The Black Wolves

by Kate Elliott

  “This man is a mute. He can’t answer your questions with his mouth.”

  The chief turned on them, eyes wild with what Gil could now identify as terror.

  “His name is Avimon,” added Gap Tooth in more of a mumble than a voice. “He’s a shoemaker in Wolf Quarter. Story goes that he’s never been able to make any kind of sound. He’s trying to talk to you with his hands, Chief.”

  “Stop,” said the chief to the soldiers, and they tucked themselves up tight and backed away. He gave Gap Tooth a nod of permission, and the man hurried forward to untie Avimon.

  Men huddled in groups, trying not to look at the arms and legs and feet and hands, the head, the internal organs dug out of the eviscerated torso, the entrails covered by flies. The wind blew out of the east, mercifully carrying the smell away from them.

  “Tell me what you know,” said the chief to Gil.

  No sense in giving up too much about his illustrious ancestry. “I am sure you can tell by looking at me that both of my grandfathers were Qin soldiers who rode into the Hundred with King Anjihosh. I heard a few stories straight from their lips, before they died. One of the things my father’s father told me was that a few of the Qin soldiers got to pushing into the grasslands, thinking to carve out a herding life like the one they had come from back on the steppe. They grew up with flocks, movable houses, that sort of thing. In response the lendings would kill a man in this fashion as a warning not to cross the boundaries that had been agreed upon between them and the king.”

  “We are right here by the road,” cried the chief hoarsely, “so how are we to know where the boundaries are? This never happened before on any of my runs!”

  “How many runs have you made?” Gil asked, congratulating himself for his cleverness in probing with more questions while the chief was rattled. “On any of the other runs did men attempt to escape into the Lend?”

  Chief Roni scratched at the back of his neck, thinking it over. But just as Gil thought the chief might actually reply, Gap Tooth set Avimon on his feet.

  “Tell him to answer my question!” shouted the chief.

  “He’s mute, not deaf,” mumbled Gap Tooth.

  The mute man rubbed his wrists. Because he still had his back to the road he had not seen the horrific remains. The sketch he made of words was so simple and innocent that Gil wondered if he even had a full basket of wits.

  “He went out to take a shit, Chief; says he got permission from the sentry,” said Gap Tooth, reading the truncated hand-talk. “Then he stumbled around, heard something, got scared, got hit over the head, and when he woke up he was tied up and blindfolded. I’d believe him. Avimon the shoemaker was known as an honest man in Wolf Quarter, and there aren’t many of them. I can’t even call myself one.”

  He caught Gil’s eye as he spoke and gave a wink. Gil couldn’t help but grin.

  “And what’s your name?” the chief asked, studying Gap Tooth as if trying to decide if he had an ax hidden about his bare torso with which he meant to chop up the rest of them.

  “Menon, Chief. I’m just a common street rat, a terrible disappointment to my hardworking parents. I mean no offense. Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Let’s get moving,” said the chief, keeping his back stalwartly turned to the road.

  The men moved out in staggered ranks, swinging wide to avoid the awful sight. Only when they left the night’s campsite far behind did the columns tighten back up into military precision, feet slapping on the stone of the road. Men glanced frequently toward the grasslands rising to the east as if expecting lendings to charge out of the grass and slaughter them, not that a single one of them had the slightest idea of what a lending even looked like.

  Why would the lendings strike now? Gil wondered. Was it a warning no one knew how to read? People had mostly forgotten the old covenants set up in ancient days, even the ones recently reinforced during the reigns of King Anjihosh and King Atani.

  Beside him, Menon said, “That took guts for you to intervene like that.”

  “I don’t like pissing on people who can’t defend themselves. How do I know you?”

  “You still don’t remember us, do you, you prick? We fought over that Silver’s coach. We tried to steal it from you.”

  Gil laughed until his stomach hurt, and for the first time in days even Ty cracked a smile.

  “I’m Menon, as I said. This asshole who farts all the time is Kurard, and this tiny dick here is Posenas but don’t bother to listen to anything he has to say because it is all shit.”

