Guenhwyvar Read online

  the beast for nearly three weeks, and spent six months before

  that in preparing the scrolls and powders, the oils, the

  herbs. Not an easy process, this. And not inexpensive, I

  might add! Do you know what price a gnome places on the

  simplest of metal filings, pieces so fine that they might be

  safely added to the cat’s food?”

  Josidiah found that he really did not want to continue

  along this line of discussion. He did not want to know about

  the poisoning—and that was indeed what he considered it to

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  be—of the magnificent panther. He looked back to the cat,

  looked deep into her intense eyes, intelligent so far beyond

  what he would normally expect.

  “Fine day outside,” the bladesinger muttered, not that he

  believed that Anders would take a moment away from his

  work to enjoy the weather. “Even my stubborn Uncle Taleisin,

  Lord Protector of House Starym, wears a face touched

  by sunshine.”

  Anders snorted. “Then he will be smiling this day when he

  lays low Coronal Eltargrim with a right hook?”

  That caught Josidiah off his guard, and he took up Anders’s

  infectious laughter. Indeed was Taleisin a stubborn

  and crusty elf, and if Josidiah returned to House Starym this

  day to learn that his uncle had punched the elf Coronal, he

  would not be surprised.

  “It is a momentous decision that Eltargrim has made,”

  Anders said suddenly, seriously. “And a brave one. By including

  the other goodly races, your Coronal has begun the

  turning of the great wheel of fate, a spin that will not easily

  be stopped.”

  “For good or for ill?”

  “That is for a seer to know,” Anders replied with a shrug.

  “But his choice was the right one, I am sure, though not

  without its risks.” The old mage snorted again. “A pity,” he

  said, “even were I a young man, I doubt I would see the outcome

  of Eltargrim’s decision, given the way elves measure

  the passage of time. How many centuries will pass before the

  Starym even decide if they will accept Eltargrim’s decree?”

  That brought another chuckle from Josidiah, but not a

  long-lived one. Anders had spoken of risks, and certainly

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  there were many. Several prominent families, and not just

  the Starym, were outraged by the immigration of peoples

  that many haughty elves considered to be of inferior races.

  There were even a few mixed marriages, elf and human,

  within Cormanthor, but any offspring of such unions were

  surely ostracized.

  “My people will come to accept Eltargrim’s wise council,”

  the elf said at length, determinedly.

  “I pray you are right,” said Anders, “for surely Cormanthor

  will face greater perils than the squabbling of stubborn

  elves.”

  Josidiah looked at him curiously.

  “Humans and halflings, gnomes and, most importantly,

  dwarves, walking among the elves, living in Cormanthor,”

  Anders muttered. “Why, I would guess that the goblinkin savor

  the thought of such an occurrence, that all their hated

  enemies be mixed together into one delicious stew!”

  “Together we are many times more powerful,” the bladesinger

  argued. “Human wizards oft exceed even our own.

  Dwarves forge mighty weapons, and gnomes create wondrous

  and useful items, and halflings, yes, even halflings, are

  cunning allies, and dangerous adversaries.”

  “I do not disagree with you,” Anders said, waving his

  tanned and leathery right hand, three-fingered from a goblin

  bite, in the air to calm the elf. “And as I have said, Eltargrim

  chose correctly. But pray you that the internal disputes are

  settled, else the troubles of Cormanthor will come tenfold

  from without.”

  Josidiah calmed and nodded; he really couldn’t disagree

  with old Anders’s reasoning, and had, in fact, harbored those

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  same fears for many days. With all the goodly races coming

  together under one roof, the chaotic goblinkin would have

  cause to band together in numbers greater than ever before.

  If the varied folk of Cormanthor stood together, gaining

  strength in their diversity, those goblinkin, whatever their

  numbers, would surely be pushed away. But if the folk of

  Cormanthor could not s ee their w a y to such a da y of unity . . .

  Josidiah let the thought hang outside consciousness, put

  it aside for another day, a day of rain and fog, perhaps. He

  looked back to the panther and sighed even more sadly,

  feeling helpless indeed. “Treat the cat well, Anders Beltgarden,”

  he said, and he knew that the old man, once a ranger,

  would indeed do so.

  Josidiah left then, making his way more slowly as he returned

  to the elven city. He saw Felicity again on the balcony,

  wearing a slight silken shift and a mischievous, inviting

  smile, but he passed her by with a wave. The bladesinger

  suddenly did not feel so much in the mood for play.

  Many times in the next few weeks, Josidiah returned to

  Anders’s tower and sat quietly before the cage, silently communing

  with the panther while the mage went about his

  work.

  “She will be yours when I am done,” Anders announced

  unexpectedly, one day when spring had turned to summer.

  Josidiah stared blankly at the old man.

  “The cat, I mean,” said Anders. “Whiskers will be yours

  when my work is done.”

  Josidiah’s blue eyes opened wide in horror, though Anders

  interpreted the look as one of supreme elation.

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  “She’ll do me little use,” explained the mage. “I rarely

  venture out of doors these days, and in truth, have little faith

  that I will live much more than a few winters longer. Who

  better to have my most prized creation, I say, than Josidiah

  Starym, my friend and he who should have been a ranger?”

  “I shall not accept,” Josidiah said abruptly, sternly.

  Anders’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “I would be forever reminded of what the cat once was,”

  said the elf, “and what she should be. Whenever I called the

  slave body to my side, whenever this magnificent creature

  sat on her haunches, awaiting my command to bring life to

  her limbs, I would feel that I had overstepped my bounds as

  a mortal, that I had played as a god with one undeserving

  my foolish intervention.”

  “It’s just an animal!” Anders protested.

  Josidiah was glad to see that he had gotten through to the

  old mage, a man the elf knew to be too sensitive for this present

  undertaking.

  “No,” said the elf, turning to stare deeply into the panther’s

  knowing eyes. “Not this one.” He fell silent, then, and

  Anders, with a huff of protest, went back to his work, leaving

  the elf to sit and stare, to silently share his thoughts with

  the panther.

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