Wolf's Blood (72 page)

If he had used the gate, where did it lead? Surely not to the Nexus Islands—or at least not to those gates they knew. Perhaps Virim had not used the gate for a long time. Ten or eleven years ago, no one would have been on the Nexus Islands to see him. Even after the first ventures had been made to reawaken the facility, the islands had not been inhabited until after King Veztressidan’s fall. Perhaps Virim had kept the tools ready for use out of habit or boredom. Perhaps …

Firekeeper shook her head violently.

You’re behaving like a human, Little Two-legs,
she chided herself,
living within your head. Come out and deal with what is here before it bites and grabs hold.

If Blind Seer noted her distress, he decided not to comment on it in front of Virim. The mountain sheep had lain passive since Firekeeper had dragged him into the room, but that didn’t mean that any of them had forgotten him or failed to note how his ears twitched when they spoke.

“Now,” the wolf said, “we will need blood to provide the power for the spell itself, and a small amount from each who will pass the gate.”

Firekeeper looked over at Elation.

“Will you come with us? Travel in this way is not exactly pleasant, but I have experienced worse.”

The peregrine flapped her wings nervously.

“You are going to work magic?”

“You heard us discuss the matter and did not seem distressed,” Firekeeper reminded her.

“It is one thing,” Elation said, “to hear such spoken of, another to see it done. Already this day I have seen more magical workings than I ever imagined.”

Firekeeper remembered then that Elation had not been present during some of the more remarkable events in New Kelvin, nor had she been with them on Misheemnekuru when the Tower of Magic fell. Given this, her composure in the face of the magic her people—like Firekeeper’s own—feared and abhorred had been remarkable. Indeed, Firekeeper wondered if the peregrine’s relatively matter-of-fact acceptance of Blind Seer’s claim to sorcerous ability had come from disbelief rather than otherwise.

With that memory, Firekeeper realized something else.

“We cannot take you with us,” she said. “You would be as vulnerable to querinalo as any of those we seek to spare.”

Elation fluffed her feathered and made a harsh, cakking noise of indignation.

“Are you saying that I am magical?”

“Do not take offense, Fierce Joy in Flight,” Firekeeper said soothingly. “Likely you are free of taint. However, the ability may lie dormant within you, as we discovered it did in Blind Seer. We cannot risk you where we would not risk so many others.”

Elation permitted herself to be soothed.

“I think I would know if I possessed some magic.”

“So I believed,” Blind Seer said, “but I did not, and I am still fighting disgust at what I have found myself to be. I know you are not one to turn from a fight, but from what I have learned from the yarimaimalom, the winged folk suffered more greatly from querinalo than did any other type of Beast. Your bodies, light as they must be to fly, do not take the fevers well.”

Elation considered this. “So I must risk the gate, or I must risk the Bound. That eagle nearly had me last time, and this time I would need to avoid them when they are sure to be watching. Even if we found and opened one of those high towers we saw, I would be at a disadvantage.”

Firekeeper frowned. “I had not considered that. You are endangered either way, then.”

“And perhaps more certainly if I leave this fortress,” Elation said, “than if I go with you. I cannot believe I bear any magical taint, and you said you needed those who could fight for you. Besides, I have not seen Derian for a long time. I would like to see him again.”

“He is much changed,” Firekeeper warned, “and the fight you would join is far from certain. I know you are a strong flier, but the Nexus Islands are isolated, and even the seabirds say the winds are unfriendly to extended flight. If our efforts at defense fail, you may find yourself trapped there.”

“I suspect,” Elation said, “I would find myself dead. Living would mean surrendering to be enslaved by these descendants of the Old World rulers who are attacking the Nexans. Surely, death would be preferable to that.”

“Surely?” Firekeeper said softly.

“Surely,” Elation said. “Else why do you fight?”

And Firekeeper, having no reply for this, drew her Fang. Baring her left arm, she made a long, clean slice, then squeezed the flesh until the blood ran free to fill the fat silver pot that rested in the stained grooves on the polished stone floor.

XXXV

  PLIK WAS SITTING by his little house, sharpening the points of sticks that Skea hoped could be turned into makeshift arrows, when a peregrine falcon he did not know dropped out of the sky and perched on one of the spreading limbs of the tree that grew nearby.

She was a lovely bird, an exemplar of her breed, but at that moment Plik had no attention to spare for the delicate mottled pattern of the feathers on her breast or the shining gold that ringed the otherwise dark brown eye she now fixed him with.

“You are Plik,” she said. “I am Fierce Joy in Flight, usually called Elation.”

“Firekeeper and Blind Seer’s friend,” Plik said, “and Derian’s. They have spoken of you. Did you come to find them? If so, you have had a long flight …”

A terrifically long flight, when Plik considered where he currently was. The gates ruined one for any realistic assessment of distance. This peregrine had been born in the northern portion of the New World continent that held Liglim and Misheemnekuru. How had she reached the Old World?

“ … For nothing,” Plik concluded. “They are not here.”

“They are,” the falcon said, “and I have come with them. However, they are in a bit of a difficulty.”

Plik rose, dropping the partially sharpened stick into the heap beside his chair.

“Where are they?”

Elation seemed to approve of his decisiveness.

“Follow me,” she cried. “I will explain.”

Plik expected the peregrine to lead the way up the hillside to where the gates were, but instead she led him toward the rocky beach.

“Wait,” he called, trotting after her as fast as his short legs would permit. “That isn’t the way to the gates.”

“It is the way to some gates,” Elation corrected. “Look there. See that island? Not the closest one, nor the next, but the one beyond that, the one with the particularly sharp peak at its middle.”

