Wolf Hunting (40 page)

“In any case, they took care to seal the main stronghold as well as they could, and to hide away those things they could not take with them. Remember, you know that the Plague would end the rule of magic in the New World, but they did not. They thought this sickness would set them back a season, maybe a year or two, and then they would rebuild. They did not know this was the end.

“As in the north, the Beasts were active in destroying things of magic, and when the humans had gone, they broke into the estate and destroyed what they could. Outbuildings were burned and even portions of the main stronghold were damaged beyond use, but a few places remained sealed, hidden behind fallen timbers or simply unrecognized for what they were.

“When Isende and Tiniel came, they initially despaired. If I did anything at this point, I merely gave them courage to continue. I gave them images of the indignities they had suffered in Gak, reminded them of their resolve. I did nothing but restore to them their own hearts when those hearts might have become broken by despair.”

“How noble,” Derian said, and Firekeeper could hear the sarcasm in his tone.

The Meddler apparently did not. He inclined his head as in thanks, and continued.

“The twins found shelter in the ruins, made friends with some of the yarimaimalom. Later, they found remnants of old orchards and such that enabled them to extend their stores. Even while they concentrated on building a home for themselves, they did not lose sight of their larger goals. Each day they reserved a time when one or both of them would explore the ruins. Usually, they would find nothing but some tool or bit of goods that would make their stay more comfortable, but on one memorable day Tiniel found the library. It was not a magical library—by a pact among many nations those were not permitted in the New World—but it was a library that had belonged to sorcerers. Here they found knowledge that had been lost, hints of how magic could be performed.”

Harjeedian interrupted, frowning. “This is something I do not completely understand. We have fine libraries in u-Nahal, but I do not think we have books such as these.”

“You might be surprised, Aridisdu,” the Meddler said, “what is known to the iaridisdu of your temple. But that is neither here nor there. Let me explain. Let us say you have never seen dancing and you find a book in which a dance is described. This description would not be enough to tell you how to perform that dance—not unless the book was quite unreasonably detailed—but it would give you some sense that dancing involved movement to music, movement of both hands and feet, perhaps in coordination with a partner.”

“I see,” Harjeedian said, and from his tone Firekeeper thought the Meddler’s taunt had stung more than a little, “and it was this sort of book that the twins found?”

“That type, and more than one of that type,” the Meddler agreed. “And this is where my own knowledge of what happened here in the south becomes less clear. This is around the time that you, Harjeedian, brought Derian, Firekeeper, and Blind Seer south with you and all of Dantarahma’s well-laid plans began to go awry. I was already somewhat aware of these three, and more than once I have wondered if someone acting against me arranged for you to learn of them.”

“Eh?” Firekeeper said, suddenly acutely interested. “What is this?”

“Probably nothing more than paranoia on my account,” the Meddler said. “After all, there were very reasonable and logical reasons that the disdum would learn about you, and once they knew of you, nothing was more reasonable than that they would seek to know you.”

Firekeeper decided that the Meddler had a point, and if she wanted to rescue Plik they need not follow such a tenuous trail.

“Go on,” she said, “your tale is interesting, but Plik needs us.”

The Meddler nodded. “He may indeed, but I, for one, take hope in the fact that he was taken alive.”

“As do we all,” croaked Bitter. “Now, tell on.”

“I have told you that the figurines were aids to concentration on my part, and from this you have surely surmised that I could not concentrate easily on all my subjects at once. By this time, Melina was no longer a matter of concern. Valora was useless to me, and the twins seemed to have settled into a life of contented reading and foraging. I put all my attention into watching Dantarahma, endeavoring to contact him and put the idea into his head that the solution to all his problems could be found on Misheemnekuru. I had not counted on the severe resistance I would meet. Rationally, Dantarahma could work his mind around to the idea that there was nothing sacred about those islands, but emotionally the resistance persisted; he would not go there himself. What he did do—and I assure you this was all on his own—was evolve the idea that there was something on those islands that was opposing him.”

