She broke off, bending double with the pain in her gut. For a moment she was lost, perhaps never to return from this agony. She struggled against it. In a barely audible whisper she gasped, “What shall I do? I must have my wings!”
Then she was gone. The flames swallowed her once more. With a roar that tore the sky and brought rocks tumbling from the higher towers of her realm, she spewed fire from her belly. All memory was gone, all plots and plans. Lady Gleamdren, who lay prostrate on the floor of her cage, watched between her fingers as the dragon spat and writhed in the agonies of her burning.
“Lord Lumé love us!” Gleamdren whispered, though she could not hear her own voice above the dragon’s din. “She’s quite mad.”
When at last the Flame at Night fell spent upon the tower roof, her body smoking and ash spewing from her tongue, Gleamdren heard these words gasped from a tortured throat:
“Amarok. My love.”
Then she was still. She did not sleep, for dragons never know rest. But she lay quiet for a time, and Gleamdren sat in silence in the middle of the cage, keeping well away from the iron bars. She realized, with a sinking heart, that she was likely to be here for a long, long time.
She wondered if she’d got ash on her face.
6
THE SNARL OF A TREE is unlike anything else in the worlds. It is deeper than a lion’s roar, more piercing than an elephant’s bugle. It slices through the senses, striking fear into every beating heart.
This tree snarled and three roots burst from the soil like enormous witch’s hands, gnarled fingers grasping. One root went for Eanrin, another for Glomar, and the third for the hatchet in Glomar’s hand.
None found what they sought, however, for a tree, no matter how angry, is never agile. The moment its snarl interrupted their argument, both poet and captain vanished. Anyone observing would have seen instead a bright orange tomcat with a plume of a tail streaking one direction and a lumbering badger, all silver and black, bowling his way through the undergrowth opposite. The roots, which were snatching at man-shaped objects, found only empty air. But the tree continued roaring, its roots blindly reaching after them, and the two animals continued running until far beyond that hateful sound.
At last the cat made himself halt. He stood a moment, his hair on end, his eyes saucer-round, then turned and began to groom his tail. This done, he sat with his front paws together and his ears pricked, pretending to any who might be watching (one never knew in the Wood) that his heart wasn’t racing double-time. When at last he could make himself breathe normally, he raised a white paw and gave it a lick.
“Well, that does it for Glomar, then,” he said to himself. “Gave him a good shock, didn’t it? And he’s run off in the wrong direction! Probably still trying to follow the Black Dogs’ scent, poor fool. He’ll get twisted up in moments, and I’ve got the advantage on him for miles. So much for rivalry.”
Somehow, this wasn’t as comforting as it might have been. The cat slicked back his whiskers thoughtfully. To all appearances, he might have been dozing at a hearthside on a summer’s noon, not just escaped being pulverized by a tree given to righteous anger. Usually, if the cat pretended enough indifference to circumstances and people around him, he began to believe it, which made life simpler.
But he could not convince himself that he liked being in the Wood alone.
Until today, he had never been uneasy exploring the byways of the Between. Many an adventure he had met in his time, and on more than one occasion he had come close to losing more than a tuft of fur. Spooks and monsters aplenty could be found in the Wood, and the cat was happy to root them out. Danger added flavor to a life otherwise far too long, and he was never afraid. At least never before.
But then, never before had he seen the Hound.
The cat shivered, wishing he had not allowed that thought to slip through. The vision he’d glimpsed the night before pressed upon his memory. The slender but powerful body; the great head held high as though crowned.
With a meowl, he shook himself hard and dropped the semblance of a cat, assuming his man’s shape once more. It was not a drastic shift. It was as though the cat turned his head and, in turning, revealed a new but natural view of himself. Man to cat, cat to man: It was all the same for him.
He drew a long breath and slowly let it out. “Don’t think about it, Eanrin,” he told himself. “It was a trick of the light, that’s all. You heard the Black Dogs, and the dragon’s spell was working on your mind. You invented the rest of it. Curse that lively imagination of yours!”
The sound of his own voice calmed him. He even managed to laugh. The notion of that one taking an interest in the Chief Bard of Iubdan? Incredible! Unbelievable, so why bother believing it?