Secrets of the Wolves (30 page)

This time I was the one who pulled away, jerking myself guiltily from Ázzuen’s thoughts with a sense that I had seen what I should not have seen. I offered a silent, shamed apology to Ázzuen. Fatigue overwhelmed me even as I did so. I couldn’t remember if I had ever felt so tired. All I could think about was lying down and sleeping. Before I knew what was happening, I was back in the dark, scentless place, more than ready to return to the sun-warmed clearing.

“Wait, Moonwolf.” Tlitoo’s voice was faint, but clear, and much deeper than I remembered it being. There was a blurring of the darkness and the same sense of disorientation I had felt when I had entered into TaLi’s thoughts.

“Look,” Tlitoo said.

I slowly opened my eyes, expecting to find myself back in the warm clearing with TaLi, BreLan, and Ázzuen. Instead, I was standing with Tlitoo in the middle of the Stone Circle where the human and Greatwolf krianans met once a moon.

“How did we get here?” I asked. The Stone Circle was across the river and a fifteen-minute run through thick woods from the clearing where the young humans slept.

“I am not sure, wolf,” Tlitoo said. “I do not know what this place is. It is not what it seems.”

I sniffed the dirt at my feet. The Stone Circle smelled of pine and rock, Greatwolf and human. This place smelled of nothing.

We both caught the slight movement at the same time and turned to see the form of a wolf emerging from the woods. I could not smell her juniper and fire scent in this place of no smells, but I knew her just the same. Walking toward us, as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do, was the spiritwolf, Lydda.

W
hen I had last seen the spiritwolf, she’d been frail and hungry-looking, a result, she had said, of coming too often into the world of the living. Now she looked as if she had fed well after a long famine—her fur was still thin and dull, but her weight was returning to her, and her eyes were bright. I breathed in the still air around me, hoping to catch her smoke-and-juniper aroma even in this scentless place.

That was when I realized that something was wrong with my nose. It was so cold it ached. Unlike many creatures, wolves are almost never bothered by the cold. Our fur grows thick in winter, even between the pads of our feet, so that we can run the hunt even on the coldest of nights. Only our noses, furless to allow scents to flow freely to us, are sometimes at risk. When we sleep in the cold, we make sure to cover them with our tails. My nose had never been as cold as it was as I watched Lydda walk to me. I wondered if it was possible for it to fall off.

Lydda reached me and looked me over carefully, then opened her mouth in a smile.

“I thought you would find your way here,” she said, touching her own nose to my frozen one. I imagined I could feel the heat of her breath on my face, but it did nothing to warm me. I returned her greeting as best I could.

“Where are we?” I asked, looking around at what appeared to be the familiar rocks and dirt of the Stone Circle. “Is this the world of the spirits?” My heart skipped as I thought I might see Yllin, to be able to say good-bye to her, to thank her for the many times she stood up for me and told me I was strong. Then a gust of terror overwhelmed me as I wondered if I might have died trying to return from Ázzuen’s mind.

“It is not,” Lydda reassured me. “It is a place between the realm of life and the realm of death. I found my way here when it became imprudent for me to venture into the living world.”

Her voice was kind as she looked down at me. She reminded me so much of Yllin I wanted to howl. I couldn’t have done so even if I hadn’t stopped myself. My muzzle was nearly as cold as my nose.

“Tell me!” Tlitoo darted to Lydda. “What is this inbetween place? What am I supposed to do here? I do not know and no one can tell me.” He leaned forward to whisper to Lydda. “There has not been a Nejakilakin for many years, and no raven remembers much.” He seemed unbothered by the cold, which was now making my entire face ache.

“I cannot tell you much,” Lydda said, touching her nose to Tlitoo’s chest. “I asked a wolf who is sympathetic to me what this place is, and how creatures of life could come here. He told me that it is
Inejalun
, a place of not-life and not-death. He told me that the Nejakilakin, the traveler, is a creature who can pass between life and death and can see into the memories of others. He is born when there is need, and to use his gift fully he must find a companion to travel with him.”

“Nejakilakin and the Moonwolf,” Tlitoo agreed. I felt like they both understood something I didn’t. I tried to open my mouth to ask what they meant. Ice held it shut. “I can come here alone,” Tlitoo continued, “but must have the Moonwolf to see memories and dreams.”

“Yes,” Lydda said. “There’s not much more I can tell you about this place. Sometimes I can find it, sometimes I cannot, and neither I nor Kaala can safely stay here long. My friend would not tell me more.”

I at last managed to force my jaws apart. “Why did you tell me I had to find the traveler?”

Lydda looked at me sharply, taking in my shivering, my stumbling words.

“You’re cold,” she said. “You really can’t stay here long, Kaala. The barrier between the worlds of life and death were thinned when the Nejakilakin was born, which is why I could come to you before, but doing so was not safe for me. And it’s not safe for you to stay here. No living creature other than the Nejakilakin can stay here without losing hold on the world of life. We must speak quickly.” She darted a quick glance over her shoulder, as if she expected someone to be looking for her. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I see some of the things of your world but not all. I know of the task Zorindru has given you and your success with it, but something has changed. I could feel your distress in my sleep. Tell me, sister-wolf, what has happened?”

The kindness in her voice warmed me for a moment, and the tension I had been carrying in my chest melted. I spilled it all out. Yllin’s death. How Milsindra had said she would do everything she could to thwart me, how she was driving away the prey to trap us and to warn us against defying her, my fear that no matter what I did, the Greatwolves would make me fail.