  Tyras looked over his shoulder at Gil, his glance a question, which was the most Gil had gotten out of him for days. Adiki raised an eyebrow.

  Gil said, “No law against us forming our own little cohort, is there? I like to think I can trust a man who tried to steal what I had already stolen. Aui! The gods have a strange sense of humor.”

  In the vanguard a man began to chant the Tale of the Demon Hunter, the splendid story of a reeve who tracks a demon across the Hundred, although the story was actually a detailed tour of the location of all the known demon’s coils. Even the weariest of men walked straighter as they called out the responses and thumped their useless sticks for emphasis as they strode along. Chief Roni paced the line, and after a while he fetched up walking alongside Gil.

  “Don’t think you’ve impressed me with your big talk,” said the chief. “I crush lads like you because you think you know so much just because you have Qin grandfathers. Those men are all dead now, aren’t they? But I’m alive and I’m right here watching for you to do one wrong thing. Do you understand me?”

  Tyras, Adiki, Natas, Menon, Kurard, Posenas, and even piss-soaked Avimon all looked at him, waiting to see how he would answer. Yet for the first time in days, perversely, Gil felt a lightening in his heart. Maybe this was what it was like to climb Law Rock.

  He ventured a falsely placating smile, the one he learned to use as a boy to worm his way out of mischief. “I won’t give you any trouble, Chief Roni. I’ve learned my lesson seeing that poor man cut up like a cow at the butcher’s shop. For all we know, you did it yourself to teach us all a lesson. One we will never forget.”

  “Don’t get cocky, boy. You’re laying it on too thick.”

  Gil braced himself for a fist or a knife, but instead the chief called for his horse.

  “I’ve got my eye on you,” he added before he rode away to the head of the line while they marched in the vanguard’s dust. South, to points unknown. For the first time Gil really began to wonder where in the hells they were going, and why.

  42

  Awake before dawn Sarai lay curled on the mattress, chewing on her nails, until at last the sun came up. She dressed and carried her book out to the queen’s garden, Tayum ten paces behind her. This was how it would be from now on.

  She sank onto a bench and scrubbed her eyes until the tears stopped trying to flow. What if she never heard from Great-Aunt Tsania? Abrisho could withhold all communication if she did not submit. If she married Prince Tavahosh surely she would have some control over her own finances, some freedom of movement…

  No. She wouldn’t do it.

  A screek-screek noise scraped at her ears. Beyond the wall the flag with crossed spears was being drawn up the pole of the commander’s pavilion, cloth drooping shapelessly on this windless morning. She ran to the gate and slammed a fist against it as a startled Tayum hurried after.

  “I wish to visit the commander’s pavilion,” she said into the closed grille.

  The locks and latches clicked and the gate was opened just as Tayum reached her. She slipped through before he could grab her. There stood King Jehosh on the other side, smiling.

  “I waited for you yesterday, Lady Sarai, but you never came … You’ve been crying.” A frown tightened his eyes as Tayum appeared in the gap. The king spoke harshly in Sirni, and Sarai caught the gist of his anger: Had Queen Chorannah mistreated Lady Sarai because of the king’s command that she take tea with him?

 
; A woman walked out from behind the curve of the Assizes Tower and waved merrily at Sarai. With Jehosh still lecturing Tayum, Sarai hurried over to her. Kasarah’s bright smile flattened to a look of concern, and she extended a hand.

  Sarai grasped it. “Please … I…” She was out of breath, overcome by relief and fear.

  Kasarah led her around to the back of the tower, where a small terrace overlooked the Istri Plain. Stray leaves swept its stones, and a single redbeak fluttered away as they walked closer. The view over a patchwork of fields and tidy villages would have captured Sarai’s interest another time. Kasarah sat her on cushions at a low table where tea things and platters of food had been decoratively arranged. It would have been tempting if she had been hungry.

  “You’re shaking, Lady Sarai,” she said, still holding Sarai’s hand, her fingers cool and her grip comforting.

