Wolf's Blood (85 page)

“I come with,” she said, “and talk to anything if needed.”

She slept that night between the Meddler and Blind Seer. She would have liked to be alone with the wolf, for lately they had not had much time to themselves, but she did not trust the Meddler out of her sight. He had been nothing but placid and cooperative, but Firekeeper, remembering the tales Harjeedian and Plik had regaled them with, did not trust lightly.

She was encouraged in her attitude of care by the arrival of Truth sometime in the night. In the days before the fleet’s arrival, Truth had hardly left her watch stand overlooking the ocean. When the fleet had arrived, the jaguar had shifted her self-appointed watch to the gateway hills. Her presence there had stiffened the resolve of those who had been tempted to believe that the only attack would come from over the ocean. Whatever it was the jaguar saw—and her visions were so complex and confused that she could rarely articulate them—no one doubted that Truth’s warnings were to be heeded.

So when Firekeeper awoke from restless sleep to find the burned-black jaguar with the flame-shaped spots lying in a comfortable sprawl, her white eyes with their blue slits fixed on the Meddler, she did not need Truth to articulate her warning.

“Stay with him,” the jaguar said after a silence so long that Firekeeper might even have drowsed. “Staying with him may do no good, but if you do not, then he may do worse.”

Firekeeper shook her head as if sleep were a physical thing she might banish. Sleeping as he was, wrapped in a blanket on the bare earth, the Meddler did not look in the least dangerous. If anything, he looked fragile and even a trace pathetic.

“What do you see, Truth?” she asked softly.

“More than I can say, and even as I say, I see that saying would shift the shapes of things, and these are contorted enough. Tomorrow will be less than kind. Try to sleep.”

On those less than comforting words, the jaguar rose and padded away. When Firekeeper awakened again, shortly before dawn, she might have imagined it all a dream, but a tuft of fur the color of flame was caught on a shrub near where the jaguar had lain.

The ravens Bitter and Lovable were awake and about with the dawn, and Firekeeper enlisted them to watch the still sleeping Meddler.

“Blind Seer and I want to run up to the gateway hill,” Firekeeper said, “and learn what has happened in the night.”

“We could tell you,” Lovable said brightly.

“I am sure you could,” Blind Seer said, stretching and yawning so that the raven had a close look at every one of his magnificent white teeth, “but that would not shift the sleep from our bones and muscles. Don’t tell me you can’t mind a sleeping human for a short time!”

“We will mind him,” Bitter said, tilting his head to bring his one eye to bear and studying the Meddler with interest.

“Watch him,” Firekeeper said, “but do not converse with him. He is a dangerous creature, for all he looks so innocent.”

“We remember the Meddler tales,” Bitter reassured her. “Not only will we not speak with him, we will also not let him speak with any other. Now, run as you will.”

Up to the gateway hill they went, and learned from Frostweed, who had stood a watch all night, that the gates had fallen quiet with evening, but a few were beginning to show flickers of silver.

“Testing, again,” he said, “and I feel in my bones that today there will be more than a test.”

“You fight here or with Ynamynet?” Firekeeper asked.

“Wherever I am needed,” Frostweed replied. “I can’t cast spells, but I may be some help there even so. If Ynamynet does not need me, well …”

He thumped the butt of a spear on the ground.

They left the gateway hill, and before they reached where they had left the Meddler, Blind Seer paused.

“I should go to Ynamynet,” he said, “so she knows I have not forgotten my post in this hunt.”

“As if you would,” Firekeeper retorted scornfully.

“Ynamynet is doing very well accepting what Enigma and I can do,” Blind Seer said, “but she is not of the New World, and she has trouble with the idea that Beasts might think as well as she does.”

“Or better,” Firekeeper said.

She knelt and embraced the blue-eyed wolf, burying her head in his fur. Summer heat had thinned the density of his coat, but what remained was very, very soft.

“Good hunting,” Blind Seer said, licking the side of her face and nipping gently at her ear.

“Good hunting to you,” Firekeeper replied. “I’ll let you know what Grateful Peace learns.”

“Go and collect your humans,” Blind Seer said. “Dawn is almost upon us.”

