Wolf Hunting (26 page)

Derian reached out a hand, as if he might somehow take back his question.

“Plik, I’m sorry … I …”

Plik patted the big, pink-skinned hand.

“It was a long, long time ago,” he said, “before your own mother was born. We have more important matters to discuss.”

Firekeeper, who had been silent during all the telling and speculation, spoke for the first time.

“What? The twins are gone. We will track them or not. If you have a story, tell.”

Plik blinked at her and switched to the language of the Beasts,
“And if I do not wish to tell?”

“Then don’t
,” the wolf-woman said,
“but your fur bristles with old memories. I thought telling might ease you.”

Plik switched back. “I will tell the story, perhaps, someday. Now we need to make our plans. There are some hours of daylight left. Do we strike camp and hit the trail?”

“To where?” Firekeeper said. “The twins have gone. Truth say she have no thought where next to go. Do we go back then?”

The wolf-woman looked to where the jaguar lay on her heap of pillows, but though the great cat’s burnt-orange eyes narrowed slightly, Truth made no other reply.

Plik shook his head. “We should definitely
not
go back. It seems to me that the tale Layo has told you fits all too well with the pattern you told us has occurred before. Like Melina, like Dantarahma, these twins also were attracted to magic. Whether they were lured into this attraction or whether the Voice—or whoever it was who carved those figurines—was drawn to that attraction and somehow used it, still, we should feel encouraged rather than otherwise.”

Plik had everyone’s attention now, and continued with increased enthusiasm. “And we have an indication where they might have gone. The emblem indicated that their father’s family originally held lands to the far west. Where else would they have gone when their appeal was rejected?”

Derian, who had slumped back against a heap of pillows when he had realized his idle question had brought Plik pain, now straightened.

“You have a good thought there, Plik.”

“West is large,” Firekeeper said, but her words were not a rejection of Plik’s conjecture, only something like an initial sniffing. “Very. But humans know little of it.”

“We will go looking,”
said Bitter the raven, spreading his wings as if he might take flight that very moment.

“Wait,” Plik said. “A little research on the part of our human friends may limit your search. Harjeedian must do it mostly, I fear, and even he may need assistance from the locals if the archives are written in some other language than those he reads.”

“I will inquire immediately,” Harjeedian said, getting up from the camp chair where he had been sitting. “I will see if there is any record where the father’s family holdings were—the family that held the grant in the land of the Setting Sun.”

Plik nodded. “It may be easier to find than you imagine. Wouldn’t such records have been sought at the time of the senate hearing?”

“Very likely,” Harjeedian agreed.

“I wish I could help.” Plik said, “but as I have promised my people to keep our existence a secret …”

“I understand,” Harjeedian said.

“If they do not have the records,” Plik said, “there is one other thing you can ask to see.”

“And this is?”

“Geographical surveys. I am no great expert about mountains. I have never even seen one up close, but I do know something about sunsets and sunrise. We maimalodalum quite enjoy sunsets. Sometimes we would journey to where we could watch the light striking different things, and one thing I do know.”

“And this is?” Harjeedian asked very politely.

“Sunset against trees tends to spread and lose its color, but when it hits rock or water, then it paints them in rather fiery hues.”

Harjeedian understood, and his usually stem expression brightened. “You are saying that even if our attempts to find the location of the twins’ family holdings in the records fail, we might locate them by looking for a geographical survey that indicates the existence of a cliff or barren mountain slope.”

“That’s exactly what he said,”
Blind Seer laughed,
“although I am not certain which of you used more words. Plik, however, was certainly more poetic.”

Firekeeper shared the wolf’s laughter, and Plik wondered if her human friends had thought her insane for laughing at quips they did not hear. Then again, they probably didn’t recognize a wolf’s laugh.

“You will do it?” Plik asked.

“I will,” Harjeedian said.

“And so will we,” Bitter said, “but we will take your advice and wait until the humans have opportunity to narrow the field. Why should we weary our wings while everyone else sits and grows fat?”