  A flare of incandescent frustration flamed up inside her. “Can you get me out of here? Your brother showed me a secret passage that leads out of the king’s chambers. You must know where it is, too. He had a key.”

  Kasarah’s brows tightened. She glanced toward the sound of her father’s voice, still berating Tayum. “I cannot move as freely in the upper palace as my brother can. You and I cannot walk through the palace or ask the aid of guards without being held for questioning. We might even be abused, if we met the wrong men, those drunk on power who don’t fear the king. They might harm us as a means to insult him. I can’t risk it.”

  Sarai scanned the tower from its roof down along its whitewashed sides and shuttered windows marking rooms on each of its four floors to a narrow door. Unlike the formal entrance ramp at the front, this modest door was not chained and barred.

  There was a more dangerous way to turn the queen against her, and it loped eagerly alongside her ever-present desire to investigate the hidden workings of the world. She stood, tugging Kasarah up with her.

  “You said you would show me the demon’s coil.”

  The princess hesitated, glancing again toward the unseen men, who were still arguing. Without a word she led Sarai to the door. It had no latch but rather a complicated lock whose mechanism was a puzzle. Kasarah hid its workings from Sarai’s sight but Sarai listened to the pattern and tones of the clicks and their final clunk, trying to memorize the pattern.

  Kasarah pushed the heavy door inward to reveal a corridor.

  After the misery of the last few days it was not quite true that every thought fled Sarai’s mind behind a brilliant flash of utter stark exhilaration, or that the expectation that she might actually see a demon’s coil up close made the whole world light as with the blinding power of the rising sun. But it felt that way, all thoughts of Tavahosh obliterated.

  A shadow fell on her neck. “Move quickly. A demon’s haunts are forbidden even to a king.”

  Grinning like a mischievous child, Jehosh stepped past them into the dim corridor. They followed him into a musty hall lined with benches set in a semicircle facing a dais. Dust lay so heavy on the floor that each step left a print. Lines of light shone through gaps in age-warped shutters.

  Kasarah released Sarai’s hand to pick up an unlit lamp conveniently left beside the door.

  “This way,” said the king, taking the lamp from his daughter.

  “What is this chamber?” Sarai asked.

  “Back before my grandfather saved the Hundred, the land was ruled by demons. They called themselves Guardians, and pretended to act as judges. That is how assizes courts came to be set up in every region and town and village. People brought their conflicts, and the local assizes court settled the case. Difficult and important cases were brought to the attention of the so-called Guardians.” He indicated the benches and the dais. “One or more demons would preside. Their word became law.”

  “If demons can see into the hearts of people, then they would always know the truth of any matter, would they not?”

  “If you could see into the hearts of people, how would you be sure your own judgment was not compromised by your own selfish wishes?” he countered.

  “I wonder the same thing. Yet how do we know which of our wishes are selfish, and which necessity? Isn’t it always our duty to judge as righteously as we know how?”

  He cocked his head to one side, examining her, then deftly sparked flint and lit the lamp. Oil hissed up its wick. The lamplight gave him an aura, shining golden on his face.

  “Yet here we are, Lady Sarai, breaking the very law I, as king, swore to uphold. Selfish, or necessary? Do you want to go on?”

  Her mirror tingled against her thigh. “Yes.”

  “Kasarah, you stay up here. Close the door, and keep watch.”

  The princess looked at Sarai and tilted her head as if asking Sarai’s permission. But there was no time to reply because Sarai had to hurry after the impatient king. Kasarah could not help her, however sympathetic she seemed.

  Beyond a stone archway, steps descended into the rock. He led the way quite boldly for a man who had just told her this journey was forbidden even for a king; a reckless rebel lived in him, too, she thought. Like Gil he was a man happy to be goaded into action. The stairs ended in a tiny anteroom with a single opening: a doorway whose lintel was carved with outstretched wings. Beyond lay a stygian hall without door or window whose dimensions she could not discern. By now the mirror prickled so harshly against her thigh that she set her book down on the last step and took the mirror from under her outer skirt, holding it up so its burnished surface faced the darkness.