Firekeeper collected the Meddler by unrolling him from his blanket and hauling him to his feet. Without complaint, combing his beard with his fingers, he stumbled after her toward the headquarters building. Despite the earliness of the hour, there were people moving about the porch and going in and out the wide doors.

Doubtless, like Frostweed, many of the Nexans had stood a night watch and hoped to be able to function without sleep if the need arose come day. For how long could they continue to do so? Humans did not need as much sleep as did, say, great cats, but they did not do well when their sleep was repeatedly interrupted. A day or two of alarms, and the invaders would find their task made much easier.

To put this disturbing thought from her mind, Firekeeper considered instead how smoothly the Meddler had woken. Most humans did not sleep comfortably outside on what was close to bare ground. Nor did they roll easily to their feet without complaining at least a little about how uncomfortable they were. Was the Meddler’s easy recovery simply because not long ago that body had belonged to a mountain sheep, or was it something else, a reminder that appearances could not be trusted where he was concerned?

Bitter and Lovable had flown escort, and as they closed with the headquarters building, Lovable squawked happily.

“Your outland friends are there,” she said. “I thought I might need to go wake them. Rap on their windows. They stayed up late last night, studying papers. The younger one stayed up longer than the older two. I guess that’s why she’s yawning now.”

And Citrine was indeed yawning, smothering the gulps of air behind the hand that did not hold a cup of what Firekeeper’s nose told her was the strong tea that many of the Nexans loved to drink in the mornings.

“Breakfast?” she asked, eschewing the usual greetings. “Or do we go?”

Grateful Peace raised his eyebrows in the ironically amused fashion Firekeeper remembered quite well from the days when he had posed as Jalarios, and had guided them through New Kelvin.

“Unless we are under attack,” he said, “then breakfast. Who knows whether the cooks will manage to serve any other hot meal today?”

Firekeeper agreed. The dining hall was quieter this morning, the people eating with measured intensity, talking softly to their closer neighbors.

Derian was sitting with Isende, and motioned for Firekeeper and the others to join him. Firekeeper thought he might have some orders for them, but the conversation avoided the fact that they might all find themselves fighting at any moment. She noticed that Derian ate with only one hand. She did not need to look to know that the other hand was locked with Isende’s under the table’s shelter. Isende, in turn, sat as close to Derian as was practical, periodically leaning her head against Derian’s shoulder.

Blind Seer had told Firekeeper something of what Ynamynet and Kalyndra were doing in their attempts to protect the Nexus Islands from sorcerous attack. Much of what he had said to her meant as little as would a deer’s excited discussion of the properties of various leaves and herbs when considered as forage, but Firekeeper had understood one crucial element.

The Once Dead who had taken over the Nexus Islands following King Veztressidan’s war had reactivated the spells that had shielded the islands from magical spying. Ynamynet and Kalyndra had discovered that there were also components to those spells that, when activated, protected the islands from more direct magical attack. Keeping those up and running had been the small spellcaster’s group’s primary concern, and from what Firekeeper gathered, it had not been easy.

Unfurred as she was, Isende showed the costs of her labors more than did Blind Seer. Her warm brown skin was flat and sallow, her brown eyes bloodshot. Even her hair was limp. She ate steadily, without enthusiasm, and her usual flow of chatter was gone.

When the meal had been eaten, they parted with no more fuss than would have been shown if they were going about their usual day. Firekeeper approved. Maybe the presence of the many Beasts in the Nexus Islands force was showing the humans how little speculation and conjecture could do.

Maybe, though, they had faced what lay before them, and knew that today could not go as smoothly as had yesterday.

Grateful Peace asked that Firekeeper escort him to somewhere where he could be close to the water, but not invite attack from the ships in the blockading fleet. Firekeeper knew exactly where to take him. and led the way to a rocky spit overlooking the other islands in the archipelago.

“That one,” she said, pointing to the peaked island, “is where Virim’s gate is. When Chaker Torn came with fishing boat to take us off, he say the waters run over much rock. Big ship not get in, and even little one find bad if they not steered by one who knows.”

“Not precisely clear,” Grateful Peace said, “but I understand. What I need the three of you to do is to stand by and keep me from being interrupted. Based upon the research we did last night, I believe that the sea monsters—like the Dragon—are less Beasts as are creatures like Blind Seer or Elation, but are instead embodiments of elemental forces. Therefore, I think that they are still here, but when querinalo killed those who had summoned them to guard the waters, they faded out of contact with this plane of existence.”

