A flash of gold caught the tail of my eye.
A strange sight in the darkness, pure and shining. I turned to it, my fear momentarily forgotten in wonder. Something bright stood away up the mountain, and at first I could not discern what it was. Then I realized, and my wonder increased.
It was a Hound.
Follow me.
The voice sang in the night. The same voice I had heard calling me as I sat awaiting my death. The same voice I had heard the night my mother died, singing calm, singing comfort.
The Hound turned and sped away into the night, up the mountain and away.
I did not think; I could not anymore. Terror and sorrow had bound my mind so tightly that no thoughts could form. I felt a vague certainty that the Beast would pursue me if I ran, and that perhaps my father would be left to die in peace. I flung myself from the slab and ran, leaving behind the Place of the Teeth and the crumpled body of the Panther Master. My bare feet scraped and bled upon the rock.
Follow me.
My feet were as though winged, and I fled such distances in mere strides! As though the wind itself had caught me and pulled me along like a fluttering leaf. Ahead I saw the shining Hound, and he was beautiful as he loped through the black night, guiding like a star. He led up and up, over the crest of Bald Mountain, where the stench of poison was strongest. But I scarcely smelled it then. Instead, I gazed upon the lower slopes of other mountains, where life yet flourished and starflowers gleamed.
The Hound led that way. Follow!
I heard the noise of the Beast’s pursuit. His labored breathing, his growls, and the scrape of his claws upon stone filled my ears. But as I pursued that Hound, I knew that the Beast could not catch me, not so long as I ran along this strange, enchanted path.
Roaring filled my ears, the roaring of the River Way.
It was said that only one passage led through the Circle of Faces: here in the north, where all the rivers of the Land form into one and cut passage through the rock. It was said that when it breached the far side of the Circle of Faces, the Great River plummeted forever in a vast waterfall, never reaching the bottom of the Void. I looked upon it now, and the currents of the river were white, like the froth in a rabid dog’s jowls. Only a fool would steer his craft into those waters. Only a fool would pass through the mountains and fall into the darkness of the Void.
The Hound, graceful in his every stride, loped down the dead mountain to the banks of that river. There the water flowed into a subterranean cavern, passing under the final smaller mountains that formed the Circle of Faces. Into this cavern, the Hound vanished.
I halted at the riverbank, my arms swinging to catch my balance. I could not run that way! Into that dark, where I would be blind and helpless! I was trapped. The river blocked me, and the mountain rose behind me, so sheer that I wondered how I had even descended.
I looked up the way I had come. I saw the Beast.
Like an unrelenting nightmare, he rolled down the mountainside, his gaze fixed upon me, his quarry. All trace of humanity had vanished. He was all wolf now, enormous, bigger than a horse. My hesitation had cost me. In a moment, he would have me in his massive jaws.
Follow, my child!
The Beast or the darkness. Such was my choice.
I prayed: Lights Above, look down and light my way! Then I took to my heels and dashed into the cavern. The river swirled about my feet. I could see nothing save the distant glow of that ethereal Hound far ahead. With the growls of the wolf echoing in my ears, I pursued that light. Would the Beast chase me even in this dark? I did not doubt it. And the deeper I went, the more the darkness oppressed me, the more present was his voice howling behind me.
“You were meant to be mine! Mine!”
How long I fled that subterranean way, I cannot guess. My feet were sore and bleeding, my limbs bruised, my bones aching. Sometimes I missed my footing in the dark and fell into the water, which carried me hard and fast until I thought I might drown. But the swiftest currents never held me long. I was always cast out upon the blind shore, and the Hound was there, still leading, still guiding.
At last I saw the end of the long cavern, where the water flowed freely out into . . . into what? The Void? The end of all things? It did not matter. No choice remained to me. I must follow the Hound, whether plunging forever with the waterfall or stepping, without existence, into the Nothingness.
“Wait!” cried the dark voice behind, inhuman and ghastly. “Wait, my Starflower!”
My steps slowed despite myself. I kept moving, but fear of the unknown nearly drove me back into the known fear of the Beast’s embrace. Far, far ahead the Hound gleamed. But he was so distant, so eerie. And the end of the tunnel waited, as certain as I still breathed.