The Elders

by Inbali Iserles

  “We don’t know any,” Karo pointed out.

  “The Elders know foxcraft,” said Haiki.

  One by one, the skulk fell silent, turning to look at him with new interest.

  “The Elders know,” echoed the small male, rising to his paws. There was a crook in his tail and a gray smudge on one side of his muzzle. “They can make themselves invisible, or sound like other creatures. I’ve heard they can even change their shape. Is that true?”

  “Who cares if it’s true?” the old fox growled irritably. “We don’t have anything to do with them.”

  “They’ve never done us any good whatsoever,” agreed Flint.

  “Keep to themselves,” said Karo. “Look down on ordinary skulks.”

  “But they’re keepers of foxlore—they know everything,” said Haiki in a voice of hushed awe.

  My tail twitched as I remembered Siffrin’s praise for Jana. “I don’t need the Elders.”

  The old fox snorted. “Just as well. Do you think they’d be ready to share their knowledge with a Graylands cub and a dumpy fox from the lowlands?”

  Haiki flinched but he spoke up, his voice trembling. “You can say what you like about me. I know I’m nothing special. And it’s my fault that we ate your cache … But don’t underestimate Isla.” He gave me a reassuring blink.

  “Your devotion to the cub is admirable,” said the old fox coolly. “Don’t expect such loyalty from the Elders. They won’t even help their sisters and brothers from the Upper Wildlands.” The old fox’s eyes flashed. “I’ve lived in this meadow since I was a cub, since before the Ghost Valley even existed. There were ferns there once, and hazel groves, and a pond where ducks clacked, easy prey. I’ve watched it rot. The hazels decayed. The ducks flew away and the pond sank into the mud.” His voice rose angrily. “In its place, there are noxious mushrooms and red-eyed foxes in endless numbers. They terrorize our meadows. They threaten our skulks.” He snorted through his nose. “And you from the lowlands, you seek the Elders.”

  Haiki dipped his head but the old fox wasn’t finished. “They must know what’s happening in our world. Yet they will not share their most precious gift—but for the chosen few, they will not teach us wa’akkir.”

  A shiver ran along my back, down to the tip of my brush. The shape-shifting foxcraft. I had watched Siffrin change his appearance in moments, had seen Karka, the Mage’s assassin, turn into a giant dog. I understood the power of wa’akkir.

  The old fox took in Haiki through narrowed eyes. “What makes you think you can find the Elder Rock? More experienced foxes have tried and failed. You are strangers to our land.”

  “Fa,” urged Karo, stepping toward the old fox, but she stopped when she saw the look in his eyes.

  “I won’t be silenced!” he spat. “This foolish gray should know what he’s up against.” He turned back to Haiki. “Even if you managed it, by some incredible luck—even if you crossed the shana to reach the Elder Rock—you would never gain the help you seek. You’d have wasted your time on some dangerous quest and you’d still be left without wisdom or aid. Do not be deceived into thinking the Elders care. Death and decay, yet they keep to themselves. They do nothing.”

  The old fox rose shakily to his paws, turned, and started out of the den. His long brush was skinny and patchy in places. It dragged on the earth as he walked. His voice faded as he padded away. “Do not seek foxlore as an answer to your problems. The Elders would sooner die than share its secrets.”

  The old fox shambled along the tunnel.

  I edged to Haiki’s side. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We started toward the exit. Karo and Flint stepped back to let us pass.

  The dark-furred vixen was less obliging. “So they walk free? Just like that? They ate the rabbit, Ma, the one you caught yesterday!”

  Karo sighed. “They were hungry and tired. They’d been chased by pleached foxes.”

  I paused and Haiki shuffled close to me. “What are you doing?” he mumbled. “They’re letting us go.”

  My ears twisted. It was the term the vixen had used. “Pleached.” My attention was fixed on Karo and Flint. “You mean the Taken? The Mage’s skulk?”

  Flint didn’t look so scary anymore. Now that my sight had adapted to the darkness, the patches on his face no longer made his eyes ghoulishly large. “We call them ‘pleached’ because of what’s been done to them.”

  “By the Mage?”

