Shadowlands (34 page)

“Does Valory send you?”

“Not exactly. Can I come in?”

Wolf backed away from the door and the Outsider entered, looking around him with a small smile, as if pleased by what he saw.

“My business partner would love this place,” he said, his smile fading as he turned back to where Wolf leaned against the closed door.

“If Valory Martin did not send you…?”

“I was hoping I’d find her here, or maybe you know where she’s gone? Or Alejandro Martín?”

Wolf moved his head from right to left in slow arcs. “I have seen neither Valory Martin nor Graycloud at Moonrise since the day we were all in the square.” Since that night, was more accurate, but the human did not need to know this.

“Graycloud? Okay.” The man took a deep breath. “I represent a group of people who’ve been injured by the Hunt,” he continued. “Has ‘Graycloud’ mentioned this to you?”

Wolf studied the man, head to one side. “You represent? You are their…leader?” He had almost said Pack Leader, but if these were the Outsiders, he did not wish to reveal his own connection to the Hunt.

“In a manner of speaking, yes. I’m the Senior—”

“The Senior?” Wolf gestured, and the Outsider preceded him into the sitting room. “You have lived
very
long?” If this was one of the Hunt’s early victims, it was possible he had insights Wolf would find useful. He pulled a chair out from the dining table, waited until the Outsider accepted it, and then sat down himself.

The man studied him a while, head tilted to one side, before responding. “I’m not the first, if that’s what you mean, but I might very well be the first to live.”

Wolf blinked. “The same might be said of myself.”

“You survived the Hunt?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. Do you mind if I ask you how…” Wolf didn’t know how to continue.

“I was found by monks, wandering on the side of the road, where the Hound had left me. They thought I was witless and took me in.” His eyes grew darker as he looked back through his memories. “They didn’t let me kill myself, not even through neglect. They thought it was a sin. It still is, of course, the sin of despair, to be exact.” Nik looked at him sideways, the corner of his mouth twisted up in a grin. Then his eyes narrowed. “But you know about that, don’t you? Despair, I mean.”

Wolf wondered what could be showing on his face. “Are you a Truthreader also?”

“Nope. Just been around a long time, like I’m saying. It’s interesting that the—” he gestured at his face. “The facial expressions, that kind of thing, seem to be the same for all of us.”

Wolf resisted the urge to wipe his hands over his face in an attempt to
wipe away what was apparently written there. “How did you live?”

Nik leaned back in his chair, more relaxed now, as if he was gaining in confidence. “They put me to work, caring for the sick and dying. And one day, I was there at just the right moment, and the
dra’aj
that was leaving a dying woman—not that I knew what it was then, you understand—her
dra’aj
entered me, and I was well again.” Once more he smiled that twisted grin. “A miracle.” He shrugged. “So I looked for others like me, through the hospitals and hospices, and eventually we found out what was really happening to us, and now, here we are.” He spread his hands again.

“You worked to save them, the others of your kind.” Wolf felt a kinship with this man, this human Outsider, that was most unexpected.

“We all do, together. We still do. What’s happening now…” Nik rubbed his hand over his hair. “This concentration of the Hunt, well, it’s the worst thing we’ve ever faced. Alejandro’s recruiting Riders to help him against them—”

“Against the Hunt? When did this happen?” Moon had said that the High Prince would ask Graycloud and Nighthawk to find the hidden People, but to attack the Hunt?

“Since that day,” the man was saying. “They’re feeding all the time now and—”

Wolf cut him off with an abrupt chop of his hand. “I know this.”

The man’s face hardened. “Well, we’d like it to stop, and Alejandro—Graycloud—is helping us. He said your High Prince would help us, too, as soon as she could.”

“I need to speak with Graycloud,” he said. And with Valory. This man Nik was not a Truthreader, but Valory Martin was. She would know exactly what was going on. She would help him. She knew his secret and was still his friend. Perhaps, in Valory’s company, the spinning of his thoughts would come to a rest, and he could see clearly what he should do next.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do, but all I get is voice mail—”

“Come.” Wolf took the human by the arm and…Moved.

