Wolf's Blood (46 page)

“So what do you wish to show me?” Firekeeper asked.

The Meddler tugged at her right ear, steering her as one might a horse by the reins, and Firekeeper growled at the affront.

Instantly, there was no weight on her back, and for a moment Firekeeper thought the Meddler had taken offense and departed. Then she saw a wolf running alongside her, a wolf very like Blind Seer but that his eyes were amber and mocking.

“Several things,” the Meddler replied, “and since you seem willing to look, let me be your guide.”

He pulled out ahead, breaking trail through the clouds as the Ones did through snowdrifts when the pack ventured forth for a winter hunt.

“There, below. Look,” the Meddler said, pausing at a break in the clouds.

Firekeeper looked. Through the white-edged hole she saw the bluish grey of ocean water on a partially overcast day. There were many interruptions on the water. At first they made no sense to her; then she adjusted her perspective, remembering things seen from the high towers of the castle at Silver Whale Cove in Bright Bay.

“Ships,” she said. “Many, many ships. Big, too, I think. Bigger than most I have seen. At least as big as the
Fayonejunjal
.”

This last was the ship that had come from Liglim north into the vicinity of Hawk Haven, the ship that had carried her and Blind Seer and Derian into captivity.

“Many ships,” the Meddler agreed, “and you’re right about their size, too. Think yourself closer alongside me.”

Normally, Firekeeper would have protested such an odd command, but this time she did not. After all, she was dreaming and so such things were possible.

Details became sharper and the Meddler said, “Look there and there. Tell me what you see?”

Firekeeper did not frown, not precisely. Wolves did not frown as humans did, but she concentrated hard, pricking her ears forward.

“Many humans, dressed oddly, I think, for fishing. Some are clad as sailors, but others … they remind me more of soldiers.”

“That is correct,” the Meddler said. “What you see there is an army being gathered, an army that will travel on those ships.”

Firekeeper started to ask where that army might be going, but the Meddler had begun to run again. She loped after, not at all certain what would happen if she were left behind.

Again they ran, and the clouds grew thicker and heavier. Time and again, the Meddler paused and sniffed. Once or twice he dug a little with his forepaws, but always he moved on before Firekeeper could guess what he might be digging after.

At last he seemed satisfied with his hole, for this time he kept digging, piling up the whiteness of the clouds until it heaped to one side.

“There, below. Look,” the Meddler said, as he had done before. Then he added, “Tell me what you see.”

Firekeeper looked and this time the hole in the clouds showed her a human city. In style of building it was not unlike what she was familiar with from Hawk Haven and Bright Bay. She was surprised to feel a slight pang of homesickness. Humans were moving about in various areas in a fashion that tickled her memory. She thought herself closer, and what she saw made her flatten her ears and tuck her tail down.

“Those are soldiers,” she said, “marching as I have seen them do when preparing for war. What is this place? Does this have anything to do with those ships?”

The Meddler laughed and turned to kick cloud stuff back over the hole he had dug.

“That place is called the Kingdom of the Mires. It is one nation among many on a larger piece of land that was once called Pelland.”

“Pelland,” Firekeeper said. “That is where those who founded the colony of Gildcrest came from. I think I have heard Urgana and other of the Old World Nexans speak of those Mires as well. That is where the king who gave a home to the Once Dead lived.”

“Your memory is sharp,” the Meddler said, beginning to run again, “even when you are asleep. The Kingdom of the Mires prepares for war again, but this time their target is not their neighboring lands. It is the Nexus Islands. They are offended that the gates are closed to them, and have determined to win them open once more.”

He paused at the edge of a mass of clouds and looked down. Running up to join him, Firekeeper did so as well. Below were islands, and even before she thought herself close she knew what islands they must be.

“The Nexus Islands,” she said. “They know nothing of what comes for them?”

“Nothing,” the Meddler agreed.

He indicated a figure seated on a jutting spit of land facing south. The fur was charcoal dark and blended well with the spray-dashed stone, but there was no mistaking those burning spots for some errant wildflowers.

