Thrice Bound Read online

  Hekate caught at him, crying, "Wait! Wait! You can't leave me without a word, without trying to plan to meet again. We have been friends. I care for you. You can't simply turn away from me."

  "I must," he muttered. "I can't bear it. I can't bear parting from you, knowing that I will again be all alone . . . all alone . . . all alone . . ."

  "And I will be alone too," she cried, "an old woman alone in the wilderness. Have you no affection for me at all? Don't you care what will happen to me? I need you Kabeiros."

  He turned on her a look of bitter reproach. "You could stay in the caves and be safe. We could be together. Some time the creature that watches for you will grow weary or be summoned back to where it belongs. Your father will give you up. Then you could go out. I can't, but you could go out to gather in the forest even to visit the Nymphae and the boy Dionysos you have spoken of to me."

  Hekate dropped her bedroll to the floor and sat down on it, pulling Kabeiros down beside her. "Now it's my turn to say `I cannot,' " she sighed. "I'm not bound to the caves but to an unwise oath. When I was trapped between the guhrt outside and your spell of fear and despair inside, I flew into a terrible rage and swore that I would render my father, who had placed me in that position, powerless. I have no idea how to fulfill that oath. If he weren't my father, I could simply kill him . . . but to shed kin blood would bring on me a worse fate. . . ."

  Kabeiros shuddered. "No, you can't kill him. The `Kindly Ones,' unlike demons, do not fear the caves of the dead. What are you going to do?"

  "Drain his power somehow. He has a way to suck power from my mother, but that involves his coupling with her."

  "She allows it?" Kabeiros asked, mouth twisted with revulsion. "I know lust, but when she knows—"

  "There is no lust involved—at least not on my mother's part, I assure you. She hates him—" Hekate drew a shuddering breath "—with whatever of herself is left within her, she hates him. But she is bespelled to obey . . . just such a spell as the guhrt carries to set upon me. For all I know she is even bespelled to enjoy their coupling."

  "That—that's disgusting." Kabeiros swallowed. "If only the `Kindly Ones' were more reasonable. Surely Perses deserves killing."

  "Yes, but not by one of his blood. Asterie could do it, if we could free her from her compulsions, but I don't even know how to reach her."

  Kabeiros frowned. "But what if you don't fulfill the oath? You can stay here and never see or hear from your father again."

  Now it was Hekate's turn to sigh. "You can't ignore a binding. It grows tighter and heavier until your body fails and your spirit is broken." She took his hand in hers. "That's why I know I must break your binding, why I don't beg you simply to leave the caves. I would stay if I could. You are the only friend I have ever had, Kabeiros . . . and I'm afraid to go alone, Mother knows where . . . I'm afraid." Her voice died to a whisper.

  He didn't answer, but tears streaked his face.

  "How are you bound?" Hekate pleaded. "I beg you to tell me. I will find a way to break the binding, I swear it."

  "You won't want to know me if I tell you."

  "Kabeiros, nothing you tell me or show me can change what has grown between us. I swear that if you must drink babies' blood if you leave the caves, I'll find some way to supply you. I will not turn from you. I will protect you no matter how horrible your secret."

  "Will you?"

  He laughed wildly, jumped up, and rushed out of the cave into the pale pinky-blue light of first dawn. And the man Kabeiros was gone! A huge black dog staggered a few steps, shaking himself free of Kabeiros' tunic, then threw up its head and howled pathetically.

  CHAPTER 6

  Hekate had leapt to her feet moments after Kabeiros and rushed after him to the cave mouth, fearing that he was about to throw himself off a cliff or do something equally fatal. When she saw the dog, she stopped short, her mouth open. In the next instant she had cried out faintly in horror and pity. Snuffling for her scent, the dog had turned toward her. Its eyes were blank and white. It was blind!

  "Kabeiros! Kabeiros!" she cried, snatching up the discarded tunic and bending to throw her arms around the dog's neck. "Come, come with me," she urged, drawing him back into the cave that, blind as he was, she thought he could not find.

