

### URSA MAJOR

### THE GREAT BEAR

### Written in the Stars, Book 1

Published by Legion Printing and Publishing, Publishing via Smashwords

### PHIL GEUSZ

First Printing 2016

Published by Legion Printing, Birmingham, AL

Copyright Phil Geusz, 2014

Cover art copyright Legion Printing and Publishing, Inc

ISBN:  9781370192991

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without explicit permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

1

Johnstown Station wasn't anything special, I decided as the train slowly ground to halt before the brand-new building's platform. Nor had I really expected it to be, despite all the fanfare over the recent flood. There might still be plenty of debris lying about the countryside. But predictably enough everything had been cleaned up here, where travelers like me might actually get to see something interesting for once. Though, I had to admit, the Rocky Mountains had been pretty nifty. And so had the big terminal in Chicago, in a different and somewhat scarier sort of way. Other than that the stations all looked alike, the cheap seats all rubbed me raw in the same places and the whole trip was mostly a blur, all the weary way back to Seattle.

"This is your stop, son," the elderly conductor reminded me with a smile, and I returned the expression dutifully as the engine whistled its greetings to Johnstown. Everyone seemed terribly worried because I was traveling alone while still so young, but that was mostly because they didn't know me very well. Sister Magdalene hadn't been concerned at all; she'd simply handed me two dollars and fifty cents for food and other expenses—heaven only knew where she'd found it!—and two slices of my favorite blueberry pie wrapped up in paper.

"You'll be fine," she reassured me, patting my head and making me blush like she usually did. I was sort of her favorite, and we both knew it. "Just send me a postcard when you arrive—I'm sure the Sorcerer's Guild can spare you one—and let me know that you're safe." Then she cupped my face into her hands and raised it up so that I had to look into her eyes. "All right?"

"All right," I agreed. The truth was, I'd never left the City of Seattle before in my entire life. The very idea of such a long journey was enough to give me nightmares. But I'd never let Sister Magdalene know it. And sure enough, as always she'd been proven right. Here I was safe and sound at my last stop, all the way across the country in Pennsylvania. All I had to do was find the other kids scheduled for Familiar testing and sit quietly with them until the coach arrived from Devard Castle to take us up into the hills. This was something a resourceful boy of fourteen ought to be able to handle, I reassured myself as I picked up my father's old Gladstone bag and carried it briskly inside the station house. Once an urgent personal need was taken care of, that was...

"You're a big damn pussy!" a boy's voice cried out from around the corner where I expected to find the lavatory.

"A pussy!" another younger voice repeated, laughing so hard that I thought he might actually strangle himself.

"I'm not going to fight you," an equally young voice replied in dead-calm tones. "It wouldn't prove anything."

"Leave him alone!" a female added. "He hasn't done anything to you!"

"Meow!" the first boy taunted. "Meow, meow, meow!"

"I told you..." the calm voice replied.

And that was quite enough. Something always happens deep inside of me when one kid taunts another. Sister Magdalene says it's wrong, and that I should pray for control and forgiveness. But, somehow, I couldn't ever make the effort sound sincere. Probably because it wasn't. "Who's a pussy?" I demanded, rounding the corner suitcase in hand...

...and then my jaw dropped. For standing in front me was a kid my own age, wearing a black bodysuit, cat-ears, and even a tail, for heaven's sake! I couldn't help but stare a moment.

"See?" the laughing hyena asked. "Ain't he just the cutest thing you ever laid your peepers on?"

My jaw worked, then I turned to the younger child. "Beat it," I ordered.

"Whose going to make him?" the other boy demanded.

"Me," I replied evenly, putting down my Gladstone and carefully removing the tattered, many-times-mended jacket which was the finest garment I owned.

"Right!" the bigger kid answered, grinning at his accomplice. He was maybe a head taller than me, and almost as burly as I was. "This is going to be—"

But he never finished the sentence. Where he expected fisticuffs I hit him low with my shoulder, a deep snarl in my throat. The impact drove him backwards so hard that when he finally hit the railing, he tumbled over the top and fell to the ground perhaps six feet below. Fortunately there were rose bushes planted there, to break his fall. "Ow!" he cried out. "No fair!"

I looked down and shrugged. "Sorry about that. I suppose I got carried away. It happens sometimes." I tilted my head to one side. "Care to climb back up and try again?"

"I think you broke my damn arm!"

I shrugged. "Maybe when you're all healed up, in that case." Then I turned to the smaller boy, who didn't think the situation was nearly so funny anymore. All I had to do was cock an eyebrow, and he was off like the wind.

"Wow!" the cat-boy observed, his eyes wide. Then he applauded, silently because of his black skin-tight gloves. "That was great!"

"Crude," the girl agreed. "But effective." Her eyebrows rose. "You aren't perhaps waiting for a coach, are you? To Devard Castle?"

"I might be," I allowed.

"Good," she replied, as if the matter were settled. "You can sit with us, then. Obviously, there's a severe shortage of gentlemen hereabouts."
2

"...Mom's been dressing me like this since before I can remember," Midnight explained eagerly. He talked fast and freely, Midnight did, once you got him going. Though he was unusually quiet and shy until then. I reckoned that this was probably because the other kids where he grew up probably wouldn't have much to do with him. "I'm obviously cat-Marked," he explained. "So I've always known I'll end up becoming a Familiar."

I nodded slowly, not wanting to stop chewing and swallowing long enough to speak. Cynthia had bought me a nice hot bowl of stew, once she figured out that I hadn't eaten in a couple days. I never did work out how it was that she could tell. Sister Magdalene apparently hadn't taken a trip by rail in a very long time; my two dollars and fifty cents had run out in Chicago.

Midnight—it was his real, honest-to-goodness legal name, apparently—smiled. "I might as well dress like this, as thoroughly Marked as I am. It helps me get used to the idea, like. And other folks don't think it's so strange, once they see the alternative."

"Show him!" Cynthia urged. Then she looked at me. "You won't believe it!"

Midnight frowned, then nodded and lowered his hood. For just a second his ash-blonde hair blew freely in the wind...

...and then transformed itself into short black fur, topped with a pair of vague black ears that hurt a little to look at.

"Wow!" I declared, so surprised that for a few seconds I forgot I was hungry. "That's..."

"Disturbing, apparently," Midnight finished for me, looking a bit glum. "So long as I wear some kind of ear-hat, they meld in so you can't see them." He reached down and fingered his long, black tail. "This works the same way. Except I can actually feel it."

I shook my head; maybe the getup actually made sense after all. "Being Changed might almost be a relief, for you."

He nodded eagerly. "I can't wait! I'm _so_ tired of being stared at when I play with my yarn-ball! Mom's all excited, too. She says that when I come back home to visit, I'll have the best pet bed in the world waiting for me! Right out of the Monkey-Ward catalog."

I nodded again, trying not to let my face show how I really felt. My own Mark hadn't shown up until a few months before, and it was a pale, pathetic thing compared to Midnight's. Father Branson spent hour after hour saying Hail Mary's with me to make it go away. But as Sister Magdalene predicted, nothing worked. She was going to get into a lot of trouble, I knew, if Father Branson ever found out she'd helped me accept the Guild's invitation for a tryout.

"I'm going to be a snake, I think," Cynthia declared, showing me her palms. That was where most Marks manifested themselves. Sure enough, you could see where the lines formed a girl's head sort of blurrily mounted atop a long neck that was bent too sharply and in too many places to be human. She shook her head. "I don't like snakes. But if I am one, I hope I'm venomous. Because if so, there won't be anything to decide. The Guild won't accept dangerous Familiars, because sometimes the spells make us go out of our heads." She turned away. "And Dad's convinced we're going to be rich. If I say 'no' when the answer could've been 'yes', he'll hate me for the rest of his life."

I nodded slowly. People who could become Familiars were rare creatures indeed, even rarer than those able to practice magic directly. For that reason they were paid a millionaire's wages and allowed to do pretty much whatever they chose when not needed in person for a spell—which worked out to be better than ninety-nine percent of the time. Familiars therefore often traveled the world, collected art... Did anything that struck their fancy, so long as they could do it with a full-animal body. I scowled; it was going to be a tough decision for me as well. If the option even presented itself, that was.

"What's your mark, Chris?" Midnight asked eventually.

I sighed as my hands involuntarily clenched themselves into fists. Then I forced them to relax. There was nothing to be ashamed of, I reminded myself. Not here at least, in the company of a snake and a cat. "No one seems to know," I answered, holding a hand out to each of my new friends—they were mirror-imaged.

"Interesting!" Cynthia declared, looking at the vaguely paw-pad shaped darkened areas in my flesh. The animal-toes lined up perfectly with my finger-bones, but the print was too blurry to reveal anything further.

"Maybe you're a cat, too!" Midnight offered.

"Maybe," I answered, drawing my hands back. I'd been so ashamed when the Marks first emerged that for weeks I kept them hidden away, until finally I skinned my hand stealing third and Sister Magdalene couldn't help but see as she dressed the wound. Then Father Branson had made a big messy deal over it, and the other kids had all wanted to see, and... Suddenly I was blushing bright, bright red.

"It's all right," Cynthia offered, smiling. "Most Marked people can't be sure of what they are." She nodded towards Midnight. "Unlike our kittenish friend here."

"Being a cat is great!" the young man in black replied. He leaned back in his seat in a graceful, extraordinarily feline motion. Even his shoes, I noted, were tight-fitting black slippers, well-worn enough that I suspected they were all he ever put on his feet. "I sure hope you're one too!"

"It'd be nice," I agreed, looking down at my Gladstone. It seemed pitifully small, next Midnight's ornate travel-trunk and Cynthia's even more extensive baggage-train. Yet it contained everything I owned. People who had inner animals almost always shared many of the characteristics of that animal. This was basic magical theory, so well-known that the sorcerers didn't even try to hush it up.

So what was I, if not a churchmouse?

3

I grew sleepy after eating, and it was nice to have friends around to watch my luggage while I gave into the urge and snored away. Especially after the long, miserable trip I'd just finished. So it didn't seem like any time at all had passed before Midnight elbowed me in the ribs. "Christopher!" Cynthia added, shaking my shoulder. "The coach is coming!"

It didn't feel like I'd been out long. But now the sun hung low in the western sky, so that the approaching coach's shadow was long and distorted. And what a coach it was! A magnificent thing, all brass and blue lacquer, with a luxurious tan seat for the coachman. I squinted... My heavens, was he wearing a wizard's robe?

"This is Timmy Andrews," Midnight continued after I finished rubbing my eyes and stretching cramped muscles. Why the railroads couldn't design better benches to sleep on, I hadn't a clue. "He's a—"

"Sparrow," I finished for him, extending my hand to shake that of the diminutive boy standing before me. "You just have to be a sparrow, looking like that. I'm Chris, by the way. Christopher Speiss."

The tiny boy laughed and blinked his black, beady eyes. "I think I'm a sparrow," he agreed. "Or maybe even a hummingbird. But wouldn't it be funny if I turned out to be a Great Dane or something like that instead?"

I grinned back, and a rich-looking girl in an expensive pink dress stepped forward. "I'm Gwendolyn," she explained in a snooty upper-class accent, though her tone was kind. She offered her hand delicately. "If I understand correctly, I'm already in your debt. For protecting Midnight. He's an old friend, you see."

I'd never had a girl offer me her hand before, especially not a hand wrapped in a genuine white China-silk glove. For just a moment I felt like turning and running just as fast as I could back to Seattle. My dad had worked for railroads until he got killed, while it looked as if Gwendolyn's father owned railroads. But, somehow, I couldn't just ignore her. She didn't deserve to be treated that way, snooty accent or no. So I carefully removed my straw hat and bowed, then raised her hand and brushed it delicately with my lips. "Charmed," I heard myself murmur, as confidently as if I dealt with silk-gloved hands every day of the week.

"I'm sure," Gwen replied politely, pulling her hand back and blushing a little herself now.

Then Cynthia interrupted. "We'd better hurry up and get our stuff," she observed. "The coach is almost here, and they say spellcasters don't care to kept waiting."

4

"Frederick Jones?" the sorceress who'd ridden out from Devard Castle to pick us up called for perhaps the dozenth time. She wore apprentice green, and told us to call her 'Guardian'. By long and hallowed tradition, magic-users adopted names based on their professional specialties. "Frederick?" Her tone was growing increasingly worried.

"Where's he from?" Cynthia asked. "I can check to see if the train's arrived."

"Port St. Louis, Mississippi," the young sorceress replied, her scowl intensifying. She was only a couple years older than I was. "And it has indeed arrived; I've already checked. But where's Frederick?" She shook her head. "This rule about prospective Familiars being required to travel without supervision is _so_ stupid..."

"It's meant to help ensure that we're mature enough to make our own decisions," Gwen pointed out. Then she smiled. "Besides, it was sort of fun not having Na-na along."

Guardian's scowl deepened, but she said nothing. Then I had an idea. "You said he's from Mississippi?"

Guardian nodded. "That's right."

"Let me check something," I replied. "Don't leave without me!" And then I was off like a rocket to another part of the station. The one where all the colored people sat. "Frederick Jones!" I called out, sticking my head in the door. "Are you here?"

"That's him," an elderly woman answered, pointing with her thumb. Sure enough, he was a boy my own age, dressed in rags even more disreputable than my own. But he didn't even raise his eyes.

"Are you going to Devard Castle?" I demanded. "If so, you'd better hurry. The coach is here, and everyone's waiting."

Finally, the boy looked up at me. "They won' lemme outta here," he explained. "They say we niggers ain't allowed out on the platform."

Being from Seattle, I didn't know much about negroes. But I _did_ know something about sorcerers, so I felt that I was on pretty solid ground. "You come with me," I declared, walking over and picking up a blanket-wrapped bundle that looked like it might belong to Frederick. "And if anyone tries to stop us, I'll deal with it."

His eyes narrowed, then he shook his head doubtfully. But when I turned and led the way, he followed. Sure enough, we weren't ten paces out the door when a big red-faced man in a conductor's uniform pointed his finger at Freddie. "Hey, boy!" he began. "I've already warned you once that—"

"We're with her!" I interrupted, pointing innocently at Guardian. Who, as it happened, stood out rather well among the crowd in her outlandish clothing, despite the fact that her back was turned. "On our way to Devard Castle."

The man's face hardened, then he worked his jaw twice before speaking. "They're evaluating a darkie?" he finally asked. "For a _Familiar_?"

"Maybe," I replied, shrugging. Then I nodded towards the green-robed figure. "Want to ask _her_ about it?"

His jaw worked again angrily, then he looked away. Wizards were notoriously jealous of their privacy, and equally famous for their barbed tongues. "Go ahead," he said at last. "He's still just a child, after all. But be quick about it!"

Guardian was relieved indeed to see Frederick—"I'm sorry; I had no idea that you were a negro," she explained to him. Then she gave me an extra-pretty smile by way of thanks, and we all loaded up for the long ride to Devard, up in the mountains.

The last thing I thought I'd want to do so soon after spending nearly a week aboard trains was take a long coach-ride, but the trip wasn't half so bad as I imagined it'd be. Partly that was because of who I was with. Kids like Midnight and little birdlike Timmy were nothing if not interesting to be around, while both Gwendolyn and Cynthia were pleasant company as well, for girls. Only Frederick sat silent and immobile, tucked into his own little corner. Plus, Guardian left the little talk-through window behind her open, so that she was able to join in the conversation from time to time and even sometimes laugh along with us. But what was truly spectacular was the scenery! The greatest, most violent flood anyone had ever known had roared down this valley not eleven years before, and the damage was still plain to see everywhere. As we made our slow, painful progress up what was clearly still a temporary road, our chatter first slowed and then died out altogether at the sheer scale of what we were experiencing. Massive gullies had been scoured out of the earth, decaying hundred-foot trees lay lined up like soldiers fallen in their ranks, and through it all was stirred the broken remains of a thousand ruined buildings. There was even a toppled, crumpled locomotive lying far from any discernible tracks and not yet salvaged for scrap. Finally, just at sunset, the trail came to a high point that overlooked the worst of the damage, and Guardian pulled up next to a flower-bedecked cross. "Get out, children," she ordered gently, setting the coach's brake. "This is the site of your first lesson."

"Eleven years ago," she began once we were all outside and standing together, "one of the greatest tragedies in the history of America took place here." Her face fell. "And we sorcerers failed to prevent it, despite the fact that the dam which failed was located less than ten miles from our Guild's national headquarters."

There was another long silence, which I took advantage of to read the inscription on the cross. "To the memory of more than two thousand dead," it said. "Taken by the raging waters."

"There are _never_ enough sorcerers to go around," Guardian continued. "Not by half. And scrying is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive work." She shook her head. "But still, you'd think that we'd have seen it coming. Especially with it being about to happen so nearby."

I nodded to myself. There were still a lot of hard feelings over that, no matter how much other good the wizards had done humanity.

" _This_ is why sorcery is so important," Guardian continued, gesturing out over the debris-clogged valley. "And why we're about to ask you children to make such sacrifices." She bowed her head. "For all our squabbling and shortcomings, none of us wizards ever want to see anything like this happen again."

5

It was almost ten at night before we arrived at Devard, tired and perhaps a bit frightened. Our route—there was no other—had taken us within three hundred yards of the open Pit created by the Johnstown Flood, and the Sorcerer's Guild was still studying the problem of how best to permanently seal it. In the meantime it remained a gaping window into the underworld, full of the stuff of madness and nightmares. No fewer than three sorcerers stood guard over it at all times; there was no danger of anything escaping. But the gaping black maw of the thing was terrible enough in its own right. Guardian suggested that we not look, but of course everyone did anyway.

So it was a muted, tired group of children who came staggering in out of the night once we finally arrived at Devard's main hall. I helped carry some of Cynthia's luggage, and Freddie wordlessly shouldered two of Gwen's trunks besides his own bedroll; clearly, he was much stronger than he looked. "This is the last load," Guardian said as an elderly senior wizard greeted her.

"Twenty-seven in all," he replied, shaking his head sadly. "Fewer every year, it seems, even as the population as a whole rises. Are there truly not so many candidates, or are the parents growing less forthcoming? There's no way to know, I suppose." He sighed, then forced a smile and raised his voice for attention. "Welcome to Devard Castle!" he greeted us latecomers. Then he gestured toward the two rows of benches, where the rest of the kids were already sitting and looking us over. "You may call me Shaper." He smiled again. "And I'll be learning all of your names as well just as soon as I possibly can." He looked at Midnight and smiled. "Those I don't already know, that is. But for tonight, we'll move as quickly as possible because I know you newcomers must be exhausted after your long journeys." He smiled as we took our seats; I ended up in back, squeezed between Timmy and Freddie. "We wizards don't often openly speak of magical truths," he began once we were settled in. "Yet the significance of the seventh full moon of the year is widely known to all. Can anyone tell me why?"