  “Yes, if you mean the Tailless Seer … or at least by the Narral, his inner guard.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Isla …” Haiki nudged me, his eyes wide. “We should get out of here while we can.” But I didn’t feel threatened by this skulk anymore. Above everything else, I yearned for answers.

  Flint dropped his gaze. “The ones you speak of as ‘the Taken,’ they were ordinary foxes once. But now they’re pleached. They’re the Seer’s slaves. Their wills have been sucked from their bodies.”

  I already knew that, but hearing it again made me picture those blank eyes. For the first time I wondered how it worked. How was the will extracted from a living fox? “Is pleaching … is it a foxcraft?”

  “Of a kind.” Karo lowered her voice. “We do not know how it is done. Some say there must be flames.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said one of the old vixens. “Foxes do not burn their gifts.”

  Flint’s head snapped up and his ears flicked back. “Rupus loathes the Elders for hoarding the secrets of foxlore. But they are not alone in their command of foxcraft. The Tailless Seer knows it all too well.”

  His words weighed heavily on me. I’d thought that foxcraft was a good thing, that it protected our kind from the furless. But if it could be used by one fox to control another …

  “Isla!” Haiki’s whine had grown urgent.

  I started forward again, slipping between Flint and Karo toward the narrow tunnel. “I’m sorry about the rabbit,” I murmured.

  Karo called after me. “Go safely, Cub.” The other foxes watched in silence.

  “That was close,” whispered Haiki when we were out of earshot of the others and climbing up the tunnel.

  “I don’t think they’d have hurt us. They thought we were the Taken—pleached. They were just trying to scare us. They’re scared themselves, you can sense it—terrified of the Mage and his skulk.”

  “They called him the Tailless Seer,” Haiki pointed out.

  “But they meant the same fox.”

  “Do you really think he hasn’t got a tail?” Haiki asked.

  Instinctively, my own brush swept close to my flank.

  His strange, pale eyes, that shrub of a tail.

  The answer came from above us at the mouth of the tunnel. “That is what they say.” The voice was cracked with age. It was the old fox who’d cursed the Elders and left the den in disgust. As I padded along the tunnel, I saw him come into view.

  He spoke without looking at us. “How the Seer lost his tail is a matter of endless speculation. Perhaps he was born that way. Some will tell you it was torn off in a fight with a wolf, but wolves haven’t lived this far south since the age of the furless began. Others claim it was severed in an accident. Then there are those who say he chewed it off himself, to prove pain doesn’t frighten him.” When I caught the green shimmer of the old fox’s eyes, my confidence melted. “They said we could go.” I was ashamed by the mewl in my voice.

  The old fox eyed me as I leveled alongside him by the entrance to the den. He wasn’t much taller than I was. Perhaps he had shrunk with age. “You are free to do what you choose. If that is to leave, don’t let me stop you.”

  Was there a threat beneath his words?

  Haiki was already scrambling past the old fox, climbing out of the den and stretching in the nettles. My snout drank in the night air and my ears grasped for sounds. I smelled earth, grass, wood bark. I heard wind, crickets … and something else. Far away, hard to disentangle … I strained my ears but the sound sank from my reach.r />
  I stood quite still. Then I caught it: a distant stutter of gekkers.

  The fur was sharp along my back.

  The old fox eyed me knowingly. “Pleached foxes,” he confirmed. “Could it be that they’re looking for you?”

  My tail-tip quivered. How had he guessed? “You said they stalked the Wildlands at night. Why should it be anything to do with me?”

  “I sense it,” he said. “You sense it too. Is that why they sought you out in the Graylands? I’ve never known pleached foxes to travel so far from their master’s lair.”

  “They came for my brother.”

  The old fox stared at me until I broke away, unable to hold his gaze. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “Do you wish to take your chances on the night? Wouldn’t you rather be safe in the den?” I glanced at him and his eyes glittered. I saw warmth I hadn’t noticed before.

  He turned and padded back along the tunnel, his patchy tail trailing behind him. I heard another stutter of gekkers, still distant yet drawing closer. Had the Taken crossed the valley? Had they reached the outskirts of the meadow?

  “Haiki,” I called softly. “We’ll have to stay here tonight. It isn’t safe in the meadow.”

