Wolf Hunting (70 page)

“Tiniel and I were talking,” Plik said, deciding he must be the one to introduce the matter again, “about how odd it is that although the northerners claim to despise magic, they have so many talents among them.”

Harjeedian nodded. “I discussed the matter with Derian long ago. Apparently, as he understands the tales told in his land, an effort was made to slaughter any who showed the gift for sorcery, but talents, especially those with a limited focus, were overlooked.”

“Odd,” Tiniel said.

“But reasonable,” Harjeedian said. “After all, those very talents could help those who had been abandoned into war and chaos when their rulers fled to survive. However, while in our land we view talents as divine gifts, in Derian’s land they simply don’t think of them at all.”

“I don’t understand,” Isende said.

“If talents manifest,” Harjeedian said, “they are accepted, but neither praised nor censured. I have met a friend of theirs from the north—a Sir Jared Surcliffe—who is blessed with the healing talent. However, the man does not base his life around that talent as might one of the Liglimom so blessed. While that Liglimom would take his talent as an omen that he should follow the disdu’s path, this friend delights in his nickname of ‘Doc’—a name that affirms his gift. When he realized that his talent could not answer all medical needs, he devoted himself to learning medical arts.”

Isende nodded now. “I see. So although Derian, say, has this rapport with horses, in his land there is no way he could become a kidisdu. He simply became a very talented horseman.”

“That is correct,” Harjeedian said. “I believe that gradually being forced to face that he had a magical talent and how much that talent meant to him has been very difficult for Derian. Querinalo only brought to a head an issue that had been troubling him for several years now.”

Plik noted that not a single voice had been lowered during this discussion. He was not the only one who hoped Derian was listening, and perhaps learning that no one here blamed him for what had happened.

“Transformation,” Plik said, “is very difficult to accept though, especially when it comes unwilling and unwanted. Do you remember how I told you all that ‘Plik’ was not my given name, but one I took for myself?”

The twins shook their heads, but Harjeedian nodded.

“I do. Derian asked you why your name was so unlike that borne by most of the maimalodalum. I don’t think you ever told us why.”

“Well,” Plik said, reaching for another slice of bread and smearing it thickly with butter. “Since we have little to do this evening but wait, this would be the perfect time for me to tell that tale.”

XXXIV

“YOU’VE ALL HEARD about how the maimalodalum were created as a merging of humans and yarimaimalom by sorcerers who wished to acquire the ability to change shapes,” Plik began. “The maimalodalum are the victors of that struggle, those who did not die so another could steal their shape. What is not so often told is that not all those who found themselves made into maimalodalum were happy with that transformation. My mother was one such who felt nothing but misery and despair at her ‘victory.’

“My mother was a raccoon in the prime of her life when she was captured by a sorcerer back in those days when querinalo had not destroyed all who practiced magic.”

“But,” Harjeedian said, “that was well over a hundred years ago!”

“Who knows?” Plik said with a sad smile. “Perhaps this sorcerer was one such as here would be termed Once Dead. In any case, my mother did not bear me until many years after her transformation, for reasons I will explain, nor am I as young as you seem to imagine.”

Harjeedian nodded stiffly, his eyes filled with wonder mixed with calculation. Plik ignored this. He had a more important listener in mind for his tale.

“Strong and beautiful as she was, doubtless these qualities made my mother a target to the sorcerer who had captured and sought to corrupt her. This sorcerer, however, did not consider that my mother might equal him in strength of will. In the end, not only did my mother slay the sorcerer rather than being slain herself, she retained many of her raccoon qualities.

“However, there was no escaping the mark of the human upon her. Her eyes now saw color differently. Her ears were set lower upon her skull. Her legs moved oddly, so that quadrupedal motion was not her only choice. Her feet had changed so that she could bear her weight when walking on two legs as well as upon four. Her hands had changed, giving her a longer, more mobile thumb.

