Frantic, I rolled over and tore at the cloth with my fangs. The salamander grew aware of me. Its tail slammed across my back. For a moment of searing pain, hair and skin scorched with the fabric. But that burning shredded it and I was free. The labile molecules of my body rebuilt themselves in seconds. The salamander had turned its attention away, deeming me out of action. Hardly realizing what I did I snatched with my jaws a shoe which had dropped from my now smaller foot, laid it on the salamander’s nearest white-hot toe, and bore down with both forepaws.
It bellowed and swung around to attack me afresh. That mouth gaped wide enough to bite me in half. I skittered aside. The monster paused, gauged the distance, flicked into nothingness, and materialized right on top of me.
This time I had no escape. Weighted down, I inhaled the fire that cooked my flesh. Agony sent my being whirling out of me like another flame.
XI
Aloneness was not broken by the face which looked upon me, a face for which I have no words save that it was huge and its eyes were those of a corpse. But then, I did not see it, nor feel the cold which was deeper and stabbed me more cruelly than any I had known since last the thought-voice came through notspace and not-time to shake the senses I did riot have. And the end of every hope and every faith was upon me.
“Be proud, Steven. I myself have worked to bring the death of you and your companions. To that end, I myself planted a prank in the head of a fool; for know, only thus may we safely work in the world, and I would not trust the subtleties of this one task to any minion. Pleasing though the general destruction is, material harm to men is not the true aim, and indeed my maneuverings to encompass the doom of you twain could prove costly if they provoke retaliation from the Other Side. But the danger to ours that you represent has become ever more clear as time runs toward a certain moment. I cannot know when that moment waits or what lineaments it will bear; but I know you must not be part of it.”
That which was I would have cringed, were it not less than a point in nothingness. “And yet,” tolled through me, “and yet, Steven, you need not be dead. I forebode that the woman Virginia can be a worse enemy than you. Yes, I forebode that, lacking her, you are no threat to the Plan; but she, without you, might well prove so, if not as great a menace as you two conjoined. How this may be, there is no augury. But note her skills and her Gift; note that she has not twice been trapped like you; note what a spirit she bears within her. Vengefulness for your death may drive her to search below the appearance of things. Or she may take some other course. I cannot tell what. But I see that although you burn, she is not absolutely inescapably caught.
“Would you live, and live well, Steven?”
Fainter than light from the farthest star flickered out of me: “What must I do?
“Take my service. Accept my geas. The salamander will release you before irreparable injury has occurred. When your hurts have knit, the geas will make you do a single thing; nothing else for a long, rich lifetime. You will call her outside, stand well clear, and distract her wariness for the moment the salamander will need to materialize upon her as it did upon you.
“If you refuse this, return to the instant of your own cremation alive.”
Virginia was more than infinitely remote, and I hack no body to feel with nor tongue to speak yea or nays But the focus that was I considered her within the anguish it had known; and it became absolute rage, match the absolute hate that had stormed it free another timelessness; and the not-scene exploded back into the void whence it had come.
XII
I think that my fury overcame my torment to the degree that I started fighting. I am told I got a fang-grip on the obvious place to bite a beast that is sitting on you, and did not let go. But the pain was too great for me to recall anything other than itself.
Then the salamander had vanished. The street lay bare, dark except for the moon and a distant unbroken lamp and the uneasy red glow from kindled houses, quiet except for the crackle and crash of their burning. When I’d recovered to the point of having a functional nose, what I first noticed was the acrid smoke.
That took several minutes. Barely enough unseared tissue remained to provide a DNA pattern for reconstructing the rest. When sanity returned, my shaggy head was in Ginny’s lap. She was stroking it and crying. I licked her hand, feebly, with a tongue like dried-out leather. If a man, I’d have stayed a while where she had me. But being a wolf with lupine instincts, I struggled to sit up and uttered a faint, hoarse yip.
“Steve . . . almighty Father, Steve, you saved our lives,” Ginny whispered. “Another couple of minutes and we’d have been suffocating. My throat still feels like mummy dust.”
Svartalf trotted from the bar, looking as smug as a cat with singed whiskers is able. He meowed. Ginny gave a shaken laugh and explained:
“But you owe this fellow a pint of cream or something. He may have tipped the scales for you, same as you did for us. At least, he showed me a way to help you.”
I cocked my ears.
“He manned the beer taps,” she said. “I filled pitcher after pitcher and threw them out the door at the salamander. They discommoded it. It shifted around. That may’ve taken the heat off you, and the pressure, till you could manage to use your bite.” She gripped m ruff. “And what an epic that was, those seconds while you clung!”
Beer! I wavered to my feet and back inside Stub’s. They followed me, puzzled until I whined and pointed with my muzzle at the nearest glass. “Oh, I see.” Ginny snapped her fingers. “You’re thirsty. No, you’re dehydrated”
She drew me a quart. I lapped it down in a cataract and signaled for more. She shook her head. “You may have forced the salamander to skip, but we have to deal with it yet. The rest will be plain water.”
My therio metabolism redistributed the fluid and brought me back to complete health. My first truly clear thought was that I hoped no more beer would have to be spent on fighting the elemental. My second was that whatever the means, we’d better apply them soon.
Penalties attach to everything. The trouble with being were is that in the other shape you have, essentially, an animal brain, with a superficial layer of human personality. Or in plain language, as a wolf I’m a rather stupid man. I was only able to realize I’d better reassume the human form . . . so I trotted to the open doorway where the moonlight could touch me, and did.
Ever see a cat grin? “Omigawd!” I yelped, and started to change back.
“Hold on,” said Ginny crisply. “If you must fret about my maidenly modesty, here.” She peeled off her scorched but serviceable fur coat. I doubt if one has ever been donned faster than by me. It was a pretty tight fit around the shoulders but went low enough—if I was careful. Though the night wind nipped my bare shanks, my face was of salamander temperature.
That was one reason I dismissed from among my worries the vision I had had. Another was the immediacy of the peril that confronted us, now and in the flesh. Besides, even more than on the previous occasion, the physical pain which followed the restoration of consciousness had blurred memory of so insubstantial an experience. Finally, I don’t suppose I wanted to think further about it.
The idea flitted through my head: Twice I’ve had a similar illusion while passed out. Maybe I should see a psychiatrist? No, that’d be silly. This can’t be more than an idiosyncratic reaction to a kind of trauma that isn’t likely to hit me again in my life.
I forgot about the matter.
Instead, I asked quickly, “Now where? The damned critter could be anyplace.”
I think it’ll hang around the campus,” Ginny said. “Ample grazing, and it’s not particularly smart. Let’s get moving.”