He and his fellow Wolf Nomad, Hornsbuck, had been attempting to bring her to Eru-Tovar, where a cure could be found, when their caravan had come under attack. It wasn't his fault that everyone else had been slaughtered by the gnolls and hyenas and the dread Iuz. He and the princess and Hornsbuck and their two wolves had barely survived themselves.
Mika turned his head painfully and looked across the temple. Yes, Hornsbuck was still there and still appeared to be deep in the miasma of the confusion spell he had received from his encounter with an umber hulk. Mika wondered if the spell would ever wear off. Since the moment of his affliction, Hornsbuck had spoken rarely and thought everyone he met was some long-lost love named Lotus Blossom.
The Princess Julia had indeed been roused from her enchanted sleep, but far from viewing Mika as her rescuer and showering him with gratitude as he had hoped, she had tried to kill him. It had been her knife, meant for Mika, that had struck Tam and so nearly cost him his life.
He did not turn his head to look for Julia. He did not care where she was. For all he cared, she could run away and stay a wolf forever.
Mika's resolve hardened as he thought back over the events of the past several moons. No, he would not do it. He would not do as the demon had bidden him. The Princess Julia could go hang, she was no longer any of his concern. He would take Hornsbuck and the wolves and just go on his way and be long gone before the demon ever figured out that he had disobeyed him.
But no sooner had he made this decision than sr›methine strange began to happen. At first he mere- Iv thought that the skin on his hand was itching, due to the burn he had sustained, a common enough reaction to sunburn. But the skin began to tingle and then hurt.
Mika gripped his wrist and hugged the hand to his chest, gasping with the intensity of the pain. The ache grew worse. He clenched his teeth and felt the muscles in his jaws creak as the flesh and skin of his pointer finger swelled to mammoth proportions and then began to split and peel like an over-ripe gapa melon left too long in the sun.
He clutched his wrist and stared at his finger in open-mouthed horror, wondering what was happening. too frightened to make a sound.
The flesh peeled back completely and dropped away like the useless husk of a gorney nut. The pain was terrible now, a raging agony that burned at the base of what had once been his finger.
Mika stared down at his hand, too shocked to even blink, the horrible pain momentarily forgotten. For something… something was there where his finger had once been. Tears of pain veiled his eyes; he blinked to clear his vision, almost too frightened to look closely.
He moved his hand and felt the pain move up his arm, dissipating slowly. He twitched his fingers, starting with the littlest one and moving up. They all worked. He stopped at the pointer finger and, with a numbed mind, commanded it to bend, to move, to work. Which it did.
Mika gripped his wrist tightly and felt the nausea rise in his throat. He looked away, leaned his head back against the ground, and closed his eyes. His body was covered with cold sweat, and he felt sick. He wanted to look at his hand, to find out what it was that had taken the place of his finger, but he was afraid.
Slowly the nausea passed and the sickness was replaced by a feeling of dread. Mika stared up at the night sky through the broken dome of the old, ruined temple.
He could avoid looking and hope that it, whatever it was, would go away, but somehow he knew that it wouldn't. Sooner or later he would have to look, to see what had happened to his hand.
The feeling of sickness lay heavy in his stomach, but there was nothing to be gained by waiting. He rolled on his back and held his hand up in front of him in a shaft of soft-white moonlight. But not even moonlight could lessen the shock of what he saw.
The nausea rose in his throat unbidden, and he twisted to the side and retched onto the pavement, heaving until his stomach was emptied of all but bitter bile. This it continued to spew out, as though by emptying itself it could somehow purge his mind of the awful vision.
But it was useless. The vision burned bright in his mind, remaining vivid long after he had closed his eyes to it. What had once been his finger was now covered with dark green scales and tipped by a thick, curved, horny talon.
Weakened, he rolled to the far side and cradled his head in the crook of his arm and took in a deep shuddering breath, holding the awful finger as far away from him as possible.
The demon. It had to be the demon. He had said thai if Mika disobeyed him, he would know; that his revenge would be swift. He had dared to think, to merely think that he might do other than obey the demon, and the demon had punished him by replacing one of his fingers with a demon digit.
Suddenly a terrible thought popped into Mika's head. What if he's inside my head somehow and he knows everything I'm thinking? I'd never be able to do anything again without the demon knowing about it! There was a funny prickling at the base of Mika's neck, and then he knew with total and complete certainty that he was right.
Mika didn't think it was possible to become any more depressed than he already was, but in the hours that followed, he managed.
Somewhere in the very darkest hours of the night, Tam crept over and lay at his side, his muzzle stretched across Mika's chest. But that only served to depress Mika more thoroughly, for the bump on the top of the wolfs head had not shrunk but had grown even larger. Further, Tarn's eyes were still crossed and his tongue protruded a good knuckle's length from the end of his mouth, swollen where he had bitten it. Air whistled in and out as he struggled to breath, and he whimpered between every breath. He sounded and looked as bad as Mika.
I can't believe this, Mika thought to himself as he lay there throughout the long night, staring up at the sky and patting Tam on the back with his one good hand. I've been in some tough spots before, but nothing like this.
I'm in trouble with a demon and have to do what he commands even though I don't really understand what it is, or else risk being changed into a demon myself, one digit at a time.
My faithful companion TamTur, fiercest wolf in the Wolf Nomad clan, has crossed eyes, a fat tongue, and a lump the size of a fist on top of his head.
Hornsbuck, my stalwart friend, is wrapped in a blanket of confusion and thinks everyone he meets is his old girlfriend.
The princess has been turned into a wolf and, if I'm lucky, she's run off somewhere. I haven't seen her since the demon appeared. But then I haven't looked.
The only one who seems to have escaped unharmed is RedTail, Hornsbuck's wolf. But he won't obey me; all he cares about is Hornsbuck.
And the horse, amended Mika, mentally adding the gallant and brave roan who had carried him through much danger till they reached this fateful spot. It wasn't his fault that everything had turned out so poorly.
He tried to devise a plan. One that would benefit them all. Somehow he would have to restore Hornsbuck. He didn't want to even contemplate taking such a dangerous journey without someone along to protect his back. He wasn't sure if he could do it, but he would try. At the least, he felt responsible for Hornsbuck, who had been doing his best to get them out of the underground catacombs when he was felled by the umber hulk. What a muddle.
He couldn't even imagine what would happen when they got to Exag. Mika shrugged the question away; it was too far distant to think about. Here and now was the issue.
Lulled by the constant whimper-whine-gasp of the wolf and almost overwhelmed by his problems, Mika dosed his eyes as dawn filled the chamber with pearly fog, and he fell into an exhausted sleep.
CHAPTER 4
Mika awakened, feeling only slightly better than death. It was obvious that Tam felt no better, for his eyes were still crossed, his tongue still swollen, and the bump on top of his head was even larger than before.