by Janny Wurts
She cried out, stumbled, and fell waking into the icy reality of a snowdrift. Cold shocked her back into memory of self; around her, the singer's melody sang of despair that approached madness.
Skyfire rolled until the end of her bow no longer hampered her legs. She shook icy flakes from her lashes and hair, and stood upright with a shiver. The music seemed very near, and it pulled at her heart without surcease. Around her the trees drooped under a hardened burden of ice. Summer stars shone faintly through the cold. Skyfire blinked. Unquestioning as a wolf, she shook off the muddle left by the chill and pressed forward. The show deepened. Before long she labored through drifts that rose to her chest. But her efforts brought progress. The melody grew stronger as she went; the spell of the singer wove inescapably through her being. Whether she risked death, she would not stop now.
The way grew more difficult. The snow acquired a hardened, glassy crust of ice that cut at her fingers and toes. Skyfire was not dressed for such weather. Her flesh gradually went numb. She shivered uncontrollably, and longed for the stoic presence of Woodbiter at her side. Still, harsh as her own straits seemed, nothing prepared her as she scrabbled over the final rise in the snow and beheld the singer at last.
He sat with his head bowed over crossed arms, bare feet buried to the ankles in the pelt of his gray wolf. Black hair hid his face, trailed in unkempt tangles over shoulders clad thinly as Skyfire's. He did not shiver, though his fingers seemed frozen and bloodless as quartz. His song surrounded him with magic. Thick as mist, the spells he sang brought cold deep enough to crack stone, and grief enough to make the trees weep.
Skyfire hesitated as if struck by a blow. Then, before she quite realized she had reacted, she was running, sliding, flailing down the steep drift, to tumble breathless at his side.
The gray wolf looked up and growled, its eyes all silver-bright and wary. For once as brash as her brother, Skyfire dared its wrath. She recovered her footing and addressed its uncanny companion.
**Who are you?** Though she had not planned, her words came out as sending.
The singer looked up. Eyes identical to those of the wolf met hers, and it seemed for a breath that the earth stopped turning.
Then his song changed, flowed without break into sending. The melody itself framed answer, describing him as Outcast, wild as the bachelor wolf who runs with no ties to a pack. Skyfire, listening, heard a melancholy that made her spirit ring with echoes. The song described more than an elf with silver eyes, more than a hunter who roved alone. The chieftess of the Wolfriders heard silence more deep than sky, wind more free than storms, a spirit more solitary than the terrible moment of death. She knew then that she had been gifted with this elf's soulname, and in the depths of his silver-ice eyes she saw her own self reflected back at her.
**Kyr.**
There, in an unseasonal enchanted snow, Huntress Skyfire became Recognized by an elf who was a stranger, and who conformed to no law and no pack. More terrifying still, the melody this outsider sang held all of the exhilaration, and all of the pain, and all of the twisted madness that the magic of the high ones became heir to on the world of two moons.
Even through the compulsion of Recognition, Skyfire sensed danger. The spell the song wove was not gentle, but filled full measure with remembered tragedy from the past. The effect was compelling enough to wound, and both she and the one fate chose for her mating were entangled in its threads. One of them must free the other, and of the two, the singer was most lost in his dream. Recognition offered no choice in the matter. Skyfire reached out to the singer, but never completed her touch. The gray wolfs warning became a snarl of rage and his muzzle lifted over bared teeth.
The despair of the singer's spell only hampered. In desperation, Skyfire sent to the beast, her image all strength without threat. The wolf did not respond as a pack member would. Mad as his outsider master, he rose and advanced on stiffened legs. Skyfire sensed the tautening of muscles beneath the silver-gray pelt. The wolf was preparing to rush her, and she carried no spear to defend.
Only her bow remained to her, hung uselessly across her shoulders; if she made the slightest move to free it, the stranger wolf would charge. Skyfire knew better than to attempt to flee. The spell slowed her reflexes and the snow would mire her. The wolf would sense her disadvantage.
That would inevitably provoke an attack, and she had no desire to die with fangs sunk into her neck from behind.
