Wolf's Blood (28 page)

Blind Seer sniffed some of the flaking matter and sneezed. Surf Hands laughed.

“It is a fabric of some sort, but not one I know. Here we have cotton, linen, and various fleeces but … If I did not know it was impossible, I would say spider silk was woven to make this cloth.”

“Perhaps the Old World sorcerers did make cloth from spider webs,” Blind Seer said, sneezing again.

Firekeeper lifted a large flake of the material to the light. That told her little more than that it was indeed woven material. Impulsively, she dropped it onto the tip of her tongue. Sometimes taste proved far wiser than her other senses.

The main sensation was sour, but there was a hint of something else, something familiar. In a moment, she placed it.

“Silk!” she said. “Very old and nearly perished, but the taste is there.”

“Silk?” Surf Hands asked, twitching her ears to indicate curiosity.

“It is a fiber that comes from New Kelvin,” Firekeeper said. “As far as I know, the New Kelvinese are the only people in all the New World to know the secret of its making. It comes from insects. Some say the silk comes from spiders, but Grateful Peace—he is a New Kelvinese friend of ours—says that the actual source is the cocoon of a special worm.”

“Worm?”

“More like a caterpillar,” Firekeeper said, “or so Peace says.”

Blind Seer sniffed cautiously, then licked a few of the dry fragments. “Silk. It might be. When did you eat silk, Little Two-legs?”

The affectionate use of her baby name warmed Firekeeper. She reached out and touched the blue-eyed wolf lightly between his shoulders.

“Long ago. There was some formal reception, and I was trying to lace my gown. The laces, when I held them in my teeth, tasted like a younger version of these flakes.”

Blind Seer huffed laughter. “I remember, now. The laces had to be completely replaced. Earl Kestrel was greatly annoyed.”

They turned their attention to Surf Hands.

“Whose book is this? Does it say?”

“This book was written by Bhaharahma, a young man from Liglim. When he showed a talent for spellcasting, he was sent from his home to a place called u-Chival in the Old World for further testing, then to someplace else for his actual education. Much of this journal is quite interesting, but is useless in regard to our needs—all but here, at the end. Then Bhaharahma writes about how his mentor—whom Bhaharahma had accompanied to Center Island when the first phase of his education was completed—fell ill. Later, he writes a little about his own illness.”

“Read,” Firekeeper said. “Please, read!”

Surf Hands complied. Initially, the account was depressingly familiar: the high fevers, the hallucinations, the sense that the very ability to do magic was being burned away. There was an important difference, however. From the start, Bhaharahma had held little hope his mentor would survive.

“Perhaps if I can get him back to u-Chival, they can save him. The Mires in Pelland would be best, but I have heard they are turning people away. Too many of their own have fallen ill for them to have resources to spare. When Orumvantu arrived yesterday, he reported that nearly all the faculty at Azure Towers is ill. Those who are not ill are already dead.”

Bhaharahma’s mentor’s fever raged so hot that the gatekeepers would not let him be moved through the gate lest the heat of the transition finish the fever’s work. Once or twice in the past someone had died during the transition, and apparently the consequences were horrific, often rendering the gate completely unusable. With the Old Country rulers already beginning their retreat from the New World, no one wanted to risk a gate being ruined.

Bhaharahma’s own decline began with nightmares, dreams haunted by an exotic figure who danced elaborate figures and twisted his own flesh into thin strands of silk or wire that he then tossed out to cut into the convolutions of Bhaharahma’s brain, where they emerged burning. In some dreams, the dancer’s form became that of a fantastical mountain sheep. Its huge horns glittered like cut crystal or broken ice. Its absurdly delicate hooves were pure gold.

Haunted by the vividness of these nightmares, Bhaharahma shared them with the young woman who sat vigil with him over his dying mentor. To Bhaharahma’s surprise, not only did the young woman admit to having similar dreams, but his mentor, who had not spoken a coherent word for over a day, screamed out, “He dances on the backs of my eyes! I can hear him laughing even now! The light from his horns! It burns! It burns!”

