Dogsbody (25 page)

“He said I could have it.”

“You shall have it presently,” said the Master of the hunt. “Kathleen, do you think you can make that thing work?”

Kathleen, very puzzled, turned the Zoi over and looked at either end. She seemed quite unharmed by it. The prickling life of it did not seem as strong as before the Master picked it up. Sirius suspected that, though the Master of the hunt could not use the Zoi himself, he was able to protect Kathleen from the effects of it. “How does it work?” Kathleen asked. “There aren’t any switches.”

“Meteorites don’t have switches, you festering idiot!” Basil said. “They don’t—”

The green ground underneath them shook. There was a queer noise, like cloth slowly tearing. The mother dog growled. Patchie and her brothers opened their eyes and stared around. Sirius thought at first that the Zoi was responsible, until everyone turned toward the dim empty distance beyond the Master’s chair.

There was a strong smell of singeing and the dimness seemed to be bulging inwards. A gray light, with a hint of blue-green, was shining through the bulge, and it was increasing piece by piece, as if someone was tearing a way through. From the noise, someone was doing just that. Sirius took one look and darted in between Rover and Redears. He lay down, half turned away from the tearing, and pretended to be asleep. It was the only way of hiding he could think of.

New-Sirius and his Companion, with light limning their human shapes, trudged across the green ground. It went writhing away from under their feet, so that they walked in a smoking black scar of bare Earth. The smoke from it made everyone cough, except the Master of the hunt. Behind the two luminaries was white morning mist, dripping nettles and wet grass, making a queer contrast with the light from the green floor.

“We want that dog,” said New-Sirius. “Give him up to us, and nobody will get hurt.”

“There’s the Zoi, too,” said the Companion, pointing at Kathleen. “We’ll have that as well.”

They came on, bringing the mist and weeds outside nearer and nearer.
The poor mother dog stood in the smoke above her puppies and snarled at them. The children stared, not understanding at all. The Master stood up. The new light made him harder to see than ever. But that was only for an instant. As soon as he was on his feet, the outside world was gone again. The green moss healed and spread itself into the distance, until the only burned part left was where the two luminaries were standing.

“This is my place,” the Master said in his flat somber voice. “You can’t come here.”

“Oh, yes we can,” said New-Sirius. “Earth is part of my sphere. I govern this whole system.”

“But not me,” said the Master.

“Nonsense!” said the Companion. “You’re only one of Earth’s creatures. Hand over the dog and the Zoi, before we have to make you.”

“And you won’t like that,” said New-Sirius. He took a step toward the Master, or, rather, he intended to. But he remained in the same burned spot. He leaned forward, and tried again. He still-could not move. “You can’t do this!” he said incredulously. “We’re luminaries.”

His Companion threw herself forward and beat her white fists on nothing. “Stop this at once! How
dare
you!”

The Master said nothing and did not move. The anger of both luminaries blazed in sheets about them and flared uselessly away into dimness.

“Do you think it’s some kind of force-field?” Basil said to Robin.

“I don’t understand. What do they want?” said Kathleen.

The Master’s great branched head turned toward her. “They want to kill your dog.”

“Leo?” said Kathleen, clutching the Zoi to her chest. “They’re not going to kill Leo! I’ll see them dead first!”

The prickle of the Zoi suddenly became the sweet sting of force truly used. Sirius felt his coat stand and wave as the power of the Zoi swept across it. He turned in time to see his Companion throw up her arm against it. It did no good. She, and her new Consort with her, were already diminishing as she moved. Side by side they dwindled steadily and, as they shrunk, they seemed to move farther off. When both seemed a foot high, it was impossible to tell if they were small near-to or huge a million miles away. Sirius was reminded of the time he first saw Sol go. In a second, the two luminaries were only a greenish speck and a whitish one, dwindling and receding still. Then they were gone, too small to see.

“Just like when they turn off the television,” Bruce remarked to Sirius.

“I did that, didn’t I?” Kathleen said. “They were horrible anyway, but where have they gone?”

“Who knows?” said the Master of the hunt. “But now you can use that thing, will you use it for me?”

“How is Kathleen able to use a Zoi?” Sirius demanded.

“Being a child of Earth means more than you think,” said the Master. “Kathleen, I want you to use the Zoi to change my situation. I’m sick of being a child of night. My ancestors came out by day and didn’t frighten or puzzle people. I want to be the same.”