“And,” Truth said tartly, “we know what happened then. Destruction and the death of many good folk, both beast and otherwise. And, of course, the minor side effect of my being driven insane. But you had nothing to do with this …”

Again the Meddler seemed immune to the sarcasm.

“I’m so very glad that you understand,” he said. “Again, you know the details of those days far better than I do, for I only experienced them at a distance and through Dantarahma’s perspective. When it was all over and Dantarahma gone to answer for his deeds, I turned again to the twins. You can imagine my complete astonishment when I discovered that they were gone.”

“Gone?”

The exclamation came from every throat.

“Gone. I could not touch their thoughts as once I had done, nor could I find their physical bodies. My freedom—as I have already told some of you—had been somewhat enhanced by the events surrounding the end of Dantarahma and the fall of the Tower of Magic. However, even with this expanded perspective, I could not find any trace of the twins. What I did find was a copse in place of the cluster of buildings in which they had made their new home. That copse resisted my probing so completely that I knew it was not a natural forest at all, but a barrier meant to keep out any who pried. Moreover, the forests in the surrounding area had changed. The yarimaimalom had not yet abandoned the area completely, but the retreat had begun. The blood briars were twining through the forests, and the bracken beasts prowled.

“I will admit that I was close to despair. Despite all I had done to gain my freedom, I remained trapped. Most of the hopes I had nurtured were either dead or vanished. Only Valora remained, and she was queen of an isolated island realm. Valora’s experiences with Melina had enhanced her native distrust of magic. Even so, I probed after her again, hoping to detect some indication she had changed. While I was probing after Valora, I came across a faint trace or scent that led me to Truth.

“Valora proved hopeless—at least for my purposes—so now I focused on Truth. I hoped that if I set in motion the means to return this Wise Jaguar to her sanity, I might make myself an ally. I cannot say I have done so, not as I might have wished, but now at least your company shares a goal with me.”

“Oh?” Firekeeper said, and heard herself echoed by throats human and not. “How so?”

The Meddler smiled. “I wish to find out what happened to the twins. They were my associates after a fashion, and I am concerned about them.”

Firekeeper did not believe concern was the full reason for the Meddler’s interest, but oddly she did not doubt that it was at least a partial truth. In all the accounts they had been told of the Meddler, his greatest flaw seemed a tendency to become passionately involved.

Derian said, “And you think that if we go looking for Plik, we’ll learn what happened to your twins.”

“That’s right,” the Meddler said. “And I would like to know what happened to them.”

“And perhaps,” Harjeedian said, “find out what skills they may have acquired.”

“Oh,” the Meddler said, “that would be nice, for the twins certainly have learned something. Haven’t they?”

XIX

THE MEDDLER VANISHED SOON THEREAFTER, again promising them his aid and assistance.

“I wish we knew for certain he was gone,” Derian said, looking around uneasily. “He seems a nice enough fellow, reasonable, eager to help, but—maybe it’s being able to see through him from time to time—he makes my skin crawl.”

Truth sniffed the air, then said to Firekeeper, “I have taken scent of both here and the other here. I think the Meddler is gone. He may not be completely honest with us, but in one thing I am sure he is—even freed from his prison, he is not as strong as he should be. I think his effort to make contact with all of us wearied him.”

Firekeeper nodded and made a quick translation that got across the gist, but left out Truth’s elaboration. She could tell the jaguar was annoyed, but she didn’t care. She had other things to think about.

Harjeedian was frowning at Derian. “Do not let yourself be fooled into thinking of the Meddler as a ‘fellow’ of any sort. You heard the legends Plik related. He is not a creature to be trusted in the least.”

“Those were good stories,” Derian said, “but I don’t know if they’re exactly history.”

“They are not unlike those I learned as sacred lore,” Harjeedian said in a lofty tone that Firekeeper thought might have worked if Harjeedian was speaking as aridisdu to the faithful, but was sure to annoy Derian. “The Meddler is not to be trusted. This is what we are taught.”

Firekeeper interrupted, “What language you hear the Meddler talk?”

Harjeedian and Derian turned from their nascent argument and spoke almost at once: “Pellish” from Derian, “Liglim” from Harjeedian. Then they stared at each other.

