Wolfs Soul

by Jane Lindskold

  Praise for The Firekeeper Saga

  “This engrossing tale of feral myth and royal intrigue from Lindskold offers plenty of action as well as fascinating anthropological detail on the social behavior of wolves. A beautiful and complex book.”

  —Publisher’s Weekly on Through Wolf’s Eyes

  “The ultimate fairy tale. Captivating and well-told.”

  —VOYA on Through Wolf’s Eyes

  “Draws its greatest strength from its feral heroine, whose animal sensibilities lend a unique perspective to the foibles of human society. Rich details and intriguing sensibilities make this fantasy series a good choice.”

  —Library Journal on Wolf’s Head, Wolf’s Heart

  “Highly enjoyable. A marvelous opportunity to see the peculiarities of human society through the eyes of intelligent beasts. Lindskold’s wild and wonderful magic thrives in this volume.”

  —Booklist on Wolf’s Head, Wolf’s Heart

  “In Lindskold’s exciting third installment of her wolf-girl fantasy saga, Firekeeper finds herself deeply entangled in the politics and intrigues of her high-born human relations and even more so in the fight for survival of her alternate family, the Royal Beasts of the forest.”

  —Publisher’s Weekly on The Dragon of Despair

  “Firekeeper’s dual citizenship in beast and human worlds makes her a perfect liaison…in this seamless continuation”

  —Booklist on The Dragon of Despair

  “Firekeeper hits her stride in the exhilarating fourth book…An increase in pace and greater character depth… give this exciting book an edge”

  —Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

  “Watching Firekeeper learn about humanity and still maintain her identity as a wolf makes for compelling reading. Intricately plotted and written, Lindskold’s latest creates an utterly fascinating world that readers can lose themselves in.”

  —Romantic Times on Wolf Captured

  “Thrilling. The intriguing plot makes for a quick and enjoyable read.”

  —Publisher’s Weekly on Wolf Hunting

  “Lindskold hones her world-building skills in this latest entry in her Firekeeper Saga, populating it with credible characters moving through an action-packed plot.”

  —VOYA on Wolf Hunting

  “Intricately plotted, A thought-provoking tale of magic and politics, enlivened by Firekeeper’s wry and wolfish point-of-view.”

  —Publisher’s Weekly on Wolf’s Blood

  “Lindskold explores the philosophical question, ‘What is love?’… Firekeeper has matured in mind and body throughout this fantasy epic, gaining understanding of her complex world’s operation. Lindskold does a solid job of world-building, offering thought-provoking questions to underpin this well-paced chronicle”

  —VOYA on Wolf’s Blood

  Obsidian Tiger Books

  WOLF’S SOUL

  Copyright © 2020 by Obsidian Tiger Inc.

  Cover Art by Julie Bell

  Obsidian Tiger Books, Albuquerque, New Mexico

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover & interior design and formatting by:

  www.emtippettsbookdesigns.com

  Other Books by

  The Artemis Awakening Series

  Artemis Awakening

  Artemis Invaded

  The Firekeeper Series

  Through Wolf’s Eyes

  Wolf’s Head, Wolf’s Heart

  The Dragon of Despair

  Wolf Captured

  Wolf Hunting

  Wolf’s Blood

  Wolf’s Search

  Wolf’s Soul

  The Breaking the Wall Series

  Thirteen Orphans

  Nine Gates

  Five Odd Honors

  The Athanor Series

  Changer

  Changer’s Daughter (aka Legends Walking)

  Captain Ah-Lee Short Stories

  Endpoint Insurance

  Winner Takes Trouble

  Here to There

  Star Messenger (the box set of all three short stories)

  Stand Alone Novels

  The Buried Pyramid

  Child of a Rainless Year

  Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls

  Marks of Our Brothers

  Pipes of Orpheus

  Chronomaster

  Smoke and Mirrors

  When the Gods are Silent

  Asphodel

  With Roger Zelazny

  Donnerjack

  Lord Demon

  With David Weber

  Fire Season

  Treecat Wars

  Nonfiction

  Wanderings on Writing

  For Jim for so many reasons, all of them wonderful.

  And for Keladry, my most faithful assistant

  Acknowledgements

  First of all, there’s a very special group I want to thank. Without them, Wolf’s Soul would have taken a lot longer to be finished. These are the members of my current gaming group: Rowan Derrick, Melissa Jackson, Cale Mims, Dominique Price, and my husband, Jim Moore.

  There was a point when, overwhelmed by too many projects unexpectedly coming to a head at one time, I realized I was burning out. Something had to go. Reluctantly, I realized that I was going to need to give up running our weekly game. I was crushed, because gaming may be the single activity that helps me recharge my creativity.

  What can I say? I’m a storyteller. Gaming reminds me that stories are fun, not just my job.

  My gamers are all seriously busy people, with high-end, stressful jobs. I figured they’d be glad for an excuse to reclaim their Sunday evenings. Instead, they insisted we keep meeting. Rowan, despite having just started a new job, took over as gamemaster. I stepped to the sidelines as one of the players. As I started working through the backlog that was weighing me down, burnout ebbed and writing Wolf’s Soul became fun again, rather than a chore.

