Wolf Captured (30 page)

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Authors: Jane Lindskold

Tags: #Fantasy, #Adventure, #Science Fiction

BOOK: Wolf Captured
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“If you change your mind about staying,” Harjeedian said as he directed for them to come with him to where a handful of people were now descending from the ridge, “the boat will be leaving shortly after noon.”

“I not change my mind,” Firekeeper said.

“Somehow, I didn’t think you would,” Harjeedian replied.

“Even if the local pack beats us bloody,”
Blind Seer added,
“you would not have us return so soon—this would mean seeming weak before these humans.”

Firekeeper only snorted in reply, but she knew Blind Seer was correct. She had made her brag, now she must make it good—or at least seem to do so.

Out of touch with the mainland as they were, the residents of Misheemnekuru outpost were initially only mildly interested in the new arrivals. However, as soon as they got a closer look and realized that Blind Seer and Firekeeper were no one that they knew, letters from home and supplies alike were forgotten.

Their reaction once again forced Firekeeper to modify her assumptions. She had grown so accustomed to the very sight of Blind Seer awakening interest that this calm acceptance that Royal Beasts might interact with humans was hard to take. For the first time she considered what this might mean for her reception by the local wolves. They were accustomed to humans—but to these Liglimom humans, not to a human who was a wolf at heart.

Firekeeper reminded herself to take care that her own subconscious assurance that these Wise Wolves would find her strange and interesting did not make her careless. A social flub among humans was merely embarrassing. Among wolves it could well be fatal.

With what she considered very good grace indeed, Firekeeper attended while Harjeedian introduced her to the old man who was in charge of the outpost, to his assistant, and to several other humans. She pretended to understand less of the local language than she did in order to avoid having to stand answering questions any longer than absolutely necessary.

At last Harjeedian said in Pellish, “I can see that you are impatient to be off, Lady Blysse, and I have done my duty to you by making all the correct introductions. Do you have any idea when we might expect to see you again?”

Firekeeper started to shake her head, not liking the idea of being even slightly required to report to humans. Then she reconsidered. Derian would worry about her, and though she hoped to find one of the wingéd folk to carry messages to him, she was not certain she could do so. Better, too, for Derian’s sake, that these people remember she cared for his well-being.

“The moon is waning into her last quarter,” she said thoughtfully. “I will try to come at each quarter. If I have not come with the turning of two quarters more then maybe something is not well with me.”

Though she kept her expression perfectly neutral, Firekeeper couldn’t resist a sly dig. “But you can check omens and learn how it is with me, true?”

To her surprise, Harjeedian didn’t seem to know he was being teased.

“Precisely,” he said, “and we would certainly do that before interrupting the yarimaimalom. You are learning our ways quite well.”

Firekeeper didn’t know what to think of this. Indeed, she wasn’t certain that Harjeedian wasn’t getting in a gibe of his own. She decided to call them even.

“I go then,” she said, then remembered her manners. She might not like Harjeedian, but he had done her a service. “Thank you for treating seasickness. You have wisdom.”

Then, before Harjeedian could win through his mingled surprise and pleasure, Firekeeper began trotting toward the green veil of the forest edge.

She had not thought she and Blind Seer would go far without being noticed, and she was not disappointed. Almost as soon as they left the fringes where to their eyes there was evidence of human activity—wood cutting, berry picking, some small foraging—a low growl warned them against going any farther.

Firekeeper stopped immediately. Blind Seer took a position that would put him slightly in front of her, guarding her from any sudden onrush, then also froze.

“Wolf,” said the growl, “why have you brought this human here in violation of our treaty?”

Blind Seer, as the one addressed, took the burden of reply upon himself.

“Wolf,” he said, “I am an outlier, come not from the mainland you know, but from lands to the north and west. My birth pack lives west of the mountains.”

Listening silence met this declaration, so Blind Seer continued, “This one you call a human is only so in shape. She was born to humans, true, but from the time she was very small she has lived among us.

Firekeeper was aware that their scent was being taken and tried not to reveal either fear or the almost overwhelming desire to draw her Fang and stand ready to defend herself.

