The Valley of Creation

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 wolf's body—"

"Not your brain, but your mind" Kree said grimly. "The mind is immaterial, a tenuous web of force. So said the ancients. And they built the instrument that can transfer minds to other bodies. I merely used that instrument.

"It is Asha's body still and Asha's brain. Asha's instincts, memories, latent knowledge are still in that brain and you will have use of them. But the real you, your conscious mind, is now in Asha's body and Asha's conscious mind-sleeps."

Nelson felt his new body tense and rise. He cried out bewilderedly, "But why? Why didn't you just kill me?"

"You are hostage for my son Barin," Kree answered. "When Barin is returned to us you will be returned to your own body!"

The anger that had been growing and growing in Nelson burst suddenly into a flame of rage. Rage such as he had never known, the wild anger of the wolf.

That they should have done this to him, Eric Nelson! That they should have dared!

Nelson was dimly aware of a strange linking of his familiar mind to something dark and primal and alien. Man-rage drawing from the deep red wells of the beast. He bared his fangs and snarled. He felt his whole new wolf-body coil tensely tight as he crouched.

Man-rage, beast-rage-memory, instinct, the loosing of the chain — not so alien after all, not so strange! Not so long ago man himself was a hunting beast!

He sprang in a beautiful, deadly, arching leap, straight for Kree.

He heard Nsharra cry out, and then in mid-air he felt the shock of Tark's great leaping body. The wolf's broad breast struck his shoulder, bowled him over to crash on the glassy floor. He slashed out, felt hair and hide tear under his teeth, tasted blood on his tongue.

And then Tark's greater weight was smothering him, Tark's huge jaws had closed on the back of his neck, and Tark was shaking him as a wolf-cub shakes a rat. The leader of the Clan flung Nelson from him, rolling over and over, and stood contemptuous and lordly in his strength, laughing with his red tongue run out between his open jaws.

"You've yet to learn," came his thought, "that I, Tark, lead the pack of the Hairy Ones!"

And Nelson, gathering himself, sent back the raging thought, "But I am not of your Clan!"

He sprang again at Tark.

It was strange, how he knew the ways of fighting. To dart in low to snap the foreleg, to use the breast as a ram, to keep the throat always covered, to dodge and dance and whirl and give the long terrible slashing stroke where the hair thins on the side of the opponent's neck, over the vein.

All these things Nelson knew and knew well. He was young and powerful and he was fighting to kill. But it availed him nothing. Tark moved like a wraith before him so that his jaws rang shut on the empty air-and before he could recover himself the old pack lord would smash him off balance with his greater weight and his jaws would chop and slash and then he would be away again, out of reach, laughing.

Nelson sprang and sprang again, and was beaten down, and would not quit. The hot sweet taint of blood reddened the air, and the great black stallion tossed his head and stamped his hoofs on the glassy floor. Quorr wrinkled his striped face in a snarling grin, and his claws ran in and out of their velvet sheaths and his tail twitched.

Only Ei perched motionless on the back of Nsharra's chair. The girl's face was white and full of pity and there was a sickness in her eyes. She looked pleadingly at her father, who sat watching with dark, somber eyes.

In answer to Nsharra's look Kree sighed and said, "Do not hurt him, Tark — more than you must."

And Tark answered, panting, "He must learn to obey!"

Once more his great jaws ripped, slashed and sent Nelson sprawling.

There came a time when Nelson tried to spring again and could not. Whipped to standstill, he stood trembling on legs braced far apart, his flanks heaving, his head hanging low. He left blood and sweat wetting his hairy wolf-body.

Tark's though asked, "Have you learned, cub?"

Nelson answered, "I have learned." But still the dulled fire of rage burned in him.

Tark's mind said grimly, "Do not forget!"

He trotted back to Nsharra's side and began to lick his fur, keeping one mocking eye on the creature that was Eric Nelson. Kree leaned forward, his deep-set gaze brooding somberly upon the wolf that was Nelson.

"Listen," he said. "Listen, Eric Nelson, to the price of your deliverance."

He waited, as though for Nelson's shaken mind to clear, before he went on.

"Go back to your comrades, Eric Nelson. Go back to the Humanites. Bring my son to me alive and safe and you shall be a man again."

Nelson voiced a bitter, snarling laugh.

"Do you think they'll believe me?" he demanded. "Do you think they'll listen?"

"You must make them listen."

"They'll shoot me on sight."

"They are your comrades, Eric Nelson. They are your problem." Kree turned to the pack-leader and his grim thought ordered, "Tark, start him on his way."

Tark rose and shook himself. He took three soft padding steps toward Nelson and said, "Go."

Nelson faced him sullenly and would not move.

Quorr's thought said, "The cub is forgetful, Tark. You must teach him his lesson again."

And Hatha, eyes rolling, stamped. "Teach him!"

Ei rustled his wings in what sounded like a sigh.

"Remember, outlander," his thought said, "courage is a good quality only when one is wise enough to use it."

"All of you, leave him alone!" cried Nsharra. She put out her hands pleadingly and said, "Please go, Eric Nelson!"

Nelson saw that there were tears on her cheeks. He watched Tark padding toward him, his great body all one coiled and fluid motion. He watched the filtered sunlight gleam on Tark's teeth.

The smell of his own blood rose hot in his nostrils.

Quite suddenly Nelson turned and ran. As though that were a signal, a burst of sound broke from behind him — the stamp and squeal of Hatha, the tiger's echoing roar, a long wolf-howl. They were answered all through the Hall of Clans.

And Nelson, as he ran, heard with the noise the great ringing shout of Tark's mind.

"Clam of the Brotherhood! Send Clan-call forth that Asha the wolf is outlaw!"

Through the glittering corridors and dusty vaulted halls they drove him, out of the building, out into the forested streets of Vruun. With hoof and fang and claw they drove him and always the word ran ahead of him like wildfire:

"Asha the wolf is outlaw-outlaw!"

And he ran, he who was both wolf and man, both Asha and Eric Nelson. He ran along the broad forest ways between the bubble buildings, though the glittering city, and there was no shelter for him.

The eagles swooped and screamed above him. The gray pack loped behind him and, if he tried to dart aside, Hatha's Clan were there with plunging hoofs to bar the way. And everywhere the striped and silent bodies of the Clawed Ones flowed in the shadows, laughing at him.

The men and women of Vruun watched the driving of the outlaw with bitter eyes and they too barred his way. Nelson went the only way left open to him, out of Vruun and into the open forest. He ran belly-flat, choking on his own heart, and he knew how a dog feels when he is driven through a town.

The forest shade gathered him in. The earth was moist and soft under his paws. He fled onward between the trees and, after a time, he realized that the pursuit had drawn back and was dim and far away.

He slowed his pace to a trot and then to a dragging walk. Breathing was an agony, a tearing pain. Where Tark had slashed him the blood oozed and dripped and took his strength with it and his every joint and muscle was a separate ache and soreness.

He crossed a little stream and stopped to drink. Then he lay down in the running water. The icy touch of it burned in his raw flesh.

He rose and slunk on.

Instinct that was not his own but Asha's told him where to lair. He crept into a hollow between two great gnarled roots, where it was warm.

There he lay down and began, wolf-like, to lick his wounds.

Night darkened over the valley of L'Lan.