  To her shock, the floor of the hall started to gleam as if the polished surface of the mirror had woken it.

  A demon’s coil was indeed engraved into the rock like a ribbon of crystal. The king whistled softly as a delicate threadlike glamor intensified to trace a hexagonal spiral maze distorted with convoluted turns and reversals, so exactly like the one on Demon’s Eye Peak that she wanted to measure it to compare. This massive spiral coiled around a center of writhing blue flame that looked and acted like the magical fire housed in the glass vessel in the tower of the estate where she had grown up, which only Ri Amarah women and girls were allowed to see.

  She had been up in the flame tower the day she had decided to force her uncle to allow her to marry a man she had never met.

  Breath fled. Her soul soared at the stunning mystery and beauty of the radiant path.

  The mirror burned against her fingers. Blue light crawled along the lines incised onto the mirror’s back. The engraving came very close to mirroring the demon’s coil. Odd convolutions in the coil looked like the splintered remains of the diagonal lines cut across the spiral lines on the mirror’s back.

  The women of her people kept a magical blue flame trapped in glass vessels to protect themselves. Did the coils also cage magic, or were they some manner of lens or tool that channeled it?

  Like strands blown astray from a spiderweb, threads of light chased from the mirror’s face toward the entry point of the coil. When the thread touched the tip of the coil, light flared so strongly that she threw up her free arm to cover her eyes. Cold throbbed from the heart of the mirror, icing her face and freezing her hand until her bones ached.

  “We should go back. This isn’t safe.” Each syllable of the king’s whisper made pulses of light dance along the coil. He retreated to the arch. “Lady Sarai!”

  Ri Amarah women carried mirrors not for vanity’s sake. Magic, so Ri Amarah children were taught, was too dangerous for men. But girls had to be women before they were given a mirror of their own and taught these secrets. She hadn’t married a Ri Amarah man but she was married and thus, by her people’s custom, an adult woman. She had the right to know.

  She eased forward across the floor right up to the entrance to the coil, its edge like glowing stone laid into the earth.

  “Lady Sarai! Come back from there! It is death to touch a coil!”

  She knelt and set the mirror down on the floor, faceup, then pushed it forward until the incised back slid fully onto the gl
eaming path although she still touched the handle.

  A shivering force like the exhalation of a thousand whispers raced up her arm. At first, beneath the luminous blue pattern that shone through from the back, all she saw reflected in the mirror was her cheek with its scar making the flare of a crescent moon, her mouth open in awe, and her eyes dark with wonder.

  Slowly, shadows churned up within the mirror’s surface like a creature trying to break free of murky waters.

  There shimmered into view a monstrous visage, a face whose single eye was a spiral coil grown into its flesh as a glittering scar. Threads of blue fire like burning veins shone on its face.

  It spoke through a gash of a mouth.

  “Don’t wake them!”

  She recoiled, dragging the mirror off the coil. With trembling hands she tucked it under her outer skirt.

  The bright coil faded until its spiraling shape was nothing more than an afterimage swirling into oblivion, dwindling, and then vanished. She blinked perhaps ten times before she realized the solitary pinprick of light in the otherwise pitch-black chamber belonged to the lamp.

  “Lady Sarai?” The lamp swayed as the king took several steps into the dark, brave man! Shadows hid his expression; lamplight pooled along the floor, revealing the steps behind him.

  “Don’t move, Your Highness. I’ll walk toward you,” she said.

  “Are you injured?”

  “No, Your Highness.” She slid her feet along the stone floor, sure an abyss would yawn open at her feet and swallow her. Her pulse surged, heart thunderous in her ears. Words poured out as implications cascaded through her mind. “Are the coils natural outgrowths like the hexagonal patterns in a honeycomb or the seed spirals of sunflowers? Or are they magical constructions built according to an unknown principle of proportion that can safely house magic? Are the mirrors incised in imitