Wolfs Soul

by Jane Lindskold

  Furious, Kabot drew out more of Uaid’s mana to facilitate channeling his will through Palvalkay. Fortified, he wrestled for control of Xixavalkay, but the crazy woman was not letting go. Worse, now that the artifact was no longer within its chest, the statue had fallen quiescent. This freed the wolf who, rather than racing forward to attack as Kabot would have expected, leaned into the woman, pressing its head against the necklace she wore bandolier-fashion across her torso.

  Kabot felt another spellcaster’s energy enter the conflict. Not Wythcombe’s, perhaps his young apprentice’s? It couldn’t be the singer; he was still keeping up his music. Unbelievingly, Kabot identified the source: the wolf!

  Kabot remembered the warning the Voice had given them, their speculations, forgotten until now, that Wythcombe had linked his fortunes with some shapeshifter. The wolf’s control of his abilities was not polished, but the force of his raw talent nearly brought Kabot to his knees.

  He screamed in frustration. This wasn’t happening! He wasn’t going to be beaten! But he was running out of time. What to do? Palvalkay’s mana was bound up in the struggle for control of Xixavalkay. He had not yet recovered the mana spent in transporting them here from the jungle. That left no choice but to draw on Uaid’s mana, and hope for forgiveness.

  Kabot widened the channel between himself and Uaid, then used Uaid’s power to enable him to refine how Palvalkay was pulling Xixavalkay to it. To this point, the conflict had been a straight-line tug of war, but now he twisted, hoping to weaken Firekeeper’s grasp. All he achieved was to rip the disk along the weak seam in its middle, tearing it in two.

  The part of the disk not held between Firekeeper’s fingers came shooting toward Kabot—or rather to join Palvalkay. As it fit itself alongside, Kabot felt his knees buckling. The room spun. Instinctively, he reached to draw on more of Uaid’s mana to stabilize himself. He was certain he would succeed when he was struck by an inarticulately screeching fury.

  Kabot stumbled, falling on his backside in the dirt. Looking up he discovered that the fury was Daylily and what she was screaming was “Uaid! Uaid!” She’d let her cosmetic magics fall away, revealing a wild tangle of silvery-grey hair, eyes of faded stormy blue, and fragile golden-brown skin coursed with myriad lines.

  Running up behind Daylily was the girl, Laria, her sword raised over her head in both hands. Laria brought Volsyl down to swoosh through empty space. Gleefully, Kabot thought she’d missed. Then he realized that Laria’s blow had gone exactly where she intended. The flow of mana between himself and Uaid ceased, leaving only Kabot’s own depleted stores and the wildly sparkling flow from the entwined threads.

  Daylily reached for Kabot’s face, her long fingernails curled like claws, her expression wild with aversion. Aversion for him. For what he had done to Uaid. Kabot felt a moment of revulsion himself as he looked to where the youngest member of their triad lay collapsed on his side, his mouth hanging open, his breathing stertorous, his eyes open but unseeing.

  But there was no time for regret. Daylily’s fingernails were inches from Kabot’s eyes. Laria, shining blade in hand, was circling for a clear shot at his back. In panic, Kabot grasped the pulsing power of the rejoined threads. He felt himself pulled away—although he knew not where.

  Maybe because Chsss and Arasan had been her teachers, maybe because she was the farthest away, Laria had been able to resist much of the paralysis that their music sent forth. The worst thing was that she really didn’t want to resist. The song was so soothing, so restful. It didn’t so much bring on sleep as that wonderful state right on the edge of sleep, where you’re just awake enough to be able to think, but asleep enough that you don’t really need to do so.

  What kept Laria from falling into that pleasant numbness was a single very simple thing: Firekeeper had trusted her, had left her and Farborn to guard a powerful spellcaster. Simply put, Firekeeper had accepted that Laria was a member of her pack, and wouldn’t fail her. Given that, how could Laria not live up to the wolf-woman’s expectation? She kept her gaze locked on Daylily in case the Rhinadeian hoped to use this distraction to her advantage. On Laria’s shoulder, Farborn sidled uneasily back and forth, so she put a hand up to stroke his feathers and let him know she was alert.

  When Daylily began to visibly transform, Laria was so shocked that the lingering numbness in her limbs vanished. As the beautiful sorceress’s dark-green tresses faded to grey, as the roundness of her limbs became more sinewy, as she—to put none too fine a point on it—visibly aged, Laria realized that Daylily was drawing on whatever power remained to her. Laria braced herself, awaiting attack, but Daylily’s only action was to speak in a voice hardly above a whisper.

  “Please… Kabot’s going to kill Uaid. He doesn’t mean to—I don’t think he does. But Kabot doesn’t always think. Please! Let me go to Uaid’s rescue. Help me if you can.”

  Laria had been so focused on fighting Arasan’s spell, on Daylily’s transformation, that she hadn’t had any attention to spare for what was unfolding in the center of the room. Now she saw how Uaid was crumpling, how Kabot was half-bent over something he held in clasped hands over his breast. Although she didn’t exactly trust Daylily, she believed her.

  “Help you?” she asked. “By letting you go?”

  “That sword,” Daylily gasped, “may be able to sever the invisible lines that bind spellcasters to each other. If you cut between Kabot and Uaid, you could save Uaid. I will deal with Kabot.”

  There was something so ruthless in Daylily’s voice that Laria did not doubt her sincerity. This was not a time to dither. If she was making a mistake, but, no… Laria didn’t think she was. She remembered what she’d heard when Daylily still believed her unconscious. How, from the first, Daylily had spoken against using blood from the unwilling.

  “I can do that,” Laria said. She thought about adding a threat about what would happen to Daylily if she betrayed her, then decided that was stupid. A threat wouldn’t change anything. “Let’s go!”

  At Laria’s words, Farborn launched himself into the fight, shrieking something that made Laria certain he thought she’d made the right choice.

  Daylily ran with astonishing speed for someone now revealed to be in her sixties, at the very least. She keened Uaid’s name over and over, like a curse, like a promise. Laria realized that it was most probably both—a threat to Kabot, a promise to Uaid. Letting Volsyl correct her balance, Laria ran in the older woman’s wake. When Daylily sprang at Kabot, Laria was only a step behind. She saw the astonishment on Kabot’s face, the momentary flicker of relief when he thought that she had failed to strike him, his panic when he felt his connection to Uaid severed. Daylily was screaming imprecations, reaching to claw Kabot’s eyes from his head when in a burst of golden-blue-green light, Kabot vanished.

  Firekeeper pulled up short, tossed something small into the air. Farborn dove down and caught it, then vanished into the shadows above. Arasan’s music stumbled to a halt, and he tumbled to the floor. Blind Seer darted to interpose himself between Daylily and Laria. Wythcombe and Ranz stirred. Uaid did not.

  Laria slid Volsyl into its sheath. “Blind Seer, please, let Daylily try to help Uaid. Kabot did something to him.”

  Blind Seer positioned himself beside Uaid and sat, jaws agape. One didn’t need words to know he was saying, “Fine. But if she tries anything, she’s going to be missing a limb.”

  Wythcombe was jogging over, moving as if still partly in a dream. Ranz had gone to help Arasan. Firekeeper stood, casting about, clearly uncertain whether Kabot might return as swiftly as he had vanished. Then she visibly relaxed and moved to where she could rest a hand on Blind Seer’s shoulder.

  By the time Uaid no longer looked as if he was on the verge of death, Arasan had struggled to his feet. Arm over Ranz’s shoulder, he came wobbling over to join them. He eased himself onto a makeshift seat on a heap of rubble, speaking almost before he was down.

  “Before you yell at me for what I did,” he said, “I apologize
. I had no idea that my song would have such a widespread effect. I’m still learning how things work.”

  To Laria’s surprise, Firekeeper didn’t say something caustic. Instead she smiled at him.

  “Is not so good that so many sleep, but you slow Kabot and Uaid when they were a great danger. So, this time, you will not be thumped.” She stared at Daylily, as if those dark, dark eyes could look into the older woman’s soul. “I tell you, you keep parole, we listen to you.”

  Laria started to explain that Daylily had not broken her parole, and Firekeeper held up a reassuring hand. “Yes. I not think you suddenly run in a pack with someone who broke parole. You smell to Blind Seer as if your choices is all your own, so now we listen to this Daylily. Then we decide what to do.”

  Daylily stared thoughtfully at Firekeeper. “What do you want to hear from me?”

  Firekeeper gave one of her eloquent shrugs. “So very much. From Wythcombe we know a little about Kabot, but we know nothing about you. How did you end up here? How did it come that Kabot begins to eat this Uaid?”

  Wythcombe gave Firekeeper a look Laria couldn’t decipher. It seemed equal parts resignation and something like hatred. Hadn’t he seen what Kabot was doing? No, he hadn’t. Not firsthand, not as Laria had. To give Daylily a moment to organize her thoughts, Laria cut in.

  “Wythcombe, Firekeeper’s not exaggerating. Kabot did that to Uaid. Even before you all showed up here, I could tell that Kabot had made some different choices than Uaid and Daylily had, and I’m not just saying that because he cut my throat.” She held up her head high, so that Wythcombe couldn’t ignore the bandaging around her neck. “I know he’s your childhood friend. I know you want to save him, hear his point of view, but maybe you’re trying too hard to be fair to him?”

  The old spellcaster leaned heavily on his staff. “Yes. Maybe so. Before we get into a philosophical debate, do you think it’s wise for us to stay here? What if that statue comes back to life? Or if Kabot returns? He’s clearly drawing on mana other than his own, and one thing we of Rhinadei know well—even if we do not use blood magic—is that the source of mana can influence how a person thinks. It’s not unlike certain drugs: they may make you feel more clearheaded, but maybe paranoia comes with that clarity.”

  Firekeeper gestured with a thumb back to where the statue lay. “That no start moving again. Go look. Is not statue anymore.”

  Wythcombe, trailed by Ranz and Arasan, went to look. When they returned, Wythcombe’s expression was blank with the blankness of one who has experienced a shock. Ranz looked nauseated. Arasan looked bemused as only Chsss could.

  “If I had to guess,” Chsss said, something in his tone making it clear he didn’t think he was wrong, “I’d say that when things started to go downhill, one of the sorcerers who ran this school or smuggling depot or whatever it was, decided that it was worth dying to make certain that this place remained safe. I have no idea how that artifact”—he gestured in the general direction where Farborn had vanished—“came to be here, but that man decided to both protect it, and use it to protect this place. I’d love to know… No, now that I think about it, I don’t think I want to know. Anyhow, somehow he inserted it in his chest and it fused with his life energy. After that, he wasn’t really alive anymore, but his sense of purpose was. Maybe he knew someone he thought could reverse the process, maybe he was just suicidal: querinalo can do that to people. Either way, Firekeeper’s right. King Tedric doesn’t need to worry about the monster beneath his grandmother’s tomb any longer.”

  Daylily’s voice showed none of the exhaustion she must feel. “Even so, perhaps we should not remain here. Kabot is demonstrating an astonishing ability to work transportation magics. However, he will have a harder time finding us if he isn’t going where he has been before.”

  “Why make it easier for him?” Firekeeper agreed in her Blind Seer voice. “Arasan, you get the others through the gate. We two will go and tell King Tedric that he needs to set a watch here in case Kabot comes back. Then we will join you.”

  Firekeeper hoped that King Tedric might be nearby. The old king, although officially still the ruler of Hawk Haven, had taken to spending long stretches of time at an estate he had inherited from his grandmother, Queen Zorana the Great, so that his heirs could grow accustomed to managing without him. The last time she had visited, they had arranged how she could use the alarm that had been in place since the days of that first queen to say she was there. If King Tedric or his wife, Queen Elexa, were not present or were not available, then the estate’s steward, who was among the very few who knew of the subterranean complex’s existence, would come.

  Firekeeper and Blind Seer were prepared to wait. They had just finished a light snack and tidied themselves up when sounds above indicated that the hidden door beneath Queen Zorana’s sarcophagus was being opened.

  “Firekeeper?” The voice that echoed down the stone stairs was not that of the old king, nor of his trusted bodyguard, but one that made Firekeeper grin so widely she thought her cheeks might crack. “I hardly know whether to shake you or hug you, so get up here so I can decide.”

  “No shake, please, Fox Hair,” Firekeeper said, flying up the stairs and giving Derian a tight hug. “No shake. We have been shaken enough.”

