I stood gave a ripping groan, and one of the great halves swayed. I leaped for my life, turning in time to see the crystal-enclosed giant crash down upon the spot where I had stood.
Now my breath came hard, with shock and anger. More than a thought had been laid against me. A curse was moving in the wood, and I had no doubt that I was its specific target. I must win clear of the threatening branches or risk an end to my quest and my life. Not for this had I taken the hard lessons of the Singers’ School to heart. I would bow my neck to no ill spirit that cast its spell across Tyrnos.
I stood still in the cleared spot left by the falling tree. Closing my eyes, I called upon the Power that I had never before been forced to use in my own behalf. A half-chant rose in my throat, and the strange sensations that were the tracks of the Power flowed through me. As if doubly frozen, the forest quieted until the faint chiming of ice against ice as the slight breeze moved through laden twigs was all that could be heard.
Into that quiet came the sound of steps. Not the two-footed steps of humankind, but a complex four-pawed gait that would have been padding, but for the crisp layer of ice upon the fallen leaves. The sound neared, and I wondered behind my closed eyelids what beast still wandered the wood in the teeth of such weather. As the paws drew to a halt beside me, I opened my eyes and looked.
The darkest, saddest eyes I have ever seen gazed back into mine from their own level. They were set in a face of white fur that edged into a neat trimming of dark gray about the cat-like lower jaw, the neatly pointed ears, and the flattish muzzle. White fur covered the rest of the shape, which consisted of a compact and short-tailed body set high upon slender, oddly-jointed legs. A strange beast altogether, unlike any in the books that I had studied so painstakingly at School.
There was no feeling of ill about it. It stood patiently while I studied it. When I began to sing it, it made a strange sound, a thrumming that just missed being a purr. And the shape I limned on the inside of my mind was no beast at all. Still, it was not of my kind, either. And it was misted over, as if the gods wished its true shape concealed. But it was clear that a thinking being stood at my side in that ensorcelled wood.
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