Wolf Hunting (61 page)

Half-Ear came to join them. “Bitter went searching for his mate on our return. The Firekeeper brings those she went to rescue.”

“Intact?”

“Not a scent of blood on them, but Bitter says something is very wrong.”

“Keep watch,” Truth said. “Remind the others that silence must be kept no matter how great the pleasures of freedom.”

“We will not easily forget,” Half-Ear replied. “We know the insides of cages all too well to risk returning.”

DERIAN LEANED HIS HEAD against Eshinarvash’s flank. For the first time, he felt no wonder or awe in the presence of the Wise Horse, only a sense of comfort and security in the familiar odor of horse sweat and the smooth warmth of living horse beneath his brow.

Eshinarvash bent his neck and nuzzled Derian, nickering to him as a mare might to a nursling foal.

“Ancestors,” Derian prayed softly. “Let me know that what I did was right.”

A rough-edged voice broke him from his reverie.

“Fox Hair,” Firekeeper said, “you must hear—we learn something.”

Derian pulled himself upright. Firekeeper was standing just inside the doorway, her bearing tight and alert.

“What?”

“Trouble.”

“Tell me.”

“Not here,” Firekeeper said. She tossed her head in the direction of the prisoners. “Others will guard them. You and Eshinarvash come.”

Wolves were entering the building now accompanied by a puma longer than Truth, and quite a bit slimmer.

“Guard them.” Derian heard his voice break. “You promise me. They will only guard. Nothing, absolutely nothing, else.”

“Guard only,” the wolf-woman replied.

Firekeeper didn’t sound puzzled, so Derian guessed she had already been briefed as to what had happened over by the menagerie. She didn’t sound happy, either, from which he took some reassurance. Even so, he was surprised when she waited for him to join her, then touched him lightly on the arm. The motion might have been taken as guiding him, for the building had grown darker as the light from the gate had faded, leaving only the dim illumination from the glowing blocks, but Derian knew comfort when it was offered.

Outside, Firekeeper led Derian to an area on the far side of the gate buildings where a few lanterns had been lit and a group of oddly disparate figures sat on the grass around the lanterns as around a campfire. There were blankets, too, presumably brought from wherever the twins and Plik had been staying. As he took a seat, Derian shrugged a blanket over his shoulders, grateful for the warmth.

Only then did he look to see who was part of this privileged council.

“Plik!” he cried, and felt joy warm parts of his soul that had been chilled by confusion and doubt. “You look pretty good.”

Then he saw that half the raccoon-man’s face had been shaved to the bare skin.

“Are you all right?”

“I’ve been through a lot,” the raccoon-man said, his voice without its usual note of humor, “and indirectly that’s what we need to talk about. First, let me introduce you to the twins we’ve come so far to find. This is Isende and this is her brother, Tiniel.”

Derian looked the pair over as best he could in the lantern light. They looked less alike than he had imagined, siblings with a strong family resemblance rather than copies of one person. With their warm brown skin they looked rather like diluted Liglimom, but Derian had never seen anything quite like their thick, somewhat wavy hair. Seen in one light it appeared fair, but beneath it held a warmer brown.

Like it has been polished,
Derian thought,
not sun-faded. The color is nice-enough-looking, once you get used to it.

He remembered that Rahniseeta had said something similar about his freckles, and realized with weird relief that he was remembering his former fiancée without the same degree of heartache.

Derian inclined his head to each twin in neutral greeting. Then he glanced to see who else was included in the conference.

Blind Seer reclined near Firekeeper. Truth sat at the fringe of the lantern light, along with Half-Ear. Bitter and Lovable cuddled close, perched on a stone plinth that had probably once held a statue. Harjeedian was missing, and Firekeeper anticipated Derian’s question.

“Harjeedian is treating some of the yarimaimalom as best he can. Some were very badly hurt by their keepers.”

As Liglimosh was the one common language in this group now that the twins must be included, Firekeeper used the Liglimosh word “kidisdu.” Her inflection made clear she found no likeness between those who had kept the yarimaimalom captive, and their Liglimom friends.