"Because that's the only time a kid can be shapeshifted into animal form," a young voice replied.

"And then only in their fourteenth year," another added.

"Correct!" Shaper replied, his smile widening. "And I don't need to tell you what all of you here share in common."

A low rumble passed through the benches; no, clearly he did not need to tell us. "So, you also therefore must know the significance of the next new moon of the year?"

"That's the only time you can change us back," Midnight replied, his voice sober. "Ever."

Now the room was silent. "So," Shaper continued, looking around and meeting all of our eyes one by one. "We have a week to make all necessary preparations, and to determine whether or not you should be Changed. Then a fortnight for us to evaluate the results, and for you to make what must surely be the single most important decision of your entire lives." He sighed. "It's not nearly enough time. In fact, it's an affront to humanity that you're required to make such a choice at all while still so young. But this is how the universe works, and so far despite much hard work there's nothing we sorcerers can do about it." He scowled for perhaps a tenth of a second, then with a deliberate effort forced the usual smile back onto his face. "So... We've done all we can do here to set up the best program possible for you youngsters. Some school-type work will be required, sure enough. And you're going to be talked to and interviewed so many times over the next few days that I'm quite certain you'll soon be sick and tired of it. But there'll be time for fun as well, especially if you do in fact undergo the Change." He smiled again. "Think of this as one of those newfangled summer camps," he urged. "Or a transformation camp, if you prefer. And, try to relax as much as you possibly can. We really, truly want you to reach the best decision possible, the one that's right for you. And how can you know what's right unless your minds are free and at ease?"

6

The next morning we were served one of the richest, most wonderful breakfasts I'd ever known—bottomless bowls of scrambled eggs, wonderful-smelling bacon and sausage, and best of all blueberry muffins! We all dug in like starving skeletons—Sister Magdalene says there's no creature on Earth with an appetite like that of a fourteen-year-old—and started to get to know each other a little bit better. All of us except poor Frederick, that is. Almost the very first thing, he poured a thick coating of molasses all over his food and three of the other boys pointed and elbowed each other and giggled uncontrollably. So quite deliberately I met their eyes and, while staring them down, poured a like amount of molasses over my own meal. They didn't say much of anything after that. But sadly neither did Frederick, who looked across the table at me a few times, then immediately turned his attention elsewhere whenever I noticed. The molasses was pretty darned good on the bacon and sausage, I decided, though the eggs weren't any better for the addition. But the stuff was absolutely heavenly on blueberry muffins, so I chalked the whole thing up as a culinary success. Molasses and blueberry muffins—a match made in heaven!

After breakfast we were given a few minutes to clean up and just sort of lounge about. I spent the time with the boys I'd met at the railroad station, since the girls were all off doing whatever it is that females spend so much time fussing over wash-basins with. Frederick, Midnight, Timmy and myself had ended up as room-mates, which was very nice in my book. All of them were neat and polite, while two out of three were also a lot of fun to be around. Freddie wasn't in any way objectionable. He didn't smell bad, no matter what people claimed, nor could I look him in the eyes and imagine that he might be naturally lazy or a thief. Sure, he was a little on the quiet side. But who wouldn't be, given his situation? An hour didn't pass, it seemed, but that someone found a way to pick on him or patronize him or do something else to make him feel small inside. Even the mages, who seemed to be making some kind of special effort on his behalf, were part of the problem. "You three new boys are assigned to room two-oh-nine," Guardian had explained last night, as the big meeting broke up. Then she smiled at Frederick. "And you'll stay with Cassie, our cook. She's set up a cot for you by the big stove."

"Wait a minute," I demanded. "Aren't the other boys staying four to a room?"

Guardian blinked, as Freddie slowly picked up his blanket roll. "Well, yes! But..."

Midnight looked up at me, left eyebrow elegantly arched. Then he nodded. "Chris is right," he agreed. "We're all Familiar candidates here. Soon to become animals, even." He crossed his arms, and so help me for a moment his eyes went green and slit-pupiled. "He's not a bit blacker than I am, now is he?"

Then Timmy looked down at his shoes. "If I become a crow," he pointed out, "I'll be black too. No one'll know the difference."

"It don't make no nohow to me, Missus," Frederick interjected, looking down at his shoes. "The kitchen is jes fine. I'm only glad to be here at all."

Guardian looked first at me, then at Timmy, and finally at Midnight. "Well," she said finally. "Let me do some checking." And sure enough a few minutes later she returned with new room assignments. "Freddie will get bed four," she directed. "Though of course if he'd be more comfortable bunking in the kitchen with someone of his own race, he may do so."

For a long moment the young negro looked terrified at being called upon to make such a momentous decision. Then he pressed his lips together. "I'll stay wit' de boys," he finally answered in a near whisper. Then he looked up at us for just a second before lowering his eyes back to the floor. "Thank ya, sirs" he muttered.

And so, we'd become four.

7

Shaper had promised us good old-fashioned classwork, and he kept his word in full measure. We'd hardly picked out our seats in the big schoolroom when Guardian began passing out workbooks. "This is required," she explained sternly. "Yes, we want you to relax and have a good time while you're here. But we're also not going to let your young brains turn into mush."

A rusty-haired boy with extra-long arms and legs raised an oversized hand. "Why should we study?" he asked when called on. "If we're going to be Familiars, I mean? All we're going to do is sit around and get paid. Or so people say."

Guardian smiled. "That's a fair question, Kimball. And a good one as well. So I'll take a little time answering it." She stood in front of a chalkboard. It was black as a moonless night sky and didn't have a single crack in it; Sister Magdalene would've killed for the thing. "You'll be learning about what a Familiar does, and what it means to be one. That's the kind of stuff you'll need to know in order to make a good decision." She smiled back at Kimball, who nodded by way of conceding the point.

"But there's more—a _lot_ more. Yes, Familiars end up with a lot of time on their hands. And that's a good thing in the minds of we spellcasters, because when that's the case it means nothing's gone wrong. Sometimes, however..." She sighed. "I can't talk a lot about this, but things _do_ go wrong. And when they do, it's a lucky wizard indeed who has an intelligent, able Familiar at their side, ready to help dig them out of the mess they've suddenly found themselves in." Her smile faded. "We're getting a little ahead of ourselves here—this part usually isn't covered until the afternoon. But... You're entitled to know that you're not being judged merely by what species you'll become or how useful your new form might be for certain castings. The nature of your character is also highly important—basic honesty and the like. Your intellectual abilities are a key factor too, as is, insofar as we can judge it, your level of personal courage."

Her words were followed by a long, thoughtful silence. Then she smiled. "Don't get me wrong—we're not going to set impossible goals for you. We need Familiars, after all, and there's no hiding the shortage. You won't have to memorize a hundred pages of spells in a month, like I did to get into the sorcerer's academy."

"And what a good thing that is!" Midnight interjected. Then everyone laughed, including Guardian.

"Seriously now, children. Open your workbooks and begin with Part One. We'll spend an hour on it, then take a little recess. If any of you needs help, just raise your hand and someone will come to assist you."

I didn't raise my hand, of course; workbooks were my meat and potatoes. Dad had died when I was almost eight, and I'd been sent to the orphanage immediately after. They'd tried to put me with the second-graders, but I tore through the classes so quickly that by my tenth birthday I was just starting on the sixth. One of the reasons Sister Magdalene liked me so much, or so I supposed, was that I saved her a lot of work by teaching the math and science classes. This wasn't a problem for me because by now I was already all done with high school and so didn't have to attend classes myself anymore. Sister Magdalene just let me read whatever I wanted to in my spare time, and so long as I kept some of the titles hidden away from Father Branson both of us were plenty happy with the arrangement. When I turned sixteen I'd have to find my own way in the world, of course; there wasn't much chance of an orphan like me going to college. In fact, by all rights I should've been out on my own working a paying job already, and everyone knew it. But I was a good enough teacher that the always-broke parish didn't have to hire another professional, so I'd been given a reprieve.

Therefore, the sixth-or-so grade level workbook that I'd been handed didn't constitute much of an intellectual challenge, and all the more so since most of the books I'd read recently were, naturally enough, about the whole 'familiar situation'. Some of them had condemned the whole concept as evil, while more had praised sorcery as the highest expression of the American Way. Only a remarkably few had taken a more balanced approach, dealing with both the plusses and minuses in turn. None of them, however, had employed such simple phrasing as the three paragraphs we were expected to read before answering the equally inane questions. "A Familiar who transformed into a spitting cobra would be rejected because _____________" the first question wanted to know, and it went downhill from there. I was done with the hour's work in perhaps ten minutes, and after finishing I entertained myself by staring out at the beautiful summer day that was developing outside.

Or at least I started out staring at the summer day; in a matter of minutes I became aware that the four or five sorcerers endlessly circling the room, ostensibly to help us, were taking sidelong glances at me and subtly pointing out my apparent inattention to each other. This rather irritated me; after all, I was done with the assigned work, fair and square. And... Darn it! I was a teacher these days, not a student! Still, I managed to swallow my pride and stare down at the little book for perhaps another ten minutes before I grew so bored that I redipped my fountain pen and completed Part Two, without even being told. And then Part Three, and Part Four... In fact, I was well into Part Five before Guardian rang a little bell and dismissed us all to go out and play.

"Yay!" I cried, as eager to stretch my legs as all the rest. Timmy'd brought a baseball and a spare glove, and had promised me a game of catch. But I didn't get ten feet before one of the watchers—a young man wearing a green robe—laid his hand on my shoulder and stopped me cold. "Your name is Christopher, isn't it?" he asked from behind a smile that I recognized right off as phony.

"It is," I agreed.

His fake smile widened. "I'm Proctor," he explained. "And Shaper would like to see you immediately for your first interview."

8

I knew something had gone badly wrong before I ever set foot in Shaper's office. Back when I was little, I'd once hit a baseball through Father Branson's favorite stained-glass window. He knew it was an accident, so I didn't get much of a whipping. But still... Everything had the same feel about it that I was experiencing now; the adults who wouldn't meet my eyes, the long wait in an uncomfortable chair, the way I'd been pulled away from all my friends...

It was maybe half an hour before Shaper opened his door and gestured me in. I'd never been in a wizard's office before, of course—almost no one had. It didn't look all that weird, except for the old man's tattered gray robe, the green sparkly flame that emerged from nowhere on his windowsill, and the way the letters and symbols on his grimoires got all blurry whenever I tried to look at them. "Sit down, young man," he said with a smile, gesturing towards a plain wicker chair identical to his own. "Make yourself comfortable."

I really, truly wanted to do as I was told. But it simply wasn't possible. So I improvised by faking a sunny smile instead. Then Shaper smiled back, and somehow I knew that he'd seen right through me.

"Christopher," he began eventually, picking up a thick file with my name on it. "You've come a long way to be with us."

I nodded, but said nothing.

He opened the folder, muttering to himself. "Your moth—I mean Sister Magdalene, your guardian—thinks the world of you." He paused again, reading some more, until his eyebrows rose. "She says that academically you're quite exceptional."

"I... I've finished high school, sir," I replied, trying not to stutter. "I t-t-t-teach m-m-m..."

"Math and science," the old man finished for me, nodding in approval. Then he lowered the folder and looked over the top of it at me. "I've taken on many an apprentice sorcerer based on less."

I gulped, but said nothing.

"Yet, you're Marked," he replied with a sigh. "Which means it's overwhelmingly unlikely that you'll ever be able to cast a true spell on your own. Unheard of, even." He shook his head. "That's because being of crossed species is distantly related to lycanthropy. That's why your Changes are dictated by the moon, just like theirs."

I nodded and said nothing; even my most advanced books had said nothing of that!

"It's no secret, but not often spoken of regardless. All you have to do is look closely at your friend Midnight, and you'll understand a little better how the two phenomenon are intertwined." He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. "Do you like Midnight?"

I nodded, and this time my smile was genuine. "He's one of the neatest friends I've ever made!" I sort of gushed.

Shaper's eyes narrowed. "What makes him so neat?" he demanded.

I tilted my head to one side. "He's different," I explained, though it should've been obvious to anyone. "In all sorts of wonderful ways."

Shaper's scowl deepened. "Most people don't like things that're different," he replied. "They want to be around other people who are pretty much just like themselves."

I shrugged. "I can't answer for anyone else, sir. But... If they didn't like Midnight, I can't say that I'd likely think much of them."

Shaper nodded slowly, then pulled a handwritten page from my folder. "This is a letter," he explained. "One that I just received a few minutes ago. In fact, it's why I kept you waiting so long." His smile returned, though only briefly. "Originally, you were brought here because it was thought that you weren't being attentive enough to your workbook. But I think that little issue, at least, has been resolved satisfactorily. In the future, you and anyone else finishing early will be permitted to leave the room."

I nodded, feeling at least a little better.

"However... This letter is an altogether more serious matter." He held it up in front of me. "It's from a Mrs. Algood, of Johnstown. And it accuses you of breaking her son's arm in a fight. Which you started."

Suddenly my face hardened. "He was picking on Midnight!" I countered angrily. "And on Cynthia too, sort of."

"Picking on them," Shaper agreed, looking deep into my eyes. "But not beating on them."

There was a long, long silence while I stared once more out the window. "Why did you do it?" Shaper asked gently. "Tell me the truth now; nothing else will do. Was it because you wanted to impress the others?"

"No!" I answered, though my throat was closing up and I wanted to cry worse than I ever had since I was twelve. "I didn't even know who they were yet! Midnight was just another kid who wore weird clothes."

"Did this Algood boy laugh at you?" the old man asked, his eyes hard and intense.

"Not hardly! He wanted me to help him make fun of Midnight." I shifted in my chair. "Sir... I really wasn't sure about wanting to become a Familiar, or at least I wasn't until I got to know Midnight and some of the others and saw how wonderful it all could be. But now, I want it worse than—"

"Did it make you feel big and strong?" he interrupted remorselessly.

My heart sank. So my dream had ended before it'd ever really begun. I'd be on my way back to Seattle soon, more than likely destined to become a simple lumberman or sailor or fisherman... "No! I mean... He was no challenge. So beating him up couldn't possibly make me feel better. And I stopped right away, once he wasn't teasing anyone anymore."

"Hmm," Shaper mused thoughtfully. Then he paged through my file some more. "You carry standard paw-Marks," he noted. "The most common, least-revealing Marks of all." He smiled gently. "May I examine them?"

Why not? I didn't answer aloud. Instead I tried to control the sniffling and extended my hands. If I had to remain human, I vowed, at least I'd do so as a man and not a sniveling little boy. Shaper examined my Marks carefully, then after warning me that it might sting a bit rubbed them hard with his thumb. "Ah!" he said eventually, smiling. "I still have the touch."

"What?" I asked. "Can you tell me what I am?"

"No," he answered. "Not exactly. But... Look and tell me what you see."

I pulled my hands back and examined them as carefully as I could with tear-blurred eyes. Sure enough, two new and darker spots had revealed themselves, one on each palm. A matched pair of stylized arrowheads.

"Well!" Shaper declared. "That certainly helps clear things up. Or at least in terms of your little scuffle, it does." He smiled. "I had a hunch, and it turned out right after all."

"What hunch?" I asked. "Please sir? What can you tell me?

"You're part Indian, aren't you?" he asked. "You seem a little dark-skinned for someone with a German last name."

"Dad said so once," I answered. "Half, on his side. But he told me never to tell anyone, because... People don't like it, I guess."

Shaper nodded smugly. "Indian influences always scry out as arrowheads for me." Then he licked his lips. "Your Sister Magdalene warned us that sometimes you get a little carried away regarding certain things. Especially about people being abused or bullied." His eyes grew distant. "And your actions regarding the colored boy—they fit in too, now that I think about it." He smiled again. "Where exactly is your father from?"

"Alaska. He was born there. So was I."

For just a moment Shaper's smile slipped, then he recovered. "Well..." he explained. "Certain tribes in the Pacific Northwest—and that includes Alaska—were capable of performing primitive casting rituals. Like everyone else, when the magic returned they developed superstitions about why some of them were Marked while most weren't. But instead of things being like they were in Europe, where the Marked were persecuted, the Indians made people like you their holy men and tribal leaders."

I nodded, still not quite understanding.

"They also noticed that Marks run in families. So, purely out of self-interest, they performed birth-rituals on all the offspring of certain bloodlines. To make them more responsive to the needs of the tribe, you see. Focus them on group welfare instead of, say, conquest and personal glory. And incline them to employ their native powers to protect the weak and innocent, should they be lucky enough to develop any. Like, say, those that Midnight has."

I blinked. Had Dad actually... I mean, he'd also told me that we were of an extra-special Indian bloodline as well. But...

And, Midnight had powers?

"Ha!" Shaper declared, slapping his knee. "I'm certainly glad we worked this out. I'd have hated to lose you, son. Especially that way. But if you've been bespelled all your life as a Protector, who are we to fault you for acting in accord with your nature? It's natural enough for you to still be a bit lacking in restraint at fourteen, under the circumstances. For my two cents worth those Alaskan Indians in particular cast some damned fine spells; my guess is that we couldn't put a finer Guidance on your spirit if we tried. Besides... I'm why Frederick is here, see? And don't think I haven't taken full notice of everything you've done for him as well. All of which I now understand is perfectly, admirably in character for you." He frowned for a moment, then folded up Mrs. Algood's note and tore it into small pieces. "We'll reimburse her son's medical expenses, of course. And if complications set in we'll even bespell the bone. But..." He completed the last rip with relish, then with a gesture sent the remains floating off to be devoured by the green flame. "Don't get me wrong, son. There's still a lot that can go wrong for you, and this old Indian spell may prove as much a hindrance as a help. I need to do more research. But, for what it's worth you've passed the character tests cold. And the intellectual ones too, of course." He rose to his feet and extended his hand. "There's just one last thing," he added as, still a bit bewildered, I stood up as well and completed the handshake. "Midnight is an extraordinarily valuable commodity. You didn't need to trouble yourself. We wouldn't have let that ignorant little lout touch a hair on his head. You can take that to the bank. So next time you might want to consider being a bit more patient."

9

Guardian picked me up once Shaper was done with me, and I reckon she noticed right off that I'd been crying a little. She wasn't happy about that, so instead of sending me immediately back to class she told me to take the rest of the morning off. I could rejoin the other candidates after lunch. Normally I wouldn't have wanted things to be that way. I'd have washed my face, combed my hair, and bulled right on through the rest of the day like nothing ever happened. But Guardian looked so hurt that, just this once, I nodded and took things easy. That seemed to please her, which made me happy too. I liked her a lot.