“So the twins may have gone to ruins,”
Lovable said, her mind, as usual, flying upon different winds than her mate.
“You can find pretty things in ruins. I wonder what
we will find?”

“Rather,” Plik said, not caring that his words would seem strange to those who heard with only one set of ears, “I wonder what the twins have found—and what they have made of it.”

“THEY’RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK,” the Voice said to Truth. “I thought you might want to know.”

Truth rolled over onto her back. She was asleep. The only one awake to notice the unwonted restlessness of that sleep was Firekeeper, who sat awhile, watching the restless lashing of the jaguar’s tail in the ruddy light of the coals.

“I suppose,” Truth said. “My paws are not like horses’ hooves. These long treks are not what I am made for.”

“Then why did you come?” the Voice said mockingly. “For all the help you’ve given them, you could have remained on Misheemnekuru.”

“I sent them west,” Truth protested.

“A fifty percent choice,” the Voice said, “and one they would have likely taken anyhow. The weather is still warm enough that the seaboard lands are fever traps for those who have not grown to adulthood there. Tell me what other help you have been.”

“I told them which city-states to visit.”

“Many wrongs before you found the right one,” the Voice replied, “and even this is hardly the straightest path to your goal. The twins have been gone a good while now.”

“So,” Truth snarled, “can you tell me more? Are we close enough now that you can give me guidance?”

“Not so long as you screw your eyes tight shut,” the Voice said. “I reached you so well before because what you persist in viewing as madness assisted me. Indeed, I worked wonders with you, showed you potential you never knew you had. I could do that again.”

“But I must be mad for you to show me this.”

“I didn’t say that,” the Voice replied, “but certainly you must take that risk.”

“And if I choose not?”

“Why then, you will never achieve your goal.”

“You mean we will not find the twins? I thought you said we were on the right track.”

“Ah, but pretty Truth, that is not
your
goal now is it? What I mean is that you must risk madness if ever you will find out if you can kill me …”

Truth did not reply. She was hunter enough to know that one dipped a paw into a stream without being absolutely sure that a fish swam there. Did the Voice know her intention or was he merely dipping his paw, trying to learn whether the water had rippled with the passage of a fish, or maybe of a snapping turtle.

She changed the subject.

“You want us to find the twins then? I thought they were your tools. Why would you wish us to find them?”

“My tools?” The Voice sounded as innocent as a skull scraped clean of brain and flesh. “The twins my tools?”

Truth’s first inclination was to snap at him, to ask if he had forgotten the sculpted figurines. She drew back. Hadn’t one of those figurines been made in her image? Might she be giving too much away?

“You know why we hunt these two,” she said instead.

“Because Firekeeper, clever wolfling that she is, went swimming and found some rocks.”

“It seemed to us you might know these two, then, for the rocks she found were in your lair.”

“Not precisely my
lair,”
the Voice said. Truth growled, and he added with a laugh, “All right, not my lair, but certainly a place where I have spent too much time. I’ll even admit that I made those pretty figurines. Surely, though, you yourself should be the first to know that a figurine alone is not evidence that the person so depicted is my tool.”

Truth felt her upper lip rippling in a snarl, but she lowered her head, licking her forepaw to cover the expression.

“Tool implies something made or used for one’s purpose. Firekeeper’s pretty Fang is a tool. Her fire-making stones are tools. Surely you, O Truth, are no one’s tool. Are you?”

Truth wished she was so certain, but she merely schooled herself to steady grooming. The action was automatically soothing, but if she kept this up, she was going to have a hairball in the morning.

Does one get a hairball from grooming in one’s dreams?
she thought.

If the Voice could read her thoughts, he made no comment. Instead he went on, talking as if she had responded to his last several questions.

“I might have found a certain, call it sympathy with a few individuals, and I might have crafted figurines to help me focus on that sympathy,” the Voice said. “But that does not mean I controlled those so depicted. Would a nice person like me—someone who would help a jaguar rejoin body and soul—would that person condone the actions of Melina?”

“I know no Melina,” Truth said, shaking her head to loosen a claw sheath caught on one tooth.