“Harjeedian say,” Firekeeper went on, “that whatever we do, he will follow.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“We can’t go back,” Isende said. Her Liglimosh had the same accent they’d heard in Gak, but even so Derian could detect a note that told him she had said this before and was desperate that she be believed. “It’s querinalo, Divine Retribution, the Plague. All of you have probably been infected. If we go back, you’ll spread it.”

Derian thought he had suffered enough shocks that he would be immune to another, but this announcement made the inside of his head vibrate as if he’d been physically hit.

“But how have we been infected?” he asked. “Was it contact with the Once Dead and Twice Dead? If so, they’ve been into the New World. It’s too late to stop the infection from spreading.”

Tiniel shook his head. “We’re not sure how the infection is spread, but neither one of us grew ill with it until we came through the gate and spent time here. The illness wasn’t lingering in the stronghold or any of the old papers or anything like that.”

“But,” Isende said, “it’s the experience of the yarimaimalom that makes me think that the infection is here in the Old World, but not yet in the New. After Tiniel and I made our transit, the Once Dead took us captive. When we were over querinalo, we were brought back to the stronghold for a time, so we could show them where everything was, explain what we had found where. That’s how we know that they captured some of the yarimaimalom and held them there in the stronghold for a while before deciding to bring them into the Old World. It was only after the transit that some of the yarimaimalom felt the fires of Divine Retribution.”

Firekeeper nodded. “I have asked Onion and Half-Ear, and they say the same. Only after they come here did this querinalo strike.”

“So the New World is still safe,” Derian said with relief.

“Unless you go back and infect it,” Isende said. “We’re safe, but it’s going to take a day and a half or so before we know which ones of you are vulnerable.”

“Then you have already had it?” Derian asked.

“Yes,” Tiniel replied for them both.

The single word was so blunt and so bitter that Derian didn’t ask more.

“Plik?”

“Yes. It was … horrible. I nearly died. I saved myself by … I don’t know how to say this, but by offering it my talent to burn instead of my body. I lived, but my ability to sense magic is gone. When I arrived, the magical energies being used here were like a surf pounding in my head. Now there is only silence.”

“Are the stories true?” Derian asked. “The Plague—‘keri-something,’ I think you called it—only affects those who have magical abilities?”

“That seems to be the case,” Tiniel said. “Plik could sense magic. We—Isende and I—could sense each other. That ability is gone.”

Isende added, shyly, as if she thought the information unimportant, “The Once Dead are those who had the Plague but their magic still ‘lives.’ The Twice Dead—like us, like Plik—‘died’ twice. Once in having the disease, once in letting our talents die. Some of those here call those who don’t catch querinalo the ‘Never Lived.’”

“Does this querinalo,” Derian said the word carefully, “still kill people?”

“Yes,” Isende said, “but not as frequently as our legends tell us it did in the old days. Perhaps the disease has mellowed over time. Perhaps some long-ago sorcerer found a way to temper it, but couldn’t eliminate it. Perhaps the really great talents that would fuel the fever to killing levels no longer exist. I don’t know. These days, so we are told, if the victim is willing to fight—to sacrifice—the victim can live and even maintain magical ability. But it’s not easy.”

Derian scratched his neck where the wool blanket was making it itch. “And you’re sure that if we go back before the disease runs its course we’ll risk carrying it to others
^?
”

“That’s what the doctor who treated us believed,” Isende said. “Maybe he’s wrong, but do we want to take the risk?”

Firekeeper said, “We could go back. Stay in the stronghold. Let see what happens. Not meet any others.”

Isende shook her head. “It’s too big a risk.”

“Is a big risk to stay,” Firekeeper said, “especially if many of us may be ill.”

Derian knew who the likely candidates for catching the Plague would be. Firekeeper almost certainly. Truth, unless she had really lost her ability to see the future rather than just having put it aside. And himself. He’d been told that his skill with horses consisted of training and education augmented by a touch of talent. He didn’t know. There were no tests to tell the more subtle levels of talents. Talents simply manifested clearly-as in Doc’s ability to speed the process of healing—or were suspected.

