Wolf Hunting (68 page)

The idea both revolted and tempted him. He saw his own hand moving toward Derian’s ear. Harjeedian’s hand slapped him sharply away.

“Don’t touch him!” he said. “I don’t think we even dare continue the cold compresses while Derian is in this state. I don’t like how the skin moved when I touched his forehead. I’m going for the doctor.”

“I’ll go,” Isende said, already moving for the door. “You’re closer to being a healer than I am. Stay with him!”

The doctor came promptly. He inspected Derian carefully, his expression growing more and more grave—then touched with fear when he saw that Firekeeper had left her vigil at Blind Seer’s side and come to join them. The residents of the Nexus Islands had been given time to learn about those who had conquered them, and they knew that other than Blind Seer the one the dangerous and apparently unpredictable wolf-woman valued most was Derian.

Plik thought their assessment unfair only on one point. Firekeeper was not unpredictable when it came to those she viewed as her pack. If Blind Seer was One Male to her One Female, then Derian was a valued and trusted second—protected and honored as such.

However, for all the intensity in those dark, dark eyes, Firekeeper said nothing but stood head angled so she would hear the faintest sound from Blind Seer, waiting for Zebel’s report.

“This …” the doctor gestured toward Derian, “is not an uncommon direction for querinalo to take. Indeed, we might call it a hopeful sign.”

Isende frowned. “I remember nothing like this when Plik was ill—or when my brother and I were either.”

“That is because,” the doctor said gently, “you—as did I, as did Plik—chose the path that would lead to becoming Twice Dead. This manifestation occurs with those who are fighting to retain their magic—and in doing so are sacrificing some part of their bodies. This is why I say this can be seen as a hopeful sign. Derian has chosen to live, and that is the first step to recovery. We can even say that he has chosen what ‘medicine’ to take to effect his cure.”

“Then is good?” Firekeeper said. She stepped closer and looked down at Derian, her lips pursed in concern. “He not look good. His ears is wrong. So is his hair, I think.”

The doctor stepped back a step. “All I can tell you is what I know from the cases I have observed. Most who develop this melted skin recover.”

“Most?” Firekeeper asked.

“Sometimes,” the doctor looked increasingly nervous, “sometimes the melted skin heals in a manner that … that …”

“Speak,” Firekeeper growled, “I do not bite.”

Then don’t look like you’re going to do just that,
Plik thought, but he didn’t blame the wolf-woman for her reaction. Derian looked very strange. Zebel reeked of fear sweat. As far as Plik knew, Firekeeper had hardly dozed since Blind Seer’s collapse. This did not make for an even temper.

Zebel swallowed, then went on, “Sometimes the melted skin heals in a manner that is fatal in itself. One woman’s nose grew so long that it folded over onto itself and she smothered. A man grew fangs that pierced the roof of his mouth and curved into his brain. Those are extreme cases, though. You have seen how many of the Once Dead survive intact, if altered in appearance.”

“I see,” Firekeeper said. Again she inspected Derian, but although his exposed flesh showed that strange softness, there was no sign of disfiguring growths.

“We watch,” she said, and turned to go back to Blind Seer.

Plik looked at Isende.

“Would you like a rest?” he asked, for although he had been up doing the night watch and had planned on sleeping, he didn’t think he could now.

“No,” Isende said, giving him a brave smile. “I don’t want to leave now. Finish your meal. I’ll call if anything seems to change. You can be sure of that.”

Firekeeper looked over at Isende, and to Plik’s surprise gave the younger woman a tired smile.

“I know you will call,” she said. “I know.”

XXXIII

FIREKEEPER HAD HEARD ALL of the soft-voiced conversation by the hearthside, but she had not felt any desire to participate. How could she? To answer would be to give away more about herself than she cared for any—other than Blind Seer—to know.

Querinalo had bitten into her soon after it had bitten Blind Seer. She had felt it probing through her system, chewing along her nerves, browsing for what would feed it, and then a rhythmic chant had started in her head: “Only a wolf may live. Only a wolf may live.”

