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THE NOVEL, PAGE 2

Fine, Lorinar approved. Now tell me what he thinks. With a twinge of trepidation, Jean merged her consciousness with the animal's, struggling to maintain her own sense of self as well.  She panicked at first, no longer able to feel the presence of the druid, but he sent in a surge of encouragement, and she concentrated on the task.  Or rather, she relaxed her concentration, trying to sort out a welter of primitive impressions that owed little allegiance to the neocortex.  She translated what she could into preverbal communications, the sweet juice of berries, winter winds ruffling fur, warm bodies huddled in an earthen burrow.  Now possess the rabbit, Lorinar instructed, and make it obey you. Jean understood the attunement well enough to send suggestions to the brain, even take command of the muscles, but she recoiled from the very idea.  I can't, she protested. You can't? I won't, she amended. I'm pleased. Jean snapped back to her normal reality to find the old druid smiling at her in the faint light.  "Always resist the temptation of possession," he advised, clapping a hand on her shoulder before adding in mindspeech, Now become a rabbit. She dropped into a crouch,  focusing on her memories of the being she had just studied.  Instead of a duplicate human body, Jean wove a mental image of a cony, then externalized it so that an observer would perceive only that.  Now she twisted the power of transformation upon her own substance, aligning with the illusion.  Watch your mass! she sensed Lorinar warn, and she condensed to the proper size.  You need a tail, came the prompt, and she fashioned a white cotton puff that flashed pertly as she bounded across the boreen towards MacDonnell's hedgerow. The tender twigs invited her, and she began to nibble, then desisted when a trace of rationality suggested she might regret it when shapeshifting back.  If she shapeshifted back.  She rose on her hind legs, sniffing the barnyard smells of chickenfeed, cow manure, and, somewhere, the oily taint of dog.  Disturbed, she began thunking back towards the thicket, when an inarticulate scream of agony pierced her to the core of her being and she froze, paralyzed with fear, before goading herself to run, run.  But she did not know this ground, and dashed in mad zigzags, finally diving beneath a tangle of tree roots.   Then she struggled when something grasped her from behind, kicking blindly as a strong grip carried her bodily out to the grass and a half-familiar voice urged, "Change back!  Change back!" Jean stopped thrashing, feeling the arch of Lorinar's arms encircling hers from behind, buttressed by the soothing wave of comfort that the druid projected.  "I almost lost you," he murmured.  "You went too deep." "That shriek," she quavered, still haunted by the horrible sound and unable yet to face him.  "Lorin, what was it?" The druid's voice sounded hollow in the new morning.  "The cry of a rabbit caught by a fox." Copyright ©1990 Janice E. Brooks.  All rights reserved.

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