Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart (75 page)

The falcon departed in an explosion of wings and Firekeeper padded over to join them.

"Elation say," she informed them, "that Lady Melina is there—not in her room—she is in tower."

As Elise descended the ladder into the depths, she glanced up and glimpsed Firekeeper's expression in the moonlight. The wolf-woman's eyes were shining and her teeth were bared, deadly white against her reddened face.

S
ubconsciously, Grateful Peace had Expected the sewer to be cold and dank. In reality, it was actually somewhat warmer than the area above, insulated as it was by the living rock upon which the city was built. Nor was the subterranean tunnel terribly clammy. Even though the temperature here was somewhat warmer than Peace had expected, it was cold enough to draw most of the moisture from the air. It had even frozen the stench—somewhat.

He began to lead the way down the rounded length of the tunnel, guiding his small band along the narrow but perfectly serviceable walkway that ran along both sides. Each of them carried a torch from the ample supply stocked by the city's sewer workers.

Peace began to lead, but he had hardly taken two steps when the girl, Firekeeper, pushed him gently to one side. She and the wolf glided to the front.

"I can see in this light," she explained in the soft voice people always seem to use when in darkness, the type of voice that acknowledges that darkness carries with it the purest element of the unknown, "if I not look into the torch fire."

Grateful Peace let her pass.

He had wondered how the wolf was going to get down into the tunnel. The ladder was very steep—hardly more than a series of metal rungs beaten into the wall. The platform below was slightly wider than the walkway they now traversed, but hardly wide enough to allow a leaping wolf a margin for error.

He had thought of several alternatives. Somehow he had never considered that Lady Blysse would
carry
the wolf, supporting it with one arm, guiding herself down the rungs with the other.

That would take superhuman strength, amazing confidence, and trust, so he had never considered it as an option. But she
had
done it, and if he had not watched the operation with his own eyes he still wouldn't believe it.

True, at the end Firekeeper had been panting hard and the front of her print robe was covered with grey wolf hair, but she had done it. She hadn't even messed her face paint too badly, though there were small patches of red on the wolf's flank where his fur had pressed against her face.

Grateful Peace followed the wolf-woman along the tunnel. It was rounded, a great pipe that in an emergency could carry far more water than it usually bore. It had been designed with snowmelt floods in mind, perhaps, or perhaps in anticipation that someday Dragon's Breath would become a far larger city than it had ever been or ever would be.

Peace didn't really know which was the answer.

We humans are such odd creatures
, he thought.
Consider the energy we spend speculating on things that are not, that may never happen, that cannot be. Is that what sets this young woman apart from us? She seems to live precisely in the moment, on the cusp of each breath
.

"Which way?" came the husky voice from out of the near darkness in front of him.

They had come to a crossing of the tunnels. A new one entered from the east. A bridge had been built here for the convenience of those who must sometimes descend to carry away what blocked the easy flow of this subterranean river.

"Go straight," Peace replied. "We continue north almost all the way."

A grunt was his only reply; then there was the faint sound of soft-soled boots on stone and the occasional click that he imagined might be the tapping of the wolf's toenail against the floor.

In reality, he might be imagining it or transferring sounds from behind to in front The acoustics here were tricky. He'd heard that the Sodality of Songweavers sent their apprentices into the tunnels alone and after dark as part of their test to be accepted as thaumaturges. If they could navigate by sound alone, they were promoted. If not, they could remain in the choir, but were never promoted.

It might be true. Some of the finest musicians in the choir never wore the thaumaturge's mark. On the other hand, it might just be one of those stories that all the sodalities spread around lest their associates think them too soft, too undemanding.

Occasionally, their party passed under another trapdoor. Each time, Firekeeper would pause beneath it, unspeaking, waiting to be told if this was the one. She did the same at each crossroad. Eventually, her silence got on Peace's nerves.

She's watching me
, he thought.
I'd forgotten what it is like to be watched. I wonder if she is doing it deliberately
.

