Wolf's Blood (34 page)

Blind Seer considered this, sitting and thumping at one ear with a hind leg.

“If my tail was trapped beneath a rock,” he said at last, “and there was no moving that rock, I would be a fool to die for the sake of my tail. If I were fighting a puma, and that puma hooked me by a ear, I would be a fool to let the puma draw me into her grasp when by tearing the ear I could break free and get away. What if this thing within me is as an ear or a tail? Something I would dislike losing, but that if I lost I could preserve my life? Wouldn’t I be a fool to struggle to keep it?”

“And what if it is as a paw or a leg?” the mountain sheep asked. “What of that?”

“A strong wolf can survive without a paw, or even without a leg,” Blind Seer said boldly, “as long as the severing is clean and no infection takes hold.”

“Two legs or two paws?” the sheep prompted. “What then?”

“Then,” Blind Seer admitted, “even a strong wolf might do better to give over to death. It would be very hard to run and hunt without two legs or two paws. But that is not the question. The question is whether this thing I have seen within me is as a tail or an ear, or whether it is more vital than that.”

“I think you know,” the mountain sheep said. “I think you know and do not want to know. What do you say to that, wolf?”

“I say I have no idea what you mean,” Blind Seer growled.

“Truly blind in refusing to see,” the sheep taunted. “You shame yourself.”

Blind Seer lunged for the sheep, but lost his footing on the sliding shale. The mountain sheep danced lightly in the crevice, casting shadows with the rainbows from its curving horns.

“You will know when you accept what your nose has already told you,” the mountain sheep said. “Or in the name of old favors and new games, I will tell you—but only if you can catch me.”

Blind Seer’s paws were already sore, the pads bloody, but in reply he lunged upward. This time he landed on the ledge where the mountain sheep had balanced, but the mountain sheep had already bounded to the next and higher ledge. Howling, refusing to consider the bloody streaks his paws left on the rock, Blind Seer gathered himself and leapt. This time his jaws clamped down on a few stray strands of wool, but the mountain sheep was gone.

Blind Seer struggled after, into terrain for which a wolf was not well suited, and which was challenging even for the agile golden hooves of the mountain sheep. That other had given off laughing now. Blind Seer had the satisfaction of smelling the raw stink of its fear.

We must come to a meadow. We must come to some flat ground,
the wolf thought, panting as he climbed.
Or we will come to some place so flat and so high that this creature can no longer flee. Then I will have it cornered and caught, and the answers it holds will be mine.

And gradually, perhaps fearing that indeed it would become trapped, the mountain sheep ceased seeking higher and ever higher crags, leading them instead to a highland meadow like nothing Blind Seer had ever seen, even in dreams. The grass was thick, and running through it was as difficult as breaking trail through snow.

Wherever fell the rainbow light from the mountain sheep’s horns flowers grew among the grass. Most were tiny, delicate things, but their perfume muddled the wolf’s nose, slowing his tracking as the grass tangled his feet.

But Blind Seer pushed on, gathering himself and leaping as if he were a pup again, mousing with his litter mates in that tall spring grass. At least here the ground did not cut his sore pads, and if the flower scent muddled his nose, it could not blind his eyes.

He drove the sheep as his pack might drive an injured elk, darting back and forth, choosing a direction where the grass seemed less high, and clouds over the sun diminished the rainbows from the curving horns. In time his nose brought him news: the mountain sheep was growing both weary and afraid.

The mountain sheep wheeled at a place where the terrain favored neither wolf nor sheep. Its horns no longer dazzled, but were iron and ice. Its hooves still shone with the dull glimmer of gold, but here among the thick grass their agility counted for less than where they might bound from rock to rock. Still, although he had gained some advantage, Blind Seer did not give way to prideful carelessness.

Watching for the least motion, he challenged the sheep.

“Are you caught then? Tell me what I want to know and I will let you live.”

“Tell you what you want to know?” the sheep echoed. “Or tell you what is right and true? These may not be the same.”

Blind Seer acknowledged the truth in this. “Tell me what is right and true. Tell me the nature of this thing in me.”

The mountain sheep danced nervously on those golden hooves.

“And what if you do not care for the answer? You already know it, and if you ran to that knowing as you have run after me, then you would already have made your choice.”

“If I already know the answer,” Blind Seer replied, trying to be reasonable, “then my comprehension has slid over it as even the sharpest gaze may slide over a fawn who lies still in the shadow-dappled sunlight.”

“One who is hungry enough,” the mountain sheep said, “does not miss the signs. Are you hungry enough?”

“How can I be hungry for a meal that I did not know existed until sickness drove me to this place? You set the challenge, sheep. Keep your part or I will hunt you until the option to flee no longer remains.”

The mountain sheep curled down its head so that the curve of its horns stood between it and Blind Seer.

“Take care, wolf. You have no pack here to worry my flanks while you go for my throat. You are alone. In any case, who is to say I would talk more readily if you were to harm me?”

“You set the terms of this hunt,” Blind Seer asserted again. “Speak or run.”

For a long moment, Blind Seer thought the mountain sheep would indeed run, and he bunched tired muscles that he might spring while the sheep was turning. The clouds gathered more tightly, bringing the coolness the wolf craved, deadening the shine in the mountain sheep’s horns until they resembled dull iron.

“Very well,” the mountain sheep said. “The answer is ‘yes.’”

“Yes?” Blind Seer was befuddled, but not so much that he lowered his guard. “Yes?”

“When you looked at the vision of yourself and saw the power coursing through it, you wondered whether it might be for healing or for divining or for any number of things. The answer is ‘yes.’ The power is there for all that, and for abilities you have not even imagined.”