So instead of sitting at a desk and pretending to work, I laid in my bunk and pretended to rest. With most people, the older they grew the fewer pretend-games they played. But in my case, it seemed like every year I was doing more of it. First I'd pretended to be a high-school graduate at fourteen, then I'd pretended to be a teacher, and now here I was not only pretending to be part-animal of some kind, but the product of some lost Indian ritual that'd forever shaped who I was and might ever be...

I sighed and rolled over, for once wishing that Father Branson were around. I wanted to ask him some questions. Free will, I knew, was a mighty important thing once you started talking about the rights and wrong of life. A lot of the books I'd read recently had spared a chapter or two for Aquinas and his uncaused cause, so I thought I had at least a pretty fair handle on the subject. But... I'd just been told, to my plain, naked face, that I was who I was at least in part not due to the choices I'd made but because of a spell that'd been cast so long ago I couldn't even remember it. If this were true—and in my gut I knew that it was, because it explained so many things about me—then, well... How could I be held accountable for my choices on Judgment Day? Was God gonna simply shrug and say "You never really had a choice, Christopher, and that's a valid excuse. Next!" And if I couldn't be held accountable for my actions, then who could?

I sighed and shifted position again on my soft, comfortable mattress. It was a lot better than the one I slept on at home, which had so many springs sticking out of it that I had to twist myself up just right if I wanted to get any rest. Most of the books on sorcery were all twisted and convoluted too, usually because they aimed to push one side of the issue or the other instead of being fair. Magic had only been back in the world for about a hundred and fifty years, and while that seemed like a mighty long time to me the experts mostly agreed that in terms of figuring out What It All Means a century and a half wasn't much at all. So the books were filled with questions instead of answers, whichever side of the issue they argued. What were the ultimate truths? No one knew. Just as, I'd long since begun to suspect, Father Branson didn't really know. Even though he honestly believed that he did.

And here I was, getting ready to dive headfirst into this enormous whirlpool of unknowables, and not even as my own master at that! Because Familiars, everyone knew, were ultimately property. Every bit as much as Frederick's mother and father—or at most his grandparents—had been property. The spells wouldn't work otherwise. When the time came, I wouldn't even have any choice as to who owned me. Though, I reminded myself, that was again only because the spells couldn't operate if I were allowed any say in the matter, not out of mean-spiritedness on the part of the Guild. That wasn't to say that the Guild didn't do everything they could to ease the situation, and make the chains ride as lightly as possible. The sorcerers disciplined each other ruthlessly, for example, in matters regarding the treatment of their Familiars. They were careful to frame requests, never give orders, and Familiars had the right to appeal their mistreatment to the highest Board of the Guild, where their cases were by both statute and tradition to be afforded the highest priority of all. And woe, woe, woe betide the mage who pressured his partner not to appeal, and then was later found out!

Could abject property, I wondered, have a soul? Father Branson didn't think so. Not all the gold and flashy magic in the world, he'd assured me, was worth the loss of one's soul. But Sister Magdalene disagreed, which she was allowed to do because the Pope had remained stone-silent on the entire subject of sorcery. Why, no one knew. Though some of my books hinted at dark satanic conspiracies...

I sighed and changed positions again, finally growing a little sleepy. I'd been cursed all my life with an over-active mind; some nights growing up I'd hardly slept at all, trying to come to grips with this or that aspect of the universe. It must be nice, I decided, to be like most kids—and even most adults!—and not have this nagging drive to ask questions, questions, and ever more questions that could never have answers. It'd be wonderful to grow up like Midnight, long-sure of who and what he was meant to be and surrounded by a loving, supportive family that was dedicated to making it easier on him. Dad had loved me, I knew beyond doubt. He hadn't made a lot of money, but spent too much of what little he had sending me to the parish school because it was the best around. He'd died in a train accident, trying to pull a young lady whose name I didn't even know out of the way of an oncoming train. She'd somehow fallen off the platform at the station. Dad hadn't died right away, or so they'd told me, and his last words on this earth had been that he loved me...

Suddenly I was bawling again, though I wasn't quite sure why. Which would've annoyed me to no end if the overwhelming sadness I was feeling hadn't been strong enough to drive out the minor passions. After all, I was supposed to be recovering from tears, not making more of them! But, there they were. And suddenly I knew why—it was because Dad had died doing exactly as I'd have done under the same circumstances. As I'd have been compelled to do, driven by a spell that'd been placed on me before I was even old enough to know what it was all about. And, of course, which my father had probably been shaped by as well. My fists balled, and I shook with rage. Who were these people? I demanded. Who were they, to take my father away and reshape my soul without so much as a by-your-leave, to distort the lives of others for the benefit their own? I pounded the mattress over and over and over; why couldn't they have just left me alone?

But who or what might I have become then, I wondered, left to my own devices? Perhaps that pathetic Algood kid who'd given Midnight so much grief? Or maybe his even more pitiful sidekick?

By then the tears and rage both had burned themselves out, and I was just another teen-aged boy trying to nap on a tear-dampened pillow. _Powers_ , a little voice whispered inside of me. It was a voice I knew well; my subconscious, I suspected, the part of me that often was three steps ahead of the rest in solving problems because it never ceased analyzing things no matter what. I'd learned long ago to listen very, very carefully when it spoke. _Midnight has Powers, and so do some of the others. The sorcerers all know his name, and wealthy Gwendolyn called him an old friend. Perhaps they were once tested together? What else would such a rich girl be doing here, if she didn't have Powers more valuable than gold? What would she have to gain?_

I blinked in the semi-darkness. And, she always wore those silk gloves...

_Powers!_ the voice observed again. _That_ ' _s the key to it all. Remember the books_ — _that_ ' _s all they speak of. But they understand far, far less than they know._

I nodded. So far, it all made sense. Even the greatest wizards were like a troop of monkeys playing with fire, so far as the big picture was concerned. If any of them knew anything really important about the universe, they weren't talking.

_They're almost as ignorant as you are, in the greater scheme of things,_ the voice whispered again. _And too blind to read between the lines. For what are your own exceptional talents, if not Powers as well?_

10

The second half of the day went a lot easier than the first part. I didn't get called back to Shaper's office, there weren't any more workbooks to fill out, and the little voice in my head that was so much smarter and grown-up than I really ought to be at fourteen didn't trouble me again. The other kids didn't think twice about my having been called away all morning, since a few of the others had been pulled away for interviews as well, and Midnight in particular seemed pleased at the new marks on my palms. "I don't know have the faintest idea what they mean," he admitted as he released my hands. "But it makes me happy to know that someone with a decent, fair heart has them." I wouldn't have read much into that, coming from anyone else. But, Midnight being Midnight, well... He had Powers, and that put a whole new light on the matter. For a long time afterwards I ran his words over and over again through my mind, as if they were a cryptic riddle and he an ancient oracle. Then I shrugged and decided that my feline friend was too nice a guy to play word-games with me about something so important. He'd probably meant exactly what he said, and there wasn't anything more or less to it. So, I decided it wasn't worth worrying about anymore.

My heavens! If I became a Familiar, was I going to spend the rest of my life seeking double meanings every time someone magical sneezed?

It was a good thing that Guardian didn't make me spend the whole day recovering, because our afternoon session was a whole lot better than the morning one. While we ate our lunches—wonderful ham sandwiches, chilled potato salad, chocolate chip cookies and leftover blueberry muffins, hurrah!—Guardian explained that the afternoon would be devoted to spending time with some animals. "You'd probably enjoy this more if you were younger," she admitted. "But we'd appreciate it if, just for today, you sort of pretended that you're little again. We're going to take you to a pen with all sorts of creatures in it. Things like goats and cows and bunny-rabbits, all very tame. We'd like for you to spend a little time there and play with them. There'll even be treats you can feed them, if you like."

As always, Guardian was as good as her word. We rode a mile or so to a little barn and fenced-in meadow. The place wasn't anything resembling a normal farm; instead, it looked as if it'd been set up for no other purpose than to support our evaluations. There were numerous small sitting-benches scattered about here and there, for example. A sparkly blue pond occupied one corner, and a swing dangled from a just-perfect tree limb.

"This is so lame," Timmy the sparrow whispered as we rolled along aboard a flatbed wagon pulled by same pair of huge horses that'd brought us up from Johnstown the night before.

"I don't know," Midnight replied with a shrug. "I like to swing."

They herded us all inside, then closed the gates behind us. I couldn't know what other sorts of kids came and went through Devard Castle every year, but they certainly underestimated our little group. First they let out the bunnies, perhaps because rabbits are about the least-scary kind of animals there are. And they weren't even wild bunnies; these were the big fluffy tame kind, eager to have their ears stroked and nibble the delicacies stored here and there in little jars for us to offer them. Soon Timmy was sitting on the ground with a bunny in his lap, and so were Cynthia and a half dozen others. But Frederick must've stumbled across a tastier batch of treats than I did, or else he had a special knack or something. Because soon he was laughing and smiling and half-mobbed with more than a dozen of the things all trying to nuzzle his face at once.

"At least he's happy," I murmured, nodding at the young negro as I tried unsuccessfully for perhaps the twentieth time to persuade a rabbit to accept a bit of carrot from me.

"Maybe he keeps bunnies at home or something," Midnight answered glumly. His carrots, seemingly, were as unpopular as mine.

For most of us, however, the misery was short-lived. As time passed more and more different kinds of animals were released, none of them dangerous and all quite tame. Soon we were surrounded by scratching chickens, ducks and geese paddled about the little pond, and puppies of a breed I'd never seen before capered and yapped and dashed about underfoot. There were kittens to play with too, or at least there would've been if Midnight hadn't hogged them all, and even a few colorful lizards that Guardian said were called geckoes; they were sent express-freight up from Florida every year, she claimed, just so we could spend a little time with them. A few of Guardian's helpers also carried baby zoo animals among us, so that we could stroke their soft fur and feed them from a bottle, if they did that sort of thing and happened to be hungry. Within a couple hours we didn't have to pretend we were little anymore. The animals were wonderful, and most of the poor city kids like me hadn't ever seen anything like the baby mountain lion or the leashed fox or the white-spotted deer-fawn or even the garter snake. None of them seemed to particularly care for me, though, no matter how hard I tried.

"I'm doing my best!" I explained to Guardian, who was having almost as much fun as we were with the fawn. "But it's like they're all afraid of me."

Her smile widened. "All we ask is that you try." Then her brow wrinkled. "You've never been around animals at all, growing up?"

"Nope," I replied, shaking my head. "Mrs. Dyson—she was in charge of cleaning up the church—had a dog. His name was Sam. But he hated me, even though he liked almost everyone else."

Her brow-wrinkles grew deeper. "Really?"

I nodded. "Uh-huh! And Sister Magdalene tried to set me up raising chickens once, so I could make a little egg money. But they wouldn't lay. Eventually, we gave up and sold them." I frowned. "After that they did fine. I never did figure out what was wrong."

She scowled and hugged the fawn closer to her—it was trembling, and trying to hide its head. "I see," she replied. "Well, let me finish making the rounds with this poor little guy. Why don't you go sit on the big bench by the gate and wait there?"

Gloomily I did as I was told; there were already two other boys there, plus Gwendolyn in her finery. I sat down next to her, but she didn't say anything either. Though if I looked real close, I thought I could make out a smug expression on her face.

"I don't get it," one of the other boys complained, after we'd sat around for a while and watched the others having fun. He was very big and fat. "They all hated me. Even the cute little babies."

"Me too," a second added. They were a strange pair; where the first was so heavy, this boy's physique was lean, stringy, and tough.

"Yeah," I agreed with a sigh. Meanwhile Gwen merely smiled prettily. My guess was that she knew something, but wasn't talking.

"It's because you're all meat-eaters," a super-deep voice said from behind us.

"We might just have a coyote here, if I'm any judge," a second, equally-deep voice agreed.

I turned around. But no one was there except the horses, which someone had turned loose to graze. "I..." I sputtered. "But..."

"Ha!" the first deep voice repeated, as the larger of the two horses bobbed his head up and down. "Gotcha!"

"You're..." the fat kid sputtered—his name might've been Pat, but I couldn't remember for sure. "You're..."

"Familiars," the smaller animal agreed, though in this case 'small' was certainly a relative term. I'd never seen such monsters! He bobbed his head vaguely in the direction of the other kids. "And so are some of the critters your friends are playing with. Be quiet and don't spoil their surprises; fooling people can be a lot of fun!"

My mouth worked silently a few times before I managed to spit any actual words out. "That's so unfair!" I finally protested.

"Heh!" the smaller horse replied, bobbing his head mirthfully. Then his smile—somehow it was obvious that he was smiling, though his face barely moved at all—faded. "Usually we work with the would-be equines. This year, however, there aren't any. So we've been assigned to you instead."

"But why aren't there—" the rangy boy (who really did rather resemble a coyote, now that I thought about it) began to say. Then his voice broke off cold.

"Exactly," the larger horse answered, hanging his head. "Most predators are dangerous creatures. So, they aren't selected."

"But," the fat boy protested, rising to his feet. "I want—"

"What you want doesn't matter," the smaller horse interrupted. "Neither in this regard nor many, many others, if by chance you are accepted." Then, with surprising gentleness he nuzzled the upset child. "There's still a chance. Lots of predators aren't so dangerous." He smiled again and looked at the lean boy. "Coyotes, for example. They take large dogs, or at least most of them. So I can't see why they wouldn't accept you as well." He looked away, not easy for a horse. "Though of course it's not my decision."

"Right," the lean boy replied, still unconvinced but at least a bit happier.

The larger horse looked at me, opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, then changed his mind. Instead, he smiled again. "I'm Bob. And my harness-mate here is Eric. When we're not pulling plows or wagons, we spend most of our time in a special stable near the Castle entrance. And, like we said, we've been assigned to you. To answer all your questions about being Familiars, and what it's really like. You're welcome anytime; we're here to help you in any way we can."

"We both like being Familiars," Eric added. "In fact, I consider it the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me."

"Me too," Bob agreed. He smiled again. "So, any questions?"

The fat boy scowled, then pointed at the big tree in the middle of the fenced pasture. "Aren't those monkeys?" he asked.

Bob smiled extra hard, while Eric bobbed his head up and down. "Yep," the latter agreed.

Now I was curious too. "But... You can only become a kind of animal that lives near where you were born! So why..."

"Ha!" Bob's laugh was a single explosive syllable. "That's easy!"

"You can work it out yourself, if you try," Eric added.

I scowled. "Someone wasn't born in America?"

"Got it in one!" Bob agreed, wuffling happily. "You should've seen the wizards scrambling!"

"At least he was easy to peg, species-wise," Eric agreed. "The boy looks more like a monkey than a human to begin with."

I remembered meeting a red-headed kid, with extra-long arms and legs at breakfast. I'd only seen pictures, but... "An Orang-u-tang?"

"Smart boy!" Bob praised me. Then he and Eric both laughed. "He's from Toronto. Sometimes the limey kids come here for evaluation, you see, because Aberdeen is so far away. We have a reciprocal arrangement with them; our Guild and the English one respect each other and get along pretty well."

"His father's in the Royal Engineers, so it's not really that strange that he was born in Borneo." Eric shook his head again in pure merriment. "They hadta locate a couple of the rarest, most exotic critters on the planet and have them shipped here on short notice. And baby ones at that, so they wouldn't be dangerous. You should've seen the Apprentices scramble! What a hoot!"

11

The rest of the week before the full moon almost flew by—so much stuff happened so quickly that the days practically blended together. There was more classwork, in which we learned what our role in spellcasting was to be. Which was mostly to sit around and be bored, just as everyone already knew. Our job was merely to exist and thereby serve as specialized amplifiers of magical power for those who held our leashes.

On the next day, two _very_ unexpected things happened. One of them was that Frederick actually spoke to me on his own initiative, without being addressed first. "Mr. Chris, suh?" he asked when we were in our bedroom alone together. "D'ya have a minute?"

I beamed with pleasure, even though he still wouldn't raise his eyes. "Of course!" I answered. "For you I have all day!" It was almost true; we were back to workbooks and I was far, far ahead of the crowd.

"Well, suh..." he began. Then he licked his lips and tried again. "Miz Guardian said I should speak to you, suh."

I nodded patiently. We'd work on the 'Mr. Chris' and 'sir' in due course, but then and there clearly wasn't the right moment. "About what?"

There was another long silence. "It's 'bout my reading, suh. I'm not doing so good with it."

It took some awkward questioning, but gradually I came to understand that Frederick was something approaching illiterate. "I see," I replied eventually.

A single tear ran down his cheek. "I ain't had much schoolin, see? I's got to work in the fields. And I... I..." He held out his workbook, the first one that he should already be long done with, in shame. There wasn't a mark in it.

I sighed and thought about it for a minute. "There's no way on earth I can teach you to read in a week. Less than that now, really."

Frederick's head fell even further, though I hadn't thought it possible. "I know," he whispered. "It's just that..."

He didn't have to finish. Four empty seats had appeared our breakfast table that morning. I hadn't known any of their usual occupants all that well, but didn't particularly need for anyone to draw me a map, either. "Miz Guardian said that you'd be the best one to help me out of everyone here, even including the adults. She said that if you did, she'd excuse you from some of your other assignments."

I nodded. "Well, they certainly understand that I can't teach you to read that quickly, so they must have something else in mind. Like, maybe if I read this stuff to you, and then write your answers down for you?"

"That'd work!" Freddie replied, smiling like I'd never seen him do before. The dark flesh of his face made his teeth seem extra-white. It was pretty neat-looking, so far as I was concerned. "I can listen real good!"

I smiled back. "I'm sure you can." There was nothing wrong with Freddie's intellect that I could see. He was like some of the orphans we got from 'way up in the mountains, was all. Kids who hadn't ever been in a classroom. Except that he'd also been beaten down to nothing, of course. Which of the two was by far the greater crime. "I'll check with Guardian and make sure that's what she has in mind. If so, I'll get back with you about setting up a tutoring schedule."

"You bet, Mr. Chris suh!" He smiled again, just as dazzlingly as before, and went running off to join the others. It was the happiest I'd ever seen him, except when he was with the bunnies.

****

That same afternoon, a stranger showed up at the Castle. He wore an ornate black robe, very different from any I'd seen before, and had a big scar running down one cheek. The man was obviously a foreigner, though I wasn't sure just how I knew. He arrived just before lunch, and I ran into him in the hallway right after meeting with Guardian about Freddie's tutoring. She'd just approved my plan and I'm afraid I wasn't thinking about what I was doing. Instead, my mind was a thousand miles away, working out enough times and places for my new student and I to sit down together before the Big Day to allow him to catch up. Even worse, I was sort of jogging because I was late. Or maybe even a little more than just jogging. The results were predictable. Bam! I rounded the last corner and smashed full into his chest, knocking me clean off of my feet and causing the stranger to stagger back as if he'd received a mighty blow. "Mein Gott!" he declared, "Was ist dieses?"

