Magic in Ithkar by Andre Norton, Robert Adams (ed.) Page A

from her like the Old ’Un said.
    Shifting clumsily on her knees, she moved forward, hesitated, disciplined a rush of excitement when he said nothing; pushing her luck as hard as she could, she lurched closer to him. Sweat popped out on her forehead, began to drip in her eyes. She wiped it away with her sleeve, chanced a quick look at him, saw she’d reduced the distance between them by nearly a third. It was enough. Maybe.
    “Mind-lost idiot.” His whisper was harsh with urgency and menace. He brought the pipe to his lips, played a few notes that froze her and sent pain coursing through her. “Faster, or you’ll get more of that.”
    She picked up the bag, more shaken than she cared to admit. The material was heavy, slick, like oiled silk but much thicker; she played with it a few moments to flex her fingers and calm her tightening nerves, then began to uncurl Tanu’s tail from about her neck. “Be ready,” she whispered to him as she eased him from the pocket and set him on the ground beside her knee. The piper stared at him, breath hissing between his lips, his eyes wet with greed and fear.
    Fumbling at the bag to cover her movements, she slid the knife from her boot, slipped off the sheath, held the knife with the blade pressed back against her arm as she worked the mouth of the bag open. The piper shifted impatiently, looked away, back along the wall.
    Jezeri scooped up Tanu and flung him at the piper, felt the powerful thrust of his hind legs as he kicked against her hand, then launched herself in a low dive at the piper’s legs, knife flipping over to slash at his hamstrings.
    Warned by weasel-instinct, he sprang aside—but not quickly enough or far enough; she missed the hamstring but scored him deeply on the calf as she brushed by him.
    She landed heavily, awkwardly, all her weight coming down hard on her shoulder, her head slamming against the earth, the knife knocked out of her hand, the wind knocked out of her body. Behind her she heard a scrabbling on the ground, a bubbling scream that broke off suddenly, then nothing.
    For what seemed an eternity she couldn’t move, could only lay gasping, but finally she rolled over and came up onto her feet, looked around for the piper.
    He lay in a contorted heap, as dead as that long-ago direwolf.
    Crooning his bliss, Tanu perched on the dead man’s hip, preening the fur on his hind legs, obviously very pleased with himself.
    Rubbing at her shoulder, Jezeri stood gazing down at the odd man. I never got a chance to ask you where you came from, she thought. I don’t even know your name. Artna rot you, you cheated me. You’re dead. You made me kill you, and there’s no asking you anything anymore. She shuddered, swallowed several times as sour fluid flooded her mouth. “What do I do now? Aieea help me.” Sick and more than a little afraid, she glanced fearfully at the temple, wondering how much longer she had before everything fell on her, shivered as she remembered how the piper kept doing that. She wanted her mother, her father, Old ’Un, even her idiot brothers, Aunt Jesset, her father’s sister—and even awful Uncle Herveh, who’d somehow managed to marry her mother’s sister. She wanted to feel safe and ordinary again, wanted someone, anyone, to take this burden off her shoulders.
    But there was no one. Only Tanu and the wind and the trees. And the dead man, who still threatened her even though he was so very dead. “I killed him,” she said aloud, and was startled to hear herself say the words so calmly. She tried over in her mouth one of the spitting curses the piper had flung at her and felt an intense satisfaction at the sound of it, though she had no idea what it meant. “Probably something obscene,” she told Tanu. “Haschundapri!” she repeated, liking the way it let her explode out her woes. She said it a third time as she looked around for somewhere to put the odd man’s body. If the priests found it ... she didn’t know what they’d