Firekeeper looked at the Beasts.

“I did not think of it,” Eshinarvash said. “He spoke, I understood.”

“The language of Liglim,” the ravens said.

“He spoke to me as in my dreams,” Truth said. “I’d never considered him speaking any particular language.”

“Liglimosh,” Blind Seer said.

“And I heard Pellish,” Firekeeper said. Then she translated for the humans what the Beasts had said.

“This is very strange …” Derian began, but Harjeedian interrupted.

“This odd power is proof of what I said. The Meddler is a deific figure of some sort.”

Firekeeper huffed annoyance at him. “Hush. Tell me this. We all saw him. Derian speaks of being able to see through him. Was this so for all?”

Various sounds and gestures of agreement followed. Firekeeper took a deep breath.

“And what did he look like to you?”

“A man of my race,” Harjeedian said, “of perhaps middle years, his clothing and the style of his hair after the way such was worn before the coming of Divine Retribution.”

Eshinarvash said,
“Also a man of Harjeedian’s people, but dressed like those at u-Bishinti.”

“He looked like someone from Liglim,” Derian said, “but he smiled just like my father’s brother, the one everyone knows isn’t quite honest, but who you can’t help but love.”

“A wolf,”
Blind Seer said,
“with yellow-golden eyes and fur perhaps a bit darker than my own. He was larger than me, although not by much.”

The ravens and Truth had seen the Meddler much as Eshinarvash had, although in Truth’s visions the Meddler’s hair had been iron grey.

Firekeeper considered what the others had said and was startled from her reverie when Derian said, “And you, Firekeeper, what did he look like to you?”

“Like a vision from a dream long ago,” Firekeeper said deliberately, “although not wholly so. He had the head and tail of a wolf, but walked upright like a human. His eyes were yellow-brown.”

She did not add, “He was strangely handsome,” but she wondered from how Blind Seer sniffed at her if he, at least, guessed. She stroked along his back in a quiet bid for forgiveness.

“Why all these faces and languages?” she asked.

“The Meddler is not to be trusted,” Harjeedian snapped. “Surely this is yet another proof.”

“
Maybe because, as he told us,”
Truth offered,
“he lacks a body of his own and so must furnish one from our imaginations.”

“I think Truth’s right,” Derian said, “but so is Harjeedian. Not one of us saw a vision that was frightening or repellent. In the case of my being reminded of my uncle, that made me even inclined to like him a little.”

“But why,” Harjeedian said, mollified somewhat, “did Blind Seer see him as a wolf when none of the other yarimaimalom did so?”

Blind Seer replied, and Firekeeper translated, “Perhaps because I am not of your people, nor did I listen too closely to Plik’s tales along the road. Indeed, I think I missed several when I was resting from the day’s heat or scouting the road.”

Harjeedian listened, then said, “Perhaps the reason we all heard and saw as we did is as Truth suggested—because the Meddler lacks a body and relied upon our minds to give him one. However, it is possible that he deliberately manipulated us in some fashion, hoping to make us see him in the most favorable light possible.”

Derian grinned at the aridisdu. “It doesn’t seem to have worked with you.”

“I have training and education precisely against such dangers,” Harjeedian replied stiffly.

Firekeeper ignored the exchange, hearing nothing more than puppy growls in their verbal sparring. Instead she looked at Blind Seer.

“Do we trust this Meddler? Or do we go ahead and try to rescue Plik without his aid?”

Blind Seer looked very unhappy.
“I think we must see what aid the Meddler can offer. We know that there are dangerous things in this forest. Plik and the others saw that the copse was strange even before Night’s Terror or the Meddler told how it had come to replace the house in which the twins laired.”

Firekeeper turned her attention to Truth.
“You are the one who has had the most contact with the Meddler. Do you think he has any knowledge that will be useful to us?”

“I will ask,”
the jaguar replied.
“I will ask.”

EVENTUALLY, THE WOLVES LEFT TO HUNT for game larger than a rabbit, for someone the size of Blind Seer was not sustained for long on small game.