I didn't understand most of the words, though the 'Gott' part penetrated. "I'm so terribly sorry!" I gushed, climbing to my feet and almost tripping over them again in my eagerness to apologize. "Please, forgive me!"

The stranger's face went hard for an instant, then he turned to Shaper and laughed. That was the first time I'd noticed Shaper was there, and I didn't at all care for the frown that was spreading across his face. What a stupid way to get myself in trouble!

"Ach!" the stranger finally said, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. "Boys will be boys, I suppose." Though it sounded more like "Boyz vill be boyz". He smiled and extended his hand. "I'm Baron Attache."

I nodded and accepted it, my eyes widening. He was a mage, of course, so 'attaché' must've been his current job rather than his birth-name. But he was a Baron as well? I'd never met a Baron before! "Christopher Speiss," I replied, smiling as best I knew how. "And I really am powerful sorry."

"P-pow... " the Baron stuttered, looking confused. He turned to Shaper, who smiled.

"It's an idiom," he explained. Then he reached out and patted my head. "It means that he's most regretful, sir."

"Ach!" the Baron repeated, nodding. Then his eyes narrowed a little. "Speiss... That's a good German name. Sprichst du Deutsch?"

I shook my head. "No, sir. I'm sorry."

"Too bad," the Baron answered, his face falling a little. He turned back to Shaper. "You Americans pay so little attention to matters of blood. Where in my homeland, these are the most important affairs of all."

Shaper smiled. "Here we judge the person himself. Not who his parents were." The wizard laid his hand on my shoulder. "Christopher here, for example, is in many ways a most exceptional young man. When he's not running in the hallways, that is. But we don't assume it's because he's German. For us, that has nothing whatsoever to do with it."

"This is why your nation doesn't have a nobility worthy of the name," the foreigner replied. "Where your finest bloodlines can be concentrated and placed in positions of leadership. Though there's always hope."

Shaper shrugged, then looked back at me. "You go ahead and eat now, son. I'm sure you're plenty hungry. And, just so you know, I approve of your working with Frederick. In fact, I'm most grateful to you for the help."

I nodded and smiled again, then turned towards the Baron. "I'm terribly sorry I ran into you, sir," I repeated.

He replied with an odd little bow. "Es war nichts," he answered.

Then I was on my way to sit down next to Freddie and eat with my friends, glad to part company with the strange man. Would he have been half so nice to me, I wondered, if he'd known that by his way of measuring things I was at least as much a savage aboriginal as I was a German?

12

"He gave me the willies," Timmy said as he delicately picked at his meal. Today it was ham sandwiches again, which none of us minded because they were so good, and great big bowls of salad. Frederick was tearing into the greens like a starving man, while I was pleased to see four blueberry muffins strategically placed near my right elbow. Midnight had some sort of tinned fish on his plate, which smelled pretty heavenly to me as well. Clearly someone was paying attention to our eating preferences and doing their best to cater to them.

"I didn't like him much either," Midnight agreed. You could see in his eyes how much he appreciated the fish, though he made a show of eating disdainfully regardless. Sometimes it was hard to tell how much was an act and how much was the genuine feline in him showing through. "There's just _something_ about him."

"He's a bad, bad man," Gwen pronounced in a tone that brooked no argument. And that's all there was to it; when she spoke in _that_ manner, the rest of us already knew better than to disagree. Not because she became rude or unpleasant or impolite—Gwendolyn was never any of these things. Rather, it was because she was invariably proven correct. I gulped and decided not to mention my own encounter with the Baron; he'd just been introduced to the rest of the candidates, so it was natural that he was the subject of discussion. Apparently he'd come to learn about how Familiar candidates were evaluated in the United States. So instead of chiming in, I put the time to more profitable use by forcing down an extra muffin.

The next few days weren't nearly as interesting as our first. We didn't get to go play with the animals again. Mostly we spent our time on schoolwork, which took forever for Frederick and I to slog through together. While he and I spent hour after hour sweating over his books, the rest of the kids met more Familiars, some of whom I'd very much have liked to have gotten to know. There was an anteater who'd been born in South America, for example, who everyone said was an especially nice lady. She explained that, while she liked being a Familiar very much indeed, she now regretted her choice because it left her unable to have kids of her own. Or even to get married; there weren't any other anteater Familiars around anywhere at the present time, it seemed. I'd have missed all of this working with Freddie, except that Cynthia spent about an hour late one evening bending my ear on the subject. It seemed to have touched her deeply. "Not just no kids, but forever a snake!" she whispered to me late one night after sneaking out of her room to come talk to me. "I don't know... I mean..."

I pressed my lips together and sighed. Back in the little pen when we'd played with the animal, Cynthia hadn't been much of a hit with the lizards. Though perhaps that was natural—a lot of snakes ate lizards, didn't they? And, of course, I had no idea of how she'd done with the garter snake. Yet something felt very wrong about Cynthia being a serpent, no matter how her Marks looked.

"Daddy's been sending telegrams every day," she continued with a sigh. "Have you any idea what that _costs_? And he's looking for a house in Florida where it's always warm." She rolled her eyes. "A _big_ house. That's all he ever thinks about—money, money, money and what he can buy with it. Ever since my Mark appeared." She scowled. "He hasn't been back to the department store in weeks. I'm afraid he's already quit his job."

I closed my eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry," I said at last.

She shook her head. "Don't be. I'm sorry for you, in fact."

I blinked. "Why?"

"Everyone knows you're going to be weeded out," she answered, lowering her eyes. "That's why you're allowed to miss so much of the program to work with Frederick—you'll never be a Familiar anyway." She shook her head. "It's so unfair! Out of all of us..."

I blinked, rather caught off guard. This was all news to me. Had everyone assumed someone else told me?

"I mean... Everyone knows that Freddie is a special case. He deserves to be given a chance, no matter what. Because of... Well, it's too wretched to talk about. And he's such a sweet boy! But..." She shook her head again. "They shouldn't use you like this. It just isn't fair. They should've sent you home the moment they worked out that you were going to become a powerful predator. It's just plain cruel, is what it is!"

I spent a long moment looking off into the darkness. "Well," I said at last, after exploring several possibilities and finding that the puzzle pieces did indeed fit together best Cynthia's way. "If I can help Frederick, it's probably worth it."

"Oh, Christopher!" Cynthia sighed. "You're so sweet, and so strong, and so... Noble. That's just exactly the right word. Noble." Then, just maybe, her lips brushed my cheek in the darkness. After which there came a flutter of skirts, then a rapidly-fading series of quick, feminine footsteps. And she was gone.

13

Saturday, June the twenty-seventh, should've been an easy day for us all. That night the full moon would rise, we youngsters would be subjected to spells that'd encourage our natural tendencies towards hooves or paws or scales or whatever, and we'd spend the next two weeks experiencing a whole new way of life and deciding if it really _was_ for us or not. Because this was the Big Day, in theory at least we were excused from all classwork and held to no timetable; indeed, we were encouraged to sleep in. Or most of us were, at least. Freddie and I began the day at the crack of dawn, far behind in our studies but grimly determined to catch up with the rest. The stuff in the workbooks was _important_ , especially to someone like Freddie who was encountering many of the facts for the first time. He needed to understand every last chapter in order to make a good decision. "You mean they're gonna _own_ me, suh?" he interrupted at one point. "Like, like..."

"Like a slave," I agreed, meeting his eyes and nodding sadly. "It can't work any other way—that's the price you pay for all the money and such." I sighed. "Which won't even actually be yours, technically. They say that in practical terms it doesn't make any difference. But obviously at _some_ level it does."

My student's eyes went big and round. "Well... I mean..."

"You don't have to do this," I reminded him. "No one's going to make you. You're still free, Freddie. And you can stay that way, if you prefer."

His jaw worked, and tears filled his eyes. "But Pa! He works _so_ hard..."

Then suddenly his face screwed up and I was hugging his head to my chest. "I know, Freddie," I whispered as his tears soaked into my best shirt. "I know. And God knows I'd spare you this, if only I could."

I finished up with my student about two o'clock, then went to see Guardian and tell her that I thought he needed even more support than I was able to give him. "Do you people understand how much you're asking of him?" I whispered, looking down at her desktop. "I mean, have you really thought this through?"

She sighed and folded her hands. "Of _course_ we have. And we wish that things could be easier for the poor child. But... Have you considered matters from _our_ point of view yet?"

I shook my head, still not looking up. "No."

"Well..." She leaned back in her chair. "The way we treat negroes in this nation is a crime. Do you agree?"

I nodded slowly. No one who'd ever spent much time with Freddie, and who also had anything resembling a heart, could ever think otherwise.

"Good," she agreed. "But things are as they are. Even we mages can't simply wave a magic wand and make all the hate and stupidity vanish, abra-cadabra! What we _can_ do, however, is try to lead the way by introducing negroes into our ranks at all levels." She sighed. "Again, however, things are as they are and not as we might wish for them to be. Sure, there's a handful of negro intellectuals out there, as smart as anyone and full of fire to prove the point. But, sadly, none of them have yet tested positive for magical ability. And among the uneducated, superstitious masses of all races, things like Marks and magical tendencies are cause for terror. Not celebration." She sighed. "We've been trying for several years now to find a young negro both willing and able to become a mage. Trying very energetically in fact; the Guild is uniquely placed in American society to do as it damned well pleases and ignore the cries of outrage. But so far there just haven't been any. And Frederick is our very first Familiar candidate."

I scowled. "You can't ask him to become a slave," I declared, after thinking about it for a few minutes. "You just _can't_!"

Guardian tilted her head to one side. "Are you saying," she asked softly, "that a negro shouldn't have the same opportunities as a white man? Just because he's a negro?"

I sat silent for a few minutes, my fists clenching and unclenching. "You could fail him," I pointed out eventually. "On academic grounds. It'd be justified and everyone knows it. Even him."

" _Would_ everyone believe it?" she asked, her eyes distant. Then she sighed and shook her head. "I doubt it, myself. The Baron has already complained long and loud in public places about a 'schwartz' being considered at all. In fact, I rather suspect that Freddie is why he's here. He seems to feel that having a 'racial inferior' in the program is a slur on everyone related to magic everywhere." She pressed her lips together. "It's hard on Freddie, yes. And if he says 'no' we'll all understand. But it's always extra-hard on those who go first. Someone has to suffer for the sins of our fathers, innocent or no." She shook her head. "In this very special case, we can teach him to read later. His character is good, and his Marks are valid. The rest simply _must_ be up to him."

I nodded and got up to leave. "I guess I didn't think it all the way through after all," I admitted.

"You're too closely involved to see the big picture," she countered. "That's all. And it's a mighty big picture to take in. All at once and in a hurry, I mean. Besides... Once someone's cried in your lap, it's not easy to be dispassionate."

I blushed a very dark red. "I... I didn't..."

"It's me that should be sorry," she answered. "I came upstairs to check on how you two were doing. And, well..." She shook her head. "At any rate, your misgivings do you great credit. In my book, at least."

I nodded slowly, then turned to leave. "Thank you, Guardian. For everything."

"No," she answered. "It's I that must thank _you_. How we'd have handled this situation without your help, I can't imagine." She sighed and shook her head. "In magic, there are no coincidences. The more wildly improbable an event seems, the more likely it is to carry a deeper meaning. For a boy like you with your special talents to arrive here just when we needed you..." She shook her head again. "I'm glad I've had the opportunity to offer my thanks."

I nodded again, then closed my eyes. "You're thanking me now," I said slowly, "because there won't be a later. They're not going to Change me tonight. Are they?"

There was a long, awkward silence. "They weren't planning to," she admitted. "But... Would you like to be? Even though you know you'll never be accepted?"

I thought about Midnight, and nodded slowly. "It's the only chance I'll ever have."

Another long, quiet time passed. "Well," Guardian finally said. "Everyone here knows that we owe you. And, just so you know, our gratitude is going to take a fairly substantial form regardless. You've earned it and more. You're right, however, when you say that this is your one and only chance to explore that side of yourself." She rose to her feet. "I make no promises, mind you. Because you're asking for more than you probably realize. But I'll go see if I can't cash in some old chips and get Shaper to do me a personal favor." She placed one hand on my shoulder, then bent over and kissed me gently on the back of the neck. "Frederick's not the only deserving young man around here, after all."

14

I was sort of surprised at how the rest of June Twenty-Seventh went, but probably shouldn't have been. At first I couldn't find any of the others, not even by hanging around Bob and Eric's stable. The two were so open and friendly and easy to be around that we prospects often went there to ask our questions, even those of us assigned to other mentors. They seemed surprised to see me; I guess I was supposed to be gone already. "Try the courtyard, kid," Eric advised me between huge gulps of fodder. "That's where they always end up on the last day. Unless it's raining, that is."

"And..." Bob added tossing his head, "It's been good to know you! You're something special, whether you're part of the program or not. I only wish you could've spent more time hanging out with us."

Bob and Eric were canny characters indeed, so I took their advice. And sure enough the first thing I saw when I rounded the corner was...

...Midnight, in his usual cat getup, attempting to play baseball.

It was a pathetic sight, in a way. He was up at bat, with Kimball the orang-u-tang kid pitching. And he couldn't hit the ball to save his life. "Strike six!" little Timmy cried out from behind the plate as the feline took yet another futile swing. Then he tossed the ball back to the pitcher. "Don't throw it quite so hard next time, Kim! Maybe that'll do it!"

I shook my head, puzzled for a moment. Then understanding finally flowed in and sort of melted my heart. Midnight had probably never had a chance to play baseball before. The other kids wouldn't let him. So he was taking full advantage of his very last opportunity.

Ever.

And for the first time, I understood what it _really_ meant to become a Familiar.

I sort of tiptoed past the boys without them noticing me; it didn't seem right to intrude, even though I knew they would've welcomed me into the game. The girls weren't far away, dressed in their best finery and listening to a gramophone that just had to be Gwen's; only she could afford such a precious toy. It was playing something lively and scratchy and beautiful, and I listened with a sort of silly half-smile on my face as the clockwork spun. I'd heard gramophones play before—twice, in fact, at church. And their music was indeed something quite special. But what made me smile was the sight of Gwendolyn and Cynthia paired off and dancing with each other on the beautifully trimmed lawn, as the third remaining girl in our class sat under the gazebo and patiently awaited her turn. Cynthia was a fine dancer; no moss was growing on her. But Gwen! My jaw dropped as she twirled and dipped as if taught in the finest of schools, which was of course very likely the case. When the song ended and all that remained of the melody was a loud crackling sound the girls faced each other, curtsied solemnly...

...and then laughed and laughed, about what I had no idea whatsoever. Until they turned to me as one and Gwen said, "Come on out of the trees, Christopher. We know you're there."

I did so, blushing furiously. "I wasn't spying!" I assured them. "I just didn't want to interrupt!"

"Of course not," Cynthia replied. "You're much too sweet to spy."

"Indeed!" Gwen agreed in her haughty, too-elegant accent. Then the other girl nodded too.

By now it was obvious that what the girls were doing was every bit as important for them as Midnight's single lifetime at-bat was to him. "Really," I repeated. "I didn't want to interrupt."

"Then pay toll," Cynthia suggested.

"Right!" the small, plain girl who was to become a cowbird agreed. Her name was Suzy, I suddenly remembered. "Wonderful idea!"

"You first!" Gwen agreed, gently pushing me towards her.

"I—" I sputtered. "But—" They weren't having any of it, however. Not on their very last dancing-day ever.

"Can you waltz?" Gwen demanded, looking me up and down as if I were a piece of meat.

I nodded. "Sister Magdalene made me learn."

"Wonderful!" she gushed, picking out a record and winding up the machine.

It wasn't so bad, really. Suzy proved to be an even worse dancer than I was, but her smile was radiant and she was warm and soft in my arms. Cynthia was less of a problem; I actually sorta liked her, though I hadn't ever gotten around to saying so and probably wouldn't have for a couple-three years in the natural order of things. But _Gwendolyn_!

Dancing with Gwen was enough to take a man's breath away.

It wasn't just that her dress was made of finer materials or that she wore expensive cosmetics or that she smelled of jasmine and honey, though all of these of course helped. Rather, there was just _something_ about how she moved, how the music flowed through her and thus became something physical and part of her beauty. It all came effortlessly to her; that was part of the charm. She spoke freely with me the whole time, perhaps even more freely than she might've otherwise.

"I'm so glad you happened by, Christopher," she whispered in my ear. "Because I've been wanting to talk to you."

Unlike Gwen, I wasn't nearly a good enough dancer to make an easy and effortless reply without breaking my concentration. "Yes?"

"I just wanted to tell you that you shouldn't take it amiss if you're not chosen." There was a long pause. "Teddy didn't make it either, you see."

I nodded slightly, trying to concentrate. Onetwothree, onetwothree... "Teddy who?" I asked.

"Why... Teddy Roosevelt, of course!" she replied, almost missing a step in shock at my not recognizing the name.

"Oh," I answered, feeling very small.

"He told me so himself," she explained. "After Father spoke to him about my situation. In a private room, because no one else was to know."

I blinked. Gwen had been in a private room with Teddy Roosevelt? "Wow!" I whispered.

"He was only in the Cabinet back then, I think," she explained. "Or something like that. Not nearly so important a man as he is now. But... They turned him down, Chris. Him! The boy who grew up to become the hero of San Juan Hill! And he was an owl, not a dangerous species at all. So, if they don't take you..."

"Right," I agreed. "Thank you!"

"You're most welcome," she answered. "In any event, I rather think you'll live a long, important life of your own. You don't have to be involved with magic to become a good person, or even an exceptional one. Teddy's proof of that." She shuddered and looked down. "I hope they turn me down too," she said softly. "Not that there's much chance of that left, this late in the game. But... I _so_ hope they do."

"Why?" I asked.

"Well," she replied as the music slowly wound down. "Let's just say that you'll find me a much less desirable dance partner, come midnight or so." She shook her head. "I wouldn't even be here, but... It's a matter of duty, you see. Both of my grandfathers and one uncle died in the Civil War. Being turned down after giving my best is the only honorable way out."

"They were men," I pointed out.

