Wolf Captured (77 page)

“I hope that before you decide to leave for the north you will find an opportunity to return to Misheemnekuru and say good-bye. I have spent a dozen long years wondering if you had lived or died. It sorrows me that our acquaintance will be so short.”

“If you ask for me to come back,” Firekeeper replied with sincerity, “then I will do so even if I have to swim here.”

Blind Seer panted laughter and looked at the maimalodalu relaxing the guarded manner that had informed every line of his body throughout the interview.

“Actually,” the blue-eyed wolf said, “I think Firekeeper would actually prefer to swim if her only other choice was getting on a boat.”

DARK DEATH ONCE AGAIN SERVED as their guide when they headed back to the outpost. He led them via a shorter route this time, for they did not need to go back in the direction of the elk meadows. They ran by night and lay up in the heat of the day, hunting in the cool portions of morning and evening. Dark Death carefully set their trail to avoid ruins. The memories of past disasters were too acute for curiosity to outweigh caution.

At the outpost, the disdum were eager to ready a boat to take Firekeeper and Blind Seer to the mainland. The oldest aridisdu politely but firmly insisted on exchanging what remained of Firekeeper’s torn and ragged clothing for a fresh outfit. She thanked him politely, glad for the chance to discard the old clothes. Cotton had great advantages over leather when one wished to avoid becoming too hot, but it did tear and stain very easily.

As once again they must wait on some vagary of the tide, Firekeeper also accepted the opportunity to bathe in hot water and wash her hair. Consequently, she felt quite eager to reencounter humanity by the time they boarded the boat. The swaying of the deck beneath her feet reminded her of the ordeal to come.

“Did you enjoy your time with the Wise Wolves?” asked the young woman minding the wheel once the boat was under way.

“Yes,” Firekeeper said tersely, her knuckles white on a railing, tensing as the boat chopped across a wave.

The young woman, though her eyes were bright with questions, saw Firekeeper’s misery and kept her peace.

Upon landing, Firekeeper went to a public fountain and rinsed her mouth several times, then she turned to Blind Seer.

“Now to find Derian,” she said. “Do we go to the place of horses—this u-Bishinti we have heard so much about—or do we ask for him elsewhere?”

“Ask,” Blind Seer said promptly. “Many days have passed since last we saw Derian. He may have shifted his lair, or gone on a long journey for all we know.”

“True,” Firekeeper said. “Let us start at the Temple of the Cold Bloods. If Derian is not there, Barnet or Rahniseeta or Harjeedian may know where we might find him.”

“Or we could ask the jaguar, Truth, to divine his location,” Blind Seer said with a panting laugh. “I have my doubts as to just how good these diviners are.”

Firekeeper grinned at him. “You have a wicked streak. That jaguar is too full of herself for my liking. Let us start with the humans, and turn to Truth only at the last.”

They walked up the processional way and the humans parted right and left to let them pass. Even the children playing some chasing game along the median paused to watch their passage. Firekeeper was aware of the many eyes on her, but she kept herself from panic with the awareness that the many gazes held awe, admiration, and a trace of fear, none of these emotions uncongenial to a wolf.

HARJEEDIAN WAS AT THE TEMPLE of the Cold Bloods, and proved quite willing to direct Firekeeper to where she might find Derian.

“He has been coming up from u-Bishinti most days, lately,” Harjeedian said, “and often calls on Rahniseeta. I believe they frequently go walking either in the city or in the park to the north of Heeranenahalm.”

Firekeeper thanked Harjeedian and hurried outside once more.

“Let’s try the park,” she said to Blind Seer. “We’ve just come up through the city and didn’t see him there.”

“We hardly saw all of the city,” Blind Seer replied, deceptively mild, “only the processional way.”

Firekeeper knew she was being teased. Although she had grown more comfortable in urban areas, she still preferred the wild lands. As usual, spending time away from cities had done nothing for her tolerance of crowds, noise, and stench.