“Perhaps those of you who are humans will only see an improvement in all these changes, but my mother did not. Before she had been viewed as beautiful, and some said that every boar on Misheemnekuru (although the islands did not yet have that name) had come to court her, some traveling for moonspans to do so. Raccoons do not choose one mate as do wolves or ravens, but this does not mean that they take their breeding lightly. Indeed, it might be said that they take it much more seriously, for though a pair of ravens will raise many broods, a pairing of raccoons may only come together once.

“Now my mother was viewed as a curiosity by some, as a monstrosity by others. Whichever view was held, certainly no one thought her beautiful any longer, nor desirable. She had chosen which boar to mate with shortly before the sorcerer had captured her. Now he shunned her, moving several islands away to avoid her. Those who had come courting suddenly ceased their visits, and even those who had shared adjoining or overlapping territories before found reasons to move elsewhere.

“Representatives from the maimalodalum came to my mother and offered to give her home and companions, but my mother desired nothing but the life that had been taken from her. She chased them from her with growls and snarls, and though you might not think so, looking upon me who is a peaceful soul, an angry raccoon is a formidable opponent.”

Both Blind Seer and Firekeeper grunted agreement, and Plik felt perversely pleased. He went on, however, as if he had not heard.

“My mother began to track down boar after boar, offering herself as mate to each one. Now indeed did she regret her dallying and coquettish behavior, for over and over she was rejected. After many years—decades—when her power to breed was ebbing, she found a boar who either did not find her repulsive or perhaps possessed more compassion than his fellows. In any case, she became pregnant, and after time had passed—longer time than if she had been carrying a litter of raccoons—she bore a litter of three.

“Two died within days, for they contained a combination of raccoon traits and human traits that would not mingle. One lived, and that one was me. However, although my mother suckled me and tried to accept me, each sight she had of me and of those human traits I had inherited reminded her of the taint in her own flesh—a taint that, indeed, she showed more visibly than did I.

“Eventually, she rejected me completely, but she did not leave me to die. Instead she went to what is now called Center Island and dropped me on the doorstep of the Tower of Magic. Then she vanished into the forests, and to the best of my knowledge has never again been seen by maimalodalum nor yarimaimalom.”

Plik fell silent then. During his telling, he had seen a few restless motions beneath the bedclothes, and knew that Derian had heard all, but the young man had not come forth, nor would Plik force him.

After a moment, Isende said, “What about your father? Did he ever come to meet you?”

“He never did,” Plik said. “Whether from shame or from ignorance of what he had engendered, he did not make himself known to me or to anyone. Boar raccoons, even of the yarimaimalom type, do not have much to do with raising their young.”

Tiniel frowned. “Harjeedian indicated that you had another name than ‘Plik.’ Did your mother then name you? Perhaps she did care then, at least a little.”

“I don’t think so,” Plik said, hearing his own sorrow, “for what she named me was ‘Misbegotten.’”

“Oh!” Tiniel gasped, shocked. “I am sorry.”

“You couldn’t know,” Plik reassured him. “In any case, the maimalodalum would have nothing of this. They called me baby names like ‘Fuzzy Tail,’ and ‘Ring Bottom.’ When I was an adult they encouraged me to call myself by a name of my choosing. I chose ‘Plik,’ for the sound of water falling on rock is a pleasant one. My companions have given me other names over time, affectionate names that recognize contributions I have made, but although I keep them as loving awards, I prefer Plik.”

Silence followed Plik’s concluding remark, a silence that stretched as everyone waited for a response that, so it seemed, would not come. Then, just as Harjeedian was opening his mouth, perhaps to put a pious moral on Plik’s story, across the room the bedclothes were thrown back, revealing Derian in all his transformed glory.

He’s grown a little hairier
, Plik thought.
That red down is not unbecoming.

But Derian clearly thought otherwise.

“I really thought,” he said stiffly, “that I had outgrown the days when I would be lectured in such a fashion. If any of you think my behavior unbecoming, then by all means say so—but say so to this face!”

He pointed dramatically to his own features, a wide gesture that encompassed the elongated ears, the transformed line of nose and jaw, the wholly brown eyes. His obvious disdain for what he had become quelled even Plik, who found him far less odd than most of the maimalodalum. Only Firekeeper was unmoved.

