Sam started to protest that his feelings for Hart had grown naturally and that she had responded just as naturally, but he suddenly realized that he couldn't remember when they had first expressed such feelings to each other. His feelings were strong and clear; he loved her. She was beautiful and caring and…
The Man's laughter cut into his thoughts. "Does she feel the same for you?"
"Of course!" Sam remembered the first flare of passion on the cold Solstice night they had found the druids' ritual circle empty. He remembered her eagerness and his. He remembered the heat, the Tightness. He remembered…
Remembered that the druids' circle hadn't been empty. The false memory of the empty topiary circle faded, and he saw the chalk pentacle, smudged and broken. He saw the blackened heap of ashes and the burned corpses within it. He saw the pile of debris and felt the residual wrongness of its presence. But impressed on his memories like an afterimage was the Man of Light, his burning figure encompassing and shielding the ritual circle.
The Man of Light had been there that night.
"And in your dreams since, little norm," the Man said.
Sam felt violated. When he, Hart, and Estios had attempted an astral reconnaissance of the site, they had met the Man. In a searing moment of pain, they had fallen under his sway. Somehow, the Man had altered their memories, played with their minds.
"So much for your mercy." Sam felt his stomach tighten with cold, congealing purpose. A righteous desire for justice had driven him before. More than the repugnance he felt at having been manipulated into physically aiding the druids, this raping of his mind made it very, very personal.
Was this the taste of hate?
He dropped his hand from before his face. He no longer needed to shield his eyes from the glare now that he perceived more of the nature of the Man who was not a man. The thing he had called the Man of Light no longer looked human. Its three-meter-tall body was furred with a pelt of snowy white, a complete contrast to the dark skin of its face, hands, and feet. Fangs filled the grinning mouth and a dark talon glinted sharply at the end of each of its fingers and toes. Its aura shrieked its nature as a predator in a way he didn't understand. He felt the power of the being and knew the Man of Light as a mere echo of the truth. The Man was not a real entity, but a spell entity cast in the image of its maker. Sam had been ensorcelled.
He was furious.
There was no way for Sam to know jf the spell entity spoke for itself or was a conduit for its maker. It might even be no more than a set of preprogrammed responses. But what it was seemed unimportant; what he would do about it mattered. He addressed the spell entity as if he were speaking to the caster. "I will stop you."
"You have not the power, nor will you reach the power.''
"I will."
"You will die."
"To hear Dog tell it, I already have."
The flames flickered briefly while Sam spoke, but the Man's voice was still strong. "If so, you will die again. The true death; and your soul will howl as it feeds me."
Despite the dire words of his adversary, Sam felt emboldened. Mention of the totem had triggered a change, an ever-so-slight weakening, in the Man's aura. Maybe now that he knew it for what it was, the Man was weakened. Perhaps Dog was the key, the symbol Sam needed to manipulate to cross this barrier. Dog had told Sam to run. Maybe he was supposed to do that literally, or at least as literally as one could in this never-never land of the mind. Sam squinted, trying to gauge the stance of the Man of Light, to read the readiness of his pose. The Man was tall and massive; maybe he was slow. Big things in the real world were often slow.
Sam steeled himself. The Man seemed to notice Sam's tenseness and began to shift. There was no more time for hesitation. Sam bolted forward, legs pumping. The Man shifted to block him, reaching out with a long, furred arm. Sam dove under it, hands stretched out to break his fall. His palms scraped against the floor of the tunnel and Sam scrambled faster, using all four limbs to keep moving. The Man's clawed hand crashed into the wall next to Sam's head. Sparks leapt in a spray of fire where the talons scratched furrows in the tunnel wall. Sam kept moving, pushing himself upright again and running for all he was worth.
The light expanded around him, filling his vision with an emptiness of white despair. Sam ran. There was too much at stake. Too much he had to do. Then the light and the Man were gone. The tunnel was gone as well.
Sam stood on a dirt road. He felt the soil and stones under his bare feet. A soft breeze caressed his skin. All of it. He was naked, but somehow that seemed all right. The Man of Light was nowhere to be seen or felt. Sam had escaped him. He looked around.
The texts on shamanic experiences had spoken of what the voyager experienced on the far side of the tunnel. Those accounts had led Sam to expect a pristine and vibrant wilderness. The scene that lay before him was hardly that.
There was wilderness here. He could see it on the horizon where the dark shadow of a forest lined the far hills. But the countryside nearer to hand had been transformed from its original state by the coming of man. The dirt road upon which he stood led across gentle rolling knolls, most of which were covered by well-tended cropland. Hedges lined the road and broad shade trees cast their shadow to lessen the sun's burden. Here and there, fruit trees stood in ordered rows quite unlike the irregular clumps of woods scattered about. In a dell just the other side of the first hill, the thatch-roofed buildings of a rustic village clustered around the road and a few lanes that led away from it. Smoke rose from stone chimneys and laundry hung from stretched ropes in rail-fenced enclosures, suggesting that the houses were occupied. Sam saw no people. He also looked for a church, but found none. Save for that lack, it was idyllic.
Sam had never seen anything like it outside of a historical trideo or an art gallery.
"Comfy, don't you think?"
Sam mastered his astonishment and turned to look at the canine sitting by his side. Dog grinned his doggish grin.
"I was beginning to think you were a waste of time."
"What is this place?" Sam asked.
"Here."
"I asked what, not where."
"So you did. Does it really matter?"
Sam chuckled. "Since it's all in my head, I suppose not."
Dog stood and began walking down the road away from the village.
"Am I supposed to follow you?"
"There are always choices, Samuel Verner called
Twist. Make your own."
Sam did. He started out after Dog. The totem animal began to trot, so Sam did too. Dog only ran faster. "Hey, wait up," Sam called.
With looking back, Dog replied, "I don't wait for any man, man."
Sam bit back a response, saving his breath for running. In all his years of raising and caring for canines, Sam had learned that no man, not even a boy with boundless energy, could outrun a dog; the animals always seemed to have more than enough speed to race circles around the slower humans. Sam ran as fast as he could, and to his surprise, the gap between him and Dog closed. As he drew abreast of the racing animal, Dog grinned at him. Curiously, Sam felt unwinded.
"You've got a lot to learn," Dog announced.