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way, but then a crackle sounded in the opposite direction-that would be the man.
When the creature's head pivoted toward the sound, the druid-wizard sprang.
The creature snuffled when the druid-wizard landed on its back and choked
its live head in her arms, scratching at its sides and back with her panther's feet.
She closed her eyes to better feel its spirit casting about within its body. She felt
its fear-its confused thoughts grasping to regain the contentedness it had felt
moments earlier.
Already its thrashing lessened. The best moment passed, but the druid-
wizard could still feel the pulse of power she had gained from the hunt's climax.
She would remember it every time she visited the creature in her museum.
The druid-wizard suspended the creature, gasping, at the end of a magical
tether. The man approached it with curiosity verging on awe. He saw its
anomalies, but he also saw its original design. A graceful neck. Tapered fingers.
Deep, brown pools of wisdom in its eye sockets.
"Can you relieve its pain at all?" he asked.
The druid-wizard shrugged and cast another spell. The creature fell back on
its tether, still panting but calmer for the moment.
The druid-wizard was pleased that the man felt comfortable calling upon her
magic-his request told her that he was growing accustomed to it.
"What kind of a creature is it?" the man asked.
She had no answer. She remained silent.
The man didn't seem to notice. He had begun to whisper to the creature, as
he used to do with his rose. It watched him-looked into his eyes-and its breathing
evened out.
The druid-wizard felt a pang of envy and stood.
"We should go," she said. "The sooner it settles into its new home, the
better."
She yanked the creature after her and turned to hike back down the
mountain.
The man followed, admonishing her to treat the creature gently.
She smiled fondly through her annoyance. The man never failed to amuse
her with his concern about such insignificant things.
6
"So much darkness, darkness... can't see and... light! But it's only more
darkness!"
-Chever's last notes
"Do you think you can help it?" the man asked one day. "Can you make it
whole?"
They had just rejoined the river the druid-wizard had followed to the
mountains, and the man had grown increasingly concerned about the beast's
welfare.
The druid-wizard affected an expression of sorrow.
"I ll try," she said.
She could make it whole, but that would defeat her purpose.
"That's all I ask."
At long last they glimpsed Phlan. It was just in time, by the man's reckoning.
The creature had eaten and drunk little and appeared on the verge of starvation
or dehydration. Its eyes had grown glassy, as if it found the world no longer worth
seeing.
"Is your home near this side of the city?" the man asked.
Tart of it is," she said. Then she added, "We only have to get through this
swamp."
They had been slogging through muck that only loosely fit the definition of
land. Early on, the man had lost both boots to the squelching mud. The druid-
wizard had removed her own boots long before, to give her druid aspect a little
direct contact with the earth-before she must sequester it once more to the
backwaters of her mind. The Plane of Shadow felt near, so very near. She
wondered if the Shadovar were preparing to bring their enclave over even now.
The man and the druid-wizard finally reached the sewer pipe. The druid-
wizard paused, gauging the man's expression. He glanced around, mildly
interested in the new surroundings but anxious to reach their destination. The
druid-wizard ducked into the pipe.
She glanced back at him. He looked surprised but did not question her, even
when the smell of sewage rose to his nostrils. Perhaps he thought she was
taking the back way to some sprawling mansion.
When they reached the museum and she stopped to deposit the new
denizen into an empty cage, realization dawned.
"This is it?" the man cried. "This is your home? The sewers?"
"I couldn't bring myself to tell you before: people don't take well to magicians
in this city," she lied. "I've been forced underground."
"Why'd you lock them in cages like this?" he continued, as though he had not
heard her. "You could give them better treatment than this!" He gestured at a
random cage, then gasped as he glimpsed the monstrosity inside. "What is this?
What's wrong with this turtle?"
It was a giant tortoise, but it had four heads, spaced equally apart around the
rim of its shell. The heads, each one independent of the others, could not agree
upon the direction in which to travel. It must have managed occasionally to drag
itself to a bowl of water near the front of its cage, or it would not have survived in
the wizard's absence, but when the original head won out and made for one of
the four food dishes in each corner of the cage, the turtle could not reach the
food, as the dishes were enclosed behind wire mesh. When the original head
made for a different bowl, a head on the side would discover the last bowl and
make for it instead. The scene would have been ludicrous had the turtle not been
straining so hard against itself, and for so long, that a couple of its legs had
scraped themselves raw in its attempts to gain ground.
"I'm trying to cure it," she answered. "I found it like this-"
"Then why not bring its food to it?" The man sprang to do just that but
couldn't find a door of any kind in the bars. "Open it!" he commanded.
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