With a Tangled Skein by Piers Anthony Page B

nowhere else, the special interactive magic these living things had developed to get along. "There is no bad water coming from this region," he concluded, and he had documentation to prove it: studies the college had made. "No erosion, no bad flooding. The wetlands keep the water pure and contained, so that we who live near it can live at peace with nature. Too little of this kind of natural paradise remains; how can we pave it over with another foul city!" And such was the nature of his eloquence that the spectators in the courtrooms applauded. Few had really cared about the wetlands before; now they all did.
     
    But man's law remained on the side of the developer, and the judge, with open regret, ruled in favor of the company. The bulldozers would be allowed to forage in the swamp.
     
    "I'm so sorry," Niobe told him, but Cedric only shrugged. "They will be stopped," he said grimly. But he didn't say how.
     
    One foggy morning Cedric kissed her with special tenderness and lifted Junior out of his crib. "I'm taking him for a walk down to the oak," he said.
     
    She was pleased-but somehow alarmed too. There seemed to be an edge to his final words: "We'll be there." Yet they were innocent words, and the water oak was the safest kind of place for the baby; the hamadryad was virtually a babysitter now. In fact, the nymph had begun to teach the baby some wild magic-and if there was one thing rarer than the company of a dryad, it was the sharing of the magic of a dryad. Junior, too young to walk or talk, nevertheless did seem to understand and almost seemed to be able to do a spell. So why should there be any concern? Niobe knew she was being foolish. There was, she reminded herself firmly, absolutely no threat to Junior.
     
    She labored at the loom, forming a fine picture of that very tree, and as her hands moved, largely of their own volition, she daydreamed. The image of the tree fogged out and was replaced by that of the saturnine face. "Today I come for you!" it said, grinning evilly. "My emissary is on its way and cannot be stopped. You are doomed, mistress of the skein!"
     
    Niobe screamed. The image vanished, and there was only the forming tapestry. She was shuddering with reaction. This was the vision of her lovemaking rapture, but it was quite foreign to love. Cedric had banished it by his music, but now it was terrorizing her directly! What did it mean?
     
    Then she heard a shot. She jumped. That was the sound of a gun-and it was from the direction of the swamp- and Cedric was there with Junior. He had no gun!
     
    Horribly alarmed, she rushed outside and ran headlong down the winding path to the oak. As she approached, she heard a thin screaming from the tree. It was the dryad, hanging by a branch, shrieking with all her frail strength. Below her was the carrier, overturned.
     
    "Junior!" Niobe cried, her horror magnifying. She scrambled to the tree and took hold of the carrier.
     
    Junior was in it, his body smudged with dirt, and now he bawled lustily. But he seemed to be unhurt. He had overturned and that had alarmed him; that was all.
     
    She glanced up at the dryad. No, of course she wouldn't have tried to hurt the baby! In fact the nymph was still screaming, one little hand pointing away from the tree, to the dark lower side where the gloom of the swamp was strong.
     
    Niobe looked in that direction-and saw Cedric's body sprawled in the bushes. Suddenly her premonition of dread had a sharp new focus. Not her baby-her husband!
     
    She ran to him. He was face down, and blood welled from the wound in his belly. He had been shot! He was unconscious, but his heart still beat.
     
    She looked up-and the dryad was there, for the moment away from her tree. "What-who-?" Niobe asked, forgetting that dryads do not talk.
     
    The nymph took a stick and held it like a rifle, then shook it to suggest its firing. But Niobe already knew he had been shot. "Have you any magic-for his wound?" she demanded.
     
    The dryad