“I see,” Plik assured her, shading his eyes with his hand.

“On that island,” Elation said, “up near that peak, is a cave, and in that cave is a gate. Firekeeper is there, along with Blind Seer, and one other … . Do you know of Virim?”

“The spellcaster who created querinalo?”

“The same. They have him, or one they claim is him, although I wonder if that is not crediting an herbivore with too much ability.”

Plik could tell there was a good story here, but he could also tell that the peregrine was agitated. The details could wait.

“You say there is a gate there,” he repeated. “Is that how you came to the Nexus Islands?”

“I came here,” Elation said, “from that island with the peak, by the strength of my own wings. We came there from the northwestern forests of the New World by means of a gate. However, Firekeeper does not think she and Blind Seer could swim from the peaked island to this one—or even to the next nearest island. They certainly could not do it with the mountain sheep in tow, and it is less than no help whatsoever.”

“They need a boat sent to them,” Plik said, pressing back the questions he longed to ask. “I believe the fishing boat is in port. Let us go there.”

He went, trotting quickly, dropping to all fours from time to time to spare his feet. As he ran, Plik set about reconstructing what must—might?—have happened as he ran. Virim had used a mountain-sheep emblem. Firekeeper and Blind Seer had found his lair. The Meddler had said the old spellcasters could extend their lives.

Fine. He could accept that they had found something. They had apparently also found a gate, but not a gate that had come here, one that had brought them to a nearby island.

Plik could see the sense in that. Virim had known he was challenging all the might of his world. However, like all of his kind, he had grown accustomed to certain conveniences. Either he had been powerful and wealthy enough to build an unauthorized gate, or he had taken over a gate someone else had built for his own use.

That idea was both tantalizing and frightening. The Nexans had planned their defense around the idea that they knew where the gates opened. What if there were others of these unofficial gates?

Come to think of it, who had operated the gate for them? This mountain sheep? Virim? Someone else they had met?

Plik wrinkled his nose as he might have against an unusually strong scent. He longed to ask this Elation questions—starting with did the peregrine realize the danger she was in from querinalo—but Elation probably wouldn’t want to stop to talk until the others were brought from their point of arrival, so Plik put the questions aside.

Happily, Chaker Torn, who captained the fishing vessel, was well acquainted with Plik, having appreciated Plik’s willingness to take over much of the cleaning and sorting of his catch. Moreover, he was blessed both with a lack of imagination and an adaptable temperament, two elements of personality not usually found together, but qualities invaluable in one who must deal with both the ocean’s unrelenting force and changeable temperament.

Chaker accepted without too many questions Plik’s simple report that the peregrine had brought word that Firekeeper, Blind Seer, and at least one other needed to be taken off the peaked island. His crew—his half-grown son and daughter—was nearby, father and children having taken to sleeping in the rough fisherman’s hut on the shore in case a vessel from the much dreaded invasion fleet should somehow escape the attention of those who watched it.

Plik wasn’t quite certain what the humans thought they could do in such a circumstance, but for now he didn’t care. It was enough that those he needed were there and ready.

“The falcon,” he said, “is named Elation. She will let you know if you go astray.”

“Don’t see how we can miss,” Chaker said laconically, his attention mostly for his ropes and sails. “Wind is with us. There’s a cove where we can bring the boat close to shore.”

There would be,
Plik thought.
What would be the use of building a gate on an island that would trap you as soon as you arrived?

“Then I’ll be off to tell Derian and Ynamynet that our wanderers are returned,” Plik said.

He found them both seated in the sunshine on the pillared front portico of the headquarters building, or rather Ynamynet was in the sun, while Derian sat back in the shade. Judging from the papers and rough maps spread between them, they were working on duty rosters.

“Firekeeper and Blind Seer are back,” Plik said, “or they will be as soon as Chaker Torn fetches them from one of the lesser islands.”

That got their attention, as Plik had intended it would, and rosters were set aside.

“Does Skea know?” Ynamynet asked.

“Not yet,” Plik said. He bent and made a point of rubbing one foot with one hand.

He’d never had a problem with his bare feet feeling bruised or sore on Misheemnekuru, but the deep duff of those forests was far different from the pebbly footing of the Nexus Islands. One of the Nexans, a Never Lived who was the island’s chief leatherworker and cobbler, had made Plik boots to protect his feet over the past winter. The cobbler had promised to make lighter shoes for summer, but that project, like so many others, had been put off under the threat of invasion.

Now the cobbler was crafting makeshift armor from leather and bits and pieces found in the ruins. His usually laughing countenance had become grim as he contemplated all those who would die because his work could not hope to hold up against the far from makeshift weapons their enemies were sure to be carrying.

Despite the alacrity with which they had put aside their paperwork, Derian and Ynamynet could not leave their posts immediately. One of the older children was sent to inform Skea of Firekeeper’s arrival. Harjeedian was called from the archives and asked to handle any routine business that came up. A handful of questions, each a pending crisis to the one who brought it, came as soon as the mayors were seen leaving their posts. Thus it was that Plik, Derian, and Ynamynet arrived at the harbor as the fishing boat was returning with its unpredictable cargo.

The passengers were clustered on the front deck. Firekeeper was leaning against the rail, her set features a study in misery. Plik remembered that the wolf-woman suffered greatly from seasickness.

The falcon, Elation, was perched on the rail nearby, and Blind Seer sat near the middle of the deck. For a moment, Plik wondered if the crossing had been rougher than the relatively quiet waters would seem to indicate for none of the three passengers were looking toward the shore. Then he realized that was because they were keeping a careful watch on something that lay on the deck.