“Dantarahma, then,” the Voice said. “How could what he did have anything to do with me?”

“His figurine was broken,” Truth said, “so was that of Melina. Perhaps they were your tools. Humans make balls for their games. I have seen these balls roll where the humans never intended. Once, during a festival in Heeranenahalm, I saw a ball thrown over the head of the one who was meant to have caught it. It rolled all the length of the Processional Way, gaining speed until it landed in the harbor. This was not considered a good omen. Could it have been the same with you and Dantarahma? Was he a ball who rolled away?”

The Voice did not reply for a long time, and Truth felt herself drifting into more normal dreams. She was leaping upon the back of a deer when the deer turned its head and spoke to her.

“The twins are not balls. They are two people, out of place, sad orphans, rejected by their kinfolk. Perhaps I wish you to find them because I feel pity for them. Your group is a mixed lot, not likely to judge on appearances alone. Perhaps that is all I wish.”

“Hunt for your cubs yourself,” Truth snarled, digging in her claws and feeling the hot blood well between her toes. “I am no one’s dog.”

“Certainly not! Why do you think I asked you to bring the wolves? They’re closer to dogs than …”

Savagely, Truth bit down and broke the deer’s neck at the base of the skull. The annoying Voice ceased speaking in mid-persuasion. Let him read omens in that!

ON THE SECOND DAY following the meeting with Layo, Harjeedian returned to camp, his expressions somber as usual, but shining beneath the studied restraint was what Firekeeper knew was the pride of success.

“Petulia the daughter of Layo was a great help,” Harjeedian began. “She has a great deal of organizational skill, and tremendous ability to retain information. It is a pity she feels the omens are directing her to follow the kidisdu’s path. She would make a fine aridisdu.”

Firekeeper glowered at him with what she hoped would be taken for pained restraint, not merely irritation.

“Give him his moment of glory,”
Blind Seer advised
. “His kind do not permit themselves a good howl—though I think it would do them good.”

Firekeeper agreed, and kept her peace. She had been busy pulling loose burrs and bits of bracken from Blind Seer’s undercoat. He was meticulous about keeping himself clean, but there were things she could do more easily.

“And you have found?” Plik said, putting aside the book he had been reading. “Tell us!”

Firekeeper thought his eagerness genuine, but his manner of expressing it a bit feigned. It reminded her how pups would whine to get the adults of the pack to regurgitate after they returned from a hunt. Smiling inside, she added her own voice to the cry.

“Tell us! These two days I have wished myself able to read and write so I might be as useful to our cause as you are.”

Harjeedian settled himself on his preferred campstool and accepted the cup of mint-laced fruit juice Derian poured for him. Truth had awakened, going as far as to roll up onto her breastbone to indicate her willingness to listen. The ravens, scenting news as a wolf might hot meat, glided down from their perch high above the meadow. Eshinarvash trotted in and lipped the grass at the edge of the pavilion.

Harjeedian looked around his assembled audience with satisfaction.

“The estate we seek is in the deep west, in the foothills of the mountains, in a broad plain cut by where the river comes from the heights. It is good land, very good. Significantly, the geographical surveys …” Harjeedian, paused and inclined his head to Plik, indicating that the maimalodalu’s suggestion had proven useful, “ … note specifically that the land is low in iron ore.” Eshinarvash raised his head and snorted,
“Why does this matter?”

Harjeedian answered as automatically as if he had actually understood the Wise Horse’s words. “Iron seems to have dampened the effectiveness of magic, Eshinarvash. It could not prevent its use, but it did make it more difficult, rather as a muddy road is harder to travel than is a dry one.”

Derian nodded. “There’s some indications that the presence of lots of iron over a period of time might actually harm a sorcerer. Most of the lore has been lost in my homeland, but in New Kelvin the name given to what we called the Iron Mountains is the Death Touch Mountains.”

“Here we simply called them the Barrier Range,” Harjeedian said, “and it would be very nice to know if they are precisely the same range as those of which you speak.”