  His broad gray face appeared between the nettles. “Go back in there? But those foxes are dangerous, Isla. They were going to kill us! Don’t tell me you trust them all of a sudden?”

  “The Mage’s skulk is roaming. We’ll have to wait it out until morning.” My muzzle tensed. “It has nothing to do with trust,” I added. “I don’t trust anyone.”

  As I turned back toward the den, I caught a glimpse of Haiki’s face. He winced, his shoulders drooping. A guilty prickle touched my whiskers.

  The scene that greeted us was very different from the one we’d left. Instead of standing up, backs arched, the foxes were reclining along a wall of the den.

  The old fox must have told the skulk about the Taken; they didn’t seem surprised to see us again. Karo and Flint were grooming each other. The young male was swatting the female’s tail. She flipped on her back and gave him a kick. The smaller male was stretched out on his belly, lapping his gray-smudged muzzle. Two mature females looked up mildly as we entered.

  The old fox sat apart from the others. “Simmi, Tao, go to the front and rear exits. If pleached foxes are prowling, we should be on guard.”

  The young male paused, his paw suspended over the female’s tail. “They’ll never find us down here.”

  “Oh, won’t they?” The old fox glared. “Do you want to wait and see if you’re right?”

  The two young foxes rose grudgingly. The male stalked to an exit at the edge of the den that I hadn’t noticed before. The female padded past me and Haiki but scarcely gave us a second look. I could hear her paws against the earth as she wove her way along the tunnel.

  The old fox turned to us. “Since you’re staying the night, and you’ve already enjoyed Karo’s prey, perhaps it’s time for proper introductions. I’ll start things off. My name is Rupus. I was born in this meadow, a little upstream. I’m older than anyone else around here. I’m probably as old as that stone mountain you’ll have crossed if you came from the lowlands.”

  Karo rolled onto her side. “I’m Rupus’s daughter, Karo. This is my mate, Flint.” She nodded at the dark-faced male. “Simmi and Tao, who just left, are our cubs from last malinta, as is Mox.” She leaned over to the small male and gave him a lick on the nose.

  “We’re Karo’s aunts,” said one of the mature vixens. “Dexa and Mips.”

  “No one around here is as old as I am,” Rupus muttered. He turned to us, his face grizzled. “What about you? You tell us you have both suffered under the Tailless Seer. We know that one of you, at least, is foolish enough to seek the aid of the Elders. What else?”

  Haiki quailed from the attention of the skulk. My tail jerked uneasily. I had already said too much. I gathered the memory of Pirie close to my heart. I wasn’t about to share it with strangers. “What do you want to know?”

  “You could start by telling us your names.”

  * * *

  Shards of light broke through the lattice of roots overhead. The skulk slept in a heap along the wall of the den, heads nestled on flanks and long brushes sweeping around one another. Even the grizzled Rupus rested his muzzle by Karo’s belly.

  I blinked away the fug of my dreamless sleep. Gazing up at the pale morning light, I thought of Pirie, remembering the carefree nights we had curled up side by side. Where was he now? When I’d searched for him in the Snarl, strange flashes of knowledge had come to me unbidden. I’d pictured him at a huge stone furless—seen flickers of graystone through Pirie’s eyes.

  I had reached him through gerra-sharm.

  But now, though I sensed that my brother was in the Wildlands—that he was closer than ever—it was harder to detect him. When I reached out my thoughts, I felt him retreat. Was he avoiding me?

  I looked around the den at the sleeping foxes. This wasn’t my skulk. It wasn’t my home.

  I didn’t have a home anymore.

  I needed to find somewhere quiet so I could reach out to Pirie through gerra-sharm. I’d let Haiki know I was leaving, that from here I’d be traveling alone. I owed him that much at least. We had run from the hunter together, and had escaped from the Taken. But as my eyes trailed over the den, I realized that Haiki wasn’t there.

  A shrill howl pierced the stillness of the morning. I knew at once that it wasn’t a fox. It was the same strange cry I’d heard in the Ghost Valley. The skulk sprang to life, alert and wild-eyed. I felt their panic fan around me as the voice was joined by others. Shrill cries tore across the meadow.

