“Do not venture beyond the safety of the Land!” cried the Beast, and his voice was desperate. What could he have to fear? That I would escape him? But why should that make him tremble so?
I could hear his panting breath behind me. My feet slipped and stumbled on wet rocks I could not see.
“There is nothing for you out there, my beauty,” said the wolf. I could sense the nearness of his massive body. My heart raced. Each moment, I wondered if I would feel his teeth tearing into me.
“Do not leave the shelter I have created,” he said. “I have made the Land safe, dependent on nothing but me. I am your great protector.”
Every step I made was a battle. The end of the cavern was so near! I could see the faint outline of a dark sky that seemed bright as day compared to the dark in which I walked. Cringing, I forced myself another step, another two steps.
“I have cared for the mortal creatures of this nation. For generations, I have been their guardian! My love is great and terrible, too much for your mind to understand. But you will learn. I will teach you.”
The voice changed. It was no longer that of a wolf. It was a man who stood just behind me in the darkness now. I dared not look around.
“Come back with me, Starflower. Do not pass into the emptiness beyond. Come back with me, and I shall make you a goddess.”
One more step. I must not give in! One more step, just one more.
Why did he not grab hold and drag me back? I was weak to the point of breaking. I could not have struggled against him.
“Come back with me, my love,” he said, his voice a growl filled with the horror of his desire. “Step off that Path you follow, and come back where you belong.”
If only I were dead! If only he had slain me upon the stone!
“You were always meant to be mine.”
I lifted my foot. The distance was too great. I could not make it, could not force my body a single pace farther. I could not—
Follow me!
The Hound was before me, bright and huge and golden. He should have blinded, so potent was his brilliance in the dark of that cavern. Instead, it was as though my eyes were opened for the first time. I saw clearly the path on which I walked. I saw that the Beast could not follow or catch me.
Energy surged through my heart with hope and courage. My hand caught at the Hound, clutching the long, silky hair of his back. Then he was running, and I was dragged along in his wake. He plunged into the river. Water swept over me, cold and dark, but there was light as well, for my hand still gripped that golden fur. My bones should have been pulverized. I should have breathed in the river water and perished. Instead, I was carried swiftly out of the cavern in a rushing tumult.
I came to myself on a thin strip of land. Night was heavy around me, thick with stars. There was water on both sides of me, lapping at my shaking body. I sat up, shivering, alone. But for all this, the first thing I noticed was my gown.
My mother’s wedding dress had been washed white once more. The blood was gone.
I looked around me, searching for the Hound. But he was nowhere to be seen. Far ahead I saw the haze of distant land, though in the night my eyes may have fooled me. Behind me loomed the mountains, the cavern, and the mouth of the tunnel from which the river issued.
So this, then, was the Void. This separation from all that I knew. From my sister, my father, my home. It was worse than the fall I had imagined. It was worse even than Nothingness, for in Nothingness I could not have known pain.
My hands shook as I raised them and made the signs of passing. For my father, the Panther Master, who died because—oh, Great Lights, Great Songs! Because he loved me! Against all reason, all expectation, he loved me, his silent, worthless offspring. He loved me enough to give his life.
And when I had finished, I made the same sign for myself. I too had died that day, died to the person I had been. I can never return to the Land. Therefore, I am like one dead.
“Starflower!” The Beast’s voice, human in its pain, echoed from the deeps of the earth. “Starflower, do not leave me!”
I gagged in my terror, my hands faltering in their signs and clenching into fists. Would he pursue? The river could not have carried me far. Could he pick up my scent and come after me even now? I dared not wait to find out. Though everything in me longed for rest, even the rest of death, I forced my body into motion. I staggered and sobbed in pain as I fled down that narrow isthmus of land.
And even as Wolf Tongue’s lament haunted me, so the voice of the Hound, unseen but near, urged me on my way.
1
ETALPALLI
THE GIRL SHOULD BE BROKEN.