Wolf Captured (43 page)

As if he had no other interest in all the world, Wain returned to parsing the word “misheemnekuru.”

“Let’s get back to ‘misheemne,’” Waln said. “‘Mishee’ means ‘island.’ ‘M’ is your most common way of forming a plural, the way ‘s’ is in Pellish. ‘Ne’ is a possessive ending. Do I have it right?”

“You do:”

“So where we would say ‘the islands of sanctuary,’ you folks say one compound word, ‘misheemnekuru.”’

“But you have a possessive ending as well,” Shivadtmon protested. “I have it in some of the phrases I have written down here.”

He looked quickly down his list, then read off slowly, “‘Your Majesty’s good health.’ It is here again, ‘Waln’s hat. Wain’s shirt.’”

Wain nodded. “I didn’t ever think about it before this teaching started, but from what Barnet Lobster says, our language used to have a lot of endings that have fallen out of use over time. That ending you mentioned is one of those.”

Shivadtmon was no more eager than Wain himself to go into the reasons for this particular linguistic evolution. They had already discussed how languages evolve. As practicality ruled both of their natures, the matter of lost endings was left behind. However, to Wain’s delight, the matter of Misheemnekuru was not.

“As you had expressed interest in Misheemnekuru,” Shivadtmon said with forced casualness, “I thought you would like to know that Lady Blysse sent a message some days ago via the aridisdu currently in charge of the outpost there. She not only has been accepted by the Wise Wolves she encountered, but she and her companion, Blind Seer, were invited to travel inland with these wolves.”

“Why that’s amazing,” Wain said. “That would make Lady Blysse the first human to walk those lands in well over a hundred years—that is, if the Divine Retribution struck here at about the same time as it did in my homeland.”

“Close enough,” Shivadtmon said, dismissing past history with a wave of one narrow, long-fingered hand. “There is much debate in the temples as to whether Lady Blysse being on Misheemnekuru counts as a human intrusion or whether, since the wolves have accepted her, she is indeed, as some claim, maimalodalu, and therefore not intruding at all.”

“Maimalodalu” was a new word for Wain, but he broke it down easily: “beast soul.” Not “a soul of the beasts.” That would be more like “dalunemaimalo.” What Shivadtmon was definitely saying was that some people were claiming that Lady Blysse was legally possessed of an animal’s soul. In Bright Bay that would have been a demotion, but here, where the yarimaimalom were accorded rights equivalent to—or even superior to—those of humans, that meant that Lady Blysse could be rising in status.

Indeed, from what little Wain had grasped, the yarimaimalom were considered to have a clearer understanding of the divine will than any human—even than the disdum. The beasts were the sources of omens, not mere interpreters. If this transformation of Lady Blysse from human to animal was pushed to its logical conclusion, that would mean that Lady Blysse could end up at least the equivalent of a disdu—though Wain wasn’t sure whether a kidisdu or an aridisdu—or even a member of both orders.

Only the members of u-Liall were considered members of both orders, initiated into membership in the kindred order upon elevation. Would this then mean that u-Liall would no longer be “the Five” but become “the Six”?

Until this moment, Wain had intended to capture Shivadtmon’s interest in working with Wain by appealing to either greed or curiosity. Now he saw another route, and one that could bring them additional allies when such were needed.

Shivadtmon was very proud of his place as aridisdu. He’d worked long and hard to gain initiation into his order. Maybe he even dreamed of being iaridisdu, the head of his temple, someday. Now forces were in motion to promote a newly arrived stranger to a rank senior to his own—senior, perhaps, to any to which Shivadtmon could ever aspire.

Wain reached for the flask of chilled white wine. He hadn’t been drinking as much these last few days, but now it certainly seemed like a time for a celebration. He poured glasses for himself and Shivadtmon. From the eagerness with which the other man drank, Wain thought he had deduced the other’s thoughts fairly accurately.

