Wolf Hunting (78 page)

“Derian must choose his own course,” she said at last, “not be convinced either to stay or to go. All the omens agree that if he is persuaded against his will, evil events will follow.”

Truth did not say what these events were, but watched in idle fascination as armies marched and a warrior in armor all of brass and silver led an invincible army two by two through a gate. It was only one of many visions, but it was certainly the most colorful.

“I will decide after Derian does, then,” Eshinarvash said. “Wherever he goes, Derian will need someone with whom he can talk. I think that one should be me. He is of my people, at least a little bit.”

Truth let the spiraling movements of army fade and concentrated on the question she heard in the Wise Horse’s statement.

“Yes,” she said. “Derian would benefit from your friendship, although he will not always be grateful for the reminder you give him of his changed state.”

“I can live with that,” Eshinarvash said, biting off a clump of stiff, salty grass and chewing.

“Yes,” Truth agreed, “you can.”

XXXVIII

THE YARIMAIMALOM WERE THE FIRST to leave, a pair of wolves initially, followed by two bears in singularly bad humor as they contemplated trying to survive a winter for which they had not stored sufficient fat.

Firekeeper had listened to the bears discussing going farther south, as if they were some sort of enormous, furry birds. Harjeedian had politely suggested that the bears might find welcome in Liglim, where the appropriate temple would be happy to give them shelter.

Whatever decision the bears chose to make, the wolf-woman did not fancy the chances of any who crossed them as they inspected the other side to make certain all was well. However, when Night’s Terror—who, along with Golden Feather, had been in the next pair to make the crossing—was brought back and reported that the surrounding area seemed as she remembered from before their departure, many of the yarimaimalom were eager to return.

For the carnivores, returning to the New World was more than a matter of at last escaping where they had been held captive. It was a question of getting in some hunting before winter moved in fully and made their prey lean and stringy. The herbivores felt a similar pressure, for although these lands farther south did not experience winters as severe as those Firekeeper had known in her childhood, still the plants became dormant and did not offer as much nourishment.

However, knowing full well that Firekeeper’s small pack could not control their still untrustworthy allies without assistance, many of the yarimaimalom agreed to stay on. The wingéd folk and smaller hunters, like the foxes and wild cats, made up the larger part of the occupation force, so the Once and Twice Dead and their companions were aware that they were watched—and watched by creatures who had ample reason to interpret the least oddity in their behavior as threatening.

Given the situation, Derian resolved to remain. Teamed with Eshinarvash, he made a translator almost as adept as Firekeeper or Plik. Within days, the two were rarely seen one without the other, and Derian was too busy to brood over his altered condition.

Eshinarvash’s choosing to remain brought to the fore the need for a regular source of supply, for the island did not provide good forage for a horse. Harjeedian and a contingent of yarimaimalom made their way to Gak and negotiated with Amiri and Layo for supplies. Lovable reported rather coyly that Harjeedian had spent a good deal of time visiting with an argumentative aridisdu, and Firekeeper speculated what this might mean for Harjeedian’s own eagerness to return to Liglim.

The supply run into Gak meant formulating a story to cover their continued absence. Harjeedian did so with such facility that Firekeeper remembered all over again why she had once distrusted him. The explanation was that they had indeed located Tiniel and Isende, and had found them weak from an undefined illness. Given the lateness of the season and the fragility of the twins, the group had decided to stay with them and assure their care.

If anyone wondered at the gaps in this tale, the lingering fear all New World residents held regarding illnesses that might spread as the Plague had once done provided ample distraction. A pair of ospreys agreed to fly to Liglim and deliver written messages to Harjeedian’s people and to the Bright Haven embassy so that there would be no worries on their account.

“Will Elise have whelped?” Firekeeper asked Derian as he scribbled out their own message. It was a long one, for although it had been agreed that nothing would be said about the gates or the Meddler, still there was a great deal to tell. He was also including a letter that would be forwarded to his family in Hawk Haven, because “Even if I can’t tell them almost anything important, I am alive, and I’m beginning to realize that’s a lot to be grateful for.”

“Whelped?” Derian replied as he finished scratching out a sentence. His grin was almost as easy as it had been before querinalo, and Firekeeper felt warmed.

“You know, had the baby.”

“Not yet. Humans take longer than wolves at this. You should remember. In the spring.”

Firekeeper sighed, and Derian took pity on her.

“The ospreys have agreed to carry a return message, and I’ve specifically asked Elise to report on her condition. We should know how she is faster than it would take for us to travel to u-Bishinti.”

“I know. I miss them, though. This would have been easier with them to help.”

Derian nodded. “But remember, Doc would have had to go through querinalo. I can’t wish that on anyone.”

“I wonder,” Firekeeper said thoughtfully, “if Ynamynet and the others didn’t tell us because they thought we might be killed by it.”

“Probably,” Derian said. “Querinalo isn’t like any disease I’ve ever heard of, but I do know that people develop resistances to diseases that touch their populations frequently—like that swamp fever that makes going to Waterland in summer so nasty for anyone but the people who live there. Ynamynet’s not stupid. She may have hoped we would have no resistance and be killed as easily as those Old World sorcerers were back when the Plague first hit.”

“We not know much,” Firekeeper said. “So much we don’t know.”

She was thinking about how little they knew one of the times she made the transit back to the New World. Ynamynet had found an apprentice, or rather the apprentice had found her. It was Enigma, a puma who had been among the captive yarimaimalom. He had announced himself and his interest in learning the spell by padding up to Ynamynet as she was about to perform the ritual and going through the ritual with her. Afterward, when Ynamynet had time to consider, the Once Dead said that she had felt a familiar sense of someone else sharing the transmission of power with her, and although not a word was spoken between them, even in translation, she had known what Enigma wanted.

“So the name that was augered for me is fulfilled,”
the puma said,
“for I was a definite puzzle to those who viewed the omens of my birth.”

The spell had to be slightly adapted so Enigma could work it solo, but Ynamynet had admitted with a slight shiver that the puma had taken to blood magic “as if it were his first nature.”

Knowing how carnivores loved blood-hot meat, Firekeeper only wondered that Ynamynet thought this worthy of comment. Indeed, although the yarimaimalom’s tales of the days when magic had been more commonly in use did not include beast sorcerers, Firekeeper was growing cynical on what she had and had not been told.

“Paws,” she said to Blind Seer, “and teeth are not the best for creating gates and other artifacts, but as Enigma’s experience shows, when someone else makes the tools …”

Blind Seer didn’t comment, not even with a proverb, but Firekeeper didn’t see how he could do anything but agree. Still, the blue-eyed wolf did not like going through the gate, and so Firekeeper had made this return trip alone.

She was going to be gone only a few hours, checking with representatives from the various packs and herds, all of whom had promised to report if querinalo surfaced among any of their peoples. Thus far it had not, and since many days had passed since the return—more than it had taken for the illness to appear before—and no sign had occurred, there was reason to believe that querinalo could not be transmitted by one who had suffered it to one who had not.

Firekeeper was in the stronghold courtyard, eating a rather withered apple and waiting for Enigma to return from her hunting, when the Meddler stepped from behind the apple tree.

“So, Firekeeper, you’ve done it again.”

“Me? What?” Firekeeper dropped the apple and reached for her Fang, although she was not at all certain the blade could touch whatever the Meddler was.

“Changed things around you.”

“I did no more than all the others,” Firekeeper protested, although she knew this was not true. What the others had done had been important, but not even Plik could have created the bridge between human and beast as she had done. “I am one with a very odd pack.”

“You are One of a very odd pack,” the Meddler said, and as they were speaking the language used by the wolves, there was no question as to his meaning.

Firekeeper shrugged, and the Meddler panted a wolfish smile.

“This is the first time,” the Meddler continued, “since I helped you cross to the Nexus Islands, that I have been able to speak with you alone. I have come for my favor.”