“What—”

Wolf became aware that Nik was squirming and let go of his arm.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The man backed away from
him, rubbing his arm and looking around him. But his face showed confusion, defiance, and perhaps a little awe. Not fear.

Wolf blinked and shook his head. “I am sorry,” he said. “You agreed that we should speak to Graycloud, and so I Moved us.”

“Well do me a favor, don’t do it again.” Nik swallowed. “At least, not without warning. I gotta make a call.” He pulled one of the ubiquitous cell phones out of the inside pocket of his jacket.

An orange-and-white cat observed them, its head popping up from the over the back of the chair it had been sleeping in. It hopped to the floor and approached, placed its forefeet on his knee, and stretched.

“Ow!” Wolf jumped backward as the claws dug in. The cat sat down, wrapping its tail around its front paws, and watched him. It blinked.

“It’s okay, Yves, I’m still with the Rider. Right. Later.” Nik returned the phone to his pocket, and stuck his head into the kitchen. “Hello?”

“There is no one here, only the cat.” Wolf squatted and held out his fingers. The cat looked at him but came no closer. Wolf raised his head and sniffed. Another had been here, however, someone he knew. Nighthawk. So, it was possible that the two Riders had gone looking for others. But, in that case, where was Valory?

Wolf eyed the Outsider, who was looking at a pad of paper on the kitchen counter. He turned back to the cat.

“How long have they been gone?” he asked. “When will they be back?” The cat got to its feet and walked through the doorway into the kitchen.

“Um, the cat doesn’t speak.” From the tone of his voice, the human wasn’t as sure of this as his words made him sound.

Wolf nodded. “So I see.”

Wolf picked up the pen that sat on the pad of paper, frowned, and put it down again.

“Did you want to leave a message?”

Wolf looked from the human to the pen and paper and back again. “A message?”

“Yeah, you’re right. Probably not a good idea to let them know we were in the house.” Nik looked at him. “This thing you do, can all of you do it? Moving me around, I mean.”

“Any Rider can, yes.”

“Cool. Listen, I’d like you to meet my friend Elaine.”

Walks Under the Moon massaged the muscles around her eyes, moving her fingers slowly, trying to ease away the feeling of exhaustion that claimed her.

“Enough,” she said to the Singers sitting around the table in her workroom. “I believe we have sifted every Song, every partial lyric, pieced together every lost fragment—you must be at least as tired as I, and with nothing more to show for it but the same new thread.” She let her hands drop.

“Ah, but at least this time the thread refers to a place, the mountains of Ice Tor,” the Sunward Singer, Cloud of Witness, said. “If, as we believe, the Moonward hero of one of my Song fragments is indeed the same person as the Moonward Rider mentioned in Piper’s fragment.”

“But I think it is clear,” Piper in the Meadow added, “that that person definitely had possession of the Horn at one point in her career, and it is at least possible that she came from Ice Tor.”

The third Singer, Owl at Midday, poured himself another cup of ganje and said nothing.

“I know this appears nothing more than a web of ‘maybes’ and ‘what ifs’? But it was with just such a slender thread that I once found the Tarn of Souls, and the Chant of Binding,” Moon pointed out. “The mountains of Ice Tor undoubtedly still exist. We must find the Song that tells us where.”

Owl cleared his throat. He was the senior Singer in the group, and the others were inclined to defer to him. “I think, Lady Moon, you have overlooked a resource that has nothing to do with the Songs.”

This was such a radical suggestion to come from a Singer that Moon was momentarily dumbstruck. The Songs were the history of the People, the idea that there might be old knowledge found elsewhere was startling.

“I refer, of course, to your sister, the High Prince.”

