“Did you think that Firekeeper and Blind Seer were kidding when Blind Seer suggested he’d prefer you as a teacher to Wythcombe? He meant it. And unless you refuse for a reason better than being young and not formally trained, they’ll persist. Remember, like I said, Firekeeper was only fifteen when she was dropped into not only a new land where she didn’t speak the language, but into a succession conflict that eventually led to all-out war. ‘Too young’ and ‘too untried’ aren’t going to convince her—or Blind Seer.”
Ranz wrapped his fingers around his mug and sighed. “You say ‘remember,’ but except for a few scraps last night, then today on the trail, I really don’t know anything about Firekeeper or Blind Seer—or you or Arasan, for that matter. Can you tell me more?”
“About who?” Laria asked. “We have very different histories.”
She expected him to say, “About Firekeeper” or maybe “About Blind Seer” but he surprised her by looking at her almost shyly and saying, “How about you?”
So she told him. Talking about being born on the Nexus Islands and her childhood there was easy enough, but the closer she came to the war, her father’s death, the awakening of her talent, the more she found herself stumbling over her words. She became so inarticulate that she wondered if the translation spell was breaking down.
Ranz leaned over and put one forefinger very gently against her lips. “Hush. I think I understand. That war was less than a year ago, right? And it was bad, for all that you were on the winning side. Let’s leave it there for now. Tell me about my potential student. How old is he? How long has he known he has a magical gift? I have the impression that he is new to his power, not just to his desire to avoid using blood magic.”
Laria appreciated Ranz’s compassion, but she couldn’t help but feel like a failure for her inability to talk about events that—after all—defined her as much as Firekeeper was defined by having been raised by wolves.
“Blind Seer… Let’s see. I think he’s about eight or nine? Maybe ten? Derian says that Blind Seer was a young wolf, full-grown, but restless, when Firekeeper decided to find out about her human heritage. They were… I’m not sure how to put it? Brother and sister? But over time that changed. Now, I guess you could say they’re married.”
Ranz looked momentarily shocked, his blush visible even in the firelight.
“Married?”
Laria shrugged. “I don’t know how else to put it. Apparently, last year, right after the war ended, Firekeeper made it very clear to several suitors that she was in love with Blind Seer and he with her.”
Laria decided not to mention that one of those suitors had been the Meddler since, the Meddler hadn’t been introduced or explained or anything beyond Arasan claiming the surname “Two Lives,” which was basically a provision against being accused of outright lying if the time came that the Meddler’s presence must be revealed. She hurried on.
“As for what you’re not asking, you’re not wondering about anything everyone on the Nexus Islands hasn’t wondered about, and we don’t know. I do have one thought, though. You asked why Blind Seer is so single-minded about learning to use magic—and that his magic not be blood magic? I think he wants to be able to somehow bridge the gap between them but whether that’s him turning human or her turning wolf or something else entirely, I don’t know. And I think he doesn’t want to risk… I don’t know quite how to put it. I think he doesn’t want anyone involved but the two of them.”
Ranz surged to his feet, filled the kettle, then hung it over the fire. “I sort of get that. I do. And just trying to imagine how they feel. It makes my head hurt. I thought my family situation was messed up.”
Laria was reaching for an answer when Arasan reentered the room. That just a little too ostentatious throat clearing was all the Meddler, though. She shot him a dirty look. What did he think? That they’d be wrapped in each other’s arms when they hardly knew each other?
“Bath is free, Laria,” Arasan said. “As your sometime tutor, I hereby insist you get cleaned up and some sleep. It’s completely possible that come morning Wythcombe is going to toss us out. Let’s take advantage of the comforts while we have them.”
Laria glanced at Ranz, but the young man was motioning for her to go ahead.
“I’ll chat with Arasan, then take my turn last.” Ranz gave her a brilliant smile that made her heart twist. “Thanks for filling me in about Firekeeper and Blind Seer. I wouldn’t want to risk making any mistakes.”