What about the others? Bitter, Lovable, Eshinarvash, Harjeedian, even Blind Seer? Were they also talented? Would they learn of these talents only when this querinalo hit?

Firekeeper was right. They would be in great danger if they stayed here, even with a horde of yarimaimalom to guard them. But Isende was right, too. Did they dare take the risk that they might carry this querinalo to the New World? A single talented creature coming in contact with them might carry away the disease all unknowing.

“So,” he said, “what do we do?”

Firekeeper tilted her head to one side. “Either we go back, and wait in stronghold, or we take this place and stay here.”

“Take this place,” Derian said. “How many people are there here?”

Tiniel spoke up. “The numbers do shift, but I’d estimate somewhere around fifty to sixty. Not all of these are Once Dead—maybe a third. The remainder are Twice Dead, with a smattering of Never Lived. These are mostly family of one of the others.”

Isende added, “You have to understand. The New World was not alone in having rather bad memories of the time before querinalo thinned the ranks of the magically talented. As in the New World, those with magical ability tended to rule or to support those who ruled. In the better cases, magic was used to improve lives immensely. Look at the lights inside the gate buildings: light without smoke or excessive heat. That’s pretty wonderful. However, magic was also used to force the acceptance of unpopular measures and rulers. When querinalo struck, many people in many lands did as we did in the New World. They took advantage of the sorcerers’ weakness to eliminate them.”

“Night will not last forever,” Firekeeper reminded. “We must decide.”

Isende held up her hand. “But you have to understand. Those here—especially the Once Dead—have come from cultures where they were outcasts or grew up in isolation or hiding. It doesn’t help that most of them follow the blood-magic path. You need to be a bit ruthless to do that. They have a reason for being the way they are, but not all of them are completely horrid.”

Derian heard himself asking, “Do you know anything about those who were set to watch over the yarimaimalom?”

“A little,” Isende said, “enough to know that they were far worse than the ‘beasts’ they were set to tend. They were the ones responsible for the initial creation of the bracken beasts. That took a lot of experimentation—we used to hear the cries. It made me sick.”

Derian didn’t know if Isende knew what had happened to those keepers, and judging from how Firekeeper kept glancing at the eastern horizon as if trying to judge how long they had until dawn, this wasn’t the time to ask.

Plik looked as if he were about to say something when a red fox burst into the circle of lantern light, eyes wild, flanks heaving.

Firekeeper surged to her feet, her knife in her hand.

“Too late to talk more,” she said. “This fox say that movement has been spotted. Someone—many someones—know we are here.”

WITH AN EXPLOSION OF WINGS, Bitter and Lovable took to the night-dark sky. More soundlessly, Night’s Terror glided in to take their place on the boulder.

“One of the eagles spotted the movement first,” she said. “It was a human male. He came from one of the buildings up the hillside, stood and stared this way, then hurried down the hillside toward where many of the humans dwell. The eagle wished to give warning, but he had had his flying feathers pulled, and we had all been warned against screaming, so he had to find someone who could scout for him. By the time I was located …”

“Slow, slow,”
Firekeeper said, holding up her hand.
“First, how many come?”

“More than a fresh clutch of eggs
,” the owl replied promptly.

As Firekeeper knew nothing about the size of a barn owl’s clutch, this did her no good. She indicated the group gathered around.
“More than this or the same or fewer?
”

Night’s Terror swiveled her head around to assess the company.
“More, but not much more.”

“Do they carry weapons?”

“Some do
,” the owl replied.
“Some simply walk as if they are weapons
—
as a puma prowls or a wolf.”

“Or an owl flies in the night sky,”
Blind Seer said. He had been sniffing the air, but the wind clearly came from
the wrong direction for him to get much good from it. “Dear heart, I will go and scout
.
Many of these yarimaimalom know nothing of human ways. Their reports will tell us less than nothing.”

Truth’s tail was lashing.
“I will go with you, wolf. I see nearly as well in the darkness as does an owl.”

Blind Seer gave a swish of his tail that acknowledged his willingness to have the jaguar as a companion, and then the two loped away.