Moon realized her mouth was open and closed it. Owl, seeing that she had his point, remained respectfully silent, though Moon was sure his eyes were twinkling as he examined the surface of his ganje.
Her sister. Of course. Was not the High Prince bound to the whole of the Lands? Surely, Cassandra would know where in those Lands the mountains of Ice Tor might lie? And even if she did not, at the least Truthsheart could heal Moon’s headache.

“Brilliant,” she said, getting to her feet. “I thank you for the work you have done, and the suggestion you have made. If you will now excuse me.”

Her heart already lighter, Moon composed her mind, subtracting the details of her workroom and substituting the rocks, mosses, and trees of the clearing just to the south of the High Prince’s camp, where it was permissible to Move. She stumbled; in her eagerness she had miscalculated the height of the ground in this precise spot, but a nearby Tree put out a branch for her to steady herself on.

“My thanks,
Glinde’in
,” she said. “That was kind of you.” The Tree shivered, exactly as if it were a young child giggling. In a way, Moon thought, that was exactly what
Glinde’in
was. With a final caress the branch withdrew and Moon made her way into the camp proper, finding her footsteps inexplicably slowing as she went. Or perhaps not so inexplicably. Cassandra might still be angry with her for the steps she had taken over Wolf—not that she had shown her anger. Like everyone else, her sister was treating her with great delicacy.

Moon chewed on her lower lip, stopping completely as a Sunward Rider in a yellow tunic led a Cloud Horse across her path. Riders were coming and going from the horse line, exchanging tired mounts for fresh, it seemed to Moon. One or two of the Cloud Horses looked her way and whinnied, as if they meant to greet her. In case it was so, in case they were Lightborn’s, Moon raised her hand in salute. The whirl of activity had, as she suspected, her sister at its center. Moon lifted her flaxen eyebrows. Perhaps she should slip away. There must be some other way to find Ice Tor.

But before she could act on her thought, Cassandra’s head lifted, swung around, and her eyes met Moon’s. There was nothing to do now but match her sister’s smile, and go to her.

“I come at a bad time,” Moon said. Her sister’s kiss, her sister’s arms, made a sudden sob catch in her throat, and for a moment Moon clung to Cassandra as she had when a child.

“Of course not,” Cassandra stroked Moon’s face as though pushing
back a loose curl. Moon felt her headache melt away as the warmth of Cassandra’s presence enveloped and relaxed her. “You are always welcome to me.”

Moon swallowed, her throat suddenly thick. She had been without family for all the time that her sister was Warden to the Exile, had almost lost her chance of regaining it. She had never thought to feel that loneliness again. She had her sister now, and Max, and Stormwolf; she was not alone. How was it, then, that at these moments, with her sister’s arms around her, she felt Lightborn’s absence the heaviest?

“Moon, my dear one, is there something specific you need of me?”

Faced with a direct question, Moon found her voice. “Do you know of a place called Ice Tor?” As her sister’s eyebrows drew down in a vee, Moon explained her line of thought, gaining strength as she spoke.

“Sound reasoning.” Cassandra shifted as if her
gra’if
mail shirt had suddenly become uncomfortable. “I’m sure I do know the place, but not by that name. I know and feel the very essence of the Lands, but I do not necessarily know what name has been given, or might have been given in the past. Without a description, I can only point to general areas.”

“High Prince, we are ready.” The Starward Rider who spoke was someone unknown to Moon.

“One moment.” Cassandra turned back to Moon. “Is this for the Horn?” Moon nodded. “Perhaps there is some Natural or Solitary you might ask.”

Moon shook her head. “Possibly, but by custom they share their lore with our Singers, and I have spoken to every Singer who has knowledge of the Horn.”

“Still, you might ask
Trere’if
. He’s eldest of the Tree Naturals, and may know of some clue now lost to the others.” Cassandra turned away again, this time to mount the Cloud Horse that was being held for her.

“A lost Song? But if it’s lost…” Moon let her voice die away as another idea occurred to her. There was someone else, someone she’d not been thinking of as a Singer. “It’s worth a try, certainly,” was what she said aloud.