IX
WHEN THE WOLVES returned the next morning, Firekeeper proudly presented the greater part of a yearling swine.
“Acorn fat, very good,” she announced. “We went down a bit, because the hunting here is thin. Blind Seer left you some of the good parts.”
The others’ praise made her feel good. When it came to living off the land, she couldn’t help but think of these humans, talented as they were in other ways, as younglings. Her wolfish upbringing had beaten into her—sometimes quite literally—that it was the duty of the adults to feed the young. She had always been a pup among adults, true, but there had come a time where she had reached for a share of the freshly regurgitated meat the adults had brought back from a distant kill only to be knocked back with a hard blow from the head of the then One Male.
“The littlest first, Little Two-legs,” he had snarled. “If you cannot wait, well, you have learned to dig grubs and dig roots. Fill yourself with those.”
Nursing her bruises, Firekeeper had half-frozen in astonishment, watching the short-nosed, thick-bodied pups eat what she had considered her food. Then, rather than wait as did the tail lickers while the stronger hunters ate the best of the kill, she had gone to find herself something to still her belly’s rumblings. Pickings were thin in that early season. Nonetheless, when she returned, she held between her cupped palms as many fat, squirming grubs as she could carry. These she dropped in front of the pups.
Her offering was not quite refused but, by then, both pups and adults were full—and a small heap of meat had been set aside as her portion. Nonetheless, the action of the strange wolfling called Little Two-legs had been appreciated, even if most of the grubs had wriggled into the duff uneaten. She had been promoted that day, not just from first fed to second fed, but to one who could be counted on, even if in the smallest of ways, to contribute to the welfare of the pack. Soon after, she had been taught how to use flint and steel to make fire, earned a name, and fought—sometimes quite literally—to keep her place as a yearling, rather than a little pup.
While the humans cooked a share of the pork, Firekeeper and Blind Seer drowsed in the corner furthest from the fire. Although they acted as if fully asleep, they slept as hunters do: with eyes shut, but ears alert. So it was that they were aware how the talk remained squirrel chatter with little meaning until Wythcombe, after thanking Arasan for his excellent cooking, insisted that washing up should be his chore.
“I know,” he said, working the pump handle hard, clattering plates and pans about, “that it is said to be wisest to let sleeping dogs lie. How does that apply to wolves? Will those two sleep all the day as wolves do in the wild?”
“Firekeeper says,” Laria replied, “that wolves are not owls who cannot abide the light of day. They simply prefer to be about in the darker hours because that is when their dinner is awake to be hunted.”
Arasan added with the Meddler’s confiding chuckle. “They probably are perfectly aware we’re talking about them. They sleep lightly even when in a friendly place.”
Something in his inflection left open to interpretation whether this could be considered a friendly place or not, but Wythcombe did not rise to the taunt.
Instead, the old spellcaster raised his voice slightly and called, “Firekeeper? Blind Seer? If you’d care to join us, I’ve spent the night considering what Blind Seer asked, and I have some answers for you.”
As one, the two rolled to their feet from where Firekeeper had slept, curled where she could protect Blind Seer’s
vulnerable underbelly and throat, while he protected her in the shelter of his body. The blue-eyed wolf shook his fur into place, while Firekeeper finger-combed her hair out of her eyes.
They padded over to join the others, Firekeeper speaking for them both.
“We will listen, but we, too, spent the night with some thinking. This is not your hunt alone, even if we believe what others say about how much you can do.”
Wythcombe set a deep dish of fresh water on the floor where Blind Seer could drink from it or not as he chose, then handed Firekeeper a mug of water. Then he turned to the sink and reached for the next dirty dish.
“I acknowledge that. One of the things I considered last night was whether you said what you did to force my hand. When I realized you were perfectly sincere, I knew I needed to reconsider my own actions.” Emitting a huge, gusty sigh, he continued. “I came to the conclusion that perhaps Ransom would indeed be a better teacher for you than I could be—at least when it came to the basics. That startled me. I wondered when I had come to doubt so intensely that a young man with little more than passion to guide his actions had become my better.”