  Derian hugged her back, then punched Blind Seer affectionately on one shoulder.

  Firekeeper bounced in place with happiness. “We was not sure you would be in Hawk Haven already. Is a long journey.”

  Derian looked self-conscious, as only he could. “Eshinarvash really sped up our journey. Then, when we reached Liglim, we didn’t need to wait for anyone to meet with us. Apparently, they had omens of our coming—and that we would need a fast ship, so they had one waiting. I guess we’re important now.”

  Firekeeper was wolf-pleased at this evidence of her friend’s importance. “Is you here with king and queen?”

  “‘Am I’ with the king and queen,” Derian corrected automatically. “Yes. They invited Isende and me to come visit, where we could have some privacy from prying eyes and—so we learned not long ago—to entrust a few state secrets to us.”

  As they moved out into the light, Firekeeper could see that her oldest human friend looked very tired. She asked quickly, so he could answer without worrying about embarrassing anyone.

  “And this visit, to family, to homeland? Was it too terrible?”

  Derian let out a gusty sigh. “It wasn’t easy. My parents completely approve of Isende. They’re shocked to find that I’m part-ruler of a sorcerous Old World realm. And, as for my new physical attributes, let’s leave it at ‘They’re trying.’”

  “Brother? Sister?”

  “Glad I’m not dead. Finding it both harder and easier to face all the other changes than my parents are.” He forced a smile. “Weirdly enough, I owe to you that it didn’t go harder. Turns out that knowing you and Blind Seer had already opened my whole family to the idea that the world isn’t quite like we all thought it was. Even so, accepting what I look like, that I’m not coming back to Hawk Haven to stay, that’s been tough. I think we were all grateful when King Tedric ‘offered’ his invitation—phrasing it as a command—so that we could get away from each other and adjust.”

  “But your family like Isende,” Firekeeper said with great satisfaction. “I knew they would.”

  “We decided not to tell them that my new wife may have a small spellcaster’s gift,” Derian added. “Learning I was married to a girl from the far south was one thing. Learning I’d married a scion of the sorcerers of old… We’ll leave that for a later time.”

  Their conversation had carried them to where King Tedric, Queen Elexa, and Isende—guarded by the ever-present Sir Dirkin Eastbranch—were gathered in a gazebo set within a copse of flowering trees. Firekeeper looked wistfully at where little meat pies were set on a painted plate, but decided that she needed her mouth free for talking.

  After greetings—and many hugs—were exchanged, Firekeeper said, “I have
news to give and to give quickly, because I have left possible trouble behind us, but I think we can trust Arasan and Laria to manage for a little, and maybe Ynamynet and Kalyndra will not have gone too far in this little time.”

  Derian looked as if he had dozens of questions, but he clamped his lips tightly, and reached for Isende’s hand, letting Firekeeper launch into her account. When she finished, King Tedric—wigless and casually dressed as he had been the last time Firekeeper had seen him—chuckled.

  “So, although we no longer have a magical menace in the basement, there is the possibility of a crazed sorcerer appearing to seek you and the remnants of that menace.” He turned to his advisor. “Dirkin? Thoughts?”

  “I think we can manage a reasonable defense, especially now that we no longer need to fear being attacked when we descend. I will work out the details.” The knight looked at Firekeeper. “Do you think that Kabot will return in the near future?”

  Firekeeper shrugged, partnering the motion with an unhappy expression, so that Sir Dirkin would understand she wasn’t being flippant. “We do not know, because we do not know Kabot. I think that even those who would have once said they knew Kabot do not know Kabot as he is now, but Blind Seer thinks that Kabot will be very weary and very worried, so maybe Kabot not do anything for a time. If you can do some watching, we will go after Kabot. Someone will let you know when Kabot is not a threat. After that, all you have to think about is the gate—and with Derian and Isende here, I think you is doing that already.”

  Isende nodded. “We have been. Although King Tedric said that he asked you to keep the gate a secret, you did the right thing telling Ynamynet and Kalyndra—we would have been telling the Nexans before long. However, since this gate doesn’t go anywhere we have under anything but the most casual supervision on ‘our’ side, we want to make arrangements, probably with some of the yarimaimalom.”