He collapsed, coughing as if the words had choked him, and soon thereafter died.

Bhaharahma wrote little after this, and little of what he wrote made any sense at all, but Firekeeper had heard enough to give her hope. When Surf Hands shut the journal, Firekeeper spoke, her voice tight with restrained excitement.

“Something in that,” she said, “sounded familiar.”

Blind Seer huffed agreement. “Somewhere, someone told us a tale that featured just such a creature. Was it Queen Elexa?”

Firekeeper shook her head. “We heard it in New Kelvin. Grateful Peace may have been the teller.”

“Tale?” interrupted Surf Hands. “Of what?”

“Of the figure this young man mentions,” Firekeeper clarified, “the mountain sheep.”

“That was just the beginning of hallucination,” Surf Hands protested.

“Sometimes madness holds terrifying sanity,” Blind Seer said. “Firekeeper, you remember this other tale more clearly than I do. What was it?”

“It was in reference to how Toriovico became Healed One of New Kelvin,” Firekeeper said. “You remember how he was not the firstborn son of the Healed One. He had a brother who died. Vanviko was his name.”

“Yes. I remember some of this now,” Blind Seer said. “Go on.”

“Vanviko died in a hunting accident,” Firekeeper said, “but it was a curious hunting. A wanderer from the northern mountains came to Dragon’s Breath. He won himself a meal in the Healed One’s hall in return for telling tales of his journeys. One tale he told was how he had been in the mountains not too many days past, and had seen a marvelous creature.”

“Not a mountain sheep with crystal horns and hooves of gold?” Surf Hands interrupted in disbelief.

“The very same,” Firekeeper said. “Vanviko resolved to go hunting this beast. He and his companions went out into the snowy hills, but rather than finding good hunting, they met with disaster. As I recall the tale, there was an avalanche. Vanviko and several of his companions were killed, their bodies buried beneath the snow. Had one of the hunters not been the heir apparent to the Healed One, perhaps the bodies would have remained until spring, but Vanviko’s death must be confirmed. The next day, a group went forth again, but this time armed with shovels, not with bows and spears. As the story was told to me, the laborers felt themselves watched, and looking up into the heights above, they glimpsed the mountain sheep, safe on a ledge well out of reach. They heard it laugh as they dug after the bodies of the slain, and some claimed the bleating mockery held a note that was almost human.”

Surf Hands shuddered. “Could it be a coincidence?”

“A twisting trail that doubles back on itself if so,” Blind Seer said. “If you see rabbit tracks, you do not expect to hunt elk.”

“True,” Surf Hands admitted. “But is this somehow connected to your search?”

Firekeeper drew her Fang and began methodically honing the already sharp blade.

“I think so,” she said. “When I first heard that tale, I thought that Vanviko went hunting the mountain sheep because it was winter and he was bored. Human tales are full of such stories. Men and women go forth to kill not because they are hungry, but because they are bored or because they seek a challenge—or sometimes because they wish to find trouble before that trouble comes hunting them. But I wonder if Vanviko or his father the Healed One had heard tell of this strange mountain sheep before. Might others have had such dreams, and those dreams been recorded in the lore of New Kelvin?”

“The trail is even more clearly marked than that,” Blind Seer said. “Remember why the Healed One bears that strange title? In all of New Kelvin, the First Healed One was the only sorcerer to survive what they call the Burning Times. What if he recorded what he had seen in his hallucinations? What if he even attached some significance to those visions? If so, he would have told his successor, and so on down the generations. Perhaps Vanviko did not go on an idle hunt, but went bravely chasing something his ancestor had seen.”

“I certainly would like to ask questions of a hallucination made flesh,” Firekeeper said, rising to her feet and slipping her Fang back into its sheath. “Indeed, perhaps that is precisely what we must do.”

“Do you go to New Kelvin next?” Surf Hands asked.