The answering growl sounded as if it would turn into a bark of laughter, but gave way neither to humor nor mockery.

“Your scent is not one known to me,” the yet unseen wolf said, “but I am still young and have not yet met all the packs—certainly not those that dwell on the mainland. Still, you are not Cousin-kind and your manners are good. Wait and I will call my parents to inspect you. Know that if you move forward, I will fight you—and I am not alone.”

“We wait,” Blind Seer replied, “but tell your parents this. We may be outliers, but we are no low-ranking wolves to be beaten about. Attack us and we will fight, and you may find that our fangs are sharp.”

Blind Seer did not say all of this in words as a human might, but in how he held himself, in his refusal to cringe even the slightest amount, in how he cupped his ears forward rather than holding them to the side.

Fresh from hearing u-Liall’s request that she teach their people how to speak to the yarimaimalom, Firekeeper considered with new confusion how she managed to communicate with the Royal Beasts though she lacked ears and tail and the acute sense of smell that meant so much to them. In the next moment she heard the stranger wolf howling news of their coming, and she shook conjecture from her. It would do her no good at this time, and like anything that weakened her confidence in herself, it could well do her harm.

“Strangers! Strangers! Strangers! Strange!” rose the howl.

Firekeeper stiffened as she realized this was the very call that had announced the coming of Earl Kestrel and his party into her pack’s lands two years before. This time she was the “strange” the call announced, and she did not like it. The loneliness of being neither wolf nor human flooded her, and she coiled her hand in Blind Seer’s fur for comfort.

Even that contact, as familiar as it was, underlined her predicament, for she couldn’t help but notice that her own skin was bare.

 

 

 

AT FIREKEEPER’S REQUEST, Derian did not rise to see her off. Instead, he slept past sunrise, worn out from the accumulated events of the previous day. They invaded his dreams: the jaguar escorting him to the council meeting; the ornate mosaic adorning the walls in the temple; that amazing horse with its wild coat and intelligent eyes; Firekeeper’s voice, husky in the darkness, explaining why she must go to Misheemnekuru.

Images blended and mingled until the jaguar explicated the meaning of the stories told in the mosaics, and the horse spoke with Firekeeper’s voice, explaining why u-Liall must let themselves be carried.

Eshinarvash is cantering, and Derian clings to his mane
,
the long hairs biting into his fingers, his knees slipping as he tries to stay astride. Something is interfering with how his knees clench into the rise and fall of the horse’s body. He glances down to see what is impeding him.

How odd. Instead of his usual trousers and riding boots, he is wearing something completely strange. Then he remembers the elaborate attire he had worn to the reception that morning. Certainly this is the same. There are horses embroidered on the trouser leg, beautiful horses in all the hues Derian has ever imagined and a few he had only dreamed.

But no, these are not the same. The horses are not the only creatures. There are jaguars with their spots of living flame. Lumbering bears, rising from the earth mold, mushrooms growing on the broad area between their ears. Seagulls with feathers edged in living crystal air-dancing over otters that glide half-dissolved into the waves.

Derian leans forward to try and get a closer look at the elaborate diorama, then realizes that he has unbalanced, that he is falling, falling into the picture, and that his own image is appearing there, edged in vibrant lines of thread.

Derian shook himself awake with a start, finding himself sliding headfirst half in, half out of the bed. He pulled himself back onto the level and lay for a while, staring at the fine netting that surrounded his bed.

Although he had been assured that the season for insects had not yet arrived, Derian thought he must have misunderstood, for even by the pale daylight that filtered through the windows he could see dark flecks where the little creatures had become tangled in the mesh and died. He stared at them for a long while, trying to make out what exactly they were, and felt himself drifting again into nightmare.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, reassuring himself of the solidness of reality in the cool tile under his feet. Pushing the netting aside, he stood, stretching and rubbing his eyes until the last vestiges of his disturbing dream were forgotten.

Sufficient daylight was filtering in through the window—these screened and curtained with finely woven fabric—that he didn’t bother to light a candle. His stomach grumbled, and he realized that the day must be well advanced. He hoped the servants hadn’t cleared all the breakfast away.

