Song of Sorcery Read Online Free PDF Page B

ought to have water to cleanse the wound.”
    “Through yon trees, maid. But hasten, do. His life force dwindles…”
    Maggie picked up a wad of the hems of her cape and skirt in one hand and used the other to push away the wet willow wands that slapped at her face and clothing. Willows in such profusion made her uneasy with their sharp-tongued leaves and the way they had of making the path ahead or anything behind them hard to see. She was glad it was not later in the day, for Gran had told her that there were willows which actually uprooted themselves to follow travelers who stayed on the road past twilight. Of course, Gran had never said the trees did anything but follow, still—
    She shivered. “Travel must not agree with me, cat. I’m jumpy as grease on a griddle. I have the oddest feeling we’re being watched.” When no teasing reply came from the cat, she looked around for him. He was crouched at her heels, fur glistening with dew from the grass and bristling, head turned to the left, ears ever so slightly rotating backwards and forwards, whiskers working. “Very reassuring, cat,” said Maggie.
    “You’re the one with the big brown eyes, Witchy,” growled the cat. “Find the damn pool and the damn posies, and cure the damn bunny, and let’s get out of here.” His fur had continued to rise while he talked, and he now appeared twice his normal size. “I’ve been in dog kennels I liked better.”
    “I know what you mean. I keep feeling there’s something besides the gnome and the rabbit at our backs.”
    “Then move ,” said Ching.
    “All right, all right, only everything’s so gray I can’t really see very much either.” She parted the branches of two willows which had originally grown on either side of the path, but whose drooping branches now completely obscured it. Slogging through the wet grass and soggy branches, they were both damp and cold by the time they came to the banks of the stream.
    There was a different feeling there by the stream than there had been in the willows. Something about the place, some unidentifiable quality, poured over Maggie, so that, emerging from the trees to the grassy banks that held the blue waters, she took one soft step at a time until she stood absolutely still beside the gentle flow. It was the chilling, active blue of the killing crevasses of the great glacier that was its mother, but beautiful too. Around it, all about them, the air was mist-muffled and quiet, though there was the tinkle of the water, and once the song of a bird reached them, distinct and perfect. But here the sky did not seem dismal gray as before, but shone with the pearly translucent silver-pink of the inside of a seashell. The leaves, rustling without sound, glimmered in green pale, dark, and pale again like a jeweled gown winking in the light as its owner danced.
    “There’s enchantment here,” said Ching quietly. Though he himself was more or less impervious to most spells, he had defluffed and come out of his crouch to stand, ears up and tail waving a gentle J behind him, at Maggie’s side.
    “Yes,” she said.
    “It’s across the stream, watching, in those trees.”
    Maggie let her eyes drift to the area he indicated. The cat’s vision was not as precise as her own, but his sixth sense was far better developed.
    Had it been a brighter day, she would, of course, have seen the unicorn immediately. As it was, his fog gray coat and opalescent horn blended so perfectly with the atmosphere in the woods that at first she mistook him for a bit of afternoon sky glowing through the boughs and branches. Only the amethyst eyes betrayed his presence, regarding her curiously across the icy blue water.
    “He wants to know,” Ching told her, “if you are a virgin maiden.”
    “That’s certainly a personal question when we haven’t even been properly introduced,” she mumbled, a little taken aback. Then she stared back into the jeweled eyes and nodded, “Not tall, blonde, lily-like,