The pressure in Clariel’s head began to ebb away, the sinuous grip of the Free Magic creature began to loosen. The narrow wrists were no longer as hard to move as stone, but shifted under her grasp. Clariel twisted harder and Baazalanan screamed, the scream further strengthening Clariel’s rage. She dragged the wrists down and the tall stick of a creature followed, its legs bending thrice, each joint making a noise like a snapped green branch as it folded.

‘I submit,’ squealed Baazalanan as it fell down, but Clariel did not answer. Instead she shifted her hands to grip one arm alone, and tried to tear it from its socket. She was lost now, lost in fury, and all talk of submission, of her plan to escape, all of it was gone. She would rend the creature limb from limb, and throw its torn carcass into the waterfall to be destroyed forever.

‘Clariel! Stop!’

Something was calling her name, something annoying. Clariel dropped Baazalanan’s arm and whirled around. A white shape rose up on its rear legs ahead of her. She roared and charged at it, hands grasping, but it jumped aside and shot under the table. Clariel sprang after it, and almost grabbed a tail, but it was too quick. It ran to its left, and Clariel sped around the table to her right, but when she got to the other side there was no sign of the impudent creature.

Then it called again.

‘Clariel, Clariel! Stop! Think!’

She whirled around. Where was it? She couldn’t see the pesky thing, and her original enemy was getting up. The tall creature. How dare it get up! She stalked back towards it, on tiptoe, body arched to spring, hands shaking, the froth dribbling down the chin of her bronze mask.

Baazalanan sank back down and bowed its wolf-head, mouth shut to hide its teeth. It laid its long arms out in front, taloned fingers flat on the stone.

‘Clariel! Take its submission! That’s what you want!’ called Mogget.

Clariel stood over the kneeling creature and raised her fist, ready to bring it down on the back of the creature’s head, just where it met that spindle of a neck. But as she did so, she felt some of her power ebb. Turning, she saw Aziminil back away, bowing as she did so.

‘Mistress, you wished to bind this one, not kill. Make it serve you and we shall all turn against your true enemies.’

True enemies. Bind to serve …

The thoughts penetrated Clariel’s enraged mind. The lessening of power from Aziminil took the edge off her rage. She faltered, suddenly unsure of what she was doing. The rage faded a little further, and some rationality returned.

Clariel turned back to the kneeling Baazalanan and laid just one finger on its head. This time, it was her turn to find a way into its strange, cool mind, to extend a mental grip upon its thoughts.