  Inside, he became a man almost instantly, with that same sensous shudder she felt herself when she shifted form. She pushed the tunic into his hands, and began to laugh, hugging him tightly as soon as he had pulled on his garment.

  "I suppose it's better to be laughed at than cast aside with loathing," he said.

  "No, no," Hekate gasped. "The reason I'm laughing, dear, dearling, perfect Kabeiros is . . . Look!" And she shifted form into the woman.

  He stared at her, open-mouthed, then with some effort, swallowed and said, "How beautiful you are! Which form is the illusion?"

  "Neither. . . . None." She became the girl as she spoke. "I can do others too, a deer, a leopard. But those take thought and effort; they aren't natural to me. Now you can laugh, too. You've been trying to hide your shame at being a shape-shifter from me, and I've been enduring the greatest misery of aching bones and tired flesh to keep my shameful secret from you. Isn't it laughable?"

  "I suppose so," he agreed, disengaging himself from her embrace, but he wasn't laughing. "I suppose we were foolish not to confess to each other, but unfortunately knowing changes nothing. You can change any time from one form to another. I'm bound to the form of the blind hound everywhere except the caves of the dead."

  "You're fixed in the form of the hound outside the caves? But . . . but that's impossible if you are truly a shape-shifter. Changing form is as natural to us as breathing. How could this have happened to you?"

  "A long story."

  "I have time and more than time for the longest story in the world. I'll make us some tea and we can break our fast while you tell me. Is there water out there?"

  "I don't know." Kabeiros smiled sadly. "I've never been out. But the dog can find water. He has a very good nose."

  "But blind . . . You won't be able to get back to the cave."

  "I'll find the cave. I can smell that, too. But I'm afraid I have no way to carry water if I find it."

  "Hmmm." Hekate made a thoughtful noise. "Yes you could. You could carry the pannikin by the handle and dip it in the stream and carry it back in your mouth."

  "So I could," Kabeiros agreed rather dryly. "And carry a pack across my back, too. I'm a big dog. What a shame that I'm also blind and would trip in a hole or over a stick. Or that I couldn't tell whether the water I dipped up was clear or muddy." He frowned at her. "You don't seem to be taking this very seriously."

  "Of course not," Hekate exclaimed, throwing her arms around him again and hugging him. "Why should I? All I care about is that you can come with me. I don't mind that you'll be a dog, and we can search for a way to disrupt the spell that's interfering with your ability to change."

  Kabeiros shook his head. "I can't come. Hekate . . . your name is Hekate isn't it?" When she nodded, he continued. "I—I can't tell you how sorry I am. I want to go. I want to go with all my heart. If it were only that I knew being a dog for a long time would kill me, I wouldn't care. I would go anyway. I would do anything to be free of these caves, but after a few weeks, all you would have would be a big, blind dog. There would be no Kabeiros."

  "What?" Hekate relaxed her grip on him so she could step back to study his face. "The maiden, the woman, and the crone all have Hekate's mind. That doesn't change with the changing."

  "But a dog's mind is small and it's filled with many things that a man doesn't notice—scents, urges . . . Little by little, day by day, the things a man thinks about become overlaid by the stronger, more urgent desires of the dog. I know. It happened to me. I was . . . truly a dog, all dog, when I wandered into the cave because it was raining very hard and even a dog has sense enough to seek shelter from such a storm. The binding spell was disrupted and I became a man again."

  "Mother
help us." Hekate bit her lip. "This isn't as simple as I thought it would be, but I will not lose you nor go without you, Kabeiros." She bent down to undo the pack of supplies and took from it a pan with a handle and a leather bottle. "Come," she said, "let's find that water. We must discover a way around this problem, but there's no sense in being hungry and thirsty while we think."

  The water, a small clear stream in a stony bed, was not far and Kabeiros did find it without difficulty. Generally his blindness was not much of a problem—dogs seeing more with their noses than with their eyes—but he did blunder into a bush and trip over a fallen log that a sighted animal would have easily avoided. Hekate shook her head and began to run over spells in her mind.

