Wolf's Blood (98 page)

“Breaking that trust led to many deaths, to sorrows that will always remain. At the heart of any community is trust, and in violating that trust. Tiniel has violated the right to remain within the community.

“We cannot pass such a betrayer of trust on to any other land, so we take the responsibility for him unto ourselves. If any message is to be taken from this execution, we hope that it will be this: We shall bear responsibility for our own. We expect that all who live on these islands and have commerce with them will recognize the high value we place upon the ability to trust.”

Derian looked up from the paper to see Firekeeper’s dark, dark gaze studying him. Blind Seer was beside her. leaning slightly against her leg. his blue-eyed gaze fixed also on Derian. Together. almost as one mind, wolf and woman nodded their approval.

Then Skea, who as the general of the Nexus Island forces claimed that his trust had been most violated of all those violated trusts, stepped forward. He held a large axe. the blade honed so sharp that the edge seemed to cut fight.

Up went that shining blade. then down. Tiniel was dead. The nation of the Nexus Islands had sent its message to worlds both Old and New.

LATER, IN THE security of his cottage, Derian held Isende in his arms while she wept, the sobs coming from her in ragged gasps that seemed to leave her nearly suffocated from lack of breath.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, for what seemed like the hundredth time.

Derian bent and kissed the top of her head, noting, incongruously, that somehow she had found time to wash her hair and that it smelled of lavender.

“It’s all right,” he said, as he had over and over before. “Cry it out. You’ve had a terrible time.”

“We’ve all had a terrible time,” Isende said, her voice ragged. “Saeta lost Rhul. Frostweed lost his sister. Everyone here has lost friends. Why am I crying? Crying for him?”

“He was your brother, your twin,” Derian said helplessly. “Isende, I don’t think I could love you as much as I do if you couldn’t cry for your brother, no matter how crazy he became in the end.”

Isende looked up at him, and although tears still streamed from her eyes, Derian thought something he had said must have reached through her horrible pain.

“I don’t have a brother anymore,” she said. She held up her hand so he could see the little white scar along one side. the scar that marked where she had been physically joined to Tiniel at their birth. “I always had a brother. I knew that. I think, even before I knew there was an ‘I. First, I knew there was a ‘we,’ and from that I had to learn what ‘I’ was.”

Derian didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut and listened.

“I thought I wanted to be rid of him.” Isende went on. “I was glad when I let querinalo burn through the bond. Now, though, now that I know what came of that, I wonder … Did I kill all those people? Did my selfish desire to he rid of Tiniel, to he free from that bond. did it make him into what he became?”

She looked up at him. and Derian knew he had to find something to say.

“That’s the type of thinking that drove Truth insane,” he said. “We always wonder about might-have-beens, but in the end, what we must deal with is what is. I know that doesn’t help. It doesn’t answer your questions, but it’s all I have.”

Isende wiped ineffectually at her teary face. Derian tugged a not too unclean handkerchief from his shirt pocket, and she scrubbed at her cheeks.

“I must look a wreck,” she said.

Derian was wise enough not to answer. Ballads were the only place where weeping women were heart-tuggingly lovely. He was happy to settle for simply heart-tugging, especially with someone who trusted him enough to cry in his arms.

“So,” Isende said, “how are you going to deal with your helping of ‘what if’?”

In case Derian might think he might evade her point, she reached and stroked the long, hairy line of his horse’s ears.

“I can’t bear the thought of never seeing my family again,” Derian said simply. “What you’ve gone through with Tiniel, learning how quickly family and friends can be taken from you, made me realize that I can’t wait forever—or forever might not be there. I’ve talked to Elise, and she’s going to help prepare the way.”

“Doc and Elise are going to have a lot of ways to prepare,” Isende said. “First back in Liglim, then all the way to Hawk Haven. I wonder if anyone will believe them?”

“Anyone and everyone is not going to have much choice,” Derian said. “Grateful Peace has promised to coordinate with Elise, and they’re working out how best to have him serve as witness without making her seem as if her loyalties might be compromised.”

Isende looked shocked at this, and Derian stroked her cheek in reassurance.

“Don’t fret. Elise has a great deal of standing with King Tedric, and even if she didn’t, Crown Princess Sapphire is her first cousin, and knows very well how firmly Elise believes in the dream that is Bright Haven. No one will be able to accuse Elise and Doc of withholding information about the existence of the gates. Whether Bright Haven decides to request that the gates within its borders be opened, that is someone else’s decision.”

“If they did,” Isende said shyly, nestling up against him, but not looking up into his face, “that would certainly make it easier for you to visit your family.”

“And to bring you to meet them,” Derian said softly, kissing the top of her head again. “Would you go with me?”

“I would.”

XLVIII

  PLIK HEARD WINGBEATS outside the window of his cottage, and looked up just as the raven Lovable landed on the wide stone sill.

“There’s a meeting!” Lovable said. “And you are requested to attend, and even if you had lived all the years since Earth and Air created life between them, you would not believe who has called this meeting.”

Plik thought of the most unlikely person he could imagine, and one sharp-featured face immediately rose to mind.

“Firekeeper?”

“Firekeeper!” Lovable replied. “She asks that all gather at the patio behind Derian’s cottage. She asked me and Bitter if we would carry the messages. We’re racing!”

Lovable looked ready to take flight again, and Plik called out to her.

“When is this meeting?”

“Why, as soon as all can be gathered,” Lovable said. “Firekeeper may have changed enough to ask for a meeting, but she is as impatient about waiting as ever before.”

Plik decided that he would not miss this event even for a fresh bucket of fish guts. That the meeting was being held out-of-doors argued that Firekeeper did not care if everyone on the Nexus Islands heard her business. However, that did not mean her business was not serious. The wolf-woman had a marked dislike of secrets.

