Andre Norton - The Jargoon Pard

At my first sighting, the figures within the circle had been misty, ill defined. However, after I gazed at the candle flames and back again, I could see them as clearly as if some intervening veil or curtain had been ripped away.

The—Moon Maid! Upon her, my eyes centered first. Once more she wore her skirt of moon disks, her horned moon pendant. Her body was as silver white as the lines of the circle in which she stood. In her hands was a silver rod, wound about with the moonflowers I had first seen her harvesting.

Beyond her, also facing inward as she did, was the stranger who had worn the Were shape, though now he was a man. His brown body was bare to the waist, and between his hands was the hilt of a bared sword, the point of which rested on the floor. Along its blade ran tiny waverings of light, steely blue.

The third was the woman who had first denied me refuge in the Star Tower and then nursed my wounded body. No longer did she wear the man’s clothing I had seen on her, rather an initiate’s robe and it was green. About her waist was a binding girdle of vines still bearing unwithered leaves. The same were woven into the braids of her hair, which now hung down her back.

Her wand with its green leaf spearhead was also pointed inward. I could see her lips moving and believed that she was chanting some spell or call to the part of the Power that she could summon or command to her desire.

What moved me then was an overwhelming need to make them aware of me, for I felt as if I stood in that room though outside their charmed circle. And I cried out—.

“Look upon me! I am here!”

It was the Moon Witch whose head moved at my silent cry. She spoke, though I could not hear her words, nor did they resound in my head as had those of the snow cat.

The ones with her turned their heads, looked in my direction. I saw amazement on the woman’s face, the man half raised his sword. Then the woman’s wand came up, the leaf pointed to me. Her lips shaped words.

In this vision or dream, I could see the words, if I could not hear them. They were like glittering insects winged in the air, flying toward me. Then they winked out and were gone.

The amazement on her face grew. She looked down hastily at the wand she held. Back and forth the leaf wove some pattern. From her manner, I guessed that the motion was not of her doing, that the wand now acted independently of her will.

She spoke again and the man moved forward. His sword came up—point foremost in my direction. Still I felt no fear. There was about the vision a feeling of rightness, as if I had found my way to some place where I would be welcome. I must only give those before me time to realize that this was so.

The wavering lines upon the sword blade flashed the brighter. They ran, they dripped in tiny, flashing gobbets from the point of the blade. Only for a breath space did the man hold so, then once more the point sank down. He did not look amazed, only thoughtful. Then he nodded to the Moon Witch, and her flowered rod arose.

From the heart of the stone flowers burst other thin, white blooms. They might each be a source of flame as were the candles about us. They flared and died.

It was my belief that I had been tested in some manner, and that their defenses against me had not worked. I felt no fear, no wariness. All I wanted now, and desperately, was their full favor.

“You are here. What would you have of us?” The woman spoke then and her words were in my mind.

“I would call upon the Blue and the Green—those you serve and command. For they are mine—”

The answer I made her came not from my conscious thinking, rather out of the deepest depths of that which was Kethan.

“Give us your name—”

I knew her meaning. The name is the person, in part. For ill-wishing, a name known to the ill-wisher can serve as a bond or a weapon.

Kethan they had called me from my birth. Ursilla could command me by it if she turned to the ways of the Shadow. Was I Kethan? For a moment I was entirely uncertain. That name seemed wrong in this hour, as if it was no part of the real me. Yet I had none other to offer.

“I am Kethan.”

“Where are you?” she asked secondly.

“Within Car Do Prawn—within the bonds of the Wise Woman’s sorcery.”

“What do you seek of us?”

“What I can learn, to free myself.”

“It would seem you have already learned much,” the woman observed, “since you went forth from here.”

“I was told there was a key, if I could find it. I searched, and this was what I found—not by the belt but within myself.”

The woman nodded. “Well done, Kethan.” Her face lost the masklike quality it had always seemed to hold the times when she had looked upon me. “In truth, you have walked a goodly way down a strange road, but not one under the Shadow. I do not understand how you have become destiny-tied with us—that we must learn. But that you have been able to do so while entranced, coming thus to the edge of our summoning, that is proof that we must travel together, at least for a space. So you are caught within a Wise Woman’s sorcery.” Now she frowned a little as if facing a problem to be solved. “Tell us the manner of’ the binding about you.”

Though I did not now see Ursilla’s room behind the eyelids of my closed eyes, rather the center of the Star Tower, I spoke of the candles that blazed and how I believed that they provided the bars for my captivity.

“A longer way have you come down the road than we thought”—the man spoke now—“if you could search for that which will stand against your prison and find it here. If you are loosed from the spell, what then will you do?”

“I must have the belt—”

“That is so.” He gave agreement. “With it this Ursilla can keep you at her heel and her bidding. You know where it lies hid?”

“Not yet. Free, I shall learn—”

For the first time then the Moon Witch spoke. “If you have time.” And her words were a dire warning.

“I can but try,” I answered her.

“We shall give you what time and aid we can.” The woman had locked gaze with the man for an instant, as if they so mingled wills and minds. Now she gave me her promise. “Go from us, look to your candles. Use again the key you have found for yourself—”

I opened my eyes. Gone was the chamber wherein the three had stood. I was again within Ursilla’s locked star. I turned my head and stared at the flame burning steadily there. Orange—red—but it—must change—

Just as I had reached deep within me, within the pard—for the strength to change my shape, so now I bent the full force of my desire upon this—that blue and green must stand where now blazed the other hues.

Kethan-strength, pard-strength, I summoned, aimed with my will. Up to the limit of that strength I drew—But there was no change in the flames. I—must—do—better—

Harder I strove—Pard-strength, man-strength—those were not—not—

Into me flowed force of which I was now but the channel. I was aware of a mingling—I was Kethan. I was the pard—and—I was others—the three I had fronted in my vision. Different were the currents as they met and surged through me, as different in kind as the persons who aimed them to aid me. Never in my life had I felt so kin-strong as in that moment.

Darker burned the flame—to purple, the color of the Shadow—? No, it was changing hue, but from the tip down. No longer was it the orange-red. A blue-green surged along the flame itself. Then—the candle was all of the hue, which I hoped would win my freedom.

With a pard’s inborn stealth, I crept toward the candle. Had I indeed broken the circling ensorcellment? On—on—

I was out!

The others who had filled me with their force were gone. I could not have held them, but I felt curiously forsaken, bereft, as I was emptied of their presences. There was no time to dwell on such thoughts—I had to regain the belt before Ursilla returned. With it in my possession, she might still be able to threaten me a little, but I had a chance to withstand her.