“So you are changed,” she said. “Who is not by life and what it does? Maybe you are changed more visibly than most, but you live and breathe and have gained new abilities. Tell me why I should weep for you?”

Derian glowered at the wolf-woman. “I dare say you would have welcomed something like this happening, but I’m not you. I’m happy being a human. I never asked to be a monster!”

Firekeeper looked at him. “Blind Seer say ‘At least you know what manner of monster you are.’ He has been through querinalo, and knows no more of himself than before. As for me, would I have welcomed? I cannot say. I have not run that trail. I chose another, and my head hurts nonetheless.”

Derian blinked at the wolf-woman, but before he could frame a retort, Isende was heard to say softly into the unexpected silence, “Better to be a monster without than one within.” Her voice was so low that she might have been speaking only to herself, but her gaze was fixed on Tiniel. Her twin’s face had flamed scarlet. His expression mingled shock and betrayal.

“In any case,” Isende went on more loudly, suddenly realizing that her comment had been overheard by everyone, “I don’t think Derian looks like a monster at all. Different, sure, but not a monster.”

Sharp retorts from both Tiniel and Derian canceled each other out, leaving the two young men staring at each other with a distaste that had never been between them before.

Someone might then have said something from which there would be no turning back, but at that moment Bitter and Lovable came battering at the door, beating it open with the sheer force of their wings.

“Something is horribly wrong with Truth!” Lovable squawked. “Hurry!”

Plik saw at that moment what querinalo had done to his wolf friends. No grey blur leapt for the door, Firekeeper hardly a step behind. Instead Blind Seer rose slowly, and was pushed back by his companion.

“Wait,”
she said,
“the air without is too chill for you without your undercoat.”

Plik had translated the raven’s message for Harjeedian, and now offered to go and act as translator.

“No,” Firekeeper said, “let me go. I began this madness in search of Truth. Let me continue as I began.”

Before taking her leave, Firekeeper paused and looked at Derian, her dark eyes cold.

“None of us come through querinalo completely improved,” she said. “Some of us do not even come through with talent intact.”

With that Firekeeper turned to follow the raven, but she was a far cry from the lithe, strong figure who only days before had challenged an army on its own ground. Now she moved stiffly, and Plik knew how each joint cried out complaint to her.

When Eshinarvash intercepted Firekeeper outside and mutely knelt in offer to carry her, Firekeeper did not decline, but heaved herself wearily astride and sat shivering on the Wise Horse’s broad back. So clumsy was the wolf-woman in her weakness that she nearly failed to catch the blanket Plik tossed up to her, but fumbled with her injured hand to catch and hold. Nor was she too proud to settle the blanket about her shoulders as Eshinarvash bore her away.

TRUTH DIDN’T KNOW exactly when the conclave on the hilltop broke up. She remembered watching Blind Seer run down the slope, and the Meddler speaking to her, but when she raised her head from where she didn’t remember pillowing it on her paws, the Meddler and Derian both were gone and she was alone. Nor was she on the hilltop any longer, but in the high sanctuary of the five deities in the secret heart of u-Nahal.

All but one of the altars were cold, with no sense that the divine powers had ever looked upon them with any awareness of the mortals who so desperately turned to them for guidance. The exception was the altar of Fire, where a single candle burned. The flame of this candle bobbed and danced miraculously, for not the slightest touch of air moved within the sealed chamber.

As Truth focused on that brilliant yellow-orange flame, seeking to discover what made it move, the flame flared into a massive fireball. Truth shrank away into the farthest corner of the room and watched in wonder and awe as the fireball condensed into a jaguar who was the very image of Truth herself, but shaped entirely of fire, even to the spots which, though black, burned as brilliantly as all the rest.

The fire jaguar slunk from the altar and paced toward Truth, every hair on back and tail raised, each burning with its own eye-searing brilliance.

“I have come to devour you,” the fire jaguar hissed, “though your cowardice will make your flesh bitter indeed.”

Truth’s own hackles rose at this and she retorted. “There is no cowardice in keeping one’s whiskers from the fire, only wisdom and prudence.”