“How do you mean?” said Kathleen.

“Your dog can tell you how he felt when he ran with my hounds,” said the Master. “He was cruel and kind at once. It must have muddled him. Isn’t that so?” he asked Sirius.

“Yes,” said Sirius, and he began trying to explain to Kathleen about the queer muddle of sympathy and savagery he had felt. But he stopped, because Kathleen had not understood a word. She was nearly in tears about it.

“I know he’s talking, but I still can’t understand. You promised I could!”

“You’ve cheated her!” said Sirius. “Are you planning to cheat me over the Zoi, too?”

“I never cheat,” said the Master. “You’ve cheated yourselves. I promised, and I warned you both, and I shall keep that promise. Kathleen, use the Zoi for me. I want to walk Earth as you do.”

“I don’t think you should,” said Kathleen. “Not if you’re going to cheat and muddle everyone.”

“I only do that because I’m in darkness,” said the Master. “Can’t you understand?”

He came toward Kathleen. Perhaps he meant to show her what he was talking about. At any rate, the dimness from him fell over her, almost blotting her out. Kathleen backed out from it, terrified.

“No, no,” she said. “Don’t come near me. Don’t do that!” The Zoi, as she clutched it, once more gave out its sweet sting of force, and the dim green space rang with its power.

“I knew this would happen once the veil was torn,” the Master of hounds said, and folded his arms. Then, quietly, without any of them noticing, he was not there anymore. The rest of the place
went with him. There was no green moss, no mother dog, no pack of cold hounds sleeping. The ground, rough and full of bricks, slanted under their feet, and they found they were standing halfway up the mound of rubble where Sirius had lost Yeff. It was all cold and colorless in the time just before sunrise. The damp, misty air made them shiver. And all around in the mist, they could hear people moving, calling to one another and whistling, and dogs barking.

16

T
he four true dogs stood with their heads on one side and one paw raised, listening. “Goodness!” said Bruce. “That’s my master whistling!”

“And mine,” said Patchie, Rover and Redears.

“If you don’t mind,” said Bruce, “I think we ought to be off now. So long.”

They were all off, without more ado, into the wet whiteness. Some of the calling and whistling stopped and became relieved cries of “There you are, you bad dog!” But most of it went on.

“What’s going on?” Robin said sleepily. He went up the mound, stumbling from brick to brick, to see what the noise was about. Near the top, he shouted with delight. “Look! Look! He remembered!” The Master of hounds had kept this promise at least. A fat white puppy with blood-red ears was stumbling about up there, cheeping for its mother. Robin picked it up tenderly. Finding it was frosty cold, he wrapped it in his sweater and sat down with it, trying in a puzzled way to warm it up.

“Right,” said Basil. “He’s got his. Give me my meteorite.”

Kathleen held the Zoi to her and clambered away from Basil, backwards up the mound. “It isn’t a proper meteorite. It’s dangerous. I don’t think you should have it.”

“He
promised
me!” Basil said, climbing furiously after her.

Sirius bounded up with him and pranced around Kathleen, trying to show her she should give it to him instead. But Kathleen raised the Zoi out of his reach. “No, Leo. It’s a horribly strong thing. You’re not having it either.”

“Give it me!” shouted Basil. Kathleen ran away from him, to the top of the mound. Basil caught her there and tried to twist the Zoi out of her hand. They wrestled for it, to and fro, just above Robin’s head, while Robin sat absorbed in his puppy. Basil of course was the stronger. Sirius jumped around him, getting in his way, barging Basil’s legs whenever he could. He did not like to think what would happen if Basil touched the Zoi. Nor did he quite trust Kathleen not to use it again by accident. Basil gripped Kathleen’s arm and twisted it back. Sirius barged at his elbow. It was a hideously familiar sight. He and his Companion had wrestled for the Zoi exactly like this, and he was afraid it was going to be lost again, or destroy them all.

The bump Sirius gave Basil loosened Kathleen’s fingers. The Zoi fell from her hand and went plummeting to Earth. Since it was not made of the same stuff as Sol’s system, it fell like a streak of light. Sirius leaped for it. He was only just in time to catch it in his mouth before it entered the ground.

It hurt him. He had not known anything could hurt so much.
The pain started at his mouth and spread all over him like a green flame. It was as much as he could do to make Basil another cindery cone, falling at an ordinary speed. After that, he could think of nothing but how much it hurt.