She glanced to the singer, but no help awaited her there. Snow flurried over his dark hair, and his eyes were mirrors of grief. Song and sorrow had overwhelmed his senses; his magic ran out of control.
The wolf growled again. It shifted onto its haunches. Aware she was out of options, Skyfire snatched for her bow. The string barely cleared her shoulder as the great beast sprang. He was larger than Woodbiter, and young. Skyfire raised the frail wood, tried uselessly to stave off his rush. Fangs closed over the shaft and splinters flew. Then the chieftess was borne down beneath hard-muscled weight and gray fur.
She ducked to protect her throat. Battered into snow, she rolled. The terrible jaws clacked over her head. The wolf pressed for another snap. Skyfire twisted and managed to jab a knee into, the animal's ribs. The wolf snarled in rage and tried again. Once more she dodged its teeth. Her quiver banged into her thigh, spilling stone-pointed arrows treacherously over the ground. If she rolled in an attempt to throw the wolf off, she risked becoming impaled. Yet she had little chance if she hesitated. The wolf caught her braid in its teeth and worried, slamming her head from side to side. She punched at its eyes, missed, and caught a glancing slash from a fang.
The wolf scented blood and attacked with renewed fury. In danger of severe mauling, Skyfire braced against its chest and sent, **Submission-fear-fury-submission.** She hammered the beast's mind with her self-awareness, the irrefutable knowledge of her right to lead. She had challenged for dominance, and won. This stranger wolf must back down before her, or else kill, or be killed in turn. Such was the way of the wolves.
Skyfire gritted her teeth, the scent of her own blood strong in her nostrils. She knew no fear, only determination; this the wolf sensed. Its great heart faltered. Skyfire sensed its instant of unsureness. She twisted, used a wrestling trick and threw the heavier animal down. At once she went for its throat. Her nails caught its flesh and twisted, hard. The breath rasped in its throat. It lived now only by her sufferance. Her green eyes stared into ones of silver-gray, elf and wolf both equally savage and fierce.
Then the wolf went limp. Its lips stayed turned back, but it arched its neck to farther expose its throat. Skyfire gave the animal an extra shake to enforce her moment of victory. Then she backed off.
The air felt very cold. Grazed, disheveled, and bleeding from her slashed wrist, the chieftess licked at her hurt. She watched the gray wolf warily, but it rose with its tail down and settled on the far side of the singer. Only then did Skyfire realize that the terrible song had stilled. She looked around to find the black-haired elf senseless in the snows his magic had spun. But the dreams of the past which inspired him had dissipated. His awareness was dark as the night.
Skyfire shrugged her torn tunic back into place. Stiffly she regained her feet and went to him. His eyes were open and empty as clouds. Outcast he had named himself; but to Skyfire he was Dreamsinger, and would remain so, though he had no pack to name him. Slowly the chieftess knelt at his side. She cautiously extended a hand, and this time the gray wolf did not challenge. Her fingers bridged a gap of empty, wintry air, and touched.
His flesh was very cold. Skyfire sent thoughts of urgency into his mind, and could not reach him. His magic had carried him perilously far. He would return on his own, perhaps, but unless he wakened soon he might freeze. The possibility filled Huntress Skyfire with a new and uncomfortable dilemma.
The way of the wolf-pack urged her to leave. Survivors did not burden their resources; to be encumbered by the helpless was to invite a pointless death. Yet the dream of the singer had po
isoned the familiar, pushed Skyfire's awareness beyond the limits of experience. Though taxed by the rigors of her night-long run, and shaped by the same wild laws which had arbitrated her dispute with the wolf, the chieftess hesitated. Skyfire found herself incapable of leaving the Dreamsinger to die.
Surely Recognition might cause such madness. Partially reassured, the chieftess caught the stranger beneath the shoulders. The gray wolf whined, but did not interfere as she half lifted, half dragged him over the heavy drifts. The Dreamsinger was slight, perhaps the same build as Sapling. Yet the Huntress was tired, and the snow hampered her steps. Leaving her arrows and broken bow, she labored over the ice with her burden until her feet stumbled beneath her. Her strength was long-since spent. Somehow she continued. In time the magic of despair fell behind. The stars overhead lay pale in the glow of dawn, and green ferns and moss cushioned her steps.