Suddenly Gwen's eyes were cold and remote. "Women can love their country every bit as much as do men, Mr. Speiss. Or more importantly, love humanity as a whole. As someday I hope you'll come to understand." Then, as if on cue, the music stopped and my partner was curtseying deeply in front of me. Reflexively I bowed as well. When I straightened back up Gwen was smiling again, with a happy sparkle in her eyes. "You _will_ understand someday," she said, as much to herself as to me. "And probably sooner rather than later. You have the capacity, if any man does." Her smiled widened. "Thank you for the dance, Mr. Speiss. Your toll is paid in full. You may go play ball now, if you like."
15

By then a little baseball would've been nice, because once I didn't have dancing on my mind anymore I got all nervous and excited over maybe actually being Changed after all. I'd sort of given up on the idea after Cynthia warned me that I probably didn't have a chance. But now... Unfortunately, the dinner bell rang before I could even put my glove on. "Did Midnight get his hit?" I demanded of Timmy as we jogged towards the kitchen door together.

He smiled. "A double! And the fielder didn't hafta bobble it much to make it one, neither!"

I smiled and patted the soon-to-be small bird on the shoulder, delicately so as not to harm him. "That was extra-special nice. Of all of you."

He blushed. "Well... What else were we gonna do, on his last day?"

I nodded and smiled again. Maybe I had the best of both worlds after all? To be Changed temporarily, that was, and know I'd be returned on the twelfth of July. To experience what it was like for a time, and then be given back my body, my personal freedom, and my soul. Or at least that was how things might go if I was lucky, I reminded myself. If not, I could still find myself aboard a slow train back to Seattle at a moment's notice.

As we'd been warned, dinner wasn't much. We might get sick during the Change if we had food in our stomachs, so all we were allowed was lemonade, a few tiny hard candies, and all the water we cared to drink. Then, one by one and two by two, they began leading us off to be transformed into what otherwise would have eternally been our ghostly, not-quite-real alternate forms. They took Midnight first, which was no surprise, and Kimball. "See you in a couple days, when we can talk again!" Kimball declared, waving to everyone. His tone was brave, even though the shiny track of a single tear down his cheek betrayed the frightened boy lurking just behind the false front. Midnight smiled and waved as well, then looked directly at me. "Everything's going to turn out all right for you, Christopher. More than all right, even. For both yourself and for everyone else. So don't worry—I'm quite certain about it." Then he meowed, the first time I'd ever heard him do such a thing, and was gone.

"What did he mean by that?" Guardian demanded.

"Just what it sounded like, I suppose," I replied with raised eyebrows. "How should I know?" Then I noticed that every wizard and apprentice in the room was either staring at me or whispering in each other's ear, and blushed.

"They're going to Change you for sure now, I bet!" she answered, smiling. "Now that he's said _that_ , I mean." I grinned back. Had Midnight done it on purpose just to get me Changed, I wondered? Or had he genuinely experienced some sort of prophetic insight? Only he could know for sure, which was the beauty of the thing. I actually chuckled a little, it seemed so funny. Who would really be in charge in his case, master or Familiar? Either way, I was grateful to him.

Next they came for Suzy and Gwen. The latter was busy in the women's facilities, however, so there was a bit of a delay. We candidates had been singing camp songs together to help ease the strain, but all of us broke out in laughter when we saw that her mouth was stuffed full and she was chewing furiously. "Gwendolyn!" Guardian chastised her. "How _could_ you?"

"Wouldn't you do exactly the same thing?" she asked after she swallowed, meeting her counselor's eyes dead on without flinching an iota. "Under the circumstances, I mean?"

Guardian scowled, but said nothing. Then they led the girls off, and there were only a handful of us left. Cynthia, left without anyone to sit next to, sort of snuggled up beside me and squeezed my upper arm, tightly enough to cause pain. But I said nothing until they called her, then offered her a reassuring smile as she looked back one last time with frightened eyes.

In the end I was the last of all to be called. But called I was, though whether it was due to Midnight's last-minute intercession or something else I'd never know. "Christopher," Shaper himself called from the hallway. "It's time. Baron Attache is waiting for you."

16

I wasn't particularly pleased to learn that Baron Attache was going to be the one to Change me. But, as Bob and Eric had pointed out recently, it often didn't matter in the least what one wanted when dealing with magic.

"...is an internationally recognized expert in the field," Shaper assured me as we entered further and further into the depths of Devard Castle. "In fact, it's quite gracious of him to volunteer to demonstrate his technique. In Germany they accept dangerous-species candidates as Familiars all of the time, you see. The Baron has transformed dozens. No one's dealt with more." He sighed, then stopped us both right in the middle of the corridor. "Christopher, he may even offer you a position as a German Familiar. If you're interested, I won't stop you from taking it. But I think it'd be a pretty bad idea."

"Why's that?" I asked.

Shaper sighed. "Sometimes it seems as if we have so many reasons for turning Familiar candidates down that it's a miracle any of them make it through. And, when I have to reject a young man or woman, well... You might not believe this, but it usually just about breaks my heart. Because most of them want it pretty badly as a rule, you see. And also because I know how hard it'll be on them to return to an ordinary, mundane life after seeing what it's like here."

I nodded, but said nothing.

"In your case, however..." He sighed and shook his head again. "Christopher, every once in a while I'm _pleased_ to reject someone, because in so doing I feel like I'm doing them a favor. While not all boys and girls with the potential to become Familiars are children of extraordinary potential, an amazing percentage of you are. We Guildsmen would effectively be robbing the human race of far too many of their best and brightest if we allowed them all to become in essence professional time-wasters."

"I see," I answered, nodding slowly. "And that's why Teddy Roosevelt isn't a Familiar today?"

"You know about that?" he asked, eyebrows rising. "Please, don't repeat it. He's liable to run for national office someday, you know. The man might even be the vice-president today, if..." Then he shook his head. "Never mind that. My point, son, is that you're one of those best and brightest. The kind that we throw back, so to speak, for the good of the whole. I wouldn't accept you even if you were a harmless bunny like your friend Frederick. Because you're _too good_ , you see. Not because you're a failure."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I just stood there and looked at the floor.

"Which is why," he continued, "I'm asking you to make me a little promise. Please, Chris. Think the Baron's offer over long and hard before accepting it, and give proper consideration to what I've just said. We can and will open doors for you if you decide to remain human—doors to opportunities that you've probably never even imagined exploring. For example..." He smiled. "Both the army and navy maintain full-time liaison staffs with us. For reasons that I don't care to discuss just now, we prefer that officers be assigned to us while still young and then spend their entire careers doing nothing else. These officers are West Point and Annapolis graduates, as qualified and respected as any others in their services. If we suggested you, I somehow can't see them telling us to go pound sand."

I gulped. "Wow!"

He nodded and smiled. "You'd get to see Midnight again, and some of your other friends here. Maybe even work closely with them. And, if I've interpreted that birth-spell of yours correctly, it's a career you'd find especially fulfilling."

"Maybe," I agreed.

"Or maybe not," Shaper continued. "After all you're only fourteen, no matter how mature you seem sometimes. So you still have plenty of time to decide. The Guild has contacts in medicine, engineering, even politics and the law. And we'd be eager to have you aboard, son. In almost any capacity. Except that of a Familiar."

I nodded slowly. "Why do the Germans accept dangerous-species candidates like me, while you don't?"

He scowled. "Because we aren't willing to bind our Familiars as tightly as they do—I was just getting around to warning you about that. And, frankly..." He sighed. "You've gathered by now that each species has its own strengths and weaknesses in various aspects of magic?"

I nodded.

"Large predators—apex predators, I've heard naturalists call them—are really only good for one thing. And that's war-magic, Christopher. Spells that destroy things and hurt people. Something we have as little to do with as possible here."

17

They let me strip down in a private cubicle and gave me a blanket to wrap myself in. "It's more practical than a robe," Shaper explained before he left. "Robes tear instead of giving way." Then he paused. "I'll be watching the Baron every second, son. And, just so you know, I've told him a little fib about your birth-spell." He smiled and laid his hand on my shoulder one last time. "Those Pacific Northwest tribal enchantments aren't well known outside of the United States and Canada, and just maybe it might be wiser if we kept this one as our little secret."

I nodded again and smiled. Then he was gone and I found myself patiently waiting for I didn't know what, wrapped in a nice, soft blanket, staring at a blank wall and probably looking for all the world like an overgrown infant. Until finally Guardian came for me with a Bath chair, a happy smile on her face. "Climb on in," she directed. "And let's take a little ride."

I didn't think I needed the Bath chair. But I felt a little woozy as I stood up, and if Guardian hadn't caught me I might've fallen over. That wasn't at all like me; had I been magicked already? "Easy, kid," Guardian whispered as she eased me into the seat and placed my hands firmly in my lap. "You just sit and enjoy the ride. I'll be with you every minute."

I nodded a little, not trusting myself to speak. Suddenly I was so terribly tired! The long corridor passed in a blur, and before I quite realized what was happening they were arranging me on a huge table, none too concerned with my modesty.

"The subject is in a light trance," the Baron was explaining as someone helped him don a rather grotesque animal mask. I tried to work out what kind of animal it might represent, but between my not feeling so well and the thing being so heavily bespelled, well... All I could make out were individual impressions, never the mask as a whole. Sharp teeth. Cold eyes. Lean, hungry cheeks. "The trance is essential with potentially dangerous subjects," he continued. "Not just to prevent them from harming others, but so that they cannot damage themselves, either."

"Wolverines are nasty critters," a new voice observed. It came from a very mundane-looking man, except in that he wore rough outdoorsy clothing and had a huge, bushy beard. "In my mind, that's probably the worst-case scenario. I've trapped dozens of the things, and they don't ever settle down and accept their fate. Ain't no way a trance is even gonna slow one down." He shook his head. "I sure hope we don't have one of _those_ on our hands." There was a long, flat box lying on the table beside him. Just right for concealing a heavy rifle, I reckoned. Which should've scared the heck out of me, except that everything was a dream and dreams couldn't hurt anyone, now could they?

"He won't be a wolverine," Guardian declared flatly. "For my money he's just a harmless otter. The kid really knows how to have fun when he puts his mind to it."

I tried to mumble something about how wonderful Midnight's canned fish had smelled to me the other night, but all that came out was sort of a confused moan that everyone ignored.

"He's too chunky to be an otter," Shaper countered. "I rather fear that perhaps..." Then he let his voice trail off. I nodded in silent agreement. It was hard to imagine an Indian tribe embracing the otter as their ultimate guardian and protector. Besides, it just didn't _feel_ right.

"I must read up these wolverine creatures," the Baron observed, slightly out of synchronization with the rest of the conversation because of a spell he'd been muttering. "They sound as if they might have considerable potential. Now, please for there to be silence. The main procedure begins."

18

At first I didn't think much was happening as the Baron spread his arms and invoked incantation after incomprehensible incantation. In fact, if the trance hadn't totally messed up my time-sense I might well have grown bored lying there. I did in fact grow rather cold, or at least those parts of me not covered by the blanket did. But then the Baron anointed my head with nasty-smelling stuff that burned like fire. I yelped and tried to shrink away from the pain, but wherever I moved it followed me. Soon I was tossing and turning and rolling in what must've been agony, although later it somehow seemed as if the pain had happened to someone else. Then at long last the Baron touched me with his ornately-carved wand, the flames exploded into white-hot agony, and I felt as if I'd eaten a big lump of bread-dough which was now remorselessly rising, rising, rising inside of me.

I vomited then, just as I'd been warned I would, long and hard and completely, just missing Shaper's robe. But the dough-rising sensation didn't go away. It just kept getting worse and worse and worse...

...until suddenly I noticed that the table I was lying on wasn't so large after all. And that the electric globe in the ceiling wasn't nearly as far away as it'd once been, either. And, most disturbing of all, that everyone was staring at me, eyes wide and mouths gaping.

"It's just me," I tried to say. "I'm still fine—everything's quite all right!" But all that came out was a low, rumbling, angry-sounding "Rawrrr!" sound that made everyone take half a step back and the trapper reach for his rifle-box. "Grrrr!" I declared again, looking down at my brown, fingerless paws, which felt both terribly wrong and very right at the same time. "Gruuuung!" Even as I stared at them, I felt my nose and mouth stretch into something new. Watched it happen, even! With every alteration the pain lessened, which was a Very Good Thing. Between that and the trance, I felt myself calming back down to something resembling normal again. It must've showed, because the wizards relaxed a little too. Even better, the trapper's hand eased away from his gun. Then finally it was finished and I'd become some sort of big brown quadruped, perched delicately atop a much-too-small examination table. A bear, apparently. Though I was still far too befuddled to worry much about what kind.

"Jesus Christ on a jumprope!" the trapper exclaimed. "He's a Kodiak or my name isn't Jim Jefferson! So big, and yet not full-grown!"

"A Kodiak!" Guardian repeated. "Oh my... I never even..."

" _So_ powerful!" the Baron whispered, shaking his head in awe. "So _much_ potential!" But Shaper merely smiled, eyes sparkling. Had he known all along?

I shook my head, still a bit confused by it all. It was uncomfortable, trying to perch atop such a small table. So I sort of leaned forward, nodded my head up and down rapidly, and grunted again in a quieter, gentler way. Shaper, who was standing directly in front of me, got the hint. "He wants down, I think," he explained, stepping aside.

"Urrrgh!" I agreed, nodding again as everyone made room. Then I slowly leaned forward, the idea of employing all four limbs for the purpose of locomotion still something new and alien...

...and with a loud crack the table collapsed to the floor, tumbling me head-over-heels among the startled wizardry. "Unnngh!" I declared again, gingerly rising to my feet—how terribly strange it all felt!—and attempting to establish whether I'd damaged anything in the fall or not. This wasn't as straightforward a process as it sounds, since I wasn't yet at all certain of how I was supposed to feel even when everything was working perfectly. But I sniffed myself thoroughly—my heavens, what I nose I now had!—and detected no odor of blood. Then I sat down, raised my head...

...and realized that the others were staring at me again, this time in something other than awe. Even worse both Shaper and the Baron wore determined expressions on their faces and had their wands pointed at me; clearly they were on the verge of letting something horrible fly. I shook my head in bafflement. What on earth was wrong? After all, I hadn't broken the table on purpose. Surely that was obvious to everyone!

Then I felt something long, hard and cold under my forepaws. It was the trapper's heavy Sharps rifle, lying where he couldn't possibly reach it unless I let him. And, right about then, I also realized that the tumble had placed me directly in front of the room's only exit. If ever there was a bear in a position to rapidly exterminate a group of sorcerers, it was most assuredly me. "Rrrrr!" I declared, suddenly understanding. Then I nodded my head vigorously, to show that I was still in control of myself. "Raaaaawr!"

"Step aside, son," Shaper whispered into the tense silence. "And stay calm. That's all we ask."

"Snurgle," I snorted softly, nodding again. The room was overcrowded, so severely that I actually had to nose Guardian out of the way in order to comply. But no one panicked, to my great relief, and soon the threatening wands were lowered.

Then Shaper and the Baron looked at each other and grinned. "I can recommend a most excellent manufacturer of custom laboratory equipment," the Baron finally said. "If you're willing to do business in Essen, that is." Everyone laughed, and I grunted right along with them. Then they led me away to the too-small, too-lightly-built cage where I'd spend my first two or three days, until I was fully stable in both magical and psychological senses. Then—and only then—could I receive my speech-spell.

19

Cages are boring, it took me next to no time to establish. Even though the mages did their best to enliven my days, it was an awful time. The Baron came by sometimes to tell me all sorts of wonderful things about Germany and zeppelins and the Kaiser and the amazing victory over France that he was so proud to have been part of. "In Germany," he explained, "everyone is an important part of the State—cogs in the wheel of a machine far greater than the sum of its parts. Surely you feel the call of it yourself?" It was abundantly clear what he was leading up to, though he hadn't out and out asked me yet. Most likely, I reckoned, because "Gruuung!" wouldn't serve as a legally binding reply anyway. Guardian was a lot more fun—she came and read stories to me in the morning, starting with "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". This would've made me laugh if I'd been able to figure out how. But that ability, along with facial expressions like those of Bob and Eric that people could understand even though they really shouldn't have been able to, came as part of the speech-spell package. I wasn't ready for that yet, so I did my best to improvise with head-shakes and grumpy-sounding rumbles. Every hour left me more impatient for the time when I could speak again. And, better still, maybe even have a little privacy when I needed to move my bowels!

It was late afternoon on the second day when things finally took a turn for the better. I was just finishing a bucket of blueberries—they tasted even better than they did before!—when Guardian called out from behind me, her voice light and happy. "Chris! You have visitors!"

I looked over my shoulder, then turned around, reared up on my hindlegs and stuck my forepaws through the bars so that I was almost touching my visitors. "Rawwwr!" I growled in pleasure, wishing again that I could smile. "Unnnngh!"

"Hi, Chris!" a sparrow perched on Guardian's shoulder declared in Timmy's voice. "I hear they're gonna make you wait until tomorrow evening before they give you your voice—they say it takes longer for someone so massive to fully settle in." He blinked, the motion reminding me very much of the boy I'd once known. "Until then, just be patient!"

"You is _so_ big!" another voice drawled in wonder. It was Frederick, of course. He was a perfectly ordinary-looking cottontail, sniffing at the base of my cage. Then he looked up at me. "I just wanted to let you know, Mr. Chris, that I really like this a lot so far. Thank you again fo' heppin' me along, suh! Thank you _so_ much!"

Then a black cat eased itself up to the bars and then actually squeezed his way inside with me. "Isn't it wonderful?" he asked in Midnight's voice. "Finally being who you truly are, I mean. I'm so glad you got the chance!"

"Oooorgh!" I agreed, holding up a massive forepaw just in front of my friend's muzzle so that he could rub his face on the back of it. Which he proceeded to do, of course, not in the least bit self-conscious. I wished I could giggle as Guardian scowled and ordered him out.

"It could be dangerous in there!" she declared.

"Not for me," he replied softly, looking up at me with vertically-slitted eyes. "Not ever, for any of us. Though I've got a feeling that anyone who 's ever stupid enough to cross him will deserve exactly what they get. Certainly, I won't be wasting any time feeling sorry for them." Then he squeezed back out of my cage anyway, just to make Guardian happy.

Next two more birds came fluttering up. One was a cowbird I'd recently danced with; she magic-smiled prettily before speaking. "Hi, Chris!" But the other was a splendid white goose, decorated with black wingtips and other minor markings. It spun and twirled before me, in the short-legged parody of a waltz.

"What's the matter, Christopher?" it asked eventually in Cynthia's voice. "Don't you recognize me?" Then she twisted up her long, snakelike neck into exactly the same position as it'd been in her Marks.

My jaw dropped, which apparently worked at least as well for a bear as it did for a human. She giggled and twirled again. "Not half so bad as I feared", she admitted. "But, I'm still not sure. Daddy's wiring me every single day, wanting to know how much I'm making."