“Well, this is grand for Lady Blysse,” Wain said. “She has the best luck. Earl Kestrel found her living on carrion in the wilds, hauled her back and stuffed her in a dress. In no time, she becomes a member of the peerage, as well as a favorite of Hawk Haven’s dotard king. Now she stands to take rank and title in your own land as well. I wish I had her luck.”

“So,” Shivadtmon said, his voice very soft, but the level gaze that met Wain’s full of yet unspoken meaning, “do I.”

XVIII

WHEN THE PAIR OF ENORMOUS RAVENS dropped out of the sky and circled them, Prahini started. Derian swore ferociously as he struggled to keep her from bolting. The footing was none too good, and he didn’t like to think of the consequences if the mare’s panic won out.

Only after he had the bay paint under control could Derian spare energy for the source of the distraction. He located the ravens immediately, sitting on each of the largest branches flanking the slender trunk of one of the few trees on the hilltop. They didn’t look in the least ashamed of themselves, but he didn’t expect them to. It wasn’t only their size and perfection that marked them as yarimaimalom, but also the directness of their gaze as they looked him over.

“I don’t care what anyone has told you,” he said, speaking in Liglimosh as the most likely human language the ravens would understand, “but a horseman is only as good as his horse. Prahini is a young creature, and easily frightened.”

The raven on the left gave a faint, hoarse croak that just might have been an apology—at least, Derian chose to take it as such. The one on the right merely puffed out its feathers.

Hearing the conversational note in Derian’s voice, Prahini let her head drop and began lipping at the grass. Derian scratched with one hand at the base of her mane and felt her skin ripple with pleasure, but he didn’t allow himself to be distracted from the ravens. He didn’t know why they were here, but of one thing he was perfectly certain, it wasn’t by chance.

Derian suspected they were looking for him specifically, not simply for any human. For one thing, especially hatless, he looked very little like a Liglimo. For another, he was the only person around.

Instructing in Pellish took up a fair amount of Derian’s time, but as there were ample potential students in u-Bishinti and its vicinity, Derian still had not yet returned to u-Seeheera. However, Varjuna had ordained that not all Derian’s time would be occupied with teaching.

“It has been said you are a guest,” Varjuna said, “and a guest does not work from dawn to dark. Moreover, I want your opinion on our establishment. We are proud of what we have achieved, but not too proud to learn from another.”

Derian doubted that he could teach the disdum of u-Bishinti a thing about caring for or raising horses, but he was grateful to have a reason to escape the otherwise uninterrupted stream of students. Barnet had been right when he said that learning Pellish was something of the fashion right now, and while Derian was certain the interest would level in time, he felt sure it had yet to peak.

He took advantage of the fact that most of his students had early-morning chores about the facility to take Prahini out for an early ride. The weather was growing increasingly hot and humid as summer advanced, and although the winds off the bay ameliorated the effect somewhat, by midmorning Derian was just as happy to be inside the shady reaches of some thick-walled courtyard.

There was another reason for his early-morning rides. Although Derian did not want to admit it, he was obsessed with the Wise Horses. His one ride on Eshinarvash had lit a fire that was far from burning low. He felt like he’d fallen in love with some unattainable royal beauty, and while every glimpse of the wild herds fed his awareness of the hopelessness of his situation, he could not go without at least trying to see them.

Poshtuvanu’s comments about how the children often crept to look at the Wise Horses, combined with Derian’s own recollection of the direction in which Varjuna had taken him when they had gone to meet Eshinarvash, gave Derian hope that there might be some place from which he could see the herds. A few days’ trial and error had led him to this hilltop, and now every morning he rode over.

Sometimes he caught a glimpse of the grazing herds. Sometimes his only reward was mist rising off the ground and obscuring what lay below. Sometimes the air was as clear as polished glass, but the horses were nowhere in sight. Never did he see one of the Wise Horses as any more than a shape in the distance, small as a child’s wooden toy. Even so, even knowing that his obsession must be obvious to everyone in u-Bishinti, Derian continued to make his pilgrimage.