They were words that had haunted her dreams since her childhood, words she now knew had been spoken by the maimalodalu called Questioner when he sought a way around her stubborn refusal to accept the fresh meat that she needed to recover her strength after barely surviving the fire that had killed her human parents. Sickened with the deaths of friends and family, Firekeeper had revolted against living at the expense of another’s life—yet Questioner had known she could not hope to heal without it.

He had charmed her into believing herself well and wholly a wolf, and now it seemed that charm was coming to her aid again. Firekeeper felt her own conviction that there was nothing magical about her, that she was wolf in mind and blood and soul, block querinalo of the sense that there was anything in the least magical about her. Querinalo quested, sought, probed, but finding nothing of the magic that was its anchor, it could not ravage her as it did its more usual prey.

Firekeeper, racked with fever, but knowing even at the worst that she would survive intact, supposed she was grateful.

On one matter, Plik was absolutely right. It was her intense fear for Blind Seer that kept her from sleeping. More than once since her vigil had begun had she cursed the impulsive revenge that had slain the three humans best schooled in the treatment of beasts.

True, they might have been more cruel than a weasel with rabies, but they knew things, and Firekeeper would have made certain they did not lie to her. As it was, she had to go by what Harjeedian and the doctor said, and both admitted that they knew little about illness in canines.

Harjeedian, who had studied some veterinary medicine in preparation for the venture that had brought Firekeeper and Blind Seer into the land of the Liglim, had been the most helpful. He had assured her that the willow bark infusion that they were using to bring the fever down in the humans should not harm Blind Seer. He had suggested placing cool, damp cloths on the wolf’s ears, nose, and paw pads—places where the skin was close to the surface.

Plik had advised against shaving the wolf, saying that he recalled his own fever as being mingled with chills, and that there would be times when Blind Seer would welcome his fur. Firekeeper had agreed, for she was not certain that she could tell the difference between shivering from extreme heat or from the illusion of cold.

What no one but herself realized was how much pain Blind Seer was experiencing. He panted almost continuously, and not only to shed heat. He shuddered, and when Firekeeper stroked his flanks great washes of fur came loose, mostly from his undercoat, but tufts containing thick guard hairs as well. Wolves regularly shed—almost molting as birds did—but never when winter was coming on. This shedding was a response to pain, and probably to fear.

Unlike Derian, who had muttered in his sleep, Blind Seer was silent but for occasional whimpers. Usually Derian spoke in Pellish, although sometimes he spoke in Liglimosh. At these times, Firekeeper thought he might be talking to Rahniseeta, and she was saddened to think how her friend’s heart still bled for the woman he had thought would be his mate.

Now, as Firekeeper resumed her watch beside Blind Seer, easing more water between his jaws, stroking gently along his ears, gazing down at those familiar blue eyes that tracked nothing she could see, Firekeeper thought how odd it was that apparently querinalo could give one the ability to alter one’s physical form.

Could this much-feared disease actually be the means to the thing she had longed for as long as she could remember? If she had opened herself to querinalo’s fires, could she have burned away her human form and given herself a wolf’s in return? The idea was tempting, so tempting.

Firekeeper longed to lay her head on Blind Seer’s flank and give herself to sleep and whatever came with it. Knowing what she did now, surely she could make use of it.

So easy, Little Two-legs?
she chided herself.
I think not, pup. If querinalo was so easy to control, would those monsters you saw—those who boasted themselves Once Dead to hide their revulsion for themselves—would they have chosen those forms? I think not. There is a cost. Perhaps you could make yourself wolf indeed, but might you lose something else? What if you became as a Cousin, lacking in sense? What if you lost your memory? There are worse things than being human.

But she couldn’t help but wonder.

More time passed. With the wet weather blocking the sun, those within the cottage were trapped in an eternal, unchanging twilight. Time’s passage was marked only in increasing exhaustion, in how the level of water in the pitcher dropped. In mild surprise when it rose after someone filled it.

Firekeeper ate what was put in front of her, but she didn’t taste it. Her only exercise was rising to check on Derian, to use the pot, to throw away some rag soaked in wolf piss after Blind Seer urinated.

