Extinction

Except for one small detail. Staring down at his hands, Valas saw that his scars were in all the wrong places.

"What spell," he wheezed as he climbed out of the river, "did you just cast?"

Pharaun, still kneeling, was directing a second spell upon him, one that requited no arcane material component to cast. Valas saw the mage's shoulders slump as he completed it and knew it had cost Pharaun a piece of himself.

"I polymorphed you," Pharaun said when he was done. "I shaped your body into a pretty good likeness of its old self, if I do say so myself. Until something dispels it, that is. Be thankful that Ryld's not around, waving that greatsword of his."

Valas, still standing chest-deep in water, spread his fingers to admire their shape and nodded.

"I am thankful," he said aloud.

His eyes met Pharaun's, making it clear he was speaking not about the absence of the weapons master but of the presence of the mage.

Pharaun nodded, then gave Quenthel a bow that just bordered on insolence.

"With your leave, Mistress, I will begin studying the spells I need. Then I?then Danifae and I?will set out for Zanhoriloch and speak to this Oothoon."

Chapter Sixteen

Ryld shivered as he walked through the forest. Night was falling, and with it came a chill in the air. His piwafwi was still damp from the rain of the night before, and a full day of steady walking hadn't been enough to dry it. Overhead, above the branches of the trees that crowded Ryld close on every side, the cloud cover was breaking up. The sky was a mottled grayish purple, the color of an old bruise.

The air around him darkened as the last of the sunlight faded, but after a time, Ryld noticed it was getting brighter again. His dark-vision was giving way to the pale gray light that filled the surface world at dusk and dawn?even though the dawn was still a long way off. Confused, Ryld paused, and looked up through the lacework of branches.

The full moon was rising.

As it peeked above the treetops, filling the air around him with a silvery light, Ryld was suddenly no longer cold. A flush warmed his cheeks, and he felt his blood quicken. The hairs on his arms stood erect, as if he had just shivered, yet at the same time he felt hot with fever.

"Lolth protect me," he whispered in a strangled voice, glancing down nervously at the bite mark on his wrist. "That brat did infect me."

The moonlight continued to grow brighter, and with it, Ryld's anxiety rose. Flashes of red swam before his eyes, and his pulse pounded in his ears. Already he could feel his control slipping. His clothing felt tight, constricting, heavy. He pulled it away from his throat, barely able to contain the urge to tear it from his body. He looked wildly at the forest that surrounded him, wanting to plunge into it and run and run and run. .

Struggling to maintain control, he plunged a hand into the breast pocket of his piwafwi and pulled out the sprig of belladonna that Yarno's grandfather had given him. It had dull green leaves and a single, bell-shaped flower. Ryld ripped off a leaf, stuffed it into his mouth, and chewed. A bitter taste filled his mouth, and his tongue went dry. He followed it with another leaf, then another, then the flower. . then he threw the bare twig away.

He waited.

The urge he'd felt a moment before?the urge to tear off his clothing and run away into the woods?disappeared. Ryld felt lightheaded. He tried to take a step, stumbled, and nearly fell. At the last moment he grabbed a tree for balance. All the while, the forest was becoming brighter, the moonlight flooding his vision. Something was wrong with his eyes.

Pulling his short sword clumsily from its sheath, he stared into its polished surface and saw that his pupils had dilated to the point where the red of the iris had all but vanished. Grimacing, he lowered his sword, stood a moment, then remembered he hadn't sheathed it. He tried to shove the short sword into its sheath but missed, instead shoving it point-first into the ground as he stumbled. Unable to catch himself again, he fell flat out onto the soggy ground beside it. Above him, the trees seemed to have turned to pale gray shadows, wavering back and forth as though they were under water.

Lying there, watching the forest spiral in circles above him, Ryld wondered if he was going to die. The belladonna had halted his transformation into a werewolf, but at what cost? His heart was pounding at an alarming rate, and his skin felt dry and hot. He tried to wet his lips, but even that effort was too much for him. All he could do was lie on the forest floor, inhaling the smell of wet earth and rotting leaf with each halting breath. His breath. That was the one thing he still could control.