The heavy cinder thumped down on the bricks. Basil rushed at it and scooped it up. He glared at Kathleen. “I told you it was mine!” he said. Then he ran away down the mound with it in case Kathleen tried to get it again.

The pain did not last long. Sirius stood up out of it and stretched, light and liquid and free. He was a reasonable size again. He found himself looking down over Kathleen, out across the white mist that hung over the cleared space. Police cars with lights on were parked on the cinders. Policemen with dogs and torches were busily searching through the rubble and the nettles. He saw Mr. Duffield with them, and Miss Smith leaning anxiously out of one of the police cars. But they were only little details at the edges of his great green freedom. The warm, stupid dog was gone. Better still, there was a lightness and power at his shoulders. He had been without his wings so long that he had almost forgotten what they felt like. He spread and shook them, so that the silvery-green flames of the pinions streamed and whispered behind him. He would have wagged his tail with pleasure, except that he no longer had a tail. Instead, he took the Zoi out of his mouth and laughed down at Kathleen. Somehow, he had no doubt that she would be able to understand him now.

“It feels marvelous!” he said.

Kathleen did understand him. She raised her head. Her eyes
climbed wonderingly up this sudden green giant, paused on his fierce silver-green face, and moved on over the mane of dense flame-like hair to the huge double wings at his back. Compared with this being, the Master of the hunt now struck her as small and tame. Wondering where he had come from, she said politely, “Does it? I’m so glad.”

Sirius was puzzled, and rather hurt. “Don’t you know me?”

Kathleen raised her face again. “I don’t think so,” she said in the same polite way. “Are you an angel?”

“Of course not!” he said. “I’m Sirius. I’ve been your dog for a year. You must know me!”

“Oh,” said Kathleen, and she looked down again.

Sirius looked to see what was taking her attention so thoroughly. There was a big dog in the mist at his feet, lying on its side in the weeds. It was a young dog, rather too thin, with a cream-colored coat and reddish ears. The ear he could see had recently been bitten. The dog was dead. He could see that from the drying skin on its pale eyes, even though it was still twitching a little from the life that had been in it. He looked at Kathleen’s stiff face and he knew what the Master of the hunt had been warning them of. Perhaps this was why he had given the Zoi to Kathleen and not to him.

“Listen,” he said. “I’m still the same. I was that dog. Don’t you understand?”

Kathleen nodded, though he did not think she really understood. She said, “You don’t look like Leo,” and then added kindly, “But you look very nice, of course.”

Sirius could not bear the look on her face as she turned back to
the dog. He held the Zoi out to her. “Take this,” he said. “See if you can bring the dog to life again.”

But Kathleen put her hands behind her back and backed away. “Oh no, that’s quite all right,” she said politely.

“Then I’ll try,” said Sirius, exasperated by Kathleen’s polite, distant manner.

“No, really,” said Kathleen. “You don’t have to bother. It wouldn’t be the same.”

“Blast that!” said Sirius, and turned the Zoi on the twitching body. Nothing happened. The Zoi hummed and fizzed in its usual way, but there was no sweet sting of force. Sirius exclaimed with annoyance, although he understood well enough. The dog had been himself. The one thing you could not do with a Zoi was use it on yourself. “You’ll have to do it,” he said to Kathleen. “Here.”

He pushed the Zoi at Kathleen’s face to make her take it. Kathleen gasped and turned her face away. He heard her hair sizzle. Sirius backed away, horrified. As he went, he saw that the dog’s coat had singed and the damp grass under his feet was steaming and smoking. It dawned on him that he could not even touch Kathleen now. True, he could contain his heat, as his Companion and New-Sirius had done, but it was not a thing he had ever been very good at. He did not think he could do it well enough to risk going near Kathleen. He could not lick her face anymore. Kathleen could not hug him, in that uncomfortable way of hers, until his back ached and he had to wriggle. She did not even really want to talk to him. All she wanted to do was to look at the dead dog on the ground.

Then Sirius glimpsed a little of the meaning behind the wild
hunt. He had been cruel to Kathleen while he thought he was being kind. Because he had not thought of anything but the Zoi, he had done something worse than Duffie and worse than shooting her father. It did not help to find he had done it to himself too; or that Kathleen, in the kindest possible way, had done exactly the same.