Sparks exploded in her peripheral vision as her body screamed for her to stop. She did not care. She’d had enough of this place. Enough of animals who spoke with the tongues of men and men who were worse than animals. She sped through the trees, pushing branches from her face. Why did they reach like snatching hands to stop her? Her head pounded, her stomach roiled, her damaged feet pleaded for ease.
How long had she been running now? Ever since the moon vanished behind the clouds on that night so far past, which also seemed but a few hours ago. She could never have passed through the mountains in so short a time. She should have died from exhaustion! Perhaps she had. Perhaps this was the world after death. This hell where she must keep running, running, and never know a moment’s peace.
She fled the clearing, fled the nightmare, fled that cat. But in her mind, it was the wolf she heard howling at her heels.
The trees shifted from her way so that she ran in a straight line. But their shadows became longer and darker, like thick curtains falling. The only light she saw came from the flowers on the vines twining everywhere in this wood, gleaming little stars. She thought she heard them speaking to her in voices not human, pleading with her to go back, to turn around.
But there was no going back now. They would kill her if she returned. They would bind her to the stone and leave her to be devoured. No, she had fled, and she must never return!
Oh, Fairbird! Her mind cried out in desperate silence. How could I have left you?
There had been no choice then; there was no choice now. She must run, she must lose herself in this forest so deeply that she would never be found.
The Wood put out its grasping arms, ready to swallow her whole. Its shadows fed into her fear, and without knowing what she did, her feet fell upon a dark Path that made promises she understood without knowing she heard them. Promises of safety, of hiding, of dark holes where no one could pursue.
How cold the air had become! Her breath frosted, her fingertips were blue, and her lungs begged for relief. The harsh cords on her wrists cut more sharply, the dangling ends lashing at her bare legs. But she could not stop.
A pit opened before her.
Her arms swung wide, grasping at empty air, for the trees had pulled back to give her no handhold. A gaping hole from which rose a fetid stink ate away the ground at her feet. She scrambled on the edge, struggling in vain to throw herself back. She saw the face of the devil in the dark, saw its hands reaching for her throat.
“This one isn’t for you, Guta!”
The golden voice of the stranger rang in her ears, as horrible to her as the face of the devil. But she felt strong hands grasp beneath her arms and haul her away from the pit. She staggered and fell, scraping her legs against hard soil, but two arms wrapped about her and held tight. She closed her eyes, bracing herself . . .
. . . and opened them in a flood of warm sunshine.
The pit was gone. She lay on a soft patch of earth once more in a bright part of the Wood. Did this mean she was safe? Moaning, she closed her eyes and shook her head, desperate to clear her thoughts. Then she looked at the man kneeling beside her.
“I must say, you mortals are a flighty lot.”
His features were human enough, but there was something feline about the rest of him. Not his appearance but the essence of him. He clucked and shook his head at her disapprovingly. His voice was that of the cat.
“I really should have left you in the first place,” he said. “Or the second place! But after all that nonsense—giving up my favor from ChuMana, Lumé love me—I feel I’m owed an explanation. Curiosity always was my chief fault, and now look where it’s gotten me! Ah, well. What’s a man to do?”
She should be afraid. But just then she was too spent to be frightened anymore. She took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly. Otherwise, she could not move.
“That part of the Wood is dangerous, you know,” the cat-man continued. “It’ll draw you into darker places with folks you don’t want to meet. Guta is a foul-tempered demon, to say the least. A beater. He would beat you to death upon sight, believe me! He’s done it to many stronger than you. It’s a good thing I caught up when I did. I don’t know if I’d have been able to pull you back out once you’d fallen into Guta’s pit!”
Though her limbs did not want to move, she made herself sit up. Every muscle screamed ill-use, but she could not lie there forever. She held her head between her hands until the dizziness cleared, then blinked at the cat-man.
One moment she saw him in one form, the next moment in the other. This creature was simultaneously all cat and all man, and despite the shining youth of his face, he was ancient.
She knew one other like this one, may the spirits of the mountains protect her! Though they wouldn’t, actually. They had never protected her or any of her people. When the man who was an animal entered the Land untold years ago, had the mountains moved to intervene? No. They remained stone and slept as they had since the dawn of time. And he who was as ancient as they came among her people and worked his will unchecked. Man and animal. Monster and master.