Wolf's Blood (8 page)

“Derian come,” Firekeeper said. “Harjeedian, too. We go inside?”

“I think that would be best,” Skea said. “Derian will be here quickly? I’ve sent someone to get Ynamynet. I’d rather tell this all at once, and I asked her to meet us here.”

Firekeeper understood the reason Skea had called for Ynamynet and fully approved. Between them, Derian and Ynamynet had somehow become the informal rulers of the community. Harjeedian, for all his formal training in leadership, did not have Derian’s advantage in the eyes of the Old World residents who made up the larger part of the population. Harjeedian was not Once Dead, and for all they had been abused by the Spell Wielders, the local community was conditioned to respect those who had defeated querinalo and kept their magical abilities intact.

Then, too, Derian had a good way of running things. He didn’t push people around, but listened and weighed their suggestions. When the word spread—and Firekeeper had contributed a great deal to the spreading—that Derian had been counselor to King Tedric of Hawk Haven, as well as a duly appointed ambassador, people simply assumed that the young man had been given a great deal of diplomatic training.

The fact was, Derian had turned the skills he had for handling horses—patience and an awareness that you can manipulate something many times your size—to the handling of people. That Harjeedian had chosen to support Derian rather than set himself up as a rival authority had only helped.

“Derian is just coming from there,” Firekeeper said, tossing her head to indicate the building where Harjeedian had his suite.

Unlike Derian, who liked the privacy of a house of his own, Harjeedian had opted for taking over a ground-floor suite in the large building that had been the headquarters and administrative center of the Spell Wielders. Firekeeper knew that in Liglim Harjeedian had lived in common with the disdum of the Serpent Temple, and she guessed that the aridisdu would have felt isolated in a private house. Moreover, the building possessed empty rooms enough that Harjeedian and some of his fellow worshippers were creating a small temple in which to worship their deities.

There was a final advantage to Harjeedian taking up his quarters in the big building. There were gates in the basement, all still partially buried beneath dirt and rubble, and none currently functioning, but Harjeedian’s quarters “just happened” to contain one of the entrances to that basement, and the aridisdu periodically checked to make certain no one was tampering with those gates.

Derian and Harjeedian arrived almost as soon as Skea and Firekeeper had taken seats. Soon after, three others arrived: Ynamynet, Tiniel, and, lastly, padding a few paces behind, the Wise Jaguar Truth.

Tiniel, the twin brother of Isende, looked less like his sister than he had when Firekeeper had first met the pair. Then both had been carrying extra weight, a result of their living semi-imprisoned. This, combined with their rather baggy attire, had smoothed out the gender differences between them.

Then, too, there had been matters of grooming. Both had worn their hair loose and the conditions of their imprisonment were not such that they bothered with the finer points of grooming. Since the reorganization, however, Tiniel had taken to wearing his hair in imitation of Derian, pulling the golden brown locks back into a queue tied with a ribbon. This change emphasized the masculine sharpness of his features in contrast to his sister’s rounder lines. Certainly anyone seeing them would know they were siblings, but no longer could one be mistaken for the other.

But Firekeeper thought that something else had contributed to divergence between the pair, something more subtle and yet far more important than any other change. This was that Isende and Tiniel were no longer a pair, no longer a partnership, as had been the case most of their lives. This partnership had led them to challenge their government and then seek their ancestral estate together. It had persisted until querinalo had severed the intangible bond that had joined them, a bond that had persisted even after the hands that had been joined at their birth had been separated by surgery.

Firekeeper thought that while Tiniel missed that bond, Isende most definitely did not. The wolf-woman wondered how much of the edgy temper and bitterness she smelled from the young man came from this, and how much was simply an aspect of his character.

But the entrance of the jaguar Truth pushed Firekeeper’s speculations about Tiniel completely from her mind.

“Did Skea call for you, too?”
Firekeeper asked.

“
Ahmyn showed me all my best futures came from my being here at this time,
” the jaguar replied.
“Thus I am here.”

