“Your ring, human! your special ring,” he went on. Paks nodded, then, stripping off her glove to touch it.
“But are you sure it will work? Maybe the thing—the snowcat—will just go away if we let it alone.”
As if in answer to that suggestion, the glowing eyes moved closer. Now Paks could see a suggestion of the body’s outline, a long, powerful catlike form, crouching as if to spring.
“You fool!” cried Macenion. “It knows we’re here! It’s about to jump. Stop it! Hold it!”
Paks thought she could see a twitch in that long tail, like the twitch she had seen in the mousers at the barn, the last instant before they sprang on a rat. She pressed her thumb hard on the ring and thought “Hold still, cat.” She wondered if those words would work.
“Are you?” asked Macenion hoarsely.
“Yes,” said Paks. “How long does it—”
“As long as you concentrate. Keep holding it.”
Paks tried to concentrate. She wished she could see the snowcat better. Macenion turned to rummage among his things. She was afraid to look sideways at him, lest the cat jump. She forced her eyes back to the shadowy cat-form. Suddenly light flared around her, and she jumped.
“Don’t look,” said Macenion harshly. The light was clear and white, brilliant enough to show true colors. Now she could see the snowcat clearly. Its body was man-long; its shoulder would almost reach her waist. As Macenion had said, its fur was white and blue-gray, patterned with dapples that reminded Paks of snowflakes enlarged. The ears bore long tufts of white, and it had a white beard and short ruff. The eyes, despite the blue glow they’d had before, shone amber in Macenion’s spell-light.
“Macenion, it’s beautiful. It’s the most beautiful—”
“It’s spelling you,” he said firmly. “It seems beautiful because it’s trying to use magic on you.”
“But it can’t be. It’s—” She stopped as Macenion came forward into her field of view. “Macenion, what are you doing?”
“Don’t be silly, Paks. I’m going to kill it.”
“Kill it? But it’s helpless—it can’t move while I—”
“That’s right. Just keep holding it still. It’s the only way I have a chance—”
“But that’s not fair—it’s helpless—” Paks let her concentration waver, and at once the snowcat moved, shifting in a kind of constricted hop, as she caught her control back. She was distracted again by this evidence of her power and its limitations, and the cat managed to rear, swiping at Macenion’s head with one massive paw. He ducked, and Paks forced the cat to stillness again.
“Damn you, human! Hold that beast, or we’re both dead. Worse than dead—you remember what I told you!” Macenion glared back at her, then turned, raising his sword.
Paks felt a wave of fear and pain sweep through her mind. It was wrong, terribly wrong—but what else could she do? “Macenion—” she tried again, staring into the snowcat’s huge amber eyes. “It’s not right—”
“It’s not right for us to end up soul-bound to a snowcat, no,” he said roughly. “It’s easy enough, though, if you forget yourself one more time. If that’s what you want, go ahead.”
Paks looked down, biting her lip. She could not watch, and then she thought she must. The snowcat made no resistance—could make no resistance—but it could cry out, in fury and pain, and so it did. That wailing cry, ending in an almost birdlike whistle, brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them back, and watched stonily as Macenion wiped his sword on the dead snowcat’s fur. He came back to the fire almost jauntily.
“A snowcat. That’s quite a kill, even if you don’t think it was fair. I’ll just take the pelt before it freezes—”
“No.” Paks glared at him.
“What d’you mean, no? Snowcat pelts are nearly priceless, it’s so rare to take one—you noticed how careful I was not to damage it when I killed—”
Paks erupted in fury. “By the gods, Macenion, I wonder if you ever tell the truth! You dare pride yourself on killing a helpless animal? It might as well have been a sheep trussed up, for all the courage and skill it took—”
“I didn’t notice you out there—”
“You told me to stay here—”
“I told you to hold it still. You could have helped me, if you were able to hold more than one thought in mind at a time. As it was you nearly killed me—”
“I!” Paks flourished her own sword. She noticed with some satisfaction that Macenion backed up a step. “I but tried to save your honor and mine—not that I would have thought an elf would care so little for it—”
“You know nothing about elven honor, human!” Macenion seemed to swell with rage. “You are my travel companion, oath-bound to defend me—as I defended you just now—against all dangers. As for the snowcat having no defense, it was trying to spell you the entire time.”
Paks felt her anger leak away into the cold. Had she been half-spelled? Had she nearly failed her oath because of it? Macenion took quick advantage of her hesitation. “I don’t blame you,” he said more quietly. “You are human, unused to magicks of any kind, and this may be the first magical beast you’ve seen.” She nodded unwillingly. “It would have killed all of us, and feasted many days while our souls were enslaved to it, if we had not managed to kill it. Or send it away.” He cocked his head and gave her a sly grin. “If you’d been able to think of it, o lover of animals, you might simply have sent it away.”
“Sent it—it would have gone?”
“Oh, yes. I’m surprised it didn’t occur to you, Paksenarrion. Just as you sent Windfoot—oh, that’s right. You didn’t. But you could have.”
“Then you didn’t have to kill it,” Paks cried, angry again. “You told me—”
“I told you what seemed best to me. Kill it and it’s gone forever. Send it away and it might come back—though you could have laid a compulsion on it to avoid us. Besides, this way we have a valuable pelt.” Macenion turned again to his pack, and pulled out a short, wide skinning blade. Paks moved between him and the snowcat; when he rose and saw her, he frowned.
“I won’t let you,” said Paks, fighting back tears. “You told me I had to hold it, or it’d kill both of us—and you lied about that. It isn’t the first lie, either. You’re not going to profit by it, Macenion—I was wrong to hold it that way, and that’s the worst thing I’ve done. I won’t let you do more.”
“You mean you’d waste a perfectly good pelt—already back in winter coat—just because you didn’t think of sending it away?”
“No—because you lied to me.” Paks had backed slowly and carefully across the ledge outside their shelter, until she bumped her heels into the snowcat’s corpse. Now she turned, and with a powerful heave pushed the snowcat over the edge.
“You’re a stubborn fool,” said Macenion, but without the anger she had feared. “That’s enough gold for both of us to live on for a month, that you threw away. But—” He shrugged. “I suppose it meant something to you. Now don’t stand there and freeze, Paksenarrion—we still have to cross the pass tomorrow.”
It was not the next morning, but the one after that, when they finally ventured from their shelter. Dawn that day rose clear, the wind hardly moving, and nothing in the white drifts below looked like the remains of a snowcat. They had said little to each other in the storm-whitened hours between—only what must be said about the fire, the care of the animals, and packing up their campsite. Now they moved through a pale rose and blue world, leaving blue-shadowed tracks behind. Once through the pass, Paks could see—not the rolling forests of the Eight Kingdoms she had hoped for—but more ridges and steep valleys. Far below and ahead, forests clothed the slopes. Somewhere beyond, the mountains ended. She hoped to make it there.
4
Paks had not slept well since the killing of the snowcat. Despite Macenion’s sarcastic reassurance, she knew that she had dishonored her sword, and the ring she had used. She had stayed with him only because she had no other guide out of the mountains. Now, as they came through a gap in the trees into yet another narrow valley, she wondered whether she should refuse to accompany him any farther. Surely here, with the bulk of the mountains behind her, she could find her own way north.