Wolf's Blood (38 page)

Firekeeper nodded. “This sickness is like that. Harjeedian think that in northwest we may learn what we need to make medicine or treatment. I am not the one who will make this, but Blind Seer and I go first, because we can scout more easily.”

“So I might find other visitors coming through the tunnels?” Grateful Peace asked. “That could be difficult.”

“That,” Firekeeper said, “is for you to think. Are other ways to go, only more slow. Blind Seer and me not even need go back by gate if you not think so is good. We would send message slow way. Maybe people die because is slow, but still scouting is done.”

Grateful Peace did not react at all to the image of people dying, but the Firekeeper had not expected him to do so. He was too skilled at hiding his true thoughts and feelings. All Firekeeper had intended was to plant a seed of potential sympathy.

Instead he said thoughtfully, almost idly, “What happens if I refuse to let you leave here?”

Firekeeper grinned, but it was a wolf’s grin and held no warmth, only the promise of a fight. She had this speech prepared and polished.

“We think of this, because although we think gate will not be seed, we cannot be sure. If I not come back, then checking would be done. You know the Royal Beasts watch human cities. I am to leave word with one of these when I go from here. They will pass on that word. If Blind Seer and I vanish without word, then time will go and in time—maybe long time, but not so long as things of politics are made—then letter will go to Hawk Haven and Bright Bay and Earl Kestrel and others.

“Letters will say that Firekeeper who is also Lady Blysse go into New Kelvin, and has not been seed for a long time since. Questions would be asked, many, and Earl Kestrel at least would probably not want New Kelvinese things to come into Kestrel lands. Might be a little problem, might be start of bigger problems. Also Liglimom like me, too, very much, and might not want to be friends with little land, far away that is not good to their friend.”

Grateful Peace nodded. “Very well thought out, but you would still be imprisoned—or dead.”

Firekeeper shrugged. “I am wolf. I hunt for my pack. In hunt of elk, I might be kicked and killed. I am not human to wait forever because someday, sometime I might be killed.”

The Illuminator actually looked approving. “Very good. Very well planned. And I somehow doubt that the threats you have mentioned would be the only dangers we would risk if the last place you were seen was our land. As you say, the Royal Beasts watch human cities, and they like you even more than these Liglimom do. Yes. Ample reason to let you go on your way—if I had ever intended otherwise.”

Firekeeper let him see her relax, but in truth she had not thought the threat was a real one. By now, having had a chance to sort through the odors of cosmetics and perfumes, Blind Seer would have scented a change in mood. Humans gave themselves away by forgetting that just because they did not use their sense of smell did not mean that others were not aware of changes in body odor.

Citrine had attended to this exchange in alert, listening silence, rising only to refill water glasses and attend to other little domestic courtesies. Now she turned to Grateful Peace.

“So you will not tell the Healed One, Father?”

“I have heard nothing that makes me feel that Firekeeper or these Nexans are a threat to New Kelvin.”

“Good,” Citrine said. “I just wanted to make sure.”

“We have some time yet until dark,” Grateful Peace said, addressing Firekeeper again, “and from what I recall, you and Blind Seer would be more comfortable departing after dark. I can arrange to get you out of the city. I will even entrust you with a way that will enable you to return and locate the nearest tunnel without alerting the guards.”

“Thank you.”

Firekeeper waited. She could hear from Grateful Peace’s breathing that he had more to say.

“However, I think I would like an introduction to those who will be making what you say will be a daily check for you through the gate. Are you willing to wait until the appropriate time tomorrow?”

Firekeeper hesitated. Now that she had the scent in her nostrils, she was reluctant to slow, but Peace’s suggestion was a good one.

“If we wait,” she said, “you hide us?”

“Certainly,” Grateful Peace said. “Citrine and I do not keep full-time servants. I was too long a spy master not to assume that others would not eventually find a way to use even my most trusted of servants against me. This room is private in any case. You and Blind Seer should be comfortable here.”

Firekeeper looked at Blind Seer.

“Like you, I am eager to be off, but Peace’s suggestion is a wise one. Let us wait. We might even ask him to show us maps of the area we will be traveling through. Those we examined on the Nexus Islands were far from current.”

Firekeeper felt cheered at the thought the time would not be wasted. She asked Grateful Peace if they might look at some of his maps, and he agreed with alacrity.

“Your having this knowledge is to my people’s advantage as well,” he said with one of his rare smiles. “I would not like to have any stumble upon you unawares. The experience would be, at the least, frightening.”

Firekeeper grinned at the compliment.

“I would like to make you a small gift as well,” Grateful Peace said. “From what you have said, the Once Dead are hampered by the presence of iron, even as our own legends tell. I know you are carrying some iron with you, but I would like to give you some more.”

Firekeeper pursed her lips thoughtfully.

“Iron is very heavy,” she said, “but would be good, too. I not want to take too much from Nexus Islands. They need what they have.”

“What I had in mind,” Grateful Peace said, “was a small coil or two of iron wire. You could break off pieces to use as needed—for binding, for example, or to lay along the shaft of an arrow if you ran short of iron arrowheads.”

Firekeeper liked the idea. “Let me see, please. If I can break, is worth carrying.”

Citrine scampered off and came back with the wire almost immediately.

“We keep some in the kitchen,” she explained.

Firekeeper discovered that with a little effort she could break the wire, and accepted the gift with gratitude.

“This be useful,” she said, “whether this Virim and his pack are across the Iron Mountains or whether only their den is there. Thank you.”