Once Firekeeper would have dismissed such statements as merely an expression of the jaguar’s arrogant nature. After all, what was more arrogant than to claim that a deity would guide one’s decisions? Later, she might have tried to explain Truth’s statement as an aggrandizement of what otherwise might be explained as a magical talent, for there was no doubt that Truth had the ability to see something of the way one choice or another might affect the future.

Now, however. Firekeeper had decided that accepting Truth’s claims was much more reasonable than wasting energy attempting to deny them, for, along with Derian, Truth was the most changed by her battle with querinalo. While Derian blamed his condition on a sudden realization within the course of the fever that he did not wish to live without his inborn talent, Truth’s explanation was much stranger. She claimed that she had been willing to surrender to the fever, but that Fire—or Ahmyn in Liglimosh—had confronted her, challenged her, called her a coward, and that to Truth’s own surprise the jaguar had found herself giving battle for a life she believed she no longer valued.

The end result of that battle was not only that Truth lived, but that she was transformed. The physical transformation was the most dramatic. Truth had fought with Fire, and that fire had burned her formerly golden coat to a charcoal black. Where black spots had once stood against the gold, now irregular reddish orange markings like tongues of flame took their place. Most startling, however, was the change to Truth’s eyes. These were now a strange, translucent white in which pale blue pupils stood out in eerie contrast, but they were certainly not blind. Truth now saw more than ever before.

The jaguar had confessed this change only after irregularities in her physical actions had given her away. She would move to avoid things or people that were not present. More seriously, Truth froze completely when the conflicting visions offered her too many courses of action. Whereas before her battle with Ahymn, Truth had been able to summon visions at need, now she lived in the midst of them and dealt, as well, or as poorly, as she might.

Her battle with Ahmyn had only raised Truth’s importance in the view of those who followed the faith of the Liglim, and her surviving querinalo as “Once Dead” had given her status among the Old World residents of the Nexus Islands.

Really,
Firekeeper thought without animosity,
there is some veracity to the claim that cats always land on their feet.

That neither Skea nor Ynamynet questioned the jaguar’s appearance said a great deal about the many changes on the Nexus Islands. Certainly there had been Wise Beasts there before the New World contingent had arrived, but they had been captives in close-fitting cages, often tortured or brutalized at the whim of the Once Dead.

Ynamynet, the only surviving Spell Wielder, had sworn she had had no part in tormenting the yarimaimalom. Her oath would have meant nothing, however, had the Wise Beasts not supported her claim.

Firekeeper recalled what Enigma, a puma who was now something like Ynamynet’s apprentice, had said: “Ynamynet was not kind. She partook in rites that used our abilities—but she never initiated them nor delighted in our captivity as some others did. I am even willing to allow that she might have been as much in fear of those who were her rulers as we were, and have acted as she did rather than face the penalties that would have been visited not upon her, but upon her kitten and her mate if she had refused.”

So Truth and Blind Seer returned Ynamynet’s greeting as politely as they would that of any human, then all turned their ears to what Skea had to report.

He began with military efficiency. “I was taking my watch on the gateway hill and saw that the gate from the Kingdom of the Mires was sending. You New Worlders may not recall the name, but certainly you recall our tales of how there was one kingdom that gave sanctuary to those with magical ability. This was the Kingdom of the Mires.

“Like several other lands that possessed active gates,” Skea went on, “the Kingdom of the Mires continued to work with us after we had taken command here. I won’t say their king liked having to pay for services that had been his to command shortly before, but for all his ambitions toward conquest, Veztressidan was a good ruler, and did not see why his people should suffer any more than they must following the failure of his venture. Therefore, I went over to the gate with some feeling I knew who might be coming through.”

Ynamynet had been listening intently; now she looked at Skea. “Amelo? Amelo Soapwort? I’d forgotten the time had come for the early-spring shipment of medical herbs from the Mires. Was the cage in place?”

“The cage was in place,” Skea assured her. “I went in and spoke with Amelo. Tiniel was there and can testify to what went on. In fact, given that Amelo was by way of being a friend, perhaps it would better if Tiniel continued this account.”