Something of her grin, just glimpsed in the torchlight as she once again turned away and began padding down the tunnel, made him think this was so.

Eventually, they came to a cluster of tunnels radiating from a central point. In the flickering light of their gathered torches, several trapdoors could just be glimpsed.

"We're under the Earth Spires now," Peace said. "Although I do not expect to meet with anyone, progress now in complete silence. I am not the only one who uses these ways."

The air stunk now with a greater concentration of fecal matter. It bore a hint of another scent, too, sulphur blended with a hint of molten copper and a dry musk unlike anything else known.

The sewer workers called it the breath of the dragon. The Sodality of Lapidaries said it was simply a concentration of the same gases that warmed the hot springs and caused mud to boil in certain pools. Certainly, the area surrounding the Earth Spires was rather more active than the rest of the city. This was either because the Star Wizard really imprisoned a dragon here or because the Founders had liked hot water nearby for their baths and experiments.

Either way, Peace was accustomed to the smell. His companions were not. He had to hush them again when they made disparaging comments about the rotten-egg reek. Whispers sometimes carried farther in these tunnels than did louder sounds. Why they did so was a mystery, but mystery or not, it was still truth.

Firekeeper was now staying closer to him. At first Peace thought she was afraid; then he realized that she was simply closing on the circle of light, getting her eyes accustomed to it so that if they emerged into a lit place she would not be disadvantaged.

She must sense
—He stopped himself in midthought.
Sense! By the skull of the first Healed One
—
realize, not sense. I am falling under some superstitious reverence for the creature. True, she speaks to animals. True, she is more like something from one of the tales of the Founders' time than I had ever seen before, but there is no magic to her. She is simply strange. She is intelligent enough to realize that we must reach our way up fairly soon, that's all.

Even so, Peace realized he was unnerved. Firekeeper alone would not have done it, but Firekeeper's powers combined with what he had seen Lady Melina do, with what he had heard that Sir Jared could do… It rocked the foundations of his reality.

All my life I have believed myself part of the sorcerers' empire. Now I must face the truth that sorcery is not in us
—
not at least that I have seen. The kingdom of sorcery lies just across the White Water River and the great irony is
they
pretend to hate magic
!

Firekeeper was waiting under another trapdoor. Peace checked the signs carved into the stone beside it. He nodded and unfastened his cloak.

"This is the door I want," he said softly. "Let me go first. I'll see if anyone is there. Leave your cloaks behind when you come up. They wouldn't be worn in the building."

He didn't say more, hoping they understood that even if someone was in the cellar they would not find it odd if the Dragon's Eye rose from the depths—or if they found it odd, they would not comment.

Reaching up, Grateful Peace set his torch in the. sconce prepared for precisely this purpose. Little bits of burning ash fell on his sleeve and died in the cold of the fabric. Finding the first rungs of the ladder took him a moment, but after that he could have climbed from memory.

He mounted silently, pushed back the trapdoor, caught the scent of a cellar room that was almost never opened.

The key word here, of course, was "almost."

B
lind Seer insisted on being the one to follow the thaumaturge up the ladder.

"
If there is trouble
," the wolf said, "
I will end it in two snaps. In any case
," he added practically, "
who but you would be strong enough to catch me if I fell
?"

Firekeeper gave in without protest. The straight ladder had been useless for getting the wolf down, but going up the toeholds proved to be just sufficient. Of course, it didn't hurt that they had essayed similar ladders during their nightly prowls.

She followed the wolf without a backward glance. Of course the other three would follow. What else could they do?

Emerging into the dimly lit cellar, Firekeeper threw her head back both to sniff—though catching any scent in this odor-filled place was a challenge—and to better feel the movement of the air. Along the sides of her face and against the skin of her shorn head, she could feel a current. It was too slight to be a breeze, but enough to indicate that somewhere an aperture stood open.

