Free God of Tarot by Piers Anthony Page B

there might not be suitable stone here. One side of it was carved with the design of a six-sided shield bearing a carving of a two-headed eagle. He could not safely assume such symbolism to be coincidence, but neither could he be sure it was not. So there was doubt after all. There always was.
    Sturdy wooden pillars supported a pavilion roof shading the throne. A necessary precaution; even the fairest empress would suffer if she sat all day in the direct glare of the sun. Still…
    A horrendous growl startled him. He jumped, orienting on the sound, and saw a huge, sinuous, catlike creature charging at him. The thing seemed to have five legs. Maybe its tail was prehensile.
    From the lady to the tiger! Brother Paul dodged around the throne. The creature maneuvered to follow him. Catlike, but no feline; the articulation of its limbs was alien in some obscure but impressive manner. It was not that they bent backward at the joints; that did not appear to be the case. But the bending had a different aspect—
    No time to cogitate on that now! This thing must mass 150 kilograms—twice Brother Paul’s own weight—and there was little doubt of its intent. It regarded him either as an enemy or as prey!
    It would have helped if the authorities had advised him of such details of the planetary ecology. But probably they hadn’t known. He should have remained inside the capsule until a colonist-guide came for him; he had only himself to blame for this difficulty.
    Brother Paul dodged around the throne again, but the tiger-thing had anticipated him. It bounded around the other way, reversing course with eerie ease, and abruptly confronted him, its forelegs outstretched.
    Brother Paul suffered one of those flashes that are supposed to come to people facing sudden death. The creature’s extremities were not claws or hoofs; instead, they resembled leather gloves or mittens. They were forked, with the larger part hooking around in a semicircle like a half-closed hand, but without fingers; the smaller part was like an opposable thumb. The dexterity of this “hand” could in no way approach that of the human appendage, and the calloused pads on the outside edges showed that this was primarily a running foot rather than a manipulative hand. Yet a hoof or paw would have been much better for running! What was the purpose in this wrenchlike structure?
    The tiger pounced at him, its strange feet extended as though to box him, except that it was not his torso that was the target. He jumped, high and to the side, so that the creature missed him. The animal’s forefeet jerked back, while the clublike hind feet struck forward. It actually landed on its hind feet, flipping over backward.
    Had he remained in place, Brother Paul realized, those forefeet would have hooked his ankles, and those hind feet would have hit him with sufficient force to break his legs. Crippled, he would have been easy prey. This was not a type of attack known on Earth, but it was surely as brutally effective as teeth or tusks or claws.
    The tiger wheeled about, recovering its posture with the help of its prehensile tail, and sprang again. This time it leaped higher, learning with dismaying rapidity. But Brother Paul did not jump again. He spun to face away from it, dropping simultaneously to his knees, and caught its right foreleg in the crook of his right arm. Then he rolled forward, hauling on that captive leg. This was ippon seoi nage , the one-arm shoulder throw—the first judo technique he had ever tried on an animal, terrestrial or alien. And with luck, the last!
    The tiger’s hind feet came forward in its bone-breaking reflex. They glanced jarringly off Brother Paul’s back and right shoulder, and one clipped his head. Those hind feet were like sledgehammers; he saw a bright flash of light as the optic region of his brain took the shock.
    He had tried the wrong technique. Since the tiger normally caught hold of its prey’s limbs and broke them, he had merely set