Lydda listened carefully, then lay down, her paws tucked neatly under her chest. She had a moon-shape of pale fur on her chest, just as I did. Her relaxed posture calmed me. She lay there, thinking for long moments as the cold crept through my chest to my ribs.

“I am not surprised to hear of what Milsindra is doing,” she said at last. “Your success is a threat to her as mine was to the krianan wolves in my time. But you have advantages I did not. You know you cannot trust those who call themselves Greatwolves. I did what they told me to do because I believed it was my duty to do so, and I missed my chance to make things right with the humans.”

The remorse in her voice would’ve made me howl if my throat had not been frozen. The thought that I might fail TaLi brought on an ache so deep I whimpered. Lydda watched me closely.

“You have the chance to make it right, Kaala. You have something else I didn’t have: the gift your raven friend brings you to see into the memories of others. It is why it was so important for you to find the traveler. This gift will help you discover that which the Greatwolves have kept hidden, that which no wolf has been able to find from the time I walked the earth.”

“Torell said they were hiding something,” I was startled into saying. “He said it was important.” I didn’t think Torell’s prohibition against telling others included wolves of the spirit realm.

“It’s not a thing they are hiding, Kaala,” Lydda said softly. “It’s a truth. One they have been guarding from long before I was born. That is what you must find.”

“How?” I said, desperation overtaking me as my belly grew cold. I could no longer even shiver. “All we can do is see memories or dreams.”

“There’s more,” Lydda said. “There has to be more. I wish I knew what it was. All I know is that the Nejakilakin holds the power to find what is hidden.”

“I do not yet know everything I can do, wolf,” Tlitoo said. “It is all very new. We might find a way.” He didn’t sound very certain.

“You must,” Lydda said, rising, the kindness in her voice replaced by a desperate intensity. “For the secret of the krianan wolves holds the solution to the paradox itself. And if you do not discover it, you will not be able to help your pack or the humans of TaLi’s tribe. You will fail as I failed.” I was gratified that she remembered TaLi’s name. But of course she would. She had once loved a human.

She looked at me in concern.

“You have to leave, Kaala. I have heard that the Greatwolves’ secret is hidden beneath a giant yew tree, but I don’t know if it’s true. Find what the krianan wolves hide. Find it and do what is right with what you find.”

“When can I talk to you again?” I asked. There was too much more I needed to know. I needed her help. I couldn’t take on the Greatwolves without it.

“I don’t know if you can. When I last came to this place I had to sleep for days to recover. It was a weariness close to death. This is not a natural place, and I think neither the living nor the dead can survive here long. Nor can I always find the way here. I will try to find a way to do so.”

I felt the cold creeping down my backbone to my tail.

“Go, or you will not be safe. I promise to find a way for us both to return here.” I somehow managed to shiver. “Take her. Now,” she said fiercely to a startled Tlitoo. He quorked and leaned up against me. Through frozen ears I could barely hear the flapping of wings, and the sensation of falling was welcome after the cold. I opened my eyes to find myself lying against Ázzuen, pressing myself to the warmth of his living flesh.

A weariness close to death, Lydda had said. And so it was. I couldn’t stay awake long enough to speak to Tlitoo or to rouse Ázzuen. I had enough time to realize that I was terribly hungry and thirsty before my head dropped onto my paws and I fell into a sleep so deep I couldn’t help but wonder if Tlitoo had not taken me away soon enough. I couldn’t worry about it. If it was death and not sleep I fell into, then there was nothing I could do. I lay my head upon my paws and let my weariness overtake me.

When I awoke it was dark, Tlitoo and the young humans were gone, and my body felt as if a hundred horses had trampled it. My eyes were sticky and the tips of my ears hurt as if burned. I raised my heavy head to find Ázzuen and Marra watching me. Ázzuen darted to me and began to lick my face. He poked his nose into my jaw. Startled, I took his muzzle in my mouth, then released it. He tasted of worry.

“Where’s Tlitoo?” I said over a thickened tongue. The encounter with Lydda had left me with more questions than I’d had before. My stomach ached with hunger, as if it had been three weeks since I’d last eaten, but my body felt wonderfully warm.

“You slept for two
days
,” Marra said, her voice a mix of awe and concern. “We couldn’t wake you up. Trevegg came, and Rissa, too. The raven said you’d be all right, and NiaLi said you just needed sleep—and food and water when you woke up.”

My nose still wasn’t working quite right, and I hadn’t noticed that the old woman was there. I turned my head to find her sitting on a tree root, leaning on the thick oak stick she used to help herself walk. She held out a gourd to me. It had been dried and cut open, and was filled with fresh-smelling water. I hauled myself to my feet and stumbled to her. I licked her hand in greeting, then gulped the water in the gourd.

“Your friends have told me that the prey has gone, and TaLi has told the tribe,” the old woman said, placing her hand upon my back. She grinned, her eyes disappearing in her wrinkled face. “They didn’t believe her, but since they’ve found nothing bigger than a marmot to hunt for the past two days, HuLin has sent runners to look throughout the valley. When they return, he’ll know TaLi is right. She told them she learned of it when in the krianan’s trance.”

“They’ll find the aurochs and elkryn,” Ázzuen pointed out.

“They will,” the old woman agreed. “But it still doesn’t leave enough prey for everyone in the valley. Besides, it can take days to hunt an auroch, and they feed far from the Lin village.”