Wolf Hunting (53 page)

Onion added, “A foolish fear. Those on the outside knew too little to tell, but then fear motivates much of what these sorcerers do.”

“Fear of what?” Truth asked.

“We are not certain,” Half-Ear said, “but all agree that the Once Dead and Twice Dead are not universally loved even in the Old Country. I am sorry we cannot tell you more, but it is difficult to learn much when locked within a pen.”

Blind Seer perked his ears and listened. “I think I should go and tell Firekeeper what I have learned here. She may wish to pass it on to the other humans.”

After the Royal Wolf had loped away, Onion said, “That Firekeeper, what is she? She speaks as a wolf, but smells human.”

“She was raised by wolves,” Truth said, “and is stranger even than Plik, for all she looks human. Take care to treat her as you would a wolf. She is very touchy on the subject.”

“Once,” Onion said, “this would have seemed odd. Now, though, compared to the Once Dead and their servants, this Firekeeper seems comfortably normal.”

Truth flattened her ears. “That,” she said, “may be the most frightening thing you have said so far.”

“THEY WANT TO SEE YOU,” Isende said, her voice tight.

Plik turned his gaze from the window to the young woman’s face, moving his head as little as possible. The worst of the querinalo might have passed, but he by no means felt well. Even moving his eyes made his head ache. When he focused on where Isende stood at his bedside, the strain he had heard in her voice was evident on her features.

“Who?” he asked, hearing his voice come forth rough and deeper than usual. “Who wants to see me?”

“The leaders of the Once Dead,” Tiniel replied, crossing the room to stand at his sister’s side. “They sent word through Zebel.”

Tiniel’s tone shifted to something mincing and cold. “We did not bring the creature here in order for it to become a peculiar pet for the twins. It has answered one question already. Now we wish it to answer others.”

“I don’t suppose,” Plik said, “we could send word I don’t feel up to interrogation? I don’t, honestly.”

“The doctor already tried,” Isende said, reaching and very gently squeezing his hand. “They said they have no time to wait.”

Despite pain and fear, Plik felt a wash of hope, hope immediately followed by dread. The urgency might be because the others had done something that had alarmed the Once Dead. Plik had vague memories—memories he was not entirely sure were not hallucinations—of someone who had identified himself as the Meddler telling him the others were determined to find him.

That was the hope. The dread was that he could not forget that in coming after him the others would be exposed to querinalo. He had survived, as had the twins, but in the old days Divine Retribution had killed many.

Isende continued to stroke Plik’s hand. “Don’t be too afraid,” she said. “We’re coming with you. Some of the Once Dead speak a form of Liglimosh, but most do not. We have been asked to serve as interpreters.”

Plik wasn’t certain exactly what good having Isende and Tiniel with him would do, since they were little more than prisoners themselves. He supposed it was a good thing that someone who understood something of the New World would be translating. It would save the need for lengthy explanations.

“How long?” he asked.

“How long until they wish to see you?” Tiniel said. “As soon as you can be made presentable. The doctor sent an infusion that will help with the pain.”

He produced a bottle from one pocket and mixed it with the mint tea remaining in Plik’s mug.

“It tastes vile,” Tiniel said frankly. “I suggest you get it down in as few swallows as possible.”

“But it does help,” Isende said. “While we let the medicine take effect, we’ll clean you up.”

They did this. Isende brushed quantities of loose fur from Plik’s coat. Tiniel took care of cleaning more intimate places. Plik found their respect for his gender amusing, but a promising sign that they thought him a person rather than otherwise.

A knocking at the door announced when the councillors felt they had been kept waiting long enough.

Plik’s aches had receded fairly quickly following his drinking the doctor’s brew, but he hadn’t felt any particular desire to hurry to this interview. Nor did he think there was much advantage to giving away how much his thinking had cleared. Drugs that would work well on a human might not work well on a maimalodalu.

Therefore, Plik rose slowly to his feet and walked stiffly, leaning on the arm Isende offered him. But when Tiniel asked if they should summon a wagon or litter, Plik declined, wanting to show how cooperative he was.

“I’m fine. Really fine.”

Walking, he thought, would also give him a chance to see something of his surroundings. He didn’t know how useful that information would be, but if that conversation with the Meddler had not been just a hallucination maybe he could pass something on to the others.

The thought gave him courage, and he looked about with as much alertness and curiosity as he could without relinquishing his pretense of illness.

He’d been right about his own prison. “Cottage” might dignify the structure a bit too much, but it was a small, detached structure built for residence rather than for storage—a step up in some indefinable fashion from a “hut” but not really a house. A similar structure a short distance away answered the question of where the twins resided. Both buildings were enclosed within a hedge heavily intertwined with blood briar, the whole surrounded by a scrubby forest.

There was a guard posted at the enclosure’s gate: a heavyset man, brown after the manner of the Liglim, but with a different style of features—wider lips and nose, very thick, coarse black hair. He wore a leather jacket that wasn’t quite armor, but there was no mistaking the bow he strung as they emerged for anything but a weapon.

Isende spoke to the guard politely in the language of the Liglim, her manner that of the mistress of the household releasing a trusted servant from duty.

“We’re going to be with the council, Wort. I don’t know how long until we come back.”

Wort answered in a fashion that didn’t quite make a lie of Isende’s pretense that he was something other than a jailer. His accent was that of the city-states, making clear from whom he’d learned Liglimosh.

“I’ll walk with you to the council house, then stop by the kitchens for something. Can I order anything for you?”

“Well, they certainly won’t be feasting us,” Isende said, “so a meal of some sort would be welcome for when we return.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Wort promised, “and I may drop in to see how things are going when I’m done.”

