Wolf's Blood (60 page)

Ynamynet smiled at the sensation her words had created.

“Please note, I said ‘small.’ Isende is not likely to be throwing around thunderbolts or calling up storms, at least not any time in the near future. We have too little time to research what she does have with anything like the leisure I would like. What she has may turn out to be more in the nature of a talent than the more adaptable ability of a spellcaster.

“However, I can state categorically that Isende is capable of true visions, and not just when she is asleep, but when she is waking. We have tested, and she can send these visions as well as receive them. This may greatly assist our ability to communicate at some crucial moment. We also hope to train her to use this ability to scout the seas in our immediate vicinity. Even a day’s warning of the fleet’s arrival could be crucial.”

Excited babble arose, but Tiniel hardly heard it for the pounding of his heart in his ears. Ynamynet and Isende answered a few questions, but they seemed trivial to Tiniel in light of the revelation that while he was Twice Dead—a coward to be scorned for not being willing to protect his magical power—Isende had proven to be Once Dead.

Tiniel recalled how Derian Carter had become elevated in the eyes of the Nexans once they had learned of his triumph over querinalo—how they had honored him, even though Derian had become a monster. Superficially, Isende had remained her pretty self, and Tiniel doubted that any of these fools would realize that her willingness to sacrifice her bond to her twin revealed the monstrous nature that lurked within her pretty form.

“What about Isende’s twin?”

The question captured Tiniel’s attention, holding it quivering like an insect on a pin. What of him? Might he still have something to separate him from the horde?

Ynamynet’s reply was cool.

“When I confirmed my suspicions about Isende, Kalyndra and I tested Tiniel without him being aware that we were doing so. He is Twice Dead. In fact, it is possible the talent was his sister’s all along, and that he only shared it because of the peculiar nature of their birth.”

There was no intentional cruelty in her reply. Ynamynet was merely being—as she always was—coolly factual. Nonetheless, Tiniel felt her reply as a personal affront, a painful rebuke.

It was at that moment, Tiniel knew, bringing his attention fully back to the spear drill when his partner’s shaft dealt his gloved fingers a painful blow, that he had decided that the Nexus Islands and its preservation held nothing for him.

He would betray these pathetic souls, these fools who really believed they could resist the gathered might of nations. After all, they were doomed anyhow, so he wasn’t doing anything but preserving himself against the inevitable.

Wasn’t that what Isende had done? Preserved herself against the inevitable by sacrificing him?

High time for her to learn what it felt like. High time indeed.

XXIX

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Firekeeper and Blind Seer herded Bruck farther east. Elation scouted ahead, spoke with some of the local Royal Beasts, and found them willing to help the travelers.

“They know of the Bound,” Elation reported, “and find them creepy, unnatural. That is why you have heard no wolf packs in the area. Those who were not of the Bound moved away from this area long ago, as have the Royal Elk and Deer. Those Beasts who are more solitary have maintained a presence on the fringes.”

“They saw Blind Seer and me, then,” Firekeeper said, “when we came this way before.”

“They did, but chose not to intercept you, not knowing what sort of business you might have with the Bound and those they guard.”

“But now it is different?” Firekeeper said. “They wish to help us now?”

“Let us say that they wish to keep an eye on you.”

Seeing Blind Seer’s hackles rise, Elation amended her statement.

“Not you particularly. Rather they wish to help you keep guard over what you have brought out from the Bound’s keeping. They do not think we should bear such a burden ourselves, unaided.”

Blind Seer let his fur lie flat, but a growl still rumbled in his speech.

“Kind of them. You are certain that none of these were Bound who concealed their alliance?”

Elation, who had been riding on Firekeeper’s shoulder, ruffled her feathers and rutched her neck.

“I cannot be certain. How can I? It is not as if Beasts wear colors as do human armies. Still, I think I do trust them. They spoke to me freely of the Bound, and offered their help. They even apologized for not stepping forward sooner—and one of those who apologized was a puma, a
male
puma.”

Firekeeper and Blind Seer both understood the import of Elation’s statement. Unlike wolves, most of the great cats were solitary creatures, the males more so than the females, who, after all, must live in company when they raised their cubs. Solitary creatures did not cultivate the smoothing rituals that pack or flock or herd beasts did, so an apology from a puma was something to take seriously indeed.

A brown bear had offered them the use of the cave she and her cubs used for hibernation. The space was not large, but it had a single opening that would be easily guarded, and could be sealed with a rock or log barrier should Firekeeper and her allies all need to leave.

Bruck, wearied to stumbling silence by this second day of walking, entered this combination haven and prison without protest. He stripped off his boots and socks, even before accepting some berries Firekeeper had gathered along the way and the cup of water she dipped from a nearby spring.

“We give you more food later,” the wolf-woman promised. “Better. Elation is already hunting.”

Bruck looked around the cave. The bears had not been in residence for several moonspans now, and scavengers had rendered the space relatively clean. The cave mouth faced northeast, and although large enough to permit the brown bears entrance was not so wide that the day’s heat had gotten in. Thus the interior was comfortably cool, especially in contrast to the summer day without.

“Are we camping here for long?” he asked, and Firekeeper heard the note of hope in his voice.

She wasn’t surprised. Bruck’s feet looked raw, and she didn’t think the man had done much walking lately. Even if he had gone out into the forests near Virim’s hold on a regular basis, the day-long march he had endured today would have been difficult.

“Perhaps we stay,” Firekeeper said. “Much depend on what you tell us about those still back there.”

Blind Seer added,
“Unless he can tell us how to eliminate querinalo without our having to bother those others. Then he and they can go about their lives untroubled.”