“Even so,” Firekeeper said, refusing to respond directly to Blind Seer’s gibe, “we are closer to this park. I recall seeing a gate into greenery in the northern wall. That must be what Harjeedian was referring to.”

They found things as Firekeeper had remembered and they stepped through onto thick sheep-mowed turf that merged without any rigid borders into open forest. After the tangled undergrowth of Misheemnekuru the artifice of the place was evident, but that made it no less pleasant to Firekeeper’s eyes.

They stepped around a group of children playing some game involving a ball and a great deal of running, and moved deeper into the cool greenery.

“I’ve Derian’s scent,” Blind Seer reported, “and Rahniseeta’s —and that of fresh bread and sharp cheese.”

“Today’s scent?” Firekeeper asked.

“Definitely.” The wolf raised his massive head and pointed with a toss of his nose. “They went along this trail.”

Were they seeking wolves, the pair would have howled, but humans didn’t welcome being shouted after except in emergencies, and, in any case, this park was no one person’s territory. Blind Seer encountered numerous scent trails, though these grew thinner the farther the pair went from the gate.

“Quite a long walk just to eat bread and cheese,” Blind Seer commented, “but then this carries them deeper into the forest where it will definitely be cooler.”

“We are still on their trail?”

“Certainly,” the wolf huffed a trace indignantly. “Had you my nose, it would be as if they walked along before us, that’s how strong the scent is.”

Firekeeper rubbed behind his ears in mute apology, and companionably they strolled on. So quiet were they that the little birds resumed singing in the trees. A squirrel dared scold, brave in his certainty that nothing so large could reach the dancing ends of the long tree limbs where he took up his station.

“There,” Firekeeper said softly, “ahead. I see a basket. The grass is flattened as well, but there is no sign of our quarry.”

“I would swear they haven’t backed the trail,” Blind Seer said, “and I hear no conversation.”

“Then let us go on,” Firekeeper said. “They may have finished eating and gone for a walk.”

They walked within a few paces of where the picnic basket sat, a mostly empty wine bottle alongside. Firekeeper was about to ask Blind Seer to track when her gaze fastened on a glint of paler color back in the greenery.

Frowning, she motioned Blind Seer to silence and ghosted forward. In the shelter of a thick clump of trees, invisible but to one who came upon them as she had just done, Firekeeper found Derian and Rahniseeta.

They lay close together on the cotton blanket whose trailing pale blue had been what had first caught Firekeeper’s eye. Although fully dressed, they were closely intertwined. Derian held Rahniseeta, his mouth pressed closely against hers in what was far more intimate than the chaste kisses Firekeeper had more usually witnessed. His shirt was open at the top, and Rahniseeta had one hand splayed out against the skin of his chest. Both of them had their eyes closed, as if better to savor the pleasures of touch.

Firekeeper drew back in silence motioning Blind Seer to come away with her.

Although she felt a trace of embarrassment at seeing what Derian had so clearly wished to go unseen, her dominant emotion was confusion and apprehension. She been so very certain that Derian would be excited to learn that she had found them a way home.

Now, remembering how the young man had cradled Rahniseeta in his arms and the intensity with which he had kissed her, Firekeeper wondered if Derian would ever want to leave the land of the Liglimom.

XXXII

“RAHNISEETA SISTER OF HARJEEDIAN?” the voice came as Rahniseeta was hurrying along a corridor past some of the administrative offices within u-Nahal. “Ahmyndisdu Tiridanti would like to speak with you.”

Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Magic!
Rahniseeta thought.
Somehow Ahmyndisdu Tiridanti’s discovered the snooping I’ve been doing! What am I going to say to her when she asks me about it? Oh, it’s nothing, great lady. Some friends of mine and I—well, and some of the yarimaimalom as well—we suspect your fellow within u-Liall, Junjaldisdu Dantarahma, of reverting to blood sacrifice?