Doubtless because so many have been kept from her by those who thought they knew better
, Plik thought.

As he made his way to the appointed place, he hoped that Firekeeper had thought to warn Derian in advance. A few days ago, Isende had moved her belongings into the young man’s cottage, and if Plik’s nose hadn’t lost its sharpness—and he knew it hadn’t—the young lovers were often involved in activities at which they would be rather embarrassed to be interrupted.

As if all the Nexans do not know,
Plik thought with fond amusement.
And as if each and every one does not give the two their blessings.

When the raccoon man arrived at Derian’s cottage, he found Derian out and about, preparing for his guests.

“We asked Firekeeper,” Derian said, shyly proud of that “we,” “whether it would not be as well to hold this meeting in the big hall at headquarters, but she said that we’d all been inside enough. So we’ve rustled up chairs and some blankets for those who would prefer a seat on the ground. Isende’s filling some pitchers with water.”

“Can I do anything?”

“Translate for the yarimaimalom,” Derian said. “I have no idea what Firekeeper is about, but Truth certainly had an inkling long before I did. She’s been sleeping in a patch of sun out by the back wall since midmorning.”

Plik promised to translate, and went to claim a seat on one of the blankets. Truth was still dozing, and Eshinarvash was cropping some grass off to one side. Before Plik had finished settling himself, Bitter and Lovable arrived, followed almost immediately by Grateful Peace, Citrine, and Edlin. Lady Archer came next, bouncing a drowsy infant Elexa. She gave Plik a polite curtsey and greeted Grateful Peace’s contingent like the old friends—and in two cases, cousins—that they were.

“Doc wouldn’t come,” she said. “He said that he’s going to spend as much time in the infirmary as he can. We’re planning to leave tomorrow through the Setting Sun stronghold gate, and then journey with Harjeedian to u-Seeheera.”

She gave a gusty sigh, as if already feeling the jounce of the saddle, and continued on.

“From there, it’s close counsel with Ambassador Sailor, and then, I suspect, back to Port Haven to report to King Tedric and his heirs. I’m going to suggest our ship puts in at Silver Whale Cove so we can brief King Allister first. It’s strange to think that you will have been home in Thendulla Lypella for moonspans before we even reach Eagle’s Nest.”

“Strange indeed,” Grateful Peace agreed. “I have no difficulty in the least understanding why the Old World nations were reluctant to give up the gates once King Veztressidan had reminded them of the network’s usefulness. In my own land, I suspect there will be considerable debate, but in the end, since the gate is there and active, I think we will choose to use it.”

“Querinalo,” Elise said, “remains the problem. I have been watching Doc closely, but so far the Meddler’s—or Virim’s or whoever that strange man Firekeeper has trailing after her really is—protection has held.”

“I have also felt no ill effects,” Grateful Peace said, “and we must not forget that those with no touch of magic about them would not be vulnerable to querinalo.”

Elise nodded. “But I can’t forget what we were told about Blind Seer. He had no idea he had a talent, and nearly died. I’ve talked to many of the Nexans, and they have quite freely described the injuries many of those ‘Once Dead’ took to preserve their power. Some were horrific.”

Plik interjected, “They could always choose to let their power go. I did.”

Derian, coming out with two more chairs, had clearly been listening. “Sometimes it’s not so simple, even for those of us from the north who are absolutely certain we’d rather have nothing to do with magic.”

He twitched his long horse’s ears as he said this, but didn’t shy away from their gaze as he would have only a few moonspans before.

Skea and Ynamynet arrived at that moment, followed by Zebel and Harjeedian. The doctor looked rather surprised to find himself there.

“Doc said he would cover for us both. He said I am a pillar of the Nexan community, and soon enough Harjeedian is going to return to being a disdu and diplomat rather than an apprentice physician. Then he said that for all my skin is brown that I was looking pale, and needed sun.”

“You do,” came a blunt comment that could only have come from one person.

Firekeeper and Blind Seer had arrived unheralded. Now the wolf-woman carried a chair over for Zebel, then turned to get one for Harjeedian.

“The war is over for all of us but you healers, you still fight and fight.”

Plik noted that the Meddler—or Virim—had arrived with Firekeeper and Blind Seer, and that Blind Seer was directing the Meddler to a chair toward the front. Firekeeper crossed to join them, and with some deliberation picked a ladder-backed chair for herself. She put this at the front, and then ruined the effect by turning it backward and straddling it, resting her chin on her folded arms over the back.

“I take chair so you can see me,” she explained, “but I not think is comfortable.”

“You’re young yet,” Grateful Peace said. “Remind yourself of this arrogance when you are my age and your joints are punishing you for all the abuse you are giving them now.”

This stirred a general chuckle, and Firekeeper used the pause after it to call the meeting to order.

“Is Derian done running back and forth? And Isende?”

Derian came out the back door of his small house holding a pitcher with water. Isende came with him, and as if that was a signal, the falcon Elation soared down from the sky and took a perch in one of the trees that shaded the patio.

Looking around, Plik saw that several more of the Nexans—Urgana, Pishtoolam the cook, Wort, and Frostweed among them—had joined the group. A fair number of the yarimaimalom who remained had drifted to the edges of the gathering. Firekeeper did not seem surprised or annoyed, and so Plik guessed that all of these had been invited.

“I have a problem.” Firekeeper began, “and I cannot think how to make it right. I think and think, and I talk with Blind Seer, but he is too close to me to be able to come up with answer. I am wishing to myself that I had a pack and could draw on their wisdom, then I think: I have a pack, and that pack is here.”

Plik knew he was not the only one present to feel honored by those words. Firekeeper had always made such a point of being a wolf and nothing but a wolf that learning she had broadened her alliance to include such a motley group astonished and warmed him.