“Truth suspects something,” the Meddler said, “but try as she might, she cannot refine her vision. She watches, and perhaps someone will have the sense to ask her what is it she watches for.”

“Derian might,” Firekeeper said hopefully. “Derian notices many things.”

“Not so many these days,” the Meddler said with an indulgent chuckle. “He has found himself a good distraction.”

He pricked his ears forward and Firekeeper saw Derian sitting in the sunshine near his house. Isende sat with him, and although both had handwork to keep them busy, Firekeeper was a wolf, and wolves do not need words for explanation.

“He finally noticed!” she howled in pleasure. “I thought she might need to crawl into his bed to get him to see her interest.”

“I don’t think there has been any bed crawling yet,” the Meddler said, “but as you can see, Derian is not quite as alert as he might be to the even odder behavior of already strange jaguars.”

“Can’t you speak to him as you are to me?” Firekeeper asked. “Couldn’t you slide into his dreams?”

The Meddler’s tone was gently amused. “I have tried, but Derian’s dreams are rather crowded of late. I am having difficulty getting his attention. You … You are different, Firekeeper. I have your kiss to link us.”

Firekeeper was glad she was a wolf, because her skin would not color and give her away. She remembered that kiss. The Meddler had extracted it from her in payment of a debt, and she still remembered all too acutely how it had felt to be held in human arms and kissed by human lips and tongue.

“Well,” she said, determinedly keeping her ears up and tail firm, “keep trying. You touched his thoughts when he had querinalo. Perhaps some link remains.”

The Meddler rose from the edge of the clouds and began to run again. Firekeeper gave one more longing glance toward her distant friend, then dashed to join the Meddler.

“I will try,” he said, and the words had the weight of a promise. “The problem is that the other times I have been able to send visions—to Derian, to Bitter, to Blind Seer, even to Truth—they were more than halfway to me, pushed by illness or injury into places where visions are more real than those things the senses know. None of them are that way now.”

“You contacted Truth before,” Firekeeper said. “That is how we came to make your acquaintance.”

“Ah, yes,” the Meddler agreed, “but then I had created an item to provide the link. I had the means to make a body for myself then. I no longer do.”

Firekeeper did not ask why not. She was growing more comfortable with the ways of magic, but she still felt no great desire to know more about such lore than she must.

“Still,” she said, “you might reach Truth. She does not like you, but she is more gone into dreams than ever since her battle with Ahmyn.”

“And both of those are good reasons,” the Meddler replied, “why I should not waste energy trying to contact her. Even if I did reach her, she would be able to dismiss me by viewing me as one of the many distracting visions with which she must live. Still, you give me a thought …”

“Tiniel?” Firekeeper said. “Isende?”

“Yes,” the Meddler agreed. “I had a link with them both, a link very like that which I had with Truth. I will try, but not now. I have more to show you.”

Firekeeper made herself content with this. She was growing tired, and guessed that this dream running took as much toll as—or even more than—the more usual kind.

“You must follow me very carefully now,” the Meddler said. “I took you to places where we were not likely to be observed, but there are two places I wish to take you where we will be in some danger.”

“Danger?” Firekeeper said. “But this is a dream!”

“You know better than most who walk the earth since querinalo,” the Meddler reproved, “that dreams can be very real. Have you forgotten the Dragon?”

“Never,” Firekeeper said.

She lowered her tail slightly, conceding the point without groveling.

“What are we hunting?”

“As I said, there are things I wish to show you,” the Meddler said. “You have seen the gathering of an army and a navy. You have seen how the Nexans go about their business unconcerned. Now I will show you two things closer to your own mission. Follow me. Hold your questions. Do not think yourself nearer to what I show you unless I signal that it is safe.”

Firekeeper indicated her agreement. Wolves followed the commands of the Ones without question. Certainly, in this weird hunt, the Meddler was the One and she the least pup.

When the Meddler paused next and indicated that Firekeeper should look through a parting in the clouds, she immediately recognized their destination as the keep in the rocks which Virim and his followers had made their refuge and their stronghold. There was a strange solidity about the stone from which the keep was made, as if it were harder and denser than the surrounding foothills, than even the precise cliffs and boulders from which it was carved.