Firekeeper set her mug down, flung her arm over Blind Seer’s shoulders, and listened with interest. This was a far different Wythcombe than the man who had greeted them with apparent affability, while remaining as inflexible as the thick old trees that shatter beneath the gale because they can no longer bend.
Blind Seer said, “He no longer smells so much of fear. This is interesting. Still, if he will not teach Ranz with me, then I still will not run with him.”
“You think he may offer to teach you, then if you learn well, maybe Ranz later?”
“Or that he will say Ranz may teach me, so he can later show that it takes an older, larger wolf to pull down the game I desire.”
Firekeeper did not share any of this, as a human might have done in an effort to show how clever they were in anticipating an opponent. That sort of hunting put you jumping left while the prey jumped right—or worse, being overleapt altogether. She waited, neither smiling nor frowning, only showing polite attention.
Ranz, though, Ranz was clearly astonished to hear the old man name a boy his better. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then clapped it shut again, no doubt fearing a taunt or, worse, that he would be completely ignored.
Laria, who had picked up a coarse towel and begun wordlessly to dry the plates and platters as Wythcombe washed them, glanced over at the young man with concern. Firekeeper hadn’t watched Derian fall in love—several times before he found his Isende—without learning how humans often speak last to the one they should speak with first, so she looked on with affection. Away from those things and people who—no matter how valued—reminded her of her losses and what she thought of as her failure, Laria was beginning to heal. An interest in Ranz, no matter how that ended, could be part of the medicine she needed.
Wythcombe scrubbed at a skillet. As he rinsed it, he went on. “So, I have an offer for you—for both of you. Actually, for all of you, since I don’t think you will be leaving me alone with those I would teach.”
“You think right,” Firekeeper said. “We all have much learning to do.”
Wythcombe inclined his head to acknowledge her words. “First, I will offer to teach any of you who care to learn the foundations of magic as practiced here in Rhinadei. Initially, this will consist of theory and history, much of which Ransom already knows. Therefore, lest he become bored, I will invite him here and now to be my assistant.”
“What?” The word was out before Ranz realized it.
“My assistant, Ranz.” The use of the nickname was an apology. “Even within Rhinadei, different teachers emphasize different elements. I am certain that Payley and Amparee did not leave you without basic tutoring—more than basic or you would not have been able to craft that incredible snow fort of yours. If I give too much emphasis to some point of theory or you feel I have overlooked something, I invite you to offer a different point of view.”
Wythcombe grinned, for the first time since the previous afternoon looking more like the affable potato farmer they had first encountered. “Consider it a test of your foundation knowledge. I just might leave something out deliberately to see if you choose to put it in. That will be much more amusing for us both than any test, don’t you think?”
Ranz’s expression went stiff and guarded. Then he sighed. “It will certainly keep me from drifting off into daydreams because I know it all already, won’t it? All right, if Blind Seer is interested, I’ll accept your challenge. But from how you were presenting things, these lessons in theory aren’t the end of it, are they?”
“Not quite,” Wythcombe admitted. “Foundations must, ultimately, move into practice. Now, neither you nor Blind Seer are the usual students. You both are already what many would consider senior apprentices. In your case, Ranz, you have demonstrated that you can work several sorts of magic effectively: some temperature control, whatever you used to sculpt those higher areas. I’ll never believe you did all of that with a set of tools.”
Ranz colored. “Some I did use tools for, but some… It’s hard to explain. I figured out how to convince the snow and ice…”
He trailed off so that Wythcombe’s next words were not really an interruption. “We’ll need to further examine your technique, but I have my suspicions.”
He set the last pot on the drain board, flashed a smile at Laria to acknowledge her assistance, and re-seated himself at the table.