Wort didn’t look at Plik with anything like curiosity. This told Plik that the man had been in and out of the cottage, probably frequently. Plik wondered how many of the inhabitants of this place knew him, at least by sight, and what deductions they had drawn from his appearance.

The enclosure in which the twins and Plik had been residing proved to be on the lower edges of the inhabited area. As they climbed an upward-sloping path out of a protected hollow, the wind came strong enough that Plik’s nose—congested from querinalo—finally caught the smell of the sea.

When they mounted the rise, the trees became shrubs, and Plik got his first good look around. His immediate reaction was a pang of homesickness. They were on an island, part of a grouping of other islands, and though the twisted evergreens and low-growing shrubs were nothing like the lush forests of Misheemnekuru, still, there was something here that cried out to his soul.

However, even on Center Island where the maimalodalum dwelt, there was nothing like the structures that dominated this island. The maimalodalum had preserved the five towers that had once been dedicated to the Elements worshipped by the Liglim and used by their sorcerers in their magical arts. But these had been New World buildings, constructed in an unsettled frontier, meant for service before beauty or ornament. When this place—wherever this place might be—had been built, something beyond mere serviceability had been intended.

“What are those round buildings?” Plik asked, indicating an area farther inland, on the highest ground the island offered.

“That’s where the gates are,” Tiniel said, attempting casualness, but his awe coming through nonetheless. “They’re not round, not really. More like wedges of pie with the doors coming out into a central atrium. There are gardens between the wedges, places where people could wait for their guests or for a transit.”

Plik realized that the rounded roofs were what created the illusion that each series of wedges made one round. They also offered some protection to the walkways and gardens between the wedges.

Those wedge shapes would assure that any going in or out of each gate area could be inspected,
Plik thought.
They trusted, but not completely.

The gate area showed evidence of having been abandoned for a long time, but also of recent attempts at cleaning and repair. Great effort had been made to clear an area surrounding these buildings, to expose their walls.

In the past, the outer walls of each of the wedges had been heavily ornamented, apparently with mosaics or bas-relief sculptures that would withstand the vicissitudes of ocean weather. Today’s weather was fairly pleasant, but island-born Plik could tell from the twisted trunks of trees and the way anything alive and growing tended to lean in one direction that there were times when the winds must blow hard, steady, and strong.

Although the decorative medium on the wedge buildings was forced by necessity into a few forms, the styles varied widely. Colors and themes clashed, creating in their very clashing an odd but definite agreement.

Among the scenes, Plik recognized one as a depiction of the step pyramids favored by the Liglim for their temples. The pyramid was extended slightly from the wall, tiny figures of both animals and humans ascending the steps. Beside this scene, however, was a mosaic showing a grassland so open and vast Plik had trouble believing any such place really existed. Surely there could not be a place completely without trees!

Each region, each sponsoring body,
Plik thought,
felt a need to cry out its own importance, to stress its own unique qualities. Here, where cultures and peoples came together because of the gates, there seems to have been no blending. Instead, they felt more than ever the need to emphasize what made each culture worth preserving. Interesting … I wonder how these independent peoples reacted when querinalo swept through their numbers. Not well, I think, not well. Nor do I think their descendants would be too different. I wonder if the clearing-away was done to show off the art, or to make sure it would be hard for anyone to sneak into—or out of—the gates.

Their own destination was not near these wedge-shaped buildings, but some distance away, down a slope. Here again, there was evidence that the area had been long abandoned, but also that time—years even—had been put into restoring the place. The buildings were again made of stone, but their structure spoke not of a need for security, but for easy access. There were many doors, some large, some small, numerous windows, some boarded, but many with glass intact or replaced. The buildings reconfirmed, through covered walkways and bridges built connecting buildings, that the weather on these islands was often less than clement.

One building showed more than those around it both recent use and that it was meant to impress. Its doorways were wider than those around it. Carving had been lavished around windows and doors. The pillars that held up the porches were worked in the shape of strong, broad-shouldered humans. As they drew closer, Plik saw that many varieties of humans were depicted.

Again, the need to emphasize differences, even where they were coming together. Why should I be surprised? None of our legends tell of the Old Country rulers being particularly kind or beneficent to their colonies. Why should I think they would have treated their Old World neighbors any differently?

This building was also guarded. Plik had the feeling that these guards were more a formality, an acknowledgment of the importance of those who dwelt within—a means of keeping the unwanted out, rather than the residents in.

However, when Wort handed them off to these others, Plik felt no desire to see just how alert these new guards were. He suspected they would prove completely able.

Once again, Isende acted as if the guards were an escort, rather than meant to keep her from doing as she liked. Plik sensed she was perfectly aware of the truth, and admired Isende for finding a facade that enabled her to maintain some degree of self-respect.

The twins told Plik to wait with the guards while they went in to announce him. They came back several minutes later, their expressions strained and tight. Wordlessly, they motioned for Plik to follow.

What he had seen depicted on the buildings outside gave Plik some idea what to expect in the council chamber. He had expected a heterogeneous grouping, one representing every variation of humanity he had ever encountered and a few he had not even imagined. What he had not expected, despite the twins’ tales of querinalo and the price it took from those who battled to keep their magic, was the grotesque appearance of many of those who awaited him.

For a weird moment, he almost felt as if he were back among the maimalodalum, the peculiarity of appearance was so great. That impression left him once he had a second look.

For one, the maimalodalum, while often blending the characteristics of several types of beasts with those of humans, were in themselves healthy and functional creatures. These were not. Many of them bore a deformity or mutilation: a bandage over presumably blinded eyes; a missing limb, most often a hand or foot; hair bleached or entirely gone. Yet Plik had not forgotten what the twins had told him—that the Once Dead to fear the most were those who showed no obvious sign of what they had traded to maintain their magic. Remembering his own experience, he thought he understood, and that understanding made him shudder.