the glint of its tusks in the dimness, smell the stink of it, and he wondered if the creature associated him in its mind with those jerks in the settlement who had tried to shoot that poor hinny yesterday, or if it was merely hungry.
He listened and scanned the edge of the woods, but could neither see nor smell any other dooic near. They hunted in bands and would bring down and slaughter a human being if they could, but Rudy knew that even without magic he could probably deal with a single attack.
Man, I don’t need this
, he thought tiredly, shifting his grip along the haft of his staff.
See me tomorrow, pal, I’ve had a lousy day
.
With a grunt, the dooic dropped to all fours. A moment later it settled to its knees and did something with its hand above a small pool of meltwater caught in the hollow of the rock.
And Rudy felt, strangely, the swift glimmer of something that almost seemed to be magic, like a drift of anomalous scent in the air.
MAGIC???
The old dooic moved away again, using its long forearmsfor speed, the whitish flesh beneath its fur a mottled blur as it reached the edge of the trees. It turned, staring upslope at him again, waiting.
Cautiously, ready for anything, Rudy came forward. Where the dooic had knelt by the meltwater, Rudy bent down—one eye still on the trees—and looked into the water.
In it he could see the pallid, fungoid shapes of the gaboogoo, as if in a scrying stone, moving away through the thick darkness of the woods.
“Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle.” Clouds overhead covered the moon, but as a wizard Rudy could see clearly, and the tiny pool had definitely been ensorceled to show the gaboogoo departing. Rudy half recognized the woods through which they passed, downslope and to the north in the hardwoods of the lower forest, toward the Arrow River gorge. By the way they moved, he could tell they were following something, tracking something other than himself.
Movement at the edge of the woods made him swing around, ready for a fight, and he saw that a second dooic had joined the first, a female by the flat pale dugs protruding through the body hair, with an infant clinging to her belly and another on her back. Male and hinny turned at once, ran a few steps back into the trees, then turned again, waiting for him. This time Rudy could almost see the flickering of magic—not human magic, but magic of some sort—that trailed from the old male’s fingers as it beckoned him impatiently to follow.
CHAPTER FIVE
Cast from my fist, shining in the sky,
Brown wings lift and carry you from me.
With earthbound hooves I trace the road you fly …
“Gil?” Gentle and uninsistent, the word seemed to come, not from Ingold, but from some darkness in her mind, the thought taking shape in the abyss of a bottomless well. Holding to the poem as to a lifeline in terrifying darkness, Gil managed to nod, to let him know that she heard, but she could not speak.
In a sense, she was still aware of the broken stone walls of an old stable around them—the house to which it had been attached consisted these days of a couple of charred walls overgrown with birch saplings—the rusted black scrollwork of the manger near her head. The smoke of the fire Ingold had built in a corner stung her eyes; she heard the far-off howl of wolves and the soft, restless blowing of Yoshabel’s breath.
But it was as if all those images, that awareness, came to her down a cable from the bright surface of water through which she was slowly sinking, swimming deeper and deeper toward a lightless and terrible depth. As Ingold’s spells drew her farther into the dark, her mind gyred back to images of the UCLA campus in Westwood, to the words of poems—Donne, Villon, Minalde’s favorites Kaalis and Seredne, whom she, too, had come to love. Anything to avoid the fear that she sensed lay at the foundation of her dreams.
His magic was like the warmth of the fire, reassuring her with his measureless calm.
“What
He listened and scanned the edge of the woods, but could neither see nor smell any other dooic near. They hunted in bands and would bring down and slaughter a human being if they could, but Rudy knew that even without magic he could probably deal with a single attack.
Man, I don’t need this
, he thought tiredly, shifting his grip along the haft of his staff.
See me tomorrow, pal, I’ve had a lousy day
.
With a grunt, the dooic dropped to all fours. A moment later it settled to its knees and did something with its hand above a small pool of meltwater caught in the hollow of the rock.
And Rudy felt, strangely, the swift glimmer of something that almost seemed to be magic, like a drift of anomalous scent in the air.
MAGIC???
The old dooic moved away again, using its long forearmsfor speed, the whitish flesh beneath its fur a mottled blur as it reached the edge of the trees. It turned, staring upslope at him again, waiting.
Cautiously, ready for anything, Rudy came forward. Where the dooic had knelt by the meltwater, Rudy bent down—one eye still on the trees—and looked into the water.
In it he could see the pallid, fungoid shapes of the gaboogoo, as if in a scrying stone, moving away through the thick darkness of the woods.
“Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle.” Clouds overhead covered the moon, but as a wizard Rudy could see clearly, and the tiny pool had definitely been ensorceled to show the gaboogoo departing. Rudy half recognized the woods through which they passed, downslope and to the north in the hardwoods of the lower forest, toward the Arrow River gorge. By the way they moved, he could tell they were following something, tracking something other than himself.
Movement at the edge of the woods made him swing around, ready for a fight, and he saw that a second dooic had joined the first, a female by the flat pale dugs protruding through the body hair, with an infant clinging to her belly and another on her back. Male and hinny turned at once, ran a few steps back into the trees, then turned again, waiting for him. This time Rudy could almost see the flickering of magic—not human magic, but magic of some sort—that trailed from the old male’s fingers as it beckoned him impatiently to follow.
CHAPTER FIVE
Cast from my fist, shining in the sky,
Brown wings lift and carry you from me.
With earthbound hooves I trace the road you fly …
“Gil?” Gentle and uninsistent, the word seemed to come, not from Ingold, but from some darkness in her mind, the thought taking shape in the abyss of a bottomless well. Holding to the poem as to a lifeline in terrifying darkness, Gil managed to nod, to let him know that she heard, but she could not speak.
In a sense, she was still aware of the broken stone walls of an old stable around them—the house to which it had been attached consisted these days of a couple of charred walls overgrown with birch saplings—the rusted black scrollwork of the manger near her head. The smoke of the fire Ingold had built in a corner stung her eyes; she heard the far-off howl of wolves and the soft, restless blowing of Yoshabel’s breath.
But it was as if all those images, that awareness, came to her down a cable from the bright surface of water through which she was slowly sinking, swimming deeper and deeper toward a lightless and terrible depth. As Ingold’s spells drew her farther into the dark, her mind gyred back to images of the UCLA campus in Westwood, to the words of poems—Donne, Villon, Minalde’s favorites Kaalis and Seredne, whom she, too, had come to love. Anything to avoid the fear that she sensed lay at the foundation of her dreams.
His magic was like the warmth of the fire, reassuring her with his measureless calm.
“What
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