Wolf Hunting (39 page)

Blind Seer nudged her with his nose and Firekeeper added, “To make sure they find Night’s Terror and she looks, too, though she will not go into copse. She see nothing.”

Harjeedian, who had been making a noisome paste that mingled strengthening herbs and deer’s liver for Bitter, gave his pestle rest.

“So do we go after Plik?” he asked. “If we do, I say we go all together. There is no need to send two, then two more, then two more until those remaining are left wondering whether there would be greater wisdom in going forward or back.”

“I agree,” Derian said, “but didn’t Truth have some plan she was working on? Something that would get us safely into the copse?”

Firekeeper looked over at the jaguar, and as before Derian noted something subtly challenging about the wolf-woman’s posture.

Firekeeper said in Pellish, “Well, Truth?”

The jaguar licked between her toes.

Firekeeper bristled, apparently insulted, but she kept speaking in Pellish.

“You say you learn something—from the Voice, from the Meddler. There was a deal you make. What is that deal?”

Derian felt the skin on his back prickle as a voice, deep, compelling, and masculine, spoke from just beyond the curtaining line of trees.

“What the deal is remains our business, until Truth chooses to speak of it, but I now offer you free of any cost a chance to talk with me. I think I owe you that much since you took the time to set me free. May I join you?”

Firekeeper growled, “Come.”

The figure that stepped from the forest cover looked somewhat like one of the Liglimom, except for his hair which was thick, iron grey, and somewhat more coarse than was usual. His eyes were golden brown, and his smile somehow familiar. After a few moments, Derian realized the man—the Meddler this must be—was also slightly translucent. The dark shapes of the trees and rocks were visible through him, though smaller things seemed to fade into his general form.

The Meddler moved to a vacant spot in their circle, a spot Derian realized they had unconsciously left for Plik.

“Now,” the Meddler said, seating himself cross-legged on the ground with an ease and grace that didn’t go at all with his grey hair. “I’ve met three of you, and know who the rest are. You already know—or at least think you know—who I am. Shall we go from there?”

“Three?” Firekeeper growled.

Bitter croaked something, and Firekeeper listened, her brows lifting in obvious amazement.

“Bitter say that the Meddler speak with him when he was most hurt and tell him things that make him try harder to live.”

“Not,” the Meddler said in that fluid, easy voice, “that I could have done much good without the care Bitter was receiving on this side of things. That’s what really mattered.”

Harjeedian, who had been spooning out liver paste for Bitter, did not seem suddenly won over by this graceful compliment.

You’re going to have to work harder to undo whatever damage to your reputation those legends Harjeedian has heard did long before he thought you were anything but legend
, Derian thought with an inward smile.

Harjeedian wasn’t an easy man to like, but even when they had been enemies, Derian had seen traits to admire. Moonspans on the road together had done nothing to undermine Derian’s sense that the aridisdu was a strong-willed man indeed.

Firekeeper had moved to sit closer to Blind Seer than was her wont when the weather was warm, her knee pressing into the wolf’s fur. Blind Seer didn’t seem to mind. Derian was fascinated to note that the wolf’s hackles were ever so slightly raised. Eshinarvash and Truth watched with a controlled calm that was less hostile, but no less guarded. Lovable and Bitter seemed to have no attention for anything but Bitter’s meal, and that said something in itself. Normally, the ravens were the most inquisitive members of the company.

I guess
, Derian thought,
it’s going to be up to me to get this started. The Meddler doesn’t seem to have many friends here—not even Truth, for all Firekeeper seems to think there is something between them.

“What can you tell us,” Derian said, adopting the easygoing tone he used when getting ready for a good barter session, “about what happened to Plik?”

“You mean what happened that you don’t know already,” the Meddler said. He flashed a grin at Derian, and with that smile Derian knew exactly what had seemed so familiar.

His father had a brother who smiled like that. Uncle was a complete rascal who could charm the skirts off a girl or the horse out from under a rider. Despite that, he was a likable fellow, probably Derian’s favorite relative outside of his own immediate family.

“That’s what I mean,” Derian said, keeping his own grin alive. He had a strong feeling that showing any annoyance would lose him marks in a game in which he didn’t know the rules. “We know Plik was taken from here into the copse. What have you got to add?”