  As soon as they had returned to the cave, she asked whether Kabeiros could change to the dog in the cave. He looked surprised and anxious and admitted he didn't know. He had never tried, having conceived a horror of the dog form when he became a man again.

  "To know you've been an animal—only an animal. To have lost all sense, all memory of humanity . . ." He shook his head. "And there was no purpose to being a dog in the caves. Once, it was a thrill to run in that form, to experience so many new sensations, but I never ran as a dog for more than a few hours and never lost myself."

  "But you must be the dog for me to try out the spells, and if the easy one doesn't work, you must be a man to build and invoke the spells."

  He was silent, staring at her. Then he asked softly, "What if I cannot change back to the man?"

  "I won't let you be a dog forever," Hekate said, taking his hands and holding them hard. "I swear it! I swear that my first purpose, even before finding a way to diminish Perses to nothing, will be to break the binding that fixes you in the form of a dog."

  "THRICE BOUND!"

  The words echoed through Hekate's mind. Kabeiros started and cried softly, "No, don't take another burden," but Hekate looked all around and smiled.

  "Thrice bound!" she agreed. "This last I take gladly, willingly, even joyfully."

  And the dog was before her, his great forepaws still in her hands, his fear showing in his wrinkled lips and flattened ears. She released his paws and he stood there, pushing his head against one hand in his need for comfort. She stroked the smooth fur while he lifted his head, his blind eyes staring just a little past her.

  "Do you understand me, Kabeiros?"

  The dog nodded. Hekate breathed out a sigh of relief, placed her other hand on his head also, and said, "Thialuo tuphlox tha ommata." The dog's eyes remained white. Hekate made a small irritated sound. "You are still blind?"

  The dog nodded again.

  Hekate sighed. "That sorcerer was very angry. I'm afraid he wound them all together, the binding to the hound form and the blindness." She sighed again and said calmly, although icy chills were running up and down her spine. "We will think better when we're fed and rested. Be a man again, Kabeiros."

  The man appeared, uttered a small gasp of relief, and sank down to the floor as if his knees wouldn't hold him upright. He began to laugh weakly when he saw that Hekate's legs had also given way. They sat together on the floor of the cave breathing heavily as fear released them.

  "We were neither of us very sure, were we?" he asked.

  "Of course not." Hekate's shoulders slumped and she allowed her head to fall forward for a moment before she straightened. "How can one be sure with a spell like that? But you had to believe I was sure so you wouldn't lose confidence. Do you know who did this to you, Kabeiros? I'm all ready to add a fourth binding so that I can wring his neck with my bare hands or maybe turn him into a toad."

  "Three is quite enough," Kabeiros said. "I can fight my own battles." He gritted his teeth, then shrugged. "If I had known who it was, the black dog would have torn out his throat. When it happened, I only thought to run so he couldn't call any witnesses to my change of shape. By the time I realized that I couldn't change back to a man, he was long gone. I tried to track him by scent, but it happened in an inn yard and there were so many scents. I wasn't sure which was his."

  Hekate smiled grimly. "I imagine if you ever come across it again, you'll recognize it. But I urge restraint. Don't tear out his throat. Maim him, mangle him, and I will bespell him never to heal! He'll regret his cruelty." She snorted lightly. "He reminds me of Perses."

  "I doubt I'll find him. It was very long ago. Sorcerers are long-lived, but . . . Well, I'm still alive."

  "And still young."

  He smiled at her. "In a way I am, since no matter how many years have passed, I never truly lived between the time I was bespelled and now. But I won't bother seeking the devil. I never knew him at all and only saw him twice in my life."

  "You only saw him twice in your life!" Hekate echoed. "How did you manage to infuriate him so much?"

  "I have no idea, but I can tell you what happened and even what the man looked like—that is stamped firmly into my brain."

  "Food first," Hekate said firmly.

  Kabeiros gathered a pile of stones that he could heat while Hekate filled the pan with water from the bottle and went through the supplies. While the tea brewed he told her that he had been running as a dog when he had smelled magic and out of curiosity trotted over to see who had such a strong Talent. He had found an old man—it was from him that the powerful smell of magic oozed—and a young one, who was surely Talented but not so strongly. They were sitting in an inn yard and talking earnestly.