Rahniseeta halted and stared wildly at the speaker, a minor aridisdu from one of the Earth-related orders, she thought. A kind enough man, comfortable in the middle ranks in which his talent had set him; content to be a clerk to a seventeen-year-old girl if that was how he could best serve the deities.

“Oh!” was all Rahniseeta could manage to say.

“Is this a bad time?” the aridisdu asked kindly. “Are you perhaps expected elsewhere?”

“Only in the scribes’ hall,” Rahniseeta said. “I’ve been doing some copying.”

And some reading of recent accounting records when no one is looking,
she confessed silently.

She went on quickly, “I would be very happy to place myself at the ahmyndisdu’s service if she wishes to see me.”

“Thank you,” the aridisdu said with gentle courtesy. “Please follow me.”

Rahniseeta did so. Her mind feverishly rehearsed a series of excuses, so that when she was led into the ahmyndisdu’s private chambers and the clerk had left, pulling the door shut behind him with a firmness that said as clearly as words “I will guarantee your privacy,” she hardly heard what Tiridanti said.

“Thank you for coming so promptly, Rahniseeta. I am worried about truth.”

Truth?
Rahniseeta thought in a panic.
I’m sure she is worried about the truth. Anyone who knew the truth would be worried about it.

Then she saw the jaguar pacing restlessly back and forth, back and forth at the far end of the room, and the meaning of what Tiridanti had said came clear to her.

“Truth?” Rahniseeta said aloud.

“Yes,” Tiridanti said.

The ahmyndisdu was not wearing any of her formal costumes today. In loose blouse and trousers in Fire’s favorite red and orange, the cuffs and collars trimmed in brilliant yellow, Tiridanti looked very young, the coltish lines of her still maturing body very evident.

“Truth has been behaving strangely for some time now,” Tiridanti went on, looking over at the jaguar. “Divination has become a struggle for her—enough that I have been calling on some of the others when I must do a reading. Lately, however—within the past four or five days—Truth has seemed to completely lose touch with reality. She is not violent or temperamental in the least, but all she does is pace.”

“Has she eaten?” Rahniseeta asked.

She didn’t know how often the great cats needed to eat, but knew their metabolisms were faster than those of the snakes she and Harjeedian tended.

“A little,” Tiridanti replied, “but the food must be set directly before her for her to notice it. Even then she only eats a few mouthfuls before starting to pace again.”

Why did you ask me here?
Rahniseeta thought.
I’m no kidisdu. I certainly know nothing of any type of cat. They’re not exactly welcome in the Temple of the Cold Bloods.

But whatever else she was, Tiridanti was no mind reader. She interpreted Rahniseeta’s concern as for the jaguar.

“Truth is in no immediate danger,” Tiridanti assured Rahniseeta. “To be completely honest, she was having too much fun being waited on and had put on a little extra weight. Even so, I would very much like to know what is troubling her—and the omens are completely silent on the matter.”

Rahniseeta was appalled, but she still didn’t know why she had been summoned, and although Tiridanti was not standing on formalities, Rahniseeta could not forget that the young woman was the ahmyndisdu.

“I had heard,” Tiridanti went on, “that Lady Blysse has returned to the mainland.”

“Yes, Ahmyndisdu,” Rahniseeta said. “She arrived yesterday.”

Rahniseeta felt very glad that her skin was not as fair as Derian’s, for at the memory of her first meeting with the traveler she felt her skin grow hot.

She and Derian had encountered Lady Blysse upon returning from one of their picnic outings. The wolf-woman and her blue-eyed companion were resting near the wall that separated the park from Heeranenahalm. Something in Lady Blysse’s guarded expression made Rahniseeta think that the wolf-woman had been deeper into the park, and then had politely retreated.

Rahniseeta still wasn’t quite certain just when or how she and Derian had graduated from pretend flirtation to something rather more intimate, but this hadn’t been the first time they’d taken the blanket into the shrubbery, out of sight of casual passersby. They hadn’t progressed beyond kissing and a certain amount of mutual exploration, but the interest in learning more was definitely there.

Freckles had been a revelation.