As Derian washed, he became aware of voices out in the courtyard: Barnet and Rahniseeta. He couldn’t make out precisely what was being said, but he heard Barnet sing a few bars of something and Rahniseeta’s gentle laughter followed by the melodious notes of some wind instrument. There was a rude twang, then Rahniseeta laughed again.

Derian flushed and scrubbed at the back of his neck with rather more vigor than necessary. He had enjoyed the time he had spent with Rahniseeta and Harjeedian yesterday evening—and for more reason than that he had finally had some questions answered. Derian still didn’t much care for Harjeedian, but almost against his will he was coming to understand something of how the other man thought.

Derian still didn’t have much idea how Rahniseeta thought-except that she obeyed her brother with admirable loyalty—but long, intellectual conversation wasn’t the first thing that came to mind when he was with her. His lips curved in an inadvertent smile as he thought of her beauty, of curves both rounded and slender, of the graceful way in which she walked.

After shaving, Derian pulled on clean shirt and trousers, made sure his hair was neat, and with something of the same feeling he’d had before walking onstage to take part in a Horse Festival pageant, opened the door connecting his room to the courtyard.

At the sound, Rahniseeta and Barnet turned to look his way. They were seated, Derian noted with almost absurd pleasure, across from each other at the low table, not side by side as he had imagined. Barnet held his guitar—one of the several instruments he played—in the position Derian had come to associate with tuning or otherwise working on the strings. It seemed that the damp played havoc with their ability to hold a note.

Rahniseeta also held a musical instrument—in her case a long flute or recorder-like instrument. In front of her on the table was a broad, flat, covered basket of the type Derian already had learned was made for carrying snakes.

“Good morning,” Derian greeted them. “Any food about?”

“Plenty,” Barnet assured him, indicating one of the wheeled carts the servants used with a toss of his head. “We set your share over there so Rahniseeta could show me a trick. Hope you don’t mind.”

Derian didn’t mind that the food had been set aside, but he wondered how he felt about Rahniseeta showing Barnet anything, even—or maybe especially—a trick. Keeping his composure, Derian motioned for Rahniseeta to remain seated when she would have moved—whether to serve him or to make room at the table, he wasn’t sure.

“Stay put,” he said. “Plenty of room for me.”

He found that the tea had cooled, but the fruit juice in its double carafe remained pleasantly chilled. He helped himself to a slice of bread thick with raisins, smearing on some lightly salted butter before carrying the lot over to a chair on Barnet’s side of the table. The seat had the advantage of giving him a good view of Rahniseeta and putting him at a comfortable distance from whatever she had in her basket.

Rahniseeta was obviously waiting for him to get settled before going on with whatever stunt she had been about to perform, and Derian felt oddly welcomed. He knew all too well how easily a young woman could make a newcomer feel he should be anywhere but in the same room where she was flirting.

“This I will show you is a type of performance still done in our temples,” Rahniseeta explained, lifting her flute and inspecting the mouthpiece. “However, the disdum say it is not sacrilegious to show it at other times and places. Indeed, some encourage it, for they say it dispels some of the fear so many feel for snakes.”

Without further explanation, she began to play a melody on her pipe, beginning with low notes that Derian imagined he could feel as much as hear. After a short phrase of this music, motion occurred within the basket and a snake’s head rose above the rim. Its tongue flickered in and out, tasting the air, as if it were scenting the location of the sound. Moment by moment, it uncoiled further, holding its body unright, orienting on the pipe, and following the rise and fall of the musical notes in a swaying dance that was perfect accompaniment to the melody.

The concord between the slender dark woman and the jewel-toned snake was uncanny, and Derian realized that he had frozen in place, the slice of bread halfway to his mouth. He made himself take a bite, but he had to remind himself to chew.

Her gaze fastened on the snake, Rahniseeta played on and on, her music complex and intricate despite the limitations of the instrument. The snake emerged so that its upper length rose a forearm’s length above the basket. Its tongue flickered as it attended to the music, adapting its swaying to every variation.

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