  Since he didn't recognize either man and those with magical abilities always interested him, Kabeiros decided to introduce himself. He had gone behind the privy and changed to a man. He had then entered the inn through the back door, bought a tankard of beer and gone out into the yard, but the men were gone. He returned to the inn and asked the tapster what had become of them and had learned they had gone into a private chamber.

  "That was disappointing. I was ready to introduce myself to men sitting in an inn yard, but not to intrude on sorcerers who had made it clear that their business was private. I was a bold fool in those days." Kabeiros swirled the herb tea in his cup until he managed to swallow a bite of flatbread smeared with honey, then he sipped to help the bread and honey down. "But not bold enough for that. I finished my beer, and since they had not come out, left the inn."

  "But you went back."

  Kabeiros looked a trifle shamefaced. "I went to find some friends to ask if they knew of new sorcerers in the city, but before I found anyone I became aware of strong and terrible magical energies. I ran back to the inn."

  Hekate shook her head. "Young and foolish, yes. Brave, too. I think I would have run the other way."

  "Brave? I don't know. I didn't have time to think, and anyway, I don't think I could have resisted." Kabeiros frowned. "There was a drawing in of magical power . . . a—a swallowing. It stopped before I was pulled into the inn and sucked dry myself."

  "And you didn't run then?"

  Kabeiros grimaced. "Neither would you have done. I was so curious . . . The remnants of the spell drew me to the window of the place where whatever happened happened, and I looked in. There must have been a duel. To my surprise, the old sorcerer lay across the table. I think he was dead. The young one was just releasing his grip on the old one's hands. He turned his head and saw me at the window. His face was terrible. He said, `The curious dog. Well, you will never see what you should not again, and you will tell no one.' And I was the dog—and blind."

  "He had recognized you?"

  "Perhaps from my aura. For those who can see such things, it is strong for shape-shifters. I'm not sure. All I knew was that I was in an inn yard and I hadn't noticed whether others were there too. If so, they had seen a young man approach the window and now a dog stood beneath it. It would be enough, I was sure, to bring me bound as a sacrifice to the caves of the dead. I ran."

  Hekate munched a date in silence then took a last bite of her bread and honey and washed it down with tea. She poured herself another cup and while waiting for it to cool enough to drink,
asked, "What did the young sorcerer look like?"

  "He was tall and broad-shouldered, handsome in a hawk-nosed, full-lipped way. To me he looked more like those who come from Ur or Urik, with a mixture of the black Egyptian in the blood. What surprised me most was that the magical smell was that of the old man. I must have been mistaken when I first thought the young one was the weaker. Somehow he had stolen the old man's magic."

  "Or had the old man stolen the young one's body?" Hekate muttered. "I have heard of such things among the priests of Egypt, those favored with the ability living on and on . . ."

  "I never thought of that," Kabeiros admitted. "That might have been the drawing I had felt. But how had he magic enough left to bespell me so deeply if he had expended the power it would take to pull a man's soul out of his body and thrust himself in?"

  At first Hekate made no reply, mutely offering the dates to Kabeiros and, when he shook his head, folding them into a packet. Still silent, she gestured at the bread and honey to restore the spell of stasis, then packed all away. When she was done, she looked at Kabeiros and sighed.

  "I don't think he did bespell you. That's why I couldn't find a spell when I looked. I think he tried to kill you by sucking out your life, but you were something he had never touched before, Gifted rather than Talented, and all he managed to do was to somehow tangle the threads of your Gift with his magic." She sighed again. "It will be no mean feat to unwind that drawing spell from your Gift. I admit I don't know how to do it . . . but the world is wide. There are great sorcerers, great mages. We'll seek them out."

  "The greatest mages I know of live in the enchanted city of Olympus, far to the west."

  "Olympus," Hekate repeated. "Olympus. Why do I know that name? Good Mother! That's the place my father hates and fears. Years upon years ago my mother told me that his enemies lived there."