“That he’s quite probably alive.”

If the Meddler had expected cries of joy and excitement at this, he was disappointed. Stony stares met him from all eyes but Derian’s, and Derian just waved a hand and laughed.

“We’d figured that out on our own, and the good noses of Blind Seer and Truth confirmed it. What else do you have to put on the table?”

The Meddler’s grin didn’t fade. If anything, he seemed pleased. “You’re wondering what’s inside that copse. I can tell you what was there, but I’m going to be up-front with you. I don’t know what’s there now.”

“What do you mean?” Derian asked sharply.

“I’m being literal,” the Meddler said. “I have some idea what was there before, when the twins first arrived and set up camp, but after the copse arose, well, that’s where my information ends.”

“Might be of some use,” Derian said. “I don’t suppose you could sketch us a map.”

“I’m a little insubstantial now,” the Meddler said, sweeping his fingers through the coals of their fire. “But I can tell you what I know and you can draw from that.”

“We can work with that,” Derian said, “but before we get to mapmaking, I’ve got a question for you.”

“Ask.”

“What’s your part in all of this?”

“All of this?” the Meddler feigned confusion.

“We found figurines in your apartment.”

“Prison.”

“Whatever.”

“Figurines of people we knew and of a couple of people we’ve since learned were the twins. We have our speculations, but before we let you draw us a map and chase us into that copse, I think you’d better tell us about your involvement with Melina, with Dantarahma, with Valora … and why with those three fine examples of your handiwork we should have anything to do with you and your twins.”

“To rescue Plik?” the Meddler suggested.

“To make sure we have a chance of rescuing Plik,” Derian countered. “I’m not charging in there until we know a whole lot more.”

FIREKEEPER LISTENED WITH ADMIRATION as Derian began to attack the Meddler. She didn’t like or trust the strange wolf-headed human, but she also was all too aware that what he was willing to tell them might make the difference when they went after Plik.

Her approach would have been to threaten, try to bully, even to trade—all tactics a wolf knew well. Derian’s bullying took a different approach. He had managed to twist things so that he made it sound like the Meddler needed to do something for them.

Blind Seer swished his tail through the dry leaves in gentle applause, and they settled down to listen.

“I don’t know why I should try and explain myself to you,” the Meddler said. “You’re not going to believe anything I say.”

Derian grinned. “Still, you might as well have a chance to present things as you’d like us to see them. Otherwise, we’ll just be conjecturing from incomplete information.”

The Meddler began by recounting the circumstances of his long imprisonment, how he had been locked away by those who did not trust either his motives or his power. Harjeedian stirred restlessly during this part of the account, no doubt because the Meddler made quite clear that his opponents were sorcerers, not divine beings. Since the sorcerers were widely viewed as those who abused divine Magic, that put the Meddler squarely on the side of the deities Harjeedian served. No wonder the aridisdu was uncomfortable.

The Meddler presented his centuries of captivity in a manner that Firekeeper couldn’t help but find moving, even as she looked at that wolf’s head on those human shoulders and felt herself prickling with distrust. She noted that the Meddler had a long wolf’s tail as well, and that he sat leaning forward, arms resting on his knees, so as not to inhibit its motion.

Eventually, the Meddler began speaking of how the bonds of his prison began to fail.

“But not enough to set me wholly free,” he admitted. “At first I was overcome with joy, for I had some freedom. Later, I felt worse than I had before. I had grown somewhat resigned to my captivity. Now, glimpsing hints of the world, having occasional contact from some drifting mind, I felt the sharp pinching of my bonds once more.

“Magic had bound me, and my initial thought was that magic was what I needed to be free. I probed, fishing on a very insubstantial line for those minds that were interested in the ways of old magic. I will not bore you with the number of times I felt a nibble, only to feel that nibble drop away. Time for me was not what it is now, but I think my first ‘fish’ was Dantarahma. Not only did he reside closest to my prison, but he was eager for power and that eagerness made him bite.