Skyfire lowered the Dreamsinger in a clearing and flung herself down by his side. Whether or not there were humans, she could go no farther. She curled on the ground beside the strange elf and slept. After pacing with uneasiness the gray wolf curled on the opposite side of elf-friend and buried its muzzle beneath its brush.
* * *
Huntress Skyfire awakened to song. Sunlight dappled her shoulders and eased the ache of her cut wrist; yet even summer's warmth seemed thin beside the joy in Dreamsinger's melody. The chieftess stirred, and found eyes of unearthly silver intently watching her. The black-haired elf seemed poised, as if for flight; only the ties of Recognition prevented.
Speech itself seemed an intrusion, a sour note against a magnificence of song that no living being might dare to spoil. **Come,** Skyfire sent. She raised her arms toward him.
The outsider elf hesitated. Outcast, the song defined him, and a thread of sadness slowed the cadence.
'No.' Skyfire smiled, for the moment as sure as bedrock. 'Dreamsinger.' Though the ways of the pack and the vision of dream might war inside her, the call of Recognition obscured them.
For a moment the fey elf did not move. All his years of wandering cast a current of doubt between them. Skyfire smiled, uncaring; and the pull of longing overwhelmed. The Dreamsinger answered the name he had been given and gathered Skyfire into his embrace. His song swelled around her. For an instant she knew the wild joy of Timmain running with her wolf-mate; then the pound of blood in her veins overturned the dream. The notes of the spell shifted afresh, transformed the clearing to a place of new spring grass that was softly perfect for mating. Skyfire had known the exertion and thrill of the hunt. She had killed for food and for survival, and lived the fierce way of the wolf-pack. She had howled in moonlight, and chipped winter ice for drinking, and gnawed upon bones when her stomach was hollow with hunger. The life of the pack contained all there was to know of death and survival. But in Dreamsinger's arms the Wolfrider chieftess learned gentleness, and that one thing overturned all else.
Dreamsinger traced her many scars with light fingers. His song spoke now of healing, and places where elves need not kill. Skyfire heard, and ached with the terror of the unknown. This dream which lacked the howl and the hunt tore away the familiar, left her adrift without bearings. The Dreamsinger sang of the past, lost forever, or of a life impossibly far into the future. Skyfire caught her fey mate close, for his body was warm and listening caused pain. Yet little comfort came to her. He was the song, and his strangeness brought conflict beyond bearing. The pull of Recognition would not let her leave, not let her run and join Woodbiter, and find refuge in the pack. She could not go; in time she no longer wanted to. The Dreamsinger's strange magic touched her spirit and wove irrevocable change.
After the mating he caught up her fiery hair and gloried in the colour, which promised both sunset and dawn. As he braided the shining length of it, Skyfire looked up past his head and watched a tree burst spontaneously into blossom. The scent made her languid and content, until the Dreamsinger's spell changed key, as, inevitably, it must. He belonged to no pack. As Outcast, he must leave her, or risk the leadership she had won from Two-Spear at such cost. Dreamsinger's music encompassed the brightness and sorrow of that. Released from the drive of Recognition, and caught in contention between ways, Skyfire pulled free of his arms, unable to speak.
The aftermath of their joining was bittersweet. The Dreamsinger pulled on his ragged clothing with his back turned. Before the afternoon was spent, his grey wolf arose and slipped away with him into the forest.
* * *
Evening fell, and the moon rose. Skyfire sat amid drifts of falling petals. Woodbiter crouched at her feet, insistently proud of finding her; she had strayed very far from known territory. The old wolfs sides heaved as he panted, yet occasionally, in concern, he would turn his muzzle and lick at the cut on his chieftess's arm.
Skyfire scratched absently at his ears. She was hungry but had no inclination to hunt. The woodland silence oppressed her, filled her with a strange, numb emptiness that the way of the wolf could never fulfill. She would bear a cub to the Dreamsinger; such was the fruit of Recognition. But his song and his dream might leave her with more than offspring, if she was bold enough to risk leading the tribe into change.