Isende kept her own vigil long after Harjeedian urged her to rest Something was happening to Derian, but in Firekeeper’s exhausted state all that registered was that whatever was happening did not seem to be threatening his life. Occasionally, one of the wingéd folk came to report that Truth continued to live and breathe, but that the jaguar had not stirred from the den she had made herself near a spring.

Firekeeper wondered what the jaguar saw in her hallucinations. She hoped it was more pleasant than whatever Blind Seer was encountering. The wolf’s paws now moved as if he were running and climbing. Periodically, he snarled. Once, when Firekeeper was giving him water, he snapped, and the cut seamed across the back of her hand, missing the tendons, but drawing quantities of blood.

Firekeeper would take nothing for the pain, fearing it would dull her ability to stay awake, but she did let Harjeedian clean the wound and stitch it. She almost welcomed the pain of needle and thread moving through her flesh. It brought her the closest to alertness she had been for hours.

Zebel had warned them that the crisis in querinalo’s progress should come that night. He also warned them that he was speaking mostly about Derian. Although some of the yarimaimalom had certainly passed through the disease, he had not treated them.

Tiniel replaced Isende when evening came, but Isende was back again by midnight, stating she could not sleep knowing what was happening. The wingéd folk reported that Truth was tossing and turning. They had carried small buckets of water and throughly dowsed her, but they had not dared draw too close. For all that Truth seemed to be in another world, she was too aware what was close, and had nearly taken Night’s Terror on the wing.

“Derian’s skin is changing again,” Harjeedian said. Like Isende, he had napped following his shift, but returned. “It’s losing that waxy look. I fear it is going to firm up in its current shape.”

Firekeeper tried to remember what that shape was, but she could not. Something about ears. Nose. Hair. Fingernails?

Her focus was on Blind Seer. He had been running harder for a while now. The cloths with which she cooled his feet had been damp with blood the last few times she had changed them. There was not much blood; the appearance was as if those thick pads had been run raw.

There were other signs of a struggle. For a time Blind Seer had growled, but now the only sounds that came forth were whimpers. Firekeeper longed to hold him close, but the throbbing in her injured hand reminded her to take care near those formidable jaws. She settled for breathing on him, keeping her scent near his nostrils.

Come home to me, sweet hunter. Come home. Come home. Don’t run away. Come home. Come home.

Firekeeper chanted the words softly under her breath, plucking occasionally at the stitches on her hand so the pain would keep her sharp and alert. Even so, she nearly missed the crisis when it began.

Blind Seer’s paws flexed in one last convulsive effort. Firekeeper saw the stain of blood through the cloths on his feet. She saw pink in the foam on his jaws, pink darkening toward red. Blind Seer coughed, then growled. Then he wrenched upright, almost onto his feet.

“Firekeeper!” he howled.

Then, his last energy spent, he collapsed. Firekeeper clasped him up and to her, no longer dreading what those jaws could do to her fragile human skin, indeed, welcoming the rending if it would take her to him.

After a long moment, she realized that the wildly beating heart was not hers alone. Blind Seer was still breathing, more easily now, something almost like rest coming into his muscles.

She lowered Blind Seer back onto the floor, and saw him relax into real sleep. Looking up, she saw a circle of faces looking at her. Human, beast, and maimalodalu were weirdly alike in their expression of worry and fear.

“Derian?” she asked.

“He’s going to make it,” Plik said. “Altered, but alive. Blind Seer?”

“He will live,” Firekeeper said, lowering her head and pillowing it at last on Blind Seer’s flank. “I must sleep.”

DERIAN WOKE SLOWLY, his muscles and joints aching as if he had spent the past week teaching a particularly stubborn horse how to jump. He opened his eyes carefully, and was relieved to find that his eyelids, at least, didn’t hurt—much.

Isende was sitting in a chair near his bed, gaze unfocused, her fingers busy knitting a stocking from extremely fine yarn. She saw him shift, and a smile blossomed, rounding out her cheeks.

She’s lost a little weight,
Derian mused, aware of the inanity of the thought.
But then she would. We’ve been running her hard since we came to the “rescue.”

“Water?” Isende asked, filling a mug from a pitcher near at hand.