Grateful Peace nodded, and offered her an oiled canvas bag in which to carry the wire.

“Good,” Firekeeper said, securing it onto her belt. “Now, may we see the maps?”

WHAT SHOULD HAVE been a simple matter was complicated some when the Once Dead who came through the gate proved to be Enigma, rather than either Ynamynet or Kalyndra.

Firekeeper could understand the sense in the choice. Of the Once Dead who could operate the gate, Enigma was the best equipped to defend himself, and would know immediately from scent trails not only who was about at the present time, but what had happened during the interval.

Firekeeper and Blind Seer explained the situation to the puma, and Enigma agreed to return and check if someone else was willing to cross and speak with Peace.

Under the fascinated gazes of Grateful Peace and Citrine, Enigma transitioned through the gate. Firekeeper had thought that Derian might be among those who came back, but when the stone face shimmered and shifted, only Ynamynet came through.

Her Pellish was limited but serviceable and after formal introductions were completed she said, “Derian sends his greetings, but he is unwell. He has suffered from this very disease for which we search for a cure, and although he is over the worst, it flares up unpredictably.”

Grateful Peace glanced at Firekeeper. “You didn’t mention this.”

Firekeeper shrugged. “Is true. Derian have had. I have had. Is nasty illness, but we live.”

“Perhaps because you are from the New World originally,” Peace speculated. “Very interesting indeed.”

Firekeeper stood by patiently while Grateful Peace and Ynamynet negotiated the terms upon which Peace agreed to permit the gate to be used.

“I have no problem,” he said, “with your checking for Firekeeper and Blind Seer, especially since there is apparently no other way of letting them return through the gate. However, as we have explained already, I will know if the gate is used more than once a day. I may even be able to tell how many make the crossing. Please do not abuse my trust.”

“I
wonder if he will really be able to do so,”
Blind Seer said. “
The dragon is capricious enough to suddenly stop offering that information.
”

“If it did,”
Firekeeper replied, hiding an impulse to laugh,
“then I think Peace would ‘just happen’ to be down here at the proper time each day. He might in any case. He is not one to trust lightly.”

“True,”
the wolf agreed.

“Those terms are fine with us,” Ynamynet agreed. “Enigma will most likely be the one who makes the transition. Lack of light does not inconvenience him as it does a human.”

“Very good,” Peace agreed. “But if you alter who makes the transition, I will not be disturbed. One transition a day, shall we say at noon?”

“Noon where we are,” Ynamynet agreed. “From what Derian has told us, navigation is nearly a lost art in the New World, but we have indications that depending on where you are on the earth’s surface, noon will occur at different times.”

“Interesting,” Grateful Peace said, “and something I can believe. After all, the sun moves, so how can it be in the same place at all times? Noon your time then. That will suit me. After a few such transitions, I am sure I will work out where that falls in relation to our local time.”

Soon after, Ynamynet made her departure. Grateful Peace watched the gate’s surface return to dull stone with absorbed attention.

“I wish I could try that,” he said.

“Then wish and hope we find cure for sickness,” Firekeeper said. “I not wish for an old man like you or child like Citrine to risk being sick. Was hard enough for the young and strong.”

Citrine looked indignant, but Grateful Peace did not.

“The difference between the young who think they are strong,”
Blind Seer said
, “and the old is that the old have the good sense to know that they are not strong. Peace will not try and cross that border—nor will he be eager to have others do so.”

Firekeeper nodded. Then she turned to Peace.

“We go now?”

Peace nodded. “Follow us. We will take you out of the city without your ever needing to go above ground. The way is not easy, but I trust you will remember it.”

“We do what we can,” Firekeeper said. Then she grinned, a human grin filled with laughter. “But I think that not matter so much. I not think you show us a door, and not make sure you know who use it and when.”

Grateful Peace gave her an answering smile.

“That may indeed be true. That may indeed be true.”

BOOK
TWO

XIX

  DERIAN FOUND THAT the days passed very slowly once Firekeeper and Blind Seer departed from the Nexus Islands in the early days of Horse Moon.

As all of the members of the Nexus Islands’ ruling council had feared, opening the New Kelvin gate had awakened an almost universal longing for the now unreachable places that all but a few of the most completely exiled of the islands’ residents thought of as “home.”

Even those who had resided almost exclusively on the Nexus Islands in the years since the fall of King Veztressidan felt this restlessness to some degree. Never before had they been so completely and totally isolated. There had always been visitors to inspect and gossip about, often mail or packages from friends and family based elsewhere. Home the Nexus Islands had become, but now they increasingly felt like a prison.

Derian thought he had come to terms with his own semivoluntary exile, but the opening of the gate into New Kelvin, and his awareness that Grateful Peace and Citrine were now close enough to talk to, should he choose, awakened all his restlessness and longing.

While not a close friend, Grateful Peace was someone Derian had grown to like and respect. Citrine, however, was someone Derian had known since she was a child of eight. They had traveled together, lived under the same roof, and shared an almost familial intimacy. Perhaps most important of all, Citrine was from his own land. She would speak Pellish without an accent and would know exactly what he meant if he talked about celebrating the Festival of the Horse, even to the taste of a certain oatmeal and raisin cake made at that time of the year and no other.

The fact that Firekeeper had departed near the beginning of Horse Moon didn’t help Derian’s sudden longing to be out and away. He’d been given to the Horse Society before he could remember, and as the heir apparent to a prominent carter’s establishment, he had been involved in the festivities since before he could walk.