  “Coyotes,” gasped Karo. “They must be close.”

  Rupus’s face darkened. “Closer than they’ve ever come before.”

  I’d only heard one in the valley. “They move in packs?”

  “Sometimes,” said Flint, hurrying past me. His claws scrabbled along the tunnel. He must have been joined by Tao, the young male on guard. I could hear them murmuring to each other. Soon they retreated into the den.

  The young female, Simmi, appeared from the other tunnel. “It sounds like a coyote is right outside.”

  Flint spoke softly. “He’s circling the den.” He cast a wary glance at Karo. “They’ve been known to steal newborns, but there aren’t any small cubs here. I can’t imagine what they want …”

  Karo drew in her breath. “We should wait it out until they pass.”

  “You’re right,” said Flint. “The sun isn’t fully up yet. Between coyotes and pleached foxes, we’re better off down here. It’s almost dawn. At least the pleached foxes will run for the forest as soon as the light comes up.”

  Rupus was solemn. “I pity any fox roaming the meadow.”

  I rose to my paws. “Haiki’s out there.”

  Rupus clicked his tongue. “Poor dumb creature. I doubt you’ll be seeing him again.”

  Friendly, talkative Haiki … All he wanted was his family back.

  I took a step toward the exit. “I’m going to look for him.”

  Karo moved to block my path. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that. The coyotes or pleached foxes may find you, and you’d lead them straight to us. There’s nothing you can do for your friend. There is only hope. Hope that Canista’s Lights will show him a path.”

  I opened my mouth to protest but a piercing howl scorched the words from my tongue. Fear skittered over my pelt. It must have been a coyote, and yet … I felt sure I knew that voice. Then the cry took shape as a single word, over and over like a chant.

  “Isla. Isla. Isla.”

  Karo’s jaw fell open and she gazed overhead, squinting at the light between the roots. In that moment I shot past her and out of the tunnel.

  A low mist was swirling over the meadow, touched with the first pink flush of dawn. He towered above the nettles on slender legs. His nose was black, his muzzle creamy, and one of his ears was torn at the end. A jagged scar above his lip s
ent his whiskers out at an angle.

  He reminded me of Farraclaw, the wolf from the beast dens. The coyote was smaller, leaner, but he was still twice the size of a fox. There was power in his slim legs and the set of his muscular jaw.

  A rich smell drifted on the breeze. The coyote’s eyes rested on mine. Deep within that golden gaze, there was something knowing.

  My belly flipped.

  Siffrin.

  “Isla, at last …” He took a small step toward me, hopeful and strangely shy. “I thought I’d never find you.”

  Siffrin was in wa’akkir, in the shape of a coyote. His bushy coat was sandy and his short thick tail swished in the breeze.

  My fur tingled, my tail leaping up uncertainly.

  He protected me from the Taken. But he lied about my family.

  I felt footfalls from the den. Karo, Flint, Tao, and Simmi climbed out of the exit. Flint’s hackles were raised. “What are you doing here, Coyote? This is fox land. We want no trouble from your kind.”

  The coyote’s gaze lingered on me, then shifted to Flint. “And you’ll get none.”

  Karo arched her back. “You’ve already been told, get away! And take the rest of your pack.”

  “I don’t have a pack.”

  “We heard them,” Karo hissed. “Coyotes howling together.”

  I cleared my throat. “It isn’t what you think …”

  Simmi was sniffing, her ears pinned back. “There’s something strange about him, Ma.”

  Siffrin looked at me as though the others weren’t there. “You guessed it was me? Even though I karakked?”

  My ears swiveled forward and my paw rose, but I didn’t move any closer. “I knew your voice.”

  Siffrin lowered his muzzle. “I’ve searched for you since I lost you to the snatchers.”

  I held his gaze, my paw still hovering in front of me.

  “I never meant to lie to you, Isla.”

  My eyes trailed to Siffrin’s foreleg, but the mark of the broken rose was disguised in wa’akkir. He cocked his head, his expression fading from hope to regret.

  Tao, the young male, was sniffing deeply. “I thought you said you didn’t have a pack?”