Firekeeper stiffened. Although she had done her best to keep the bargain she had made with the Meddler from her mind, it had always been there, lurking beneath the surface. In a sense she was glad he brought the matter up now. To live for moonspans or even years waiting for this “favor” to be called due would be unbearable.

She said aloud what she was thinking.

“Good. This is a relief. What do you want?”

“I want you to kiss me.”

Firekeeper blinked at him. “What?”

“Kiss me.” The wolfish visage was changing now, shifting into that of a man Firekeeper felt she vaguely recognized, yet at the same time she was certain she had never seen. “I want you to kiss me, mouth to mouth, as a woman kisses a man.”

Firekeeper felt herself blushing, her skin prickling hot all over.

“But,” she protested, “how can I do that? You aren’t there, not really. You told us you lack a body.”

The Meddler smiled, and the smile sent very strange sensations through Firekeeper—powerful sensations such as she had never felt before.

“I have been freed from my prison for several moonspans now. That is time enough even for someone insubstantial like myself to gather some power. Although I have spent some of that power—even on your behalf—still, I have enough to assure that we will close the gap between body and spirt long enough for you to touch your mouth to mine.”

Firekeeper took an involuntary step back. “But why? Why do you wish this thing?”

The Meddler grinned at her. “I could say that I want you to learn what you’re missing in refusing your love to any but wolves.” The grin faded and that almost remembered visage grew sad. “But the truth is easier. I told you that I cannot cross into the Nexus Islands because it is guarded from any but those who cross by conventional routes.”

“And now we are guarding from those, too,” Firekeeper said, thinking with distinct satisfaction of the load of iron bars Harjeedian had brought with him from Gak.

“All too true,” the Meddler said. “However, I would like to go there. Firekeeper, I was born in the Old World. When I was made captive, I was no isolated individual. Like you I had friends. I had family. I realize that hundreds of years have passed since I was imprisoned. Doubtless all those I loved are dead. Those who did not die from old age probably died from the very Plague that my imprisonment rather ironically protected me from. But I would like to know. I could make the journey in this spirit state I now occupy, but the distance would not be shortened. It would be a very long walk. Please, Firekeeper, give me the means to start my journey home.”

Firekeeper stared at him. From the tales Harjeedian and Plik had told, she knew the Meddler was known for well-intentioned actions that somehow went awry. She wondered what she would be letting into the Old World if she helped the Meddler. Then she cheered up slightly. At least if he went through the gates into the Old World, she’d be removing him from the New. That would be a good thing without question. Even Harjeedian would praise her for it … if she told him, and she knew with a certain uneasiness in her gut that she wouldn’t.

“So I can help you cross through the gate,” she said, “by kissing you.”

“That is correct.” The Meddler smiled rakishly at her. “Kiss me and I believe I will have what I need to cross via the gate. You won’t even know I am there.”

Firekeeper frowned at him. “A favor you ask then, between you and me. I suppose this is such.”

“That is right. I’m not going to steal your body or your soul, just in case you’ve heard stories of that sort. I’m simply going to create a link between us, a link that will let me follow you.”

Firekeeper stared at the Meddler. Against her better judgment, she felt sorry for him. Ever since she had crossed the Iron Mountains and encountered humankind, she had felt isolated from what had been her home. However, nothing kept her from going to visit. Nothing barred her from learning what had happened to those she loved.

“I will kiss you then,” she said, “and the favor is done.”

“Don’t look so miserable.” The Meddler laughed. He walked toward her, measured step by step, becoming more substantial with every pace until she felt the heat of his body and smelled his sweat, a little human, a little wolf. “You might just enjoy it.”

Firekeeper had meant to peck him on the lips, a fast kiss as was familiar to her between friends, but somehow the Meddler gathered her in his arms. Before Firekeeper quite knew what was happening, he was kissing her very intently, holding her close, his tongue slipping between her lips.

Before Firekeeper could jerk away, she felt the Meddler begin to lose substance. He released her, stepping back a pace.