“Dantarahma was very important to my growing awareness of the outside world. He sensed the maimalodalum’s awareness of his probings into magic and sent out spells to dampen their ability. I have no idea why, but his attempts to dampen the maimalodalum also managed to dampen the forces that restricted my roaming. I ventured farther. To the north I found and hooked Melina. Through her mind I learned of the three artifacts, and decided I needed Valora as well. However, through my contact with Melina and Valora, I learned how acutely fearful of magic the northern lands could be. Therefore, I quested elsewhere and, to the south, I found Isende and Tiniel.

“You know what happened with Melina, with Valora, and Dantarahma as well. Your interest—and mine, I’ll admit it wholeheartedly—is with the twins.”

The Meddler spoke with such earnestness and intensity that Firekeeper found herself almost forgetting his reputation. A trapped animal will gnaw off a limb to escape. How was what the Meddler had done any different? Then the wolf-woman remembered the lives that had been ruined because the Meddler had meddled, and she hardened her heart.

The Meddler glanced at her, his golden brown eyes seeming to say that he knew she still doubted his good motives and that he was wounded. What had he done that she would not had their situations been the same? But he said nothing direct, and went back to his tale.

“Those figurines in which you place such significance are not dreadfully magical in themselves. They are aids to concentration, that is all. I used them to focus on what my chosen subjects were doing. When—as in the case of the artifacts stored in the castle at Silver Whale Cove—I learned of something that I thought might assist my subjects to enhance their magical abilities, well, I did my best to encourage them to do so.

“So when I realized that Isende and Tiniel were not only possessed of a peculiar sensitivity, but were also through their father direct heirs to magical ability, I grew quite excited. For the longest time, I could do nothing to stir the twins from their own purpose, for they were intent upon getting their family recognized as a voting clan within their resident city-state. Only when that plan failed and the twins were discouraged could I prompt them to seek some other way of claiming their rightful heritage.

“It wasn’t easy, not in the least, nor will I expect you to sympathize with my fear as the twins made their way alone through wild lands. They took with them no servants, no guards, only what provisions they needed, and the knowledge of where their family holdings had been. Had the distance been greater, had they been less careful, they might never have succeeded, but they came to what had been the Setting Sun land grant. Within a few days they located what had been the residence of their father’s ancestors.”

Derian interjected. “Wait a moment. We came well guarded, and with several companions who are more than a little skilled with weapons—or at least with claws and fangs.”

“And you have barely managed to survive,” the Meddler said. “One of your number is crippled, and all of you are scarred.”

“Right,” Derian said. “Did you protect the twins?”

“I did not,” the Meddler said, “for there was nothing much to protect them from. The blood briars did not grow here, nor did the bracken beasts prowl. This was a forest much like any forest. The weather was kind, and the twins’ hardest labor was clearing a trail for themselves and their pack animals. Both had some skill with the bow, and they had brought with them a pair of bird dogs. Really, they faced little more of an ordeal than any pair of campers might.”

Firekeeper frowned. “What of the Royal Beasts—or the Wise Beasts? Didn’t these object to the twins’ coming?”

“These are southern lands,” the Meddler said. “Gak, the city-state in which the twins were born, has residents who are closer to Liglim in their religious practices than otherwise. The twins behaved respectfully. In turn, the Wise Beasts watched the twins, but they did not see two such pitiful young humans as invaders.”

“Even our pack,” Blind Seer said, “would not have felt that two alone were such a threat. If they had tried to settle down, then perhaps, but the policy that guided us when we guarded our own border was always to let those hunters and trappers who dared cross the Iron Mountains come and hunt … as long as they went. We hid from them, so they would not bear tales, and warned the other Royal Beasts to do the same.”

Firekeeper nodded. “So these twins came, and nothing harmed them, and they went to the old lair. What then?”

The Meddler stretched as a man might, and went on. “This ‘old lair,’ as you call it, had not been built merely as a place to eat and sleep and store away a bit of food. It had been built to be the heart of a farming community—and as a bit more. Remember, those who came here practiced sorcery, and their dwelling must be a place where those arts could be practiced. It held a library and a workshop and other things as well. When the Plague came and the residents fled, they could not take everything with them. It may be that they had learned of the general uprising against the magical arts and all those who practiced them. Communication over distances was not as difficult then as it is now.