The young man nodded. “I can do that. I hung back as we had agreed was best in these cases, but I heard everything.”

He went on to report the conversation between the two men in admirable detail.

“Finally,” Tiniel concluded, “this Amelo Soapwort realized he could do nothing really but go back. He managed the spell, but I think the iron in the cage bars inhibited him a little. He didn’t like drawing his own blood again so soon after the first time either. Still, I think he should have been able to transport himself safely back to the Kingdom of the Mires.”

“We expected iron to inhibit,” Ynamynet said thoughtfully. “How many transits does that make now?”

Firekeeper didn’t think the Once Dead could have forgotten, not if Firekeeper could remember, but humans were notorious for asking questions for which they already knew the answers.

“Five,” she said. “Two not so close, then three more recently. Four we send away. One we keep.”

“It’s spring,” Ynamynet explained unnecessarily. “Winter is not a popular time for transits because what trade there is can easily be handled on snow-packed roads. For someone to wish to pay our tariffs in winter, they must be facing a grave emergency. Early spring, though, when the seas are still wild and the roads wet, has always been a popular time—especially as more southern lands know they can get a good price in the north where winter will stretch on longer.”

“So we can expect the frequency to increase,” Derian said. “We’ve done our best to secure the gates, and so far our precautions have worked.”

Blind Seer said,
“Firekeeper, speak for me. Tell them that those precautions will only work as long as those who come through have no warning of what they will encounter. Remind them that next time instead of this unarmed man, the one to come through might have a bow or some other means of putting at risk the lives of those who stand gate watch.”

Firekeeper translated for the wolf, and saw the others look grave. Skea nodded.

“I had a similar thought. The Kingdom of the Mires is well known for its medical lore. Had Amelo possessed some weapon coated with a poison and offered the antidote only on grounds we do business, things could have gone very differently.”

Tiniel added, “And you went right up to the cage, Skea. He wouldn’t have needed a bow. He could have reached out and stuck you with a pin.”

There was something taunting in Tiniel’s tone, something Firekeeper did not think was wise, given how large Skea was, and how skilled in human-style fighting. Skea, however, did not take offense.

“You’re right, Tiniel, and Blind Seer is right, too. In our immediate need to secure against magical attack or against the possibility that someone might make transit through the gate and then wander about undetected …”

“As we did,”
Blind Seer said, with a hint of a brag in his words, well aware no one but Firekeeper and Truth could understand him.

Skea went on without being aware of the interruption, “We overlooked more normal precautions. I’ll put those into action directly.”

“I agree,” Derian said. “Let’s get the word out among those who stand watch, to all the Nexans for that matter.”

Ynamynet rose. “I wonder what is going to happen when our former client nations start comparing notes?”

Firekeeper shrugged. “They learn that we is very fair and no one gets more than anyone?”

Ynamynet’s expression remained thoughtful. She looked at Truth, but the jaguar offered no prophecies.

“I hope that is all that happens,” Ynamynet said. “Is that all you have to report, Skea? Not that it’s not a lot, but I need to get the word out about our increased danger.”

“That’s it,” Skea confirmed. He looked sheepish, not in the least a usual expression for him. “For some reason seeing Amelo bothered me more than the couple of other contacts we have had. Maybe it was because he was from the Mires, and the Mires was once our home.”

Firekeeper admired him for his openness, especially since that openness might invite suspicion of how much they could trust him.

“Then, if no one else has any business, we’ll be off,” Ynamynet said.

“By all means go,” Derian said. “Thank you, Skea, and you, too, Tiniel, for bringing this to our attention.”

Skea and Ynamynet left together, talking intently. Firekeeper might have worried that they were conspiring, but if they were, there was little enough she could do. In any case, she and her allies would find out soon enough. Firekeeper knew that many of the winged folk, the ravens, crows, and seagulls who could thrive on the relatively barren island even in winter, continued to spy on the Old Worlders. The ravens in particular had been fooled once by human trickery masquerading as meekness, and were not likely to forget that lesson.