“After we have gone over foundations, practical applications will be in order.”
Firekeeper, dreading hours listening to Wythcombe drone on about magical theory, interrupted. “Can these be done together? When wolves teach a pup to hunt, they do not first say ‘This is a rabbit’ or ‘This is a mouse.’ They drop the rabbit or the mouse before the pup and let the pup learn to take it down.”
Blind Seer growled reprimand, but Wythcombe only rubbed his hand over the bald skin at the top of his head, his expression considering.
“Tell me, Firekeeper. These pups, would they have seen a mouse or a rabbit before, maybe even eaten such?”
“Yes. Maybe. Yes.”
“And they would have eaten meat before, not just milk?”
“Of course!”
“And this rabbit or mouse—it is brought to them alive, not dead?”
“Yes. How could they kill something dead?” Firekeeper wondered if this great spellcaster was stupider than even the average human when it came to matters of hunting.
Wythcombe raised a placating hand. To Firekeeper’s dismay, Blind Seer began to pant laughter, but did not let her in on the joke.
“Very well. I am understanding. Why do they bring just a mouse or a rabbit? Why not a deer?”
“Because the pups are small. They could not reach the deer’s belly or throat.”
“Exactly,” said Blind Seer as Wythcombe said “Precisely.”
Firekeeper didn’t want to be taken for stupid, so even though she was annoyed at the direction in which her very reasonable—at least as she saw it—question had led her, she shaped an answer.
“So these theories, these foundations, they are like the hunting of the mouse?”
“Yes and no. They are more like the not hunting of a deer—they will teach Blind Seer and remind Ranz where the dangers lie, where best to make what you might think of as a ‘killing bite,’ although using magical energy is only a very little bit like hunting. If you sit with Blind Seer as he has his lessons, then you will come to understand.”
Firekeeper chewed her lower lip. “Can you speak wolf-talk? Maybe with a spell?”
“I cannot.”
Firekeeper sighed. “Then I would be there to speak for Blind Seer, and I will do my best to learn.”
Blind Seer nudged her with his nose. “Good human.”
Firekeeper punched him, but restrained the urge to get into an affectionate wrestling match. It wouldn’t be understood.
Instead, she t
urned politely to Wythcombe. “I stopped you from explaining what the next part of the teaching would be. Please tell.”
Wythcombe picked up his mug and swirled the liquid in it, but didn’t drink. “As I said, both Ranz and Blind Seer are, in very different ways, more like senior apprentices than new students. Both already know how to use magic, although in Blind Seer’s case, he would like to reject the blood magic he has been taught and find a different focus. What I need to see is how both of them cope when under pressure. Will Blind Seer revert to blood magic? Will what many believe will be Ranz’s latent preference for that technique come to the fore when he is faced with a complex situation that does not permit him the time to quietly build?”
Blind Seer made a grumbly sound deep in his throat. “Tell him. I already have been through one such test. I do not wish to be set another just so Wythcombe can satisfy himself that we are not lying. If he is so worried, tell him to go speak with Varelle and the others.”
Firekeeper repeated this and, to her surprise, Wythcombe nodded.
“I understand Blind Seer’s point. Here’s the problem of trying to set up parameters without the necessary foundations. Here in Rhinadei, the basic course of teaching is first theory and foundations, next discovering what techniques for manipulating mana are most effective for a given person. Years are spent refining these before the senior apprentice is put to the test. Most often, that test is going to some part of Rhinadei that is either unredeemed or only partially redeemed, and assisting in the cleansing efforts. One of the things that kept me up late last night was my growing awareness that this plan of education would not work for either Blind Seer or Ranz—in Blind Seer’s case because I don’t think he wishes to spend years working various exercises.”
Blind Seer huffed breath in an agreement so eloquent that Firekeeper did not feel she needed to translate.
“In Ranz’s case, quite frankly, even if he was content to stay here and work those exercises with me…”
Wolf's Search Page 21