I nodded, eyes half closed. Then, on a whim I dropped back down to all fours and reached out with my tongue, which was much longer than most people expected. "Hey!" Cynthia complained as I took a nice long lick, the giggle in her voice belying her words. "Cut that out! I'll get all sticky!"

Then everyone was laughing, and I felt easier and more comfortable inside than I had in a long, long time. Maybe even my entire life; Midnight was absolutely right about how wonderful it was to finally be shaped the same way on both the inside and the outside. Then I scowled. The expression must've carried over nicely even without magical enhancement, because suddenly everyone took a step back. "Christopher?" Guardian asked, looking worried. "Is everything all right?"

"Ruuungg!" I complained, which only made me feel more frustrated. There was only room in the cage for someone as big as me to take two paces; I did so, then turned around and faced the others again. "Snurrrrgle!"

Guardian looked at Cynthia, then at Midnight. Both sort of magic-shrugged—they didn't actually move anything, but somehow you could tell. Then Timmy spoke up. "He's wondering about his other friends, maybe?"

"Raaaaaaaawrr!" I agreed, bobbing my head enthusiastically.

"Oh!" Guardian replied, smiling again. "Of course. Well... Kimball's doing pretty well, mostly. But he went climbing before he really should've, and took a nasty fall." She sighed. "I'm afraid he's confined to his room, as punishment. But I'm sure he'll come out to visit you as soon as he can. Tomorrow, at the latest."

I nodded again.

"And as for Gwendolyn..." She sighed, and all the life seemed to drain out of her face. "She's not experiencing any unexpected problems, no. But she doesn't feel up to seeing anyone yet, either. Though she sends her best wishes. I'm sorry that I almost forgot."

"Errrrkle," I agreed, my own voice sad. Something awful had happened to Gwen; I just knew it. But whatever it was, she'd clearly understood the situation going in. What a brave, brave girl!

"And now," Guardian declared, "it's time for me to feed this little menagerie dinner. Or second-dinner, in the case of a certain always-hungry sparrow I know!"

Timmy blushed, again with magical assistance. It was fascinating, the way you could tell when nothing actually moved or changed color...

"I'd ask you if we could get you anything," Guardian continued. "But, well..."

"Rhuuunghhh," I agreed sadly. It was just until tomorrow, I reminded myself. Late in the day maybe, but still just tomorrow. And I was lucky, really; things might've been _much_ worse. For example, my bear-vision was so good that I planned to ask the mages to leave it be, as soon I was able. I could see as well as ever by daylight, and even better at night. While who knew what horrors poor Gwen might be putting up with?

"Exactly," Guardian agreed. "Good-bye, Chris! We'll be back to see you soon!"

"Bye, Christopher!" all the others chimed in, sounding for all the world like children half their true age. "Bye-bye!"

I tried to wave, and even though my joints didn't quite bend the right way for that anymore I think I got the idea across. Then I finished my blueberries, laid down for a nice little nap in the sun...

...and sighed silently to myself as a smiling Baron Attache came striding up to instruct me further on why the German and Anglo-Saxon civilizations were so far superior to all the others.

20

Being a bear proved to be tons of fun, once they fixed me up so that I could talk and smile and such like the others. While part of our two-week tryout was reserved for intense magical testing, the bulk of our time was quite deliberately left available for other activities. Like going as a group to watch the Pirates play baseball, for example, and being invited to dinner at the mayor of Johnstown's home. And we also were encouraged to spend some time traveling alone; I, for example, was transported via boxcar way up north to where the berry harvest was well underway, and allowed to wander the fields and gorge myself full. That turned out to be an extra-interesting experience, because I was surprised by a black bear mother and her cub in a particularly dense little thicket. Or I surprised them, rather. It was instantly obvious that they'd never run into anything even remotely like me before. The pair ran away so fast that I wasn't sure I could've caught them if I'd tried.

I was surprised at how much time and effort the Guild sank into my brief bearhood; it wasn't until I took that little train excursion accompanied by three Apprentices detailed to guard me around the clock that I began to appreciate just what Guardian had meant when she'd warned me that I didn't know how much I was asking for. But it made perfect sense when you thought about it, or at least it did for the others. After all, they had a huge decision to make and only a fortnight to make it in. It was only right that they should learn firsthand what it was truly like to be an animal in a human world, to have to wear an orange collar or legband with a nametag on it so that people would understand at a glance that you were special, to at least glimpse the unbridgeable social chasm that would soon separate them forever from practically all normal human activity and contact. And, I supposed, it made sense to allow me to join in the group activities, at least, since they felt grateful to me and all that. But the solo berry-gorging trip? That'd not only cost a veritable fortune, but had taken up the invaluable time of three magic-users for four entire days. Plus they were doing the magic-tests on me, too, which didn't make much sense either.

Maybe all this was because they thought I still might become a Familiar after all, even if a German one?

Not that there was much chance of that, though I strung the Baron along regardless because Shaper asked me to. "Please," he whispered in my ear just before the black-robed mage gave me my voice back. "If you want to become a German Familiar, that's fine with us. We understand. But, don't make any commitment either way until the very last minute. We have excellent reasons for asking this of you."

I growled and nodded, which seemed to be good enough for Shaper. He smiled, patted my head, and didn't raise the subject again. But the Baron did, almost as soon as I was able to give a proper answer. He seemed sort of disappointed that I didn't accept on the spot, which he found difficult to fathom after I'd heard so much about how wonderful a nation Germany really was. But to his credit he merely smiled and kept right on trying, endless monologues and all. He was an interesting character, the Baron was. Smart as a whip, of course, and by his own lights a caring, goodhearted man. Supposedly he was a noted poet back in his own country, which I didn't doubt for a moment. Even in his awkward English he sometimes showed a knack for turning a pretty phrase, and he also very much appreciated the great beauty of life and the world he lived in. So his certainly was an artistic soul. But it was always _German_ beauty that he valued the most, though he also sometimes made it a point to speak well of the various English nationalities and even we Americans. _German_ beauty and _German_ intellectual achievements and _German_ armies and the _German_ people. Yes, by his own lights he was a good and decent man. Which just made things all that much worse, because those lights were seriously out of kilter. Or so I thought, at least. And I was pretty sure that both Sister Magdalene and Father Branson would've agreed as well, for all the other things they failed to see eye to eye on. I just hoped most Germans weren't like him or else, capable as they undoubtedly were, the world was headed for some very rough times.

The berry-feast was scheduled at almost the very end of my fortnight as a Kodiak; a final decision would be required from us all by noon the day after I arrived back at the Castle. And, as soon as it was dark afterwards, those of us who wanted to be Changed back would be. By then I'd pretty much made my peace with the idea of not having fur anymore, or being able to eat bucketful after bucketful of berries and wonderful smoked salmon. Yes, all other things being equal, I'd have chosen to remain a bear even if it meant becoming someone's slave in the theoretical sense of the word. A Kodiak bear truly _was_ what I'd been born to be. But humanity had its good points as well, I'd understood ever since watching the other boys play their last baseball game. And, since my only viable bear-option was to work with the Baron and others probably very much like him, well... I rather suspected that in Germany, at least, a Familiar's enslavement might be a far less theoretical matter than it was here in Pennsylvania.

So my heart was at peace as I laid myself down on the floor in the bedroom that'd been reserved for my exclusive use—with me in it, after all, no one else would fit—and slowly groomed my lanky brown fur. The Guild maintained professionals on staff, of course; it was almost impossible to be a Familiar or Familiar-candidate and not have a coat perpetually combed to rich shininess. Or freshly-preened feathers, or whatever one did with scales, I supposed. But there was something deeply relaxing about simply lying there and, thinking about nothing in particular, straightening up my fur until it was just-so. I was up too late, yes. It was long past our official bedtime. But the mages had relaxed the rules considerably ever since we'd adopted our new forms. So long as we didn't do anything actively stupid or dangerous we didn't get much grief. Still, I was a bit startled when a fluttering noise, one that could only have been created by a large avian Familiar flying down the hallway and landing just outside, leaked in under my door.

Bears are extraordinarily gifted in the sensory department, I'd been surprised to learn. Or at least Kodiaks are—I can't speak for any other kind. My vision was so good that I didn't need any spells to improve it, and my hearing and sense of smell, well... Jim Jefferson, the Canadian trapper who the Guild had engaged to shoot me if things got out of hand and all else failed that first night, turned out to be a really nice guy. He hung around Devard an extra few days to get to know me a little and ask me questions about my new body. "A bear can smell two, maybe even three times better than the average dog," he assured me at one point. "And hear at least as good to boot. You say that you can see just like always, too? My god! It's no wonder that so many of us hunters make themselves dead chasing you guys!" While I've never been a dog and therefore am in no position to make meaningful comparisons, my hearing was unquestionably well up to snuff. So I was certain beyond any reasonable doubt that a sizable bird had indeed grounded just outside my door.

"Cynthia?" I whispered. "Is that you?" My goosey friend had come to talk with me about whether or not to remain a Familiar, most likely. She still couldn't make up her mind, and the question was eating at her something awful. I began the long, slow process of levering myself to my feet. "Give me a second; I'll be right there!"

"No!" an unexpected vice hissed. It was Gwen's. "Not that, please! More than anything, not that!"

I froze in my tracks, suddenly lost and totally adrift amidst the endless waves. "Gwendolyn?" I asked, bewildered.

"Yes!" she hissed. "And please! For the love of god, don't open the door!" She sighed. "Don't worry; no one's in any danger or anything like that. But... I don't want you to see me like this. More than anything, I don't."

"Right," I agreed softly, understanding. Something awful had indeed happened to her. "Then don't worry. I won't look. Word of honor."

The rich girl sighed in relief. "Thank you, Christopher. Such a gentleman you've always been!" She paused. "I've come because I decided I needed to say good-bye. And I'd like for you to tell the others for me. I won't be seeing any of you again." There was a short pause, just long enough for her to bite off a sob. "Not ever, I fear."

I sighed and examined the crack under my door. The hallway light was seeping in, but all it revealed were two skinny bird-leg shadows. "It can't be that bad," I whispered. "Nothing can be _that_ bad. We'd love and accept you regardless, Gwen. Surely you—"

"Ha!" she interrupted, and the bird-leg shadows blurred as she hopped in place to emphasize her point. "You don't understand, Christopher. In fact, it's impossible for you to understand, because you don't have all the facts. Yes, you'd accept me. I know all of you that well; it's why I love you so. But you'd pity me as well. And _that,_ sir..." Her words faded away to nothing for a moment. "Anyway, I'm simply not going to allow it to happen. I want you to remember me as I was. When we danced, and while the charms still hid so much of the truth about me. And that's how I want the others to remember me as well, I've decided." She paused again, probably to swallow more tears. "Pretty, happy, and whole."

"Gwen," I said, trying to keep my tone level and calm. "I'm returning to human tomorrow. And so can you, if—"

"No," she countered. "That's just it; I cannot! I'm something rather unusual, it seems, though one wouldn't imagine so. Not only that, but I've got rare Powers that might come along only once in a thousand years. The Guild needs me to explore a very difficult field of magic, one that isn't spoken of in polite company but which is terribly, terribly important regardless. Vital to the future of the entire human race. And maybe even to everything that lives."

I lowered my eyes. "And what can that that future possibly be worth, if the only way to pursue it is to destroy the life a fourteen-year-old girl?"

"Oh, Christopher!" Gwen whispered, clearly on the verge of uncontrolled weeping. "Cynthia is _so_ damned lucky!" There was another pause, while she composed herself. "It's terribly important," she whispered finally. "Perhaps the most important research anyone's ever done anywhere. If anything comes of it, that is; no one's sure, really." She laughed, the tiniest hint of hysteria flavoring the peals. "Wouldn't it be a hoot if that happened? If I went through with this, and then we never learned anything worth a damn anyway?"

I didn't like the sound of that laugh, not at all. "Gwen, I know I gave my word. But so help me—"

"I'm going now, Christopher!" she cut me off. Her feathers rustled, then large, slow wings, the kind meant for endless circling, pumped themselves twice as a warmup. "Good-bye, and have a good life! I hope that Midnight's right about you doing well. He usually is, you know." Then she leapt into the air and was gone.

I sighed and lowered my head back onto the thick woolen blanket that served as my only bedding. But I wasn't much interested in grooming myself anymore. For poor Gwendolyn had revealed more than she knew. My nose might've been two or three times as sensitive as that of a dog these days, or it might not've. I couldn't know for certain. But what I _could_ be sure of was that Gwen absolutely reeked of carrion. Clearly she was a buzzard, or something akin to it. Ugly, bald, smelly, and repellent in every way. _She speaks of death-magic,_ the voice whispered into a brain that didn't really want to listen just then. _Which is merely life-magic turned on its head. She's right. Leave her alone and tell the others no more than they absolutely must know. Such a heroine deserves no less. If you truly love her, you'll stand aside and let her find her own destiny. Just as you must find your own._

And I _did_ love her, I decided now that it was far too late for anything to ever come of it. Enough even to let her go. So instead of chasing after her down the hallway and making an awful fuss and ruining all her hopes and dreams of being remembered as she wished to be remembered, I lowered my enormous head down onto the polished wood floor and wept.

21

I normally would've expected to sleep badly after such a disturbing incident as Gwendolyn's good-bye, to rest only in fitful little bouts and probably have terrible nightmares. But somehow I was practically in hibernation when around three in the morning a strange noise woke me up. I was just opening my eyes when Midnight hissed and yowled a second time, which was all I needed to groggily grasp that this was the same sound that'd awakened me in the first place. He and Timmy and Kimball lived directly across the hall from me, in my old room. Then Kim screamed as well, but this time the sound was cut off by an ugly wet-sounding thud. Instantly I was on my feet. "Midnight?" I tried to call out. "Kimball? Are you all right?" But all I could do was growl, it seemed. Which I did in frustration as I fumbled in the dark for the special latch on my door.

"Christopher?" a new voice asked. "Is that you? Are you all right?"

"Grrrrr!" I declared as finally I was able to throw my door open. Perhaps I was a bit over-enthusiastic; it shattered into three separate pieces.

"Don't panic," the voice continued, smooth and calm. It was the Baron. "We're under some kind of attack; all of the American Guild mages and sworn Familiars have been bespelled to sleep." He flipped the light-switch repeatedly, which had no effect whatsoever. "The power's out as well. And all the standing spells are down. That's why none of you candidates can speak just now."

"Rrrr!" I replied, my upper lip curling suspiciously. Meanwhile Midnight hissed again from the inside of the pet-carrier he now occupied, slashing fruitlessly at the Baron's thumb. Then little Timmy fluttered up to the top of the big full-length mirror-frame and exploded into the nastiest, angriest bit of song I'd ever heard from a sparrow, staring directly at the Baron all the while. And after that, Kimball moaned and rubbed the rapidly-expanding egg on his head. He looked pretty bad to me.

"I can't ward off an organized attack all by myself." the Baron continued. "So, I'm going to go make an emergency apport back to Germany, where Midnight will be safe." His eyes narrowed. "He's extraordinarily valuable property, you see. Particularly since he's not sworn yet. I rather suspect that he's what this is all about. Someone wants to steal him."

Someone certainly does want to steal him all right, I silently agreed as I nodded my understanding.

The Baron smiled and looked a bit relieved. Midnight hissed and slashed again, but the sorcerer paid him no heed whatsoever. "You're not sworn yet either, Christopher. And my offer still stands. I'd be most grateful indeed if you came to Germany with me. Even now, in your unsworn state I could use your help. You're still plenty big and strong regardless, you see. And I'm going to apport from a very dangerous place, so that no one can trace us." He tilted his head. "You can be part of the Race, Christopher. It's your birthright. And your truest, best destiny."

I nodded enthusiastically, even as Timmy cursed me and Midnight stared in shock. Then with a healthy "Raaaaawr!" and forepaw bounce I endorsed my agreement. What my friends couldn't see from their angle was that the Baron's wand was in his left hand, tucked halfway up his sleeve and nearly hidden behind his back. Yes, I was going to attempt a rescue. Of _course_ I was; how could it be otherwise? But _I'd_ be the one to choose the moment, not the Baron. Otherwise I'd surely end up like poor Kim.

His eyebrows rose. "Thank you, son!" he replied with a little bow. "You won't regret it. Why perhaps even within your lifetime the world will be a far better-ordered place. And you'll be an honored part of it all. Why... I promise that within a week you and I will take a zeppelin ride together, overweight charges be damned! It'll be a wonderful time for us both!"

I nodded and bounced on my forepaws again in apparent glee, then the Baron took a moment to grin and scratch my left ear. It was amazing what whoppers you could get away with, so long as you were telling people something they badly wanted to hear. When he was done he hefted Midnight's little prison on his shoulder and reached for my collar. "Stay close," he urged me. "The situation might become dangerous very quickly."

22

Sadly, the Baron didn't release my collar again until we were well outside the Castle. Which was unfortunate, because it'd been magicked with a control-spell as a last-ditch way of halting me short of using a rifle in the event of my going on some sort of insane rampage. I was compelled to obey the commands of any authorized mage who held it. This was how dangerous Familiars were handled in Germany, the Baron had explained smoothly to the Guild, and they'd been only too glad to allow him to demonstrate. That terrible moment when I'd held their lives in my paws back in the Changing-room was never far from their minds, and understandably so. I'd even agreed to it, since it was only a demonstration and I wasn't going to be a bear forever.

But now, it didn't seem like nodding my head and saying "Uhhhhgh!" had been such a good idea after all. The best plan, I decided, was to not give the Baron any excuse to invoke the spell at all, to cooperate actively and completely...

...and then turn on him, fast and deadly, the instant an opportunity presented itself.

Sadly, the Baron proved highly skilled in Familiar-handling. Once we were off the Castle grounds the Baron brought us directly down the road to the old South Fork Dam, whose failure had authored the terrible calamity of 1889. We didn't meet anyone. Nor did I expect to, really; there wasn't much cause for people to be out and about so late. "What an awful thing the Great Flood was!" the Baron said as we rounded the last bend. "And utterly unnecessary. In Germany, society would never have allowed anything so ridiculous to happen."

I pressed my lips together, but said nothing. The problem was that he was right. According to the memorial plaque we'd stopped to read on the way up, the Flood had been caused by an unbelievably inept series of decisions, from removing the spillway pipes in order to sell them for scrap to the complete failure of anyone to even consider the possibility that anything serious might ever go wrong. When the dam finally failed millions of tons of water were suddenly released down a steep slope, and the effects staggered the imagination. A mighty stone railroad trestle had collapsed in moments, whole forests had been felled, and the residents of several thriving towns ground to hamburger amidst the tumbling debris. There'd been heroes and there'd been cowards. But, most of all...

