“Hssst! What would you know of my needs? We’ve barely met, you and I. You think you’re ready for what’s hidden under these robes and within this cowl, but you aren’t. You know nothing of what I am. There isn’t another like me out there, a halfling—a shape-shifter and a human both. There’s no mold for what I am. Maybe I don’t even know what that is. Have you thought of that? We change at will, shape-shifters do, becoming what we need to be. What does that mean, when half of you is human? What happens when part of you is unchangeable and part as thin as air? Think on that before you ask me again to show you how I look!”
Then he stood up. “Enough of this. I’ve been thinking about our situation. The witch still tracks us, your sister. Even if she was thrown off the scent at the river, she will find us again. I want to know if she’s done so yet and what help she’s found. If she’s close, I need to find a way to slow her down. I’ll backtrack down the mountain to see if she’s picked up our trail.”
He paused. “You sleep while I’m gone, boy. Look for me in your dreams. Or in your nightmares, better yet. Maybe you’ll see who I really am there.”
He turned and was gone, fading into the night. Bek stared after him. He did not move again for a long time.
The Ilse Witch finished chewing on the vegetable root she had harvested for her dinner and stared out into the growing darkness. She would set out again soon, tracking the boy and the shape-shifter once more, following them into the mountains. They were clever and resourceful—or at least the shape-shifter was—and she could not afford to let them get too far ahead of her. She must press hard to keep them within reach. She might even catch up to them that night if they stopped to rest. They would have to, wouldn’t they? The boy did not possess the stamina to go without rest, even if the shape-shifter did. He would have to sleep sometime. If she was quick enough, she would catch them unprepared.
She finished what she wanted of the root and threw the rest away. She would have them by now if they hadn’t been working so hard to throw her off. That was clever, back by the river, setting up a false trail on one bank and swinging back across to the other. It had confused the caull, had sent it running up and down the wrong bank without purpose, had caused it to go half-mad with rage. The caull was skilled and possessed exceptional instincts, but it lacked insight. She was the one who spied the hook still caught in the upper branches of that hickory and sent the caull back across the river to search out the trail anew. By that time she had given back to her quarry the time they had lost to her during the night. Tonight she must make it up all over again. Easy enough though, if the boy slept.
The bushes parted, and the caull reappeared. She had sent it out to find something to eat, and from the smear of blood on its muzzle, it had been successful. It moved to within a dozen yards of her and then sat back on its haunches, watching. It was a dangerous beast. She could not afford to turn her back on it; it hated her for what she had done to it and would kill her if it got the chance. It was obedient because it had no choice; her magic kept it in line. But if she loosed its leash, even a little …
She studied it a moment, then looked away, dismissing it. It was important to show she was not afraid of or even particularly interested in it beyond its intended usefulness. She had created it for a purpose, and it was there to serve that purpose and nothing more. What it thought she would do with it when the boy was found, she had no idea. Probably it could not think that far ahead, which was just as well.
She found herself wondering, instead, what she would do with the boy. It was easy enough to decide what would become of the caull and the shape-shifter, but the boy was another matter. She hadn’t followed him all that way just to put an end to him; he was an important link to understanding the Druid, a potential window into his mind. Before the Druid died, she would know everything there was to know about him. The boy was a device to unsettle and confuse her, but he might prove to be a resource, as well. There were things about him that needed understanding—how he could have magic so like her own, how he could know so much about her that felt true, how he could seem so real. She knew there were explanations for all of it, but the explanations were not enough as they stood. She would have the whole truth before she was finished with him. She would strip him bare before she tossed him away.
She pictured his face, recalled his voice. She could still hear him telling her he was her brother, he was Bek, survived somehow from the burning of her home and the killing of her family. She couldn’t accept that, of course. The Druid had wanted only her, and when she had told the Morgawr how she had hidden her brother, he had been certain that no one else was left alive in the ashes of her home.
Dark shadows gathered at the back of her thoughts, then crowded to the fore in warning. Unless he was lying. Unless the Morgawr had concealed the truth about Bek. But there could be no reason for that, when Bek might have proved useful to him in the same way she had. No, the Druid and his minions had deceived her parents and then murdered them, all because of her, because of who and what she was. He alone was responsible and must answer for that, and the boy was just another pawn employed in their war to destroy each other. He was clever, the boy, but an artifice, a Druid stratagem; in the end he was still just a boy who looked the way Bek might have looked had he lived to grow up, just a boy who had been deceived into thinking he was someone he was not.
She rose to her feet, and the caull rose with her, eyes bright and anticipatory. It was ready to hunt, and she was ready to let it do so. She sent it ahead with a gesture, letting it sniff out the trail, yet keeping it close enough that it could not act without her knowing. She did not want it catching the boy and tearing him apart before she had a chance to plumb his mind. The shape-shifter was another matter, but she doubted that the caull would catch that one unawares. In all likelihood, they must deal with it before they could expect to find the boy. She wondered again why a shape-shifter would take such an interest in their business. Perhaps it was in thrall to the Druid, although that would be unusual for a shape-shifter. Perhaps it was in some way connected to the killing of her parents and the destruction of her home, and its own life was at risk because of that. The Druid had used shape-shifters to carry out his purpose. This might be one of them.
She mulled the possibilities over as she trailed after the caull, keeping her senses alert to what lay around her. The forest dark concealed many things, and one of them might be her enemy. She moved silently in her tied-up gray robes, sliding through the brush and trees like a shadow. The night sky was clear, and the light of moon and stars flooded down through the canopy of the limbs overhead. There was too much light to make her comfortable. She caught glimpses of the caull ahead of her, bits and pieces of movement in the patches of silver. It padded forward, then circled back again, over and over, keeping to the trail its prey had left, reading the signs, sorting them out to be certain it was not being misled. It was good at that; all its wolf instincts were intact and working within its new form, all its skills at play.
It was nearing midnight when she reached an open stretch of ground that fronted the foothills leading up into the mountains, a rocky flat empty of everything but scrub and deadwood. Standing hidden within the trees, she watched the caull move out into the open ground, sniffing, circling, then continuing on. She stayed where she was, letting it go. The terrain ahead was too exposed. She didn’t feel right about moving through it, even though the trail clearly went that way.
She tightened her invisible leash on the caull and summoned it back to her. Her instincts told her that something was amiss and she must determine what it was before continuing on.