For by the way of the wolf, Dreamsinger was Outcast. The magic of the high ones ran to madness within him. Rightly the earlier generations had driven him out, for compassion and dreams of peace had no place in pack life. Yet Skyfire had shared his visions. She had experienced the hopes of Timmain, and through them she understood that her ancestress had mated for more than the toughness and savagery of the wolf. The ancestress had wished to pass on hardiness and forest cunning, yet retain the bright dreams of the first ones. All of this had been lost over time. Skyfire's tribe lived only the way of the pack, and not an elf among them questioned why.
The chieftess rose restlessly to her feet. She drew on her boots, and blossoms fell like snow from her shoulders. She considered the cub she would bear from this mating. It might inherit its father's fey madness. By pack law, it also might suffer and be driven away into solitude. Skyfire flicked her braid back in frustration. By then she herself might not remember the song and the dream, for the wolfsong eroded the memory. This minute she perceived very clearly. If the tribe continued as it had, they would have nothing to offer their cubs but hardship and hunger and the changeable luck of the hunt. Something precious stood to be lost, perhaps without chance of recovery.
Dreamsinger himself held the answer. He wandered the forest in exile, hunting what he could forage, and driven relentlessly by gifts that had potential to kill him. Yet he had not died. His madness had harmed no others. Skyfire might bring him into the holt, and ensure the continuance of the dreams his songs inspired. But to do so defied pack law. For that the Wolfriders would challenge her, force her to fight and fight again until all had submitted to her will. Her chieftainship might be lost. She might be defeated by another, and earn death or even exile without hope of reprieve. The thought of sharing Two-Spear's cruel fate filled her with distress. Woodbiter sensed, and whined softly by her knee.
Skyfire stroked the wolfs head, but not to offer reassurance. **Find Dreamsinger,** she sent.
The wolf hesitated. Sharply impatient, the chieftess drove him forward. She had learned a thing worth fighting for, worth even the risk of total loss. Elves might hunt with wolves, and share the hardships of survival. But Dreamsinger had showed her another way, neither elf nor wolf, but a glimpse of Timmain's wise vision. Skyfire chose change. She slipped through the thickets like the wild creature she was, her ears listening keenly for distant strains of a song she still could not distinguish between the sending of an elf, or true sound.
Triple-Cross
Lieutenant Jensen paced, spun in a tight circle, then hammered an angry fist on the chart table. Loose marker pins scattered from the blow, falling like micro-shot through furniture tight-knit as a battle formation. 'Damn the man, what godforsaken plot could send him back to Guildstar?' information, maybe,' suggested Harris, who lounged with closed e
yes on the wall bunk, his pilot's coverall in its usual neglected state of crumple. Quarters on Sail were far too cramped for displays of violent frustration; by now resigned to having sleep disrupted by his senior's obsession with the obscure motivations of a criminal, Harris chose not to fight the inevitable. 'You can bet Mac James isn't making the run for any merchant's sake.'
The model of a Fleet officer in a faultlessly fitted duty coverall, Jensen swore. Black-haired and classically handsome, he leaned on his knuckles and glared at his holo map of Alliance space, which hogged whatever paltry space their quarters had to offer. The display was crisscrossed with threads and speared with markers in three colors: blue for those sites the skip-runner MacKenzie James was rumored to have visited; yellow for a confirmed sighting, and red for any station or planet or interstellar vessel that had fallen prey to his penchant for piracy. Mac James being the most wanted criminal on Fleet record, the map was peppered red from end to end.
'Or else the source you bribed is selling you a line of crap,' Harris added.
Jensen swore again. He smoothed back bangs razor-trimmed in the latest military fashion. 'My informant isn't wrong. I pay another rebel to cross-check her.'
Harris knuckled the orange stubble that roughened his jaw. He failed to open his eyes, or speak; but his silence on the subject spoke volumes.
'The two are not in cahoots,' Jensen defended, hotly enough to send another pair of markers bouncing across the narrow aisle of decking. They fetched against the corrugated plastic of the shower stall, where the lieutenant irritably retrieved them. 'My people don't even know each other, and since when does a Freer do business with a Caldlander without one sticking a knife in the other?'