Firekeeper shook her head. “The archives on the Nexus Islands may have yielded more information. In any case, Derian and the others deserve to hear what we have learned. May I ask you and yours to recheck the records for any other references to this mountain sheep? I do not know if I will be able to come myself, but perhaps one of the winged folk would serve as courier.”

Surf Hands barked a sharp fox-laugh. “Try and stop us from looking,” she said. “We have a fresh scent, and that always prompts the appetite. Besides, what had seemed a tangle of threads now is looking more and more like a bit of fabric—tattered, true, but worth darning.”

Firekeeper grinned. “I thank you. Now, to give our thanks to the others, and start a long run.”

Blind Seer rose and shook. “I don’t much care for them, I’ll admit it, but I am beginning to feel a longing for the ease of travel offered by those gates. The moon’s full face will have markedly waned before we can be to the Nexus Islands. I begrudge the time.”

Firekeeper felt her smile vanish. “And we have known that ease of travel for only a little while. I wonder how those in the Old World who have known it for ten years and more are feeling now that we deny it. The Meddler may have set me on this trail, but I think it is a necessary one.”

Blind Seer shook again. “Must I keep admitting things I dislike? For here again, dear heart, I think you are right.”

XIV

  DERIAN CARTER STOOD staring out to sea, marveling how the waters of early spring appeared so much more inviting than those he had so often studied during autumn and winter. The frothing, foaming waves looked warmer, somehow, dancing under the brighter sunlight of the longer days.

Impulsively, he trotted down the rise to a sheltered bit of rocky beach. There, not giving himself time to think, Derian stripped off shoes, socks, shirt, and trousers. Then, clad only in his undergarments, he dove into the waves.

Derian was skilled at the shallow dive, learned when splashing in the waters of the Flin, the river that ran alongside the city of Eagle’s Nest. Despite his trust that his skill would not have gone sour, at first Derian thought he had somehow managed to hit bottom. Then he realized that the solidity he felt was the water, icy cold hitting him like something solid, seeming to seize his limbs while paradoxically making his brain fizz and tingle.

He rolled, feeling the waves lift and drop him. These ocean waters were much more lively than the rivers in which he had learned to swim, but he was far stronger than that boy had been. Confidently, Derian broke from the current’s pull, swimming a few strokes overhand, feeling his blood come alive against the cold, then turned and let the waves carry him back to shore.

He half swam, half stumbled onto the rocky slope of the shore, laughing at his own dripping impulsiveness. A long time seemed to have gone by since he had let himself do anything so ridiculous. It felt good, and he shook like a wet dog, letting the water stream from him and dapple the rocks. He was gathering his clothing to him when he heard a sound that would have seemed strange anywhere else: the rise and fall of wolves howling beneath the noonday sun.

“Firekeeper!” he said aloud, but he didn’t bother to call in return. He’d already seen one of the seagulls overhead break from the shrieking flock that always seemed to ride the winds over the island and knew that one of the Wise Gulls had gone to tell Firekeeper where she might find whoever it was she sought.

Him, probably. If he wanted a chance to rinse the salt from his skin, he’d better be ready to do it with an audience.

But Firekeeper was more mannerly than Derian expected, and he had time to bathe and dress in clean clothing before she came knocking—actually knocking!—on his door.

“Fox Hair,” she said, giving him one of her rough hugs by way of greeting.

“You’re not growling,” he said, “and you’re not grumpy. Therefore, I’m guessing you learned something useful. That means the maimalodalum decided to help, am I right?”

Firekeeper nodded, her dark eyes shining.

“Almost as direct as a wolf,” she said approvingly. “Yes. The maimalodalum were not the happiest about what we tell them, but they were not the unhappiest either. They are not a people to waste time wishing that what is could be made what is not.”

“I think Harjeedian and Urgana have made some progress as well,” Derian said. “Knowing how much you love giving reports, how about we check if they’re free? Then you can share your information.”