...there'd been the unique, totally unanticipated spectacle of dozens if not hundreds of survivors, floating trapped on wooden wreckage that bobbed about in a new, temporary lake downstream. One by one, over a period of hours and even days, they'd burned to death as fire spread among the debris. The victims had screamed and cursed and begged for death within easy earshot of thousands. Yet, due to the still-swirling currents, they'd been as unreachable as the surface of the Moon. Some of the witnesses went mad, others threw away their own lives attempting hopeless rescues; in the end not a single would-be savior survived the effort. But for all who'd been there, apparently...

...well, it was no wonder that the Johnstown Flood had spawned a Pit to be remembered by. And now, I realized for the first time as the Baron firmly gripped my collar and led us past the broken dam, that was exactly where we were headed.

23

"...aren't completely understood, Christopher. We don't know anything about how or why they form. We're not even certain about the causality of it all. That's because we have certain limited evidence that perhaps the actual underground cavity might form months, even years before the calamity occurs," the Baron explained as we carefully edged our way past the unconscious body of a Guild mage, one of the group tasked with keeping a close personal eye on the Johnstown Pit at all times. He hadn't been damaged by the Demons yet, I was relieved to see, and the Baron clearly felt the same way. After unstrapping Midnight's cage and carefully lowering it to the earth, he dusted garlic powder all over the young man. "A magic-user should carry bespelled garlic with him at all times," he observed. "You never know when it might come in handy. It repels so _many_ unpleasant apparitions, you see."

I nodded slowly. We'd just run into our first group of the undead about a dozen yards up the trail; the wards were down here too, obviously. "Destroy them, Christopher!" he'd instructed me. While the collar didn't leave me any choice, the Baron's order was unnecessary. They were hideous wrong-feeling things, one the howling shade of a thoroughly roasted young woman with an equally crisp baby clasped to her cold breast, the second a sort of unidentifiable collection of body parts hovering in close formation just above the ground. The shades of two burn victims and someone who'd been ground up alive, obviously. I slashed them across their midsections—or more correctly in the case of the second their center of mass—and they faded away to nothing. "Well done!" the Baron praised me. "And not a trace of fear! You're going to be _such_ an asset, Christopher! Worth an entire battalion of Krupp guns. Why these blind Americans insisted on throwing you away, I can't imagine."

I growled in disgust, which the Baron apparently mistook for a victory-cry. "Such a good boy!" he praised me again. But what I was actually angry about was that he'd never released my collar for an instant. "Don't feel badly about it later either, son. They're not at all what they seem. On another night they'll reform out of nothing and seek to wander the earth yet again. Perhaps for a century or more, since the initial event was so powerful. Again and again and again. They're not alive or self-aware by any stretch, but merely soul-less images like those you see in magic-lantern shows. Wind-up toys re-enacting the horror over and over again."

I nodded, already having known. The old railroad bridge that'd collapsed sometimes reappeared as a sort of Demon too, when the moon was right. Or at least it had until the wards went up. And, even more frequently, heatless fires glowed in the place where the debris once burned. So, it didn't take the death of a human or even a death at all to form a Demon-pattern, just an event that exceeded a certain threshold of horror. Though only the once-living forms did things like eat faces. No one knew why. Then I thought about Gwen's fate again and shuddered. Was she going to spend the rest of her life in intimate embrace with such wretchedness?

The closer we came to the entrance of the Pit, the more Demons I was forced to dispatch. The earth also grew ever more tortured and twisted, the trees sickly, and the soil black and dead. The Pit proper was located maybe fifty feet up the bluff of the Conemaugh River, where its gaping maw formed an evil black eye against the light-colored country rock. Incongruously, a neatly built and recently-whitewashed stairway zigzagged up the rockface, offering convenient access to those Guildsmen whose duty it was to renew the wards. The thing looked pretty flimsy to me, and for a brief moment the Baron scowled at the idea of accompanying someone so massive up such light scaffolding. Then looked down at me. "We appear to have a problem."

"Unngh!" I agreed, trying to look disappointed even though a large part of me would've welcomed almost any excuse not to be forced to enter such an awful, unholy place.

"Well," my companion finally sighed. "There's no help for it, then. I simply must risk leaving a small trace." He smiled down at me. "You're worth it, Christopher. And more!"

24

And so it was that I took my first flight. While it was only a short distance from the ground to the rim of the Pit, I left my stomach on the riverbank and it didn't catch up with me again for several long, disturbing minutes. Smaller bears quite happily climb trees. And perhaps Kodiak cubs played among the branches as well, at least until they reached a certain age. But I'd never been a bear cub—just a human one. And at my current weight... My mind screamed the entire time as the Baron gripped my collar with one hand and twirled his wand in little circles with the other. There wasn't anything holding me up; it was like I was falling, falling, falling at the same time that I was rising, rising, rising.

"Easy now, Christopher!" the Baron ordered, noticing my distress. Instantly a sensation of peace and well-being washed over me. I blinked; could the Baron even give me orders about how I felt? Apparently so! Then the command wore off and I was more terrified than ever. What would happen if I were, say, ordered to believe that Germans were the best people anywhere? Ordered firmly and persistently. Or, maybe even to hate Frenchmen?

Suddenly everything seemed to be spinning out of control. What kind of monster was I in danger of becoming, anyway?

"Blert!" Midnight protested from inside his carrier. He didn't much care for flying either, it seemed.

"You too, my precious one!" the Baron answered him, steadily twirling his wand. "You just stay quiet. Soon enough this unpleasantness will be over for us all."

I swallowed my fear. The Baron was as distracted as he'd ever been so far, and while I couldn't make my move so long as he held my collar, perhaps I could prepare the ground a little? So turned towards Midnight, and growled in the most aggressive manner I could manage. It got his attention, which was I'd been after. He narrowed his eyes in rage, then raised a forepaw as if to take a swat at me. But before he could...

...I winked at him, and nodded my head rapidly.

"Blert?" my friend asked. He sounded puzzled. So I winked and nodded a second time.

"Is he taunting you, Christopher?" the sorcerer chastised me. "If so, just ignore him. Cats are like that, you see. Fickle, untrustworthy friends. I wouldn't care to have one as a Familiar, myself. Bears are much more manly companions."

I bared my teeth at the words, but luckily the Baron couldn't see. Midnight could, however, and apparently the sincerity of the expression was what finally convinced him. He rubbed his face with his paws as if in contrition for ever doubting me, then stuck his nose out between the bars. I reached up with a forepaw, he nuzzled it as best he could, and just that easily we were bestest friends again.

Most of the time Pits manifested themselves as holes in nice level ground; thus their common name. But being turned ninety degrees, the Johnstown example was more akin to a cave. That made it a lot easier to enter, assuming one either had a nice whitewashed stairway handy or else could fly. I expected it to be black as could be inside, but it wasn't. Instead there was a sort of blood-red glow, which emanated from no apparent source. "You're seeing by magic, Christopher," the Baron kindly informed me as we glided down the Pit's long, narrow throat. "Magic so powerful that even the mundane can to a degree interact with it." He paused and smiled, as if this there were some kind of macabre lecture hall. "No one's been inside this Pit for years now," he continued. "Maybe ever, this far back. Your American Guild won't allow exploration." He shook his head. "They imagine it's too dangerous. What weaklings!"

I looked at the red glowing surfaces slowly closing in all around me, and shivered. Beneath my dangling paws, almost close enough to touch, stood a veritable army of Demons. Each and every last one of them was full to the gills of palpable hatred for everything that lived. To be honest, just then I could appreciate the position of my countrymen.

"This is the most powerful active Pit on the planet," the German sorcerer continued. "Everyone wants to know what effects the containment spells are having. A lot of people think that a Pit's staying power depends on its Demons, you see. If they're able to cause more mischief—make the tragedy worse, in other words—the Pit theoretically is nourished and lasts longer. While if they're contained, as here, its life might be dramatically shortened."

I nodded, not caring much about the active lifespan of the Johnstown Pit. It was estimated that the flood had killed about twenty-two hundred people, yet the floor of the Pit appeared to be populated by far more Demons than that. Sure, some were dogs and inanimate objects and such. But... There seemed to be more humans among them than I could rationally explain, until I saw two identical twins standing near each other, both mutilated in exactly the same manner and even carrying identical rescue-axes. I blinked at the sight; quite possibly no one had ever documented multiple manifestations before. Sorcery was still such a new science, after all. And few others had ever been so far down the throat of an active Pit. Almost everything about them was a mystery.

_Perhaps,_ the little voice in my head whispered, _instead of increasing a Pit's s energy the wandering demons might serve to_ _relieve_ _it? Maybe we're even more ignorant than we know?_

On and on we flew. It felt like forever, but couldn't have been more than a mile. The Baron was completely confident; he'd clearly been in Pits before, if older and less potent ones, and seemed certain that the only danger lay in the Demons. "So long as we remain out of their reach," he declared, "nothing can harm us. And, an apportation is a powerful spell. So the further in we go, the less chance there is of it being detected and traced."

By the time the Baron found a satisfactory casting-place, I was half-convinced that we were flying down a living throat. The walls quivered with power, and the smaller rocks were transparent and semi-liquid. They flowed like raindrops down a windowpane, skittering along towards the Pit's mouth. Fortunately the little shelf our sorcerer chose to alight on was more permanent, save that sometimes it bumped and jarred us with little earthquakes. "All Pits shake," the Baron observed when he caught Midnight and I exchanging worried glances after a particularly bad tremblor. "This one's just more active than most, is all." He stomped his foot, hard. "And this shelf has stood through it all, ever since the Pit was first formed. Surely it'll hold out another few minutes. Don't be frightened."

And of course I _wasn't_ frightened after that, or at least I wasn't until the command wore off. Midnight, however, grew steadily more restless. "This isn't a particularly good idea, I don't think," I could almost hear him say. Which worried me even more, because I'd seen how closely Shaper and the rest listened to such pronouncements from him.

An apportation was indeed a difficult, complex spell, or so the Baron explained to me as he set up the elements. "This is extraordinarily powerful magic, Christopher," he explained as he poured a series of powders onto a convenient rock. "That's why we had to come in here, you see. It's much like setting off a magical bomb; if we hadn't done it in a place already laced with magic, anyone could examine the remains and work out exactly where we went."

I nodded and looked again at the pulsating jelly-like walls and sideways-dripping rocks and the host of Demons that'd gathered beneath us, hating all that lived with everything they had, and wished that he'd order me not to be afraid again. The blood-tinted glow was brighter now, especially deeper down inside. Then, out of nowhere, Midnight sort of went mad. He bounced up and down in his cage, as hard and violently as he possibly could, until finally the Baron unshouldered his carrier. "What?" he demanded. "Why are you interrupting me?"

"Mrrrrow!" my friend declared, his eyes big and round with fear. He waved his paw at the nearly-finished spell laid out on the rock-table. "Mrrrrrow!" Then he shook his head so violently I thought his neck would break.

"There's nothing to be afraid of, little one. You'll like Germany," the Baron assured him, chuckling. "All Familiars do. Eventually." Then he smiled. "Now please! Don't interrupt me again. I don't want to stay in this miserable place any longer than necessary."

"Mrrrow!" Midnight called out in despair, looking at me. But there was still nothing I could do; the Baron's hand remained firm on my collar.

The sorcerer had been nearly finished with his work; all that remained, apparently, was the addition of one last powder to the top of each pile. Then he made three passes with his wand, touching first his forehead, then Midnight's, and finally my own each time around. "Stay put," he ordered me. "The spell won't work if you wander too far." Then he touched the largest dust-pile with his wand...

...and it sizzled and flared like gunpowder. Except that gunpowder never burned a beautiful emerald green, the same exact shade as the sourceless flame I'd seen in Shaper's office.

"Mrow!" Midnight repeated in his most despairing wail. Then, after one last despairing glance at me, he curled himself up into a little ball and wrapped his forepaws around his head.

"We're almost home," the Baron assured me, smiling and patting my neck. "It'll only be a minute or so, now."

Rapidly the fire danced about the spell, until suddenly one of the little piles sort of went _woosh_ and flared up green like a fancy Chinese firework.

As it did, the ground began to shake harder than ever.

"Mroow!" Midnight wailed again. He was trembling too. Hard.

"It's all right," the Baron repeated, taking a firmer grip on us both. "We'll be home in seconds."

Then a second and third powder-plies flared up, in blue and red respectively. I felt all empty-sick inside, just like when I'd been Changed. Meanwhile the shaking intensified. And the Demons wailed and screamed and shook their fists at us twice as hard as before. Even worse, one of the sideways-falling liquid rocks zoomed by so close that it nearly upset the spell.

"Almost there," the Baron reassured us, though even he sounded worried now.

Then the second-to-last powder-pile flared in a burst of beautiful canary yellow. The Demons howled, the red light from down-Pit surged into an intolerable glare, railcar-sized liquid rocks rocketed down the tunnel-walls...

...and the Baron stumbled and fell from all the shaking, releasing his grip on my collar.

It was stupid. It was foolish. It was something that might be expected of a little boy, not a near-full-grown Kodiak bear. But sure enough I simply sat where I was for a few precious seconds, mouth agape as I struggled to take in all the chaos around me. It wasn't until the Baron reached out from his reclining position and desperately clutched at the empty air, seeking to regain his grip, that the truth finally penetrated my thick, ursine skull. The moment I'd been waiting for had not only arrived, but was nearly past!

Instantly I ducked away, nearly overbalancing on the narrow shelf. "No!" the Baron cried, genuine concern on his face. "Christopher! Don't fall!" He grabbed at my forepaw as I teetered on the brink, abandoning his only real chance of regaining my collar in a genuine attempt to save my life. "Please! I—"

But I never did find out what he planned to say next, though I rather suspect it might've involved how much he loved me and wished to adopt me for his own. I'd listened quietly to him baring his soul for _so_ many hours after all; it would've been easy enough for such a prideful man to mistake my patience for affection. Even as the words left his lips the last dustpile ignited in a rainbow display. Abandoning all hope of maintaining my perch, I kicked Midnight's carrier. It went spinning off into the darkness. Then I was falling, falling, falling again. It was a lot like flying, except that this time instead of holding my collar and twirling his wand the Baron was tumbling head-over-heels after me, his face a rictus of terror. Behind him the spell finally actuated in a beautiful clean glow, which apparently was the signal for the universe to devolve into a rumbling, unstable mosaic of bloody-red madness and sideways-falling objects of rapidly increasing size and mass.

Then I slammed into the ground, the Baron landed alongside me with a sickening snap-laced thud. And, quite suddenly, I wasn't flying anymore.

25

It was just as well that I landed among the Demons. Not only did several of them serve to break my fall, but had it not been for the hellish half-collie—the front half—that instantly latched so painfully onto my left ear I might've laid there and tried to work out how seriously I was hurt before gingerly attempting to move. Which would've been a fatal waste of time, most likely. The dog was easily enough dispatched—it required but a single paw-swipe. Then I was up on my hindlegs in a flash, roaring with anger and slashing about like a dark-furred fiend. A quick left-right-left, and the immediate area was cleared. This bought me the opportunity to kick a thoroughly-ruined railway conductor and what looked like a farmer away from the unconscious Baron before they had time to do any serious harm. Doing so, however, merely served to open myself up to a ruler-attack from the bloodless shade of an angry-looking schoolmarm. Hey! Didn't she know I was in the same racket? Whatever happened to professional courtesy, anyway?

Each individual Demon, I could defeat easily. Effortlessly, almost. But there was an unending supply of them and only one of me. Even worse, the ground was shaking harder than ever, the rocks had softened to the point that I was standing ankle-deep in goo, the Baron was unconscious—he coughed sometimes when the blood from his broken nose pooled in his mouth—and I still had only the vaguest idea of which direction Midnight's carrier had flown off in. I wasn't going to fight my way out of this; I'd have to _think_ my way out. If I was to make it out at all, that was. Which would also require an oversized dollop of plain old good luck, I realized with a sinking heart.

The problem was, the Demons wouldn't let me think! It was almost like waltzing. One-two slash! Three-four kick! Five-six slash! Seven-eight _raaaaaawr_! in anger, which made me feel better even if it didn't faze the Demons, who were too stupid to be afraid. Even though I almost never had to strike the same enemy twice, the rules clearly needed to change. But... They were always right on top of me! I couldn't spare even a second to think!

So I simply acted instead. Dropping back to all fours, I accepted for the moment a good clubbing about the back and shoulders by a one-armed gandy-dancer Demon whose sledgehammer fortunately lacked a head. I simply let him flail away—it didn't hurt all that much, my ribcage being what it was. Meanwhile I worked my left forepaw under the Baron's limp body, then with something rather akin to a shrug flopped him over my shoulder. I'd decided to save him if possible. For all the trouble he'd made he was still a human being, and probably had perfectly good reasons for it all from his own skewed viewpoint. Besides, I'd watched him sprinkle garlic powder over a helpless man. How could I fail to rise to the same standard? Once the sorcerer was about as well situated as I could manage, I shattered the rail-layer's neck with a single blow. He dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Then, I slowly moved off in what I thought might be Midnight's direction.

26

It was actually easier to remain in continual motion than stay still. At first I couldn't work out why that was. Then, I realized it was because then the Demons couldn't gather and cluster around a moving target. Even better, it also cut way down on attacks from behind. So I tried going even faster, as quickly as I could without dropping the Baron. This gave me more time to appreciate the increasing severity of the incessant earthquake, the brighter and ever-more-menacing red glow emanating from down-Pit, and the obvious impossibility of locating Midnight.

But I got lucky on that score too. Having freshly observed that making a moving target of myself reduced the tendency of Demons to cluster, I drew exactly the right conclusion when I saw a group of burned-up children fighting over something roughly cage-shaped. Three quick swipes of my talons did for them all, and then I was looking down once more at my badly-frightened friend. His cage was terribly damaged—one corner was all bashed in—and the door would never open again. It was all I could do to carry the Baron. Therefore Midnight had to come out. But how?

Suddenly something stabbed me from behind. It stung with surprising ferocity, though the wound obviously wasn't nearly deep enough to cause me real worries. I spun and knocked the head clean off a hissing old woman with a crushed leg that bent in all the wrong places. Somehow she'd hobbled up and sunk a knitting needle into me. Then I turned back to Midnight with my fangs still bared in rage, snarled, and made a mock-crushing gesture with my paws.

His eyes went wide, then he shook his head.

I shook my own in reply, then turned and killed another faceless assemblages of parts. Somehow these Demons were the most unnerving of all. In the process I dropped the Baron again—that happened with considerable frequency, no matter how much I tried to avoid it—and had to resettle him on my back. Then I made the crushing gesture again. Time was wasting, and I'd been standing in one place for far too long already. Besides, I was tiring and slowly accumulating minor wounds. Couldn't he see that?