Firekeeper translated the gist of this, but even before she had finished Bruck was shaking his head.

“I can’t do that,” he said. “Can’t, not won’t. I simply do not have the skills. Tell me. What do you know of magic?”

Firekeeper considered how to reply. She didn’t want to sound too ignorant, but there was a great deal she didn’t know, not even in theory.

“Uses blood,” she said, “and sometimes things—like gates and rings—to make easier to do. Usually is not simple as biting. Is more elaborate, like firing a bow or dancing.”

Bruck tapped a blister on one foot and winced, then he nodded.

“Blood magic, then. I’m not surprised that’s what you’ve encountered. In many ways it is the easiest form of magic, and the type best adapted to use by a group. I am not surprised that it would be the first to resurface.”

Firekeeper thought about this. She had several questions, but decided to focus on one.

“So is more than one type of magic?”

“Oh, yes. However, I will be the first to admit that blood magic is probably both the most adaptable and the most powerful. You see, blood magic uses the life energy contained in blood to channel the user’s magical power. The blood is not the power itself, any more than the bowstring is what makes an arrow pierce its target, but it is as indispensable as the string is to the bow. Without blood, the spells will not take form, just as without a bowstring, a bow and arrow are simply two pieces of wood.”

Firekeeper heard the echoes of old lectures in Bruck’s analogy. She wondered what his life had been like before he joined Virim. New World stories told how those colonists who were found to have magical ability were taken to the Old World and trained. Had Bruck been one of those so trained? Had he perhaps become a teacher in turn?

She forced herself to concentrate on the more immediate issue, although something deep within her hinted that knowing about Bruck himself and the things that motivated him was not such an idle indulgence as it might seem.

“Is querinalo a blood magic thing?” she asked, returning to her immediate focus.

“It is and it is not,” Bruck said. He paused, staring at his feet as if they might explain for him. Firekeeper recognized the symptoms of overtiredness, and knew that overtired humans often said more than they intended.

She decided to push him. At the worst, he would fall asleep. Leaning back, Firekeeper scooped Bruck another cup of water from the spring. Then she tore a corner from his shirttail and began dabbing it on the broken blisters on his feet.

The pain brought Bruck back to the immediate moment, and he smiled at her wanly.

“That both hurts and feels good,” he said. “Thanks.”

“Tell me about how querinalo is and is not blood magic,” she prompted. “While you talk, I make sure these feet not get sick and infected.”

Bruck nodded and rested his back and shoulders against a jutting bit of rock.

“I can do that,” he said. “Slow me down if I touch on matters you don’t understand.”

Firekeeper nodded agreement, and grunted for him to begin.

“Querinalo is more in the nature of a curse, rather than a sickness or fever or even an infection. Curses can be blood magic, but blood-magic curses work best if the ones who would create the curse have some of the subject’s own blood to work into the spell.”

“Make sense,” Firekeeper said, partially translating a huff from Blind Seer.

The blue-eyed wolf lay in the shade of a nearby tree, cooling himself on a scrape of bare earth. Although the mountain air was cool compared with the temperatures they would have been encountering had they been on Misheemnekuru, or even in the lands where they had been born, still the wolf’s coat was heavy. The Nexus Islands were a chill climate, and Blind Seer had not shed as much as he would have otherwise. Over the last few days, the situation had forced him to be out and about in the day’s heat, and that, far more than the distance they had traveled, had worn at him.

Even so, Firekeeper was certain that Blind Seer was more interested than she in what Bruck had to tell them about the nature of magic and spells. Vivid in her memory was the vision the Meddler had shown her of Blind Seer pawing through scrolls and books, apparently trying to learn how to use the power that lay dormant within him.

“Now, when we designed querinalo,” Bruck continued, his tone becoming animated, “obviously we could not get blood from every one of the sorcerers we hoped would fall victim to the curse. Therefore, Virim suggested another way of shaping the curse. Are you at all familiar with the other states of being one may enter? They might feel like dreams or seem like hallucinations, but you know they are real?”

Firekeeper nodded, but she took care not to give too much away. “When had querinalo. Saw things. Blind Seer, too. Others tell of such.”

Bruck was obviously pleased. “That makes this easier to explain. There is a form of magic that is focused on those states of being. Most often it is used for divination, but sometimes it is useful for communication. In its most refined form, it can be used to influence the actions of another person.”

As the Meddler did
, Firekeeper thought, but neither she nor Blind Seer articulated this information.

“Virim suggested that we use this form of magic—the influential form—to create our curse. Our first anchor would be the gift or talent for any form of magic. Our second would be the use of blood magic by those we were cursing. In this way, two goals would be achieved. One, the curse would be more severe for those who persisted in using blood magic. Two, those who did not use blood magic would not be connected to the curse as forcefully. In this way, Virim sought to protect those with useful talents. Many would survive, but would be warned of the penalties existing for those who abused magic.”

“How would they be warned?”
Blind Seer asked.
“How would they know the difference between this sickness and any other?”

“Simple,” Bruck said when Firekeeper had translated the question.

He raised a finger and began counting off points, a habit to which Firekeeper had noted he was highly inclined.

“One, since you have experienced querinalo yourself, surely you noticed how the victim can feel what the curse wishes to destroy. This was deliberate on our part, a warning to those who did not fall in the first wave.

“Two, we created a dream vision of Virim himself—or rather Virim in his emblematic form—that would appear at some point to those in the throes of the curse. It was a sign and seal that those who had refused to cooperate with Virim’s idealistic goals must suffer.