Today’s had not been rewarding, and he had been turning Prahini for the ride back to the field where she would be turned out for the day when the ravens had landed.

Derian remembered the reverence with which the yarimaimalom were usually regarded and thought his initial comments might have given offense—especially as the ravens had done nothing but stare at him since.

“May I be of service to you?” he asked, using the most formal phrase he knew—the one more typically used in temple meetings than in daily encounters.

Immediately, the raven on the left perked up. It ducked its head down into the feathers and came up holding in its beak a slender cord from which a small capsule depended.

“For me?” Derian asked, and the raven emitted a hoarse, satisfied noise.

Derian slid from the saddle. Usually, he’d trust Prahini to stay drop-tied, but with these ravens about he thought he’d better secure her. A fat shrub supplied a hitching post. Then he crossed to where the raven still held the capsule dangling from her beak.

“Is this for me?” he asked.

In reply, the raven bent slightly and dropped the capsule into his hand. The capsule was still attached to the cord. Now that he was close enough, Derian could see that the cord looped around the raven’s neck. He could also see how large the raven’s beak was and thought uncomfortably that it could easily take off a finger.

Derian loosened the capsule from the cord, then, despite the proximity of that formidable beak, asked, “Would you like me to remove that cord? It can’t be comfortable.”

He gently tugged the end of the cord to make clear what he meant. The raven didn’t nod as Derian had half expected—both Blind Seer and Elation had learned the gesture as a means of speeding their communication with humans. Instead it ducked its head and the cord dropped loose.

Derian laughed in appreciation, and the raven seemed to understand, bobbing up and down and puffing its feathers in a fashion that transformed its head into a variety of grotesque shapes. Through all of this, the other raven—the one seated on the right side of the trunk—had remained still and watchful. Now it darted its beak toward the capsule in Derian’s hand.

“You want me to open this,” Derian said. “Right.”

The capsule was interesting in itself. The body of it was made from a length of lightweight bone from which the marrow had been meticulously cleaned. The ends were capped with beeswax, this tamped neatly into place and still holding the fragmented whorls of a human fingerprint.

Derian hadn’t doubted that this was somehow from Firekeeper, but somehow this mark of human involvement unexpectedly reassured him. He might converse with the ravens as if they understood him, but deep inside, he wondered.

He slid the wax from one end of the bone tube and found inside a tightly rolled spiral of paper. He didn’t know what he’d expected. They’d discussed various ways they might communicate, but hadn’t settled on anything. Now he looked down on what appeared to be Liglimosh written characters. There were several in a line, all unintelligible to him, though he was beginning to read simple words. Only when he came to the end did he find something he understood: a rough drawing of a handprint side by side with a sketch of a wolf’s paw. Firekeeper had “signed” one other message this way and Derian shuddered involuntarily when he remembered what that had presaged.

“This is from Firekeeper,” he said aloud, looking at the ravens for reassurance. “But who did the writing?”

For answer, the ravens chortled, then dropped off the tree branches and launched into the air. It was notable that they did so without making nearly as much fuss as they had upon arrival, so Derian decided not to feel insulted.

“Well, Prahini,” he said as he unhitched the mare. “We have a new mystery. Who is with Firekeeper who knows how to write? Whatever the answer is, I know where I can find someone who reads this stuff.”

Swinging into the saddle, Derian took one more long look down the slope to where the Wise Horses sometimes could be seen. The field was empty, but he hardly noticed, his mind already on the message in the bone tube.

WHEN HE ARRIVED at the ikidisdu’s residence, Varjuna hadn’t yet arrived from his morning tour of the facility, but Zira was already at the breakfast table drinking tea and frowning over a written report. Two empty bowls, not yet cleared away, testified that the two younger sons had already eaten and left.