  I also want to thank my husband, Jim Moore, for undying patience, for being my first reader, and for helping as much as possible with all the projects, not just this one.

  Just about every day, Keladry cat ran for my desk as soon as she heard me turning on the computer. Despite her fondness for walking in front of the monitor, she really was my best assistant. She died completely unexpectedly as this book was going into copy edit. I will miss her forever.

  My beta readers, Julie Bartel and Paul Dellinger, brought their own unique perspectives to the completed manuscript. Thanks to both of them for their thoughtful comments, especially those that led me to rewrite for greater clarity. Sally Gwylan served as copy editor, showing dedication beyond grammatical belief.

  Artist Julie Bell let me use her lovely “Three Hungry Wolves” for the cover art. Someday I’ll find out how she knew what I planned to write about before I did.

  Emily Mah Tippetts and her team at E.M. Tippetts Book Designs made the book beautiful and put up with my fussing over minor details.

  Thanks, again, to all of you who have been running with Firekeeper and Blind Seer these many years. If you’re a member of their pack, you know it!

  Prologue

  WHEN HAD THE Voice first started speaking to him? It was difficult for Kabot to remember. There had been very few ways to judge the passage of time within that channel of stony mana which had saved them from dissolution while holding them captive. Kabot recalled as if it were yesterday or eons past, how he and his small band of fellow enthusiasts had crafted their spell. What the five of them had sought to create had not been so much a gate as a tunnel, a funnel, between the ruined lands of Rhinadei and the prestigious university a
t which their ancestors had studied what was, in Rhinadei, forbidden lore.

  They had worked their calculations with great care. Nonetheless, as soon as the spell was activated, something had gone wrong. First Phiona, the second most powerful of their number, had seemed to explode within the matrix. Caidon, who was next, had not exploded. He had slowed, then stopped, his essential essence petrifying into a living blockade that prevented Uaid and Daylily from moving forward.

  Kabot had tried to retrieve his comrades, but instead he had been pulled in after them. The four of them remained stuck, vaguely aware of each other, unable to communicate or to coordinate any plan. The only aid Kabot could offer his loyal followers was to pour energy from the mana surge through the fragmenting spell to sustain them.

  They’d lost Caidon next. Kabot wasn’t sure when, since his only timepiece was the physical appearance of those who came to check on them. At first there had been many visitors, people he recognized as hardline supporters of Rhinadei’s policy against any resurgence of the anathema art. Later, only Kabot’s childhood companion, Wythcombe, had come. People don’t visibly age much once they reached their middle years, a brief taste of seeming immortality before Time starts inscribing lines on face and body, mocking the wistful presumption that time’s passage can be stopped. But when Caidon had exploded, Wythcombe’s appearance had changed little, so Caidon must have been lost relatively early.

  Kabot still felt a wash of guilt when he remembered how he’d allowed himself to hope that, with Caidon gone, whatever blocked their funnel would also vanish, letting them move along. Nothing had changed. Uaid and Daylily remained frozen, as did Kabot himself.

  Kabot was drowning in despair when the visions started. The hallucinations were weird and often fragmentary, yet possessed of an internal logic, the visual equivalent of sound distorted by echoes. Kabot struggled to decipher the images. They might be crazed, but they were better than losing himself in the loop of his own thoughts.

  Wythcombe’s hair had been thinning when the Voice had started talking to Kabot. Initially, Kabot had dismissed the Voice as just another hallucination, one more vivid than most, his loneliness creating an imaginary friend for him. Later, Kabot had wondered if Uaid or Daylily, his remaining companions, had finally figured out a way to communicate. However, the Voice said none of the things Uaid and Daylily would certainly have mentioned.

  At last, Kabot accepted that the Voice was a genuine individual, someone who could speak to him even though—perhaps especially because—he was trapped. When Kabot realized this and began to answer the Voice’s many, many questions, his new life and shining purpose had been born.

  Eventually, the Voice confided that, having learned of Uaid and Daylily from Kabot’s worry for them, it had journeyed along the threads of mana that Kabot never had ceased to channel toward his two remaining followers. The Voice did not boast or brag. Nonetheless, Kabot had the impression that it had endured many perils in order to find a way to these stranded souls.

  Later still, the Voice had linked Kabot, Uaid, and Daylily together. Their communications had not been words at first, but a prickling awareness. Kabot imagined them as three mayflies caught in a spider’s web, aware of each other through the thrumming of their struggles to escape.

  Wythcombe’s crown was shiny bald when the Voice had managed to transform the web into a tightly woven cocoon. This cradled them, huddled tight, protected against the vicissitudes without. If Kabot had ever doubted that people had souls, this arcane unity would have convinced him of the soul’s reality. He grew to appreciate his companions as their more essential selves: Daylily, a glittering rainbow shaped from tiny stars; Uaid, strong and solid as stone. Eventually, they learned to converse in a language that made as much use of images as of sounds.