Grateful Peace had carried his torch—its flame dancing slightly in that same air current—to where a door was outlined against the darker stone.

Blind Seer stood hardly more than a pace behind the thaumaturge, ready to attack should the man prove treacherous. Firekeeper doubted Peace knew the wolf was so close; otherwise it was unlikely that he would calmly stand there, his ear pressed to where he had opened the door just the barest slit.

Grinning slightly, she moved to join them.

"Anything?" she asked in a soft voice.

To his credit, Grateful Peace did not start, nor did he show surprise when he found the great wolf right behind him. The acrid scent of suddenly released perspiration gave him away, but Firekeeper didn't blame him. As she saw it, he would be mad
not
to fear the wolf.

Peace shook his head.

By this time the other three had climbed up the ladder and closed the trapdoor behind them. By torchlight, Peace gave them all a quick inspection, straightening the fall of a robe, touching up the red on their faces. Firekeeper suffered him near, knowing that her exertions had marred her paint. She longed for the moment when she could scrub her skin clean, eliminate the greasy scent of the stuff, and return to normal.

Not trusting that the custodial staff would have oiled the door hinges, Peace did so, using an ointment he had carried along from Wendee's supply. Then he looked sternly at Firekeeper.

"This time," he said, "
I
lead the way."

Firekeeper blinked at him, but did not argue. She hadn't planned on leading here in any case. She felt much safer knowing that Grateful Peace was aware of her Fang at his back.

All but one torch—the one Doc carried at the very rear—was extinguished. Then, with Peace leading, they ascended the stone stairs. Blind Seer fell back to melt into the shadows behind Doc. Firekeeper missed his warmth at her side, but knew that he was safer there—and that if there was trouble nothing would keep the wolf from her.

Although the building above rose around the base of the tower, here the stairs coiled round the outer rim of the tower's foundation. The stone treads were worn, showing a slight dip toward the center, chipping and scoring along the edges where heavy things had been dragged. They were neither steep nor shallow, holding in them the measure of lost people.

As she ascended, Firekeeper concentrated on not stepping on the hem of her robe while remaining alert for any danger. Her mouth was dry as it never had been when she hunted in the wilds and she recognized the dryness as the taste of fear.

Although the wolf-woman strained every nerve, she heard nothing, sensed nothing as they mounted. At last they reached a solid door, its planks bound with iron. A whiff of colder air coming from beneath the door told her that they had reached a level above ground.

Peace paused and looked back.

"Ground floor," he said softly. "The conference room is one above."

No one asked any questions. He was merely reminding them of what they had reviewed before departing Hasamemorri's house. Once again, Peace oiled the hinges, eased open the door. It swung into the stairwell, forcing Firekeeper to drop back a step or two to give it clearance.

Almost without thinking, she switched her Fang into a throwing grip. The knife was not very accurate when thrown—the cabochon-cut garnet at the base of the pommel threw off the balance—but it would do.

Again, there was nothing ahead of them but emptiness. Firekeeper's nerves were screaming, begging for something to attack, something to do.

Puppy
! she scolded herself scornfully.
Are you truly nothing but a puppy
?

She lapsed into watchfulness as she followed Peace into the corridor. From Edlin's maps she knew that this must be part of the larger building that extended around the base of the tower. She raised her head to listen, but heard no movement from the corridors that crossed out from this one.

At the far end of one corridor there was a glow of pale light and snatches of lazy conversation in New Kelvinese. She couldn't understand a word, but it did not seem to bode harm for them.

Peace had told them that this ground floor was being used as sleeping space for the researchers. If so, no doubt most were resting, dreaming of future success. A few, night owls by preference or perhaps winding down after some exertions, must be chatting in a common area.

They will never know we were here
, Firekeeper thought.

Grateful Peace led them down a corridor to the left—to the north, Firekeeper thought, remembering the map. He paused before a door, larger and heavier than the cellar doors.