Blind Seer wanted to growl, but he was too sharp a hunter, had learned too much the years he had spent wandering with Firekeeper to not understand where this trail was heading. Still, he tried to believe for a moment longer that he was not what this strange creature was telling him.

“I have several talents,” he said, “including those for healing and divining.”

“You have one talent,” the mountain sheep said, “and you know full well what it can do. You know it is not alien even to your people who strive so hard to deny it. Had you remained safely in the forests west of the Iron Mountains, you might never have known of it. However, you lacked the sense to stay home. Now the choice is yours. Is this a tail to gnaw off to preserve the whole? Or is this a heart, a belly, something you cannot live without? What is the answer, wolf? What is the answer, spellcaster?”

And with another mocking laugh, the mountain sheep wheeled and leapt. It was yet in mid-leap when Blind Seer caught it. He knocked it back and onto its side. While the mountain sheep kicked and flailed, trying to get those enormous, heavy horns into play, Blind Seer bit into its flank, ripped into its throat, and without pause or mercy slew it, reddening the thick green grass with the gushing, then ebbing flood of its life’s blood.

“SPELLCASTER,” FIREKEEPER ECHOED softly, trying to keep from shivering and failing. “So that was the talent that hid silently within you?”

“Spellcasting,” the blue-eyed wolf echoed, trying to pull away from her, but she would not let him. “No simple talent. No innocent ability, but the ugly ability to channel my will and another’s life into the shape of my desire.”

Firekeeper stared at him. She knew spellcasting was possible for Beasts. The puma Enigma had already revealed this was so, but finding such a force lurking within Blind Seer made him as strange to her as if he had suddenly become a mole or mouse.

She didn’t know how to ask, and he did not offer, so silently between them loomed the question.

Had Blind Seer let querinalo burn the taint of sorcery from him or did it yet lurk within him? Was it as dead as Plik’s ability to sense magic or did it remain, strengthened and fortified by his desire to continue being that which he had not known he was until fate in the form of Firekeeper’s ever-present, insatiable curiosity had brought them to where the hidden springs must rise to the surface to be dammed or to burble forth?

XVII

  FIREKEEPER WAS FINALLY leaving the Nexus Islands! It was all Tiniel could do not to dance a quick bouncing happy dance when Plik came trotting up the gateway hillside to share the news. Even so, he traced the steps in his imagination.

“She’s leaving?” he said, hoping the joy in his voice-would sound like astonishment. “Just like that?”

Plik nodded. “The clincher was the letter that came in today from Misheemnekuru. Some information my fellow maimalodalum found filled in the gaps in the research Harjeedian and Urgana’s team have been doing. They’ve narrowed the possible location of Virim’s fastness, and there’s no longer any reason for her to delay. The only questions left are how she will get there, and who will accompany her.”

Tiniel’s imaginary dance stopped in mid-figure.

“How she will get there? Who will accompany her? I thought she’d go as she always does, on her own two feet. And I thought that at least Blind Seer and Derian would go with her. Don’t they always?”

Plik gave a sorrowful shake of his head.

“Perhaps not this time,” the maimalodalu said. “There is to be a public meeting to discuss matters. The yarimaimalom have agreed to take over the gate watch so that all the permanent residents of the Nexus Islands can be present.”

“But what if something happens?” Tiniel stammered. “What about communication?”

“We’ve already arranged that if something happens, one of the wingéd folk will fly down to the meeting hall. Happily, all of those who can translate for them will be present.”

Tiniel heard a soft, rough-voiced cough and saw the puma Enigma padding up. He noticed that other of the yarimaimalom—including a motley flock of raptors quite unlike what would usually be found in nature—had gathered and were perched on various of the gate structures. He had to admit the facility was probably better-guarded than usual.

“Enigma says that you should get moving,” Plik translated. “He’ll take charge here. Skea has already headed to the headquarters building.”

“The meeting is now?” Tiniel said.

“Patience—at least when she is hot on the scent of something she desires—is not one of Firekeeper’s virtues,” Plik said with a squeak of laughter. “More importantly, Truth prophesied that the omens for success were best if we met immediately.”

Tiniel turned and followed Plik down the hill. He had thought about refusing to attend, but when he had looked down toward the headquarters building he had seen what looked like the entirety of the Nexus Islands’ human population—children down to infants included—streaming toward the building. He didn’t want to draw comment by being the only one to refuse to attend. He might look odd—or odder than he did already.

Following his return from Gak, Tiniel had really tried to integrate himself more into the human society of the island. He’d made himself attend at least one meal a day in the common hall, and had faithfully taken watch stands on the gateway hill. However, no matter how hard he tried, he didn’t seem to be able to feel part of the slowly integrating community. He didn’t care to dandle other people’s babies as Isende did. Small talk about the weather or the results of some card or dice game didn’t interest him.

Although he could speak—at least a little—several languages learned since he arrived on the Nexus Islands, Tiniel’s only written language was city-state-influenced Liglimosh. His and Isende’s father hadn’t taught them much of his own language beyond a few words that Skea and Kalyndra had tentatively identified as coming from a language spoken far to the west of their own birth land. That put Tiniel out of the running for the exclusive group that now assisted Harjeedian and Urgana in a mixture of further research and new organization of the library and archives.

Local politics—hardly more than town meetings—were something Tiniel might have found interesting, given that he had studied a great deal about how governments should be run in anticipation of joining the senate in Gak, but he kept away because in those meetings he would have been forced to associate with Derian. Worse, in those meetings Tiniel would have had to watch what Derian himself seemed unaware of—the increasingly admiring, even adoring looks that Isende lavished upon the tall, horse-faced horse’s ass of a redhead.