  Once they had perfected this manner of communication, the Voice had taken upon itself the tremendous and unrewarding chore of informing them that the university that had been their destination no longer existed. It told them of querinalo, the curse that burned through magical talent, feasting by choice upon the most powerful. It told them how their own torment was rooted in the lingering traces of this curse which—although it had abated somewhat—continued to turn a gourmet’s eye upon those who were especially gifted.

  Asking no credit or thanks—indeed, begging them not to reveal its existence—the Voice had shown them how they might break free of their ruined transportation spell. When at last they were able to retreat to Rhinadei, they had all been aware of the Voice’s secret sorrow as it felt them leave.

  Kabot had been heart-wrenchingly certain that the Voice would be terribly lonely without them, but had been far too noble to hold them back. When he had hinted that they might draw the Voice into Rhinadei with them, the only response had been wistful gratitude, coupled with the certainty that, even for sorcerers as talented as they were, this would be impossible.

  Once Kabot, Daylily, and Uaid had been replenished by the power of the mana surge, Daylily had tentatively suggested that perhaps they should build a refuge for themselves in one of the wilder reaches of Rhinadei. Although their staves and charms had been lost, they still possessed basic equipment. After all, as the Voice had informed them, the community of like-minded sorcerers they had hoped to find in the Old World was no more.

  “We can use the power of the mana surge to sustain us while we establish a fortress, pursue our own studies, replace the equipment we lost. We could quietly recruit others who have become unsatisfied. Surely, after all this time, there will be others. If our behavior is peaceful and scholarly, in time Rhinadei’s ruling council may stop seeing us as a threat.”

  Kabot had shaken his head. “Do as you wish, dear Daylily, and with my blessing. I will even help you find a location for your hideaway before I depart. However, we were viewed as rebels then. Do you really think attitudes will have changed? If they had, I firmly believe Wythcombe would have rescued us, rather than staring forlornly after us every so often. When I next encounter those who rejected us, I will make sure they must treat me as an equal.”

  His confidence had stiffened Daylily’s spine. Soon thereafter, Uaid and Daylily had joined with Kabot in designing a new spell to carry them to the ruins of the Old World university. Although the Voice had warned them that the university was no longer active, it had also hinted that there were prizes to be found amid the crumbled buildings: books and artifacts secreted by scholars of the magical arts who had believed that what they were experiencing was a passing illness, that they would return and reestablish themselves.

  The spell had taken moonspans to design, a tense period during which Kabot had both dreaded and secretly hoped that Wythcombe would come to check on them. Had he hoped to be dissuaded? Even now, Kabot wasn’t sure. However, nothing had happened to interrupt their plans. This time their spell had successfully taken them to the ruined university.

  The dismay Kabot had felt when he had realized that their long journey had ended not among picturesque ruins, but among raw destruction, had never entirely faded. Rhinadei had been swept by war, by spells run wild. What had been done to university at Azure Towers was an attempt to obliterate any trace of the magical arts. What had not been burned had been broken; what had refused to burn or break had been buried. That there could be anything of value left would have seemed impossible but for the Voice’s hints of concealed treasure.

  As the trio began their search, Kabot realized how much he missed Phiona. There had been something special between them—not just the on-again, off-again romance that had resulted in tears as often as in kisses, but a sort of creative synergy that was as difficult to define as it had been stimulating. They’d disagreed frequently and heatedly. However, in working through those disagreements, the concepts they had arrived upon had been not merely the adding together of their thoughts but a multiplication.

  Uaid and Daylily were strong-minded and gifted, else they would not have been elected into Kabot’s elite circle. But what Kabot shared with them was not
what he had once had with Phiona. Perhaps it was his longing for Phiona that called out to the Voice which had fallen silent once they had left the cocoon it had woven to nurture and protect them. Perhaps the Voice’s loneliness—enhanced rather than assuaged by the camaraderie it had shared with the three rebels from Rhinadei—had been so great that finally it had been able to answer.

  At first the contact had been as tenuous as a rainbow created by a lens made from a raindrop caught within a loop of grass. First the Voice spoke to Kabot in dreams, advising, cautioning, encouraging. Later, they connected via the mindful abstraction of meditation. Then came the glorious day when Kabot thought to himself, “I must try to ask the Voice about that,” and the Voice replied, “Why wait? I am here, with you.”

  The Voice sounded so very much like Phiona that tears rose to Kabot’s eyes, shattering the light and driving prismatic spears into his heart.

  I

  “YOU STILL HERE?” Firekeeper threw her arms around Derian as soon as she and Blind Seer cleared the gate from Rhinadei. “We think you’d be gone, taking Isende to see your family in Hawk Haven.”

  She checked her friend’s reaction carefully. Derian had delayed making the trip to Hawk Haven the previous summer, saying, with some justification, that he was needed while the Nexus Islands established themselves as an independent nation. But she knew that Derian also dreaded showing his family what querinalo had done to him. His fight to maintain his talent against the curse had left him with features that blended those of a horse with those a human. That the horse in question was a fine chestnut did not seem to comfort Derian, although he had eventually become resigned to the change. Firekeeper—who would not have minded looking more like a wolf than a human—sometimes had to fight to remember just how much anguish Derian had initially felt about his transformation.