The perspective was odd as well. They did not look down upon the keep as they had in the other visions. Rather the Meddler had brought them level with one of the higher towers, a heavy, square structure, blocked about by jagged crenellations. Before this, Firekeeper had seen the tower only from the ground, angles distorted by her need to look up. This view was more as if she were perched high in the boughs of a tree or on some facing range of hills.

After a long moment of silent watching, Firekeeper detected motion from between the crenellations.

Almost instinctively, for so quickly had she adjusted to the Meddler’s way of showing her things, Firekeeper began to think herself closer so she might look upon this figure, but she remembered the Meddler’s warning and contented herself with this more distant view.

What moved about the top of the tower was a human—that much she could tell—but whether a man or woman, whether old or young, the elaborate robes and headdresses favored by those who used magic made impossible to tell. The human was watchful, moving a few steps, then pausing and taking long looks out into the surrounding forest.

Firekeeper got a good look at the face then, and saw it was beardless: a woman then, or a young man, or a man who chose not to wear a beard. Try as she could, she could not resolve the image any more clearly.

After a time, the figure turned and opened a door, going back inside the tower. Even so, Firekeeper did not speak until the Meddler had led them away and they were among the thick clouds again and the Meddler had reclined in a posture of rest.

“So Virim’s keep is still inhabited,” Firekeeper said, “as Elation told us, and as our own noses confirmed.”

“Disappointed,” the Meddler said. “Well, so was I. I wanted to show you why I couldn’t tell you more about what goes on within Virim’s stronghold.”

Firekeeper thought about how heavy and solid the stone had seemed and understood.

“It is blocked to creatures such as you,” she said, “as you told me the Nexus Islands were before I gave you passage.”

“That is correct,” the Meddler said.

“Do you think they sought to block you specifically?” Firekeeper asked.

“I don’t think so,” the Meddler said. “Remember, Virim was prepared to make all those who practiced magic his enemies. He must have believed querinalo would work as he had planned, but he could not be certain. Were I him, I would have made myself a very secure place to which I could retreat if something went wrong.”

“As a mother wolf digs her den in advance of pupping,” Firekeeper said. “Yes. That makes sense.”

She scratched behind her left ear with her left hind leg, and realized how very tired she was.

“One more thing,” she said, trying not to whine. “I think I can follow.”

The Meddler rose. “This last place is not far, but once again, I warn you. Stay quiet.”

Firekeeper answered by being so, not feeling as if she had breath or thought to waste. The Meddler slowed his pace, leading them not over vast plains of clouds as before, but through towering vistas that reminded Firekeeper of the sky mountains that sailed the air before the coming of a thunderstorm. Here the clouds were not all white, nor so fluffy, but were touched with shades of grey. They rasped against the tired pads of Firekeeper’s paws, like ground glass or coarse sand.

Eventually, the Meddler slid through a narrow pass between two very tall, very grey peaks. Firekeeper found herself on a rise that looked down over a sheltered area, a glade among the cloud mountains. This time the Meddler did not look for a gap in the clouds, nor dig to create one, but indicated with a pricking of his ears and the lift of his nose that she should examine the glade.

Firekeeper did and for a long moment saw nothing but clouds. Then she realized that what she had taken for a bit of variegated grey was a creature in the glade, a creature moving in a purposeful fashion among what Firekeeper now saw were books and scrolls.

She resisted the urge to think herself closer, and waited instead with the long patience of the hunter who must be patient or else starve. The creature moved, and Firekeeper separated enough of its soft greyness from the surroundings to be sure it was a wolf. She continued to watch, and when the wolf turned in their direction to consult one of the scrolls, Firekeeper saw a flash of blue and knew who they watched.

Blind Seer was in that sheltered glade, consulting books and scrolls as might Harjeedian or Urgana. He was calm and methodical, but nonetheless, Firekeeper was aware of a tightly strung, tense urgency to the search. Blind Seer was not one to tear about madly, but the care and method with which he unrolled scrolls and turned pages could not disguise that this was a search for something vital.