He looked at Firekeeper as if expecting her to ask what a plane of existence was, but she had seen a great deal since they had parted in New Kelvin.

When Firekeeper did not voice a question, Grateful Peace asked, “Firekeeper, could you ask the Meddler if my conjectures are accurate according to his far greater understanding of magical lore?”

Firekeeper did so, and if Peace was surprised that she could echo him so precisely, well, in these past years she been given more experience as a translator than he could ever dream.

The Meddler considered this with due thoughtfulness, then replied with the touch of theatricality that Firekeeper was coming to accept.

“Yes. As far as your knowledge goes, that is correct. I could give you a long lecture on how these creatures were first contacted and why they take the forms they do but—other than the fact that you wouldn’t believe anything I said—we also don’t have the time.”

“One more question,” Peace asked, “and answer me honestly, as you claim to value Firekeeper’s life. The disaster caused when the Star Wizard summoned the Dragon of Despair is legend in my land, but I have reason to believe that these sea monsters might be amenable to logical, self-serving argument. Would you agree?”

The Meddler quirked the corner of his mouth in a smile.

“If you made a very good argument, then, yes, I believe they could agree. But it would need to be a very good argument.”

Grateful Peace nodded. “I believe I have one.”

He then seated himself on what looked like a bench coaxed from the living rock. Firekeeper remembered Urgana’s tales of her sister, a Once Dead who could work rock, and wondered if this was a piece of Ellabrana’s handiwork.

Grateful Peace motioned for Firekeeper to come to him.

“Have a seat,” he said, patting a slim hand on the bench.

“I stand,” she said. “But I listen.”

Citrine and Edlin, armed and armored, weapons held at easy readiness, did not show the least offense at the favoritism given to Firekeeper. Rather, they reminded her of young wolves, knowing their place, and knowing that the hunt and the pack would be best served by their keeping to them.

The Meddler seated himself on the ground, leaning back against a comfortable backrest created by a granite upthrust. He had brought a mug of tea with him from the kitchen, and he sipped at it with such pleasure that Firekeeper was reminded again how long he had been without a body. What would he do to keep this one? She shifted her stance so that she could keep him in sight, even as she listened to Peace.

The Meddler noticed her watchfulness and gave her a wry smile. “I’ll listen, too, but I won’t do anything unless you tell me to.”

She listened, and heard Grateful Peace’s breathing move to a regular pattern, not overly slow, but measured and steady. Eventually, she heard him speak, softly, and could not say whether what she heard was New Kelvinese or Pellish or some language of her heart.

“I see you now. Lovely. Truly lovely. I suppose you enjoy your freedom. Slipping in and out of waves and worlds and water. What a pity your freedom is doomed. It’s not going to be long before those who use magics akin to the magics that once bound you into time and space will rediscover that lore. They’ll touch you again, bind you again. How could they not? Why should they not? It’s easier to set a hook the second time. Everyone knows that.

“I know that, and I only had a few hours to look at the old books. Oh, yes, much was destroyed, but knowledge once lost is found again more easily. You know that. That’s how you swim as you do, knowledge rather than fins or scales or gills. Once you know someplace, somewhere, somehow, you know how to return. Why should it be any different for humans?

“Pity. The trap waits, and you cannot swim away from it. You live in all places, not just one place, and that makes getting away rather difficult, does it not? Humans know that, but then again they don’t. It’s easier to touch you in a familiar place. They’d need to rediscover the connections all over again in a new place, and that could take lifetimes—and you there are not you here. The hook there and then has not been set as it has in the here and now. the now and then. They might never find you again.

“But here. Here they would, unless … I’ve spoken to those who hold this land now, who hold this lore. They have told me to tell you this. Protect this place, these people, and they will vow not to set those bindings on you. They would instead make an agreement with you—your protection of them, their preservation of your freedom. It’s worth considering. Those who are attempting to invade, those who ride those wooden ships and seek to force the gates, they might not make such a bargain. True, they might, they might take years and years to make the binding. They might do it tomorrow. Do you wish to exist with that hovering over your freedom? Is that truly freedom, or would it be a cage from which you could never escape?