He shook his head again, then bit his bars and shook them.

I blinked, then looked up and cuffed a very dead mailman. Midnight was right, now that I thought about it. Just because I did most of my fighting with my four limbs didn't mean that my teeth wouldn't make a better can-opener. I hadn't been a bear very long, or else I'd probably have figured this out on my own.

"Urrrrgh!" I agreed. Just then the Baron and I were being assaulted repeatedly with a broom. It hurt even less than the sledgehammer handle. Better still, its small, petite wielder was taking up valuable space. This neatly prevented the drowned bull snorting hellfire just behind her from attacking. I _really_ didn't want to fight that bull, I decided. And triply not with the Baron dangling from my shoulder. So I let the deceased housewife wale away to her dead heart's desire. Meanwhile I sank my fangs into Midnight's portable prison, clumsily pinned it in place with my right forepaw...

...and sort of _wrenched_ it open.

It was a lot easier than I'd feared. Midnight sort of flowed out the way cats do and took up a position between my hindfeet, probably the safest place possible. One of his own hindlegs appeared to be out of commission, but there wasn't anything to be done about that. Not until we made our final escape, that was.

Which rather suddenly appeared more improbable than ever. The floor-shaking tempo suddenly increased, the blood-glow grew agonizingly bright, and all around us the rocks went liquid and fell towards the exit. I looked at Midnight, who sort of shrugged. Something was about to blow, it seemed. Right there and right then, even as the pathetic little broom-blows rained down on the Baron and I. Then my little voice spoke again. _All of this place_ ' _s horrors are derived from the Great Flood,_ it explained. _The damaged bodies, the red of the fire, the tumbling rocks. What's missing, Chris? You're plenty smart enough to figure it out for yourself. Aren't you?_

The water itself! I wanted to cry out. For years and years the Pit was warded and effectively plugged, then the Baron had come along and set off what amounted to a magical bomb deep down its throat. Now all its pent-up strength would manifest itself in raging, awful water!

27

The shaking grew worse and worse and ever worse; now it was a sustained rumble of such violence that any natural cave would be in danger of collapse. But not a Pit; that was part of what was so awful about them. Powder charges, nitroglycerine, dynamite... Nothing would bring their roofs down until their full measure of evil had spent itself. Even walling up the entrances didn't work.

The broom's handle was beginning to sting; by now the housewife-Demon was wielding it with both hands, as if it actually were a serious weapon. She was lashing out with the stick-end, not gently shooing me away with the bristles. But despite the increasing pain she still looked to me like a much better deal than the angry bull struggling to edge past her. So I let her not-live a little longer and, trusting her to protect my back, moved up-Pit towards the entrance. It took a much longer time leaving than coming, probably because I had to claw out a path for us every single inch of the way. Meanwhile the anticipated water was making its appearance. The center of the Pit floor was already a raging black torrent, flowing uphill fast enough to sweep dozens of Demons with it. They drowned like rats, just as so many of their original patterns had. That was how I eventually dealt with the bull. In time the passage opened up enough that he was able to squeeze between the boulders and past the housewife, and for a desperate moment it looked like I might have to take on a serious challenger after all. But things didn't work out well for him. A bull fights best by charging, and the Pit's narrow confines weren't exactly suited to that sort of thing. So he poked me in the back with his left horn instead, unable to back the blow with much beyond his neck-muscles. I roared and spun—his prod _did_ break a couple ribs, I later learned—and then slashed the beast hard between the eyes, revealing four evenly-spaced strips of naked bone. He bellowed in rage and surged forward. Meanwhile I took advantage of a convenient side-passage. Once he'd surged past I shoved him in the rump, hard. And that was all she wrote. Mr. Beefsteak was in the rushing water before he knew it, bellowing and lowing pathetically as the current swept him away. It was almost as If he were extra-terrified, having died precisely this same way at least once before. Then in annoyance I finally slapped the housewife, who through the cumulative effect of her many blows had probably hurt me more than any of the others. She burst into rags, then moved no more. I roared in angry triumph, raised my eyes to seek out the next enemy...

...and was shocked to discover there were no more Demons immediately at hand. Though the brand-new river was choked with them. Perhaps they weren't smart enough to avoid it?

Meanwhile the ground was still shaking, and extra-bright red flashes were reflecting off the walls from a source much deeper down the Pit. The raging waters were clearly a mere foretaste of what was to come. There wasn't time to rest; fortunately neither Midnight nor I required the power of speech in order to understand each other perfectly. We scrambled towards the exit, moving just as fast as he with his three good legs and I with the burden of the Baron could manage. Which turned out to be pretty close to the same speed, once you accounted for the difficulty of climbing around or over obstacles and factored in the one or two odd Demons I was forced to stop and kill. Soon the exit appeared, an eye-drawing oval of pale-blue pre-dawn beauty. It was restful after all the unbroken red we'd grown accustomed to. Soothing even. The closer we came, the harder it was for us to rip our eyes away.

Then, just about the time I'd deluded myself into imagining we might actually make it out alive, the deluge unleashed itself in earnest.

The climax of it all came in the form of what both sounded and felt like a series of explosions. This was appropriate enough, given that the bursting of a great dam had after all been the original inspiration for it all. In less time that it takes to tell it we found ourselves up to our necks in a millrace. A millrace with rocks in it, unfortunately. I slammed into one after another; one of them broke my right hindleg in a clean, pain-tinged snap. "Mew!" Midnight cried out—clearly he'd heard it as well. His green eyes had gone huge and round again. My leg didn't work at all after that. And the Baron was gone as well; somehow I hadn't even felt him slip away. There was only one life remaining that might yet be preserved, or at least so it seemed to me. So I reached out with a shovel-like forepaw and scooped up Midnight, careful not to injure him with my jagged, newly-broken talons. Then I cupped the precious feline to my breast and formed myself into a protective ball around him. For better or for worse, I decided, this was how we were going to ride things out.

And ride we did, though we slammed into rock after rock after rock. Once my broken leg got caught up in something and was twisted just the wrong way, so that I screamed and writhed and nearly let go of Midnight. Towards the end I hit my head, too. I don't remember much after that. All I'm certain of is that I inhaled some water and nearly choked, then fell a little ways and hit my head again. This time I actually did lose consciousness and everything was black, black, black for a cold, timeless interval. Until I finally woke up and blinked in surprisingly bright sunlight. This proved to be a remarkably bad idea; the sunshine drove daggers into my eyes. Plus, my noggin felt like it was full of molten lead, my leg was throbbing so badly that little red sparks danced in my brain with every heartbeat...

...and Midnight sat perched on my chest, cleaning my face with his tongue.

28

It didn't take me long to establish that, wherever I was, I'd fetched up in a hideously uncomfortable position. So I raised my head a little—

—and quite suddenly, for no apparent reason, Midnight raked me across the muzzle with his claws! "Sssss!" he cried, eyes round again. "Sssss!"

I blinked at that, then with all the stubbornness of a semiconscious ursine attempted to raise my head a second time. Sure enough, he took another chunk out of me! What in the world? It didn't make any sense at all!

Until I peered out of the corner of my eye and realized exactly where we were. Still forty feet in the air, lying on a half-smashed platform that'd once been part of the stairway leading up to the Pit entrance. The very same stairway which had appeared so fragile even while still hale and hearty that the Baron had chosen to initiate his flight spell outside the Pit and risk detection rather than trust my bulk to it.

I laid back my head; it thumped like a bowling ball against the boards, causing the entire structure to undertake a long, sickening lurch. Midnight yowled and sank his claws into my chest in panic...

...but, after far, far too long, the debris found a new equilibrium. "Mrow!" the cat complained, as in "Don't do that again, you damned fool!" I blinked my eyes twice in acknowledgement, not even daring to nod. Then he rubbed his face on me as a gesture of forgiveness, purred good-bye, and lightly scampered away on his three good legs.

The pain was probably my best friend, when all was said and done. My leg was the worst-hurt part of me, and it wasn't in too awful a position, comfort-wise. So I didn't feel any great desire to roll over or do anything extra-stupid like that. I did grow plenty thirsty as the hours passed and the sun swept across the sky, and that was pretty bad. But all I had to do to remedy the situation was think about how much it'd hurt to move. Besides, the Pit was still expelling water, acting as a sort of fountain. Or more of a waterfall, really. The flow was still emerging from the Pit with enough force to carry it well out over where I lay, directly under its arc. This created a certain amount of mist; when the breeze was right I could lick off of my nose. And if the pressure ever fell off even a little, well... At least I'd be able to snatch a mouthful or two while plummeting to my death.

At first I was angry at Midnight for abandoning me, though that was only because I was so muzzy-headed. He'd gone for help, I finally figured out once enough time had passed. It'd almost certainly take him a good long while to find it. First he had to make his way back to the Castle. This in itself wouldn't be easy, given that the trail was certainly washed out and he was limited to three legs. Then he had to somehow persuade the mages to listen to him; after all, renewing our voice-spells wasn't likely to be number-one on their priority list, not after such a huge security breach and so many other important spells had gone wrong. If the mages had recovered at all yet, that was. Or... They might even all be dead, though I couldn't make myself believe that the Baron had sunk _that_ low. Some of them were probably German-Americans, after all.

I barked a single syllable of bear-laughter at that. Once again the platform shifted a little in response, though this time it didn't drop quite so far. It was getting on towards evening now. That should've been terribly important, for some reason I couldn't quite remember. So instead of worrying I simply did my best to appreciate the numerous rainbows generated by the mist and perfect angle of the setting sun. They weren't merely pretty; the things were hauntingly beautiful as they danced and weaved amongst the spray-curtains. It was almost like seeing the Northern Lights again; oh how terribly I missed them! It made me feel warm inside, somehow, that even something as filthy and evil as a Pit could bring forth such beauty. As if, somehow, all our struggles and sufferings were worth it after all.

_Of_ _course_ _they are,_ my voice reminded me. _And though your struggles and sufferings shall be greater than those of others of your kind, so shall your rewards. For it has always been so for Protectors of the Tribe, and so shall it always be._

A tear flowed down my cheek. I was glad that bears could cry, I decided. Or at least that I could, anyway. _You speak to me whenever it suits you,_ I addressed my voice. _But never answer when I in turn call out to you. Now I lie dying; I can't possibly hold out much longer. Are you really just my inner self after all, better at pulling together odd bits of information than my active mind?_

_What do you think?_ the voice replied. _You're smart enough—figure it out on your own._

But I didn't even try; then and there, the effort was too much for me. Instead I laid there for hours with nothing to do but suffer, drifting in and out of consciousness all the while. Eventually I ceased waking up at all. Meanwhile the sun sank behind the hills. Then the full moon rose, traced its own path across the sky...

...and sank as well. Leaving me a bear forevermore.

29

"...might as well go ahead and be Sworn," Cynthia explained from her perch next to my oversized and heavily-reinforced hospital bed. "I mean, there's not much point in being what I am and _not_ being Sworn, now is there?"

I nodded in agreement. Moving didn't hurt nearly so much anymore, now that the Guild had majicked my broken bones. They hadn't been able to for the first week; you could only majick a patient just so often, and the initial array of spells had been entirely devoted merely to keeping me breathing. My heart actually stopped during the flight home, or so Guardian claimed. If Shaper hadn't been right there with us, I'd have been a goner.

"Daddy's going to take all of my money and fritter it away on nonsense," she continued, turning and looking out the window. "And there's nothing to be done about it, at least not until I'm legally of age. But at least I'll be part of something important. And I rather like flying!" My favorite waterfowl smiled again. It was she who'd finally found me, after paying the closest possible attention to Midnight's frantic non-verbal attempts to describe where I was. "I think that I'm rather happy with how things turned out." Her face fell. "For me at least. I mean, at least I still had a choice."

I nodded again. Cynthia had decided to return to human form and forego Familiarhood. But then everything had gone so badly wrong. On top of all the other calamities and distractions facing the mages when they awoke, Johnstown had flooded again. Though not _nearly_ so severely as that other time. Just as the Demons were but mere shadows of the Great Flood's casualties, so this deluge was a much-diluted version of the original disaster. No one was known to have died so far, unless you counted the Baron. (Which I wasn't about to do, at least not until his body was found. He was a resourceful one, the Baron was!) In part that was because the Guild was so quick to respond and help carry the victims to safety. Had Cynthia stuck by her decision to remain human, at least four mages would've had to have been taken off rescue duty to change her back. To her enormous credit, she'd opted to allow them to keep on working. "Rrrrr," I rumbled, looking away. Not having my voice spells reactivated was worse than broken bones, in my book. But that couldn't be remedied until it was certain that I was out of the woods and wouldn't need another emergency majicking.

"Heh!" Cynthia grinned. "You're cute when you growl!" Then she reached out with that long, serpentine neck of hers and pecked me gently on the cheek. "I hope you're better soon!"

"He'll be all right," Midnight declared from his own bed, not far from mine. "There's not the slightest doubt of it."

"Good!" Kimball replied. His head was still festooned in bandages. "There's an apple tree out in the courtyard. They'll be ripe soon, and I was thinking that if Chris here were to give it a good shake—"

"Don't you _dare_ molest that tree!" Suzy the cowbird scolded from her perch on the rim of my empty soup-bucket. "At least a dozen families are nesting in it!"

"Tha' woun't be very nice," Frederick added, raising his head from where he was nestled in my blankets. "Not ver' nice 'tall!"

I felt my mouth twitch and wished my smile-spell worked; oddly enough Frederick spoke up a lot more often now that he was a bunny. Or perhaps it was just that we'd finally earned his trust. Very carefully, I reached out with my paw and flicked it in front of his nose a couple times.

"You wan' me ta read some mo'?" he asked.

I nodded, my mouth twitching again.

"Sho thing, then," he agreed with a smile. Then he turned back towards the children's book that Kimball had propped up for him in a blanket-fold. "Once 'pon a time," he began, "there were fo' lil' rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, C-c-c-c..."

"Cottontail," Tim the sparrow said from his perch between Frederick's ears. "Cot-ton-tail."

"Cottontail," Freddie repeated carefully. "And Peter. They lived..."

My lips twitched again. This new book was going to be an absolute sensation with the little ones; I just knew it. And it couldn't be more perfect for Frederick. He made it all the way to the end, hardly stumbling at all. Then all sorts of pandemonium broke out, with me _uhrrgl_ -ing and the others cheering and Kimball, against all orders, leaping up out of his bad and dangling from the chandelier.

"It's too bad that Gwen isn't here," Timmy observed at last.

"Yeah," Kim agreed, hopping down and climbing back into the bed he really should never have left. "I really miss her." There was a long sad moment, during which everyone sort of looked sidelong at Midnight, waiting for one of his cheerful pronouncements. But this time, none came.

"Magic isn't about what we want," a new voice declared as Guardian swept into the room. "It's about what actually _is_."

"Yeah," Tim agreed, his beady black eyes downcast. "I guess."

"And one thing it actually is just now is bedtime," she continued smoothly. "Good-night, children!"

"Good night!" they wished us convalescents as they filed out the door. "I hope you're all feeling even better tomorrow!"

As was her custom, Guardian attended to Midnight first, then tucked Kimball in before turning to me. She didn't actually tuck me in, of course; she'd have ruptured herself trying. Instead she kissed me on the cheek and turned out the light. But not this time. "You're not particularly sleepy, are you?" she asked me.

I shook my head.

"Good," she answered, drawing my privacy curtain shut. "Because I want to check something. It's not even supposed to be possible, mind you. But, I've just got an overwhelming itch to look."

I nodded again as she pulled back my covers and asked me to roll onto my back. I didn't like that very much, not being built for it anymore. But for Guardian, it wasn't a problem.

"If it were present," she mumbled as she fingered through my thin bottom-side fur, so as to examine the skin underneath, "it'd be right in the middle of your upper—oh!" Quite suddenly she stepped back, her right hand covering her mouth.

"Unghh?" I asked.

She forced a smile. "It's all right, Christopher. Don't be afraid. This is a _good_ thing, or at least I think it is. It's just that..." She tried again. "Another one!" she declared after a moment. "And still another!"

The next thing I knew Shaper himself was ruffling through my chest-fur, the whole room was abuzz with mage-talk, and Midnight and Kimball had given up all hopes of rest. "What is it?" Kim demanded for perhaps the seventh time, bouncing up and down in eagerness. "Please?"

Finally Shaper took notice of the young orang. "It's a second Mark, if I'm any judge," he replied at last, stepping back. "But that's not supposed to happen."

I shook my head angrily, hard enough to make the saliva fly. Wouldn't someone _please_ tell me what was going on?

"And..." he continued, looking me appraisingly in the eye. "Our young berry-lover here has many of them. Seven, in fact. Where there should only be one." He turned to face Kimball. "They're stars. The Mark of a spellcaster."

I gulped.

"Is there a pattern to them?" another gray-robed sorcerer asked. I'd never met her before. She looked even older than Shaper, and had what sounded almost like a British accent.

"Yes, Mother," he answered, turning to her and performing a sort of respectful half-bow. "They're patterned after a constellation. The Big Dipper."

"Ursa Major," Guardian whispered, suddenly understanding.

"The Great Bear," Shaper agreed. Then he shook his head and sighed. "Now, if you all would be so kind, I think we need to leave these healing boys to get what rest they can. I need to think long and hard and deep about this. And down a good stiff drink or two as well. Though probably not in that in order."

"I'll join you," the old woman declared. Then she looked at me and smiled. "All sorts of extraordinary things seem to keep happening around you," she said. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Raaaawr!" I asked. "Urrrghl schnnooor!"

"Ha!" she answered, grinning and petting my muzzle with a surprisingly soft hand. "Hold that sense of humor close to your heart, son. I expect you're going to be needing it. Because in things magical there aren't any coincidences at all. Extraordinary manifestations can only portend extraordinary times. Of the sort that are going to require extraordinary individuals to cope with them. And, I suppose, the earlier we begin the coping-work the better off we'll be."

Then she bowed her head as if the weight of the entire universe lay heavy upon her shoulders, sighed, and strode out into the darkness.
OTHER TITLES FROM LEGION PRINTING

By Phil Geusz:

Corpus Lupus

Descent

Lagrange

Left-Handed Sword

Space Man's Burden

Transmutation NOW!

Wine of Battle

The David Birkenhead Series:

Ship's Boy

Midshipman

Lieutenant

Commander

Captain

Commodore

Admiral

Edited By Fred Patten

Already Among Us, an Anthropomorphic Anthology

By B. A. Maddux

Lab Rat

By Rebecca Mickley

Exile's Return

