only the haze from the poles wreathed around the Star Tower.

My head sank forward to rest upon my paws. A small breeze swept toward me, coming over the garden to load itself with the odors of herbs. Now I knew this to be an herb garden, larger than any I had ever seen, and with the familiar were mixed many I could not put name to. Paths marked with water-worn stones divided the ground into beds for easier access to reach their crops.

Some plants there were already fading, falling early into the dormant sleep of the cold season lying yet a moon or so before us. Others waxed more vigorous as if the dying of the growing year was an incentive for them to produce more abundantly.

I knew only Ursilla’s spell-weaving. In it, she made use of herbs and spices—small amounts of the latter she bought from traders. But the ones she grew were only a handful compared to this abundance. And the Moon Maid had been gathering flowers—Did she practice a Magic that was centered on growing things—Green Magic?

Some men speak ignorantly of White Magic and Black, meaning that which is wrought for the benefit of mankind and that of the Great Shadow, which ever threatens him. But those well into the Mysteries do not speak so—rather they aver that Magic is divided otherwise, and each part has both a dark and a light side.

There is Red Magic that deals with the health of the body, physical strength, the art of war also. Secondly comes Orange Magic, which is a matter of self-confidence and strong desire. Yellow is the Magic of the mind, needing logic and philosophy, that which the Thaumaturgists most speak in.

Green is the hue not only of Nature’s growing things and fertility, but also of beauty and the creating of beauty through man’s own efforts. Blue summons the emotions, the worship of whatever gods men believe in, prophecy. Indigo is concerned with the weather, with storms and the foretelling by stars.

Purple is a force that is drawn upon warily, for it carries the seeds of lust, hate, fear, power—and it is far too easily misused. Violet is pure power among the spirits, and few, even of the Voices, can claim to harness it. While Brown is the Magic of the woods and glades, of the animal world.

Those of the woodlands about which I knew aught were learned in the Green and Brown. And of all Magics, these are the closest to the earth, the less easily misused.

However, no one with the talent ever draws upon one Magic alone, but mingles this spell with that, seeking to draw the innate energy of what is most inclined to the result the sorcerer desires. All can be misused, thus coming under the Shadow. But he or she who chooses that path reaches for a Power that may recoil eleven-fold upon them if they have a stronger desire than they have talent.

The Green Magic of the place soothed me as I breathed in the odor of the herbs, and with it the subtle rightness of the garden. If I could only make known to those who dwelt here the curse laid upon me, it could well be that they would have that which would aid me.

That night I carried hope with me into slumber, no longer caring that the predawn light was banishing the haze of the rods by the Tower and that the day world stirred toward wakefulness. To one thought did I hold as I slipped helplessly into what was near a drugged sleep—that here I might find—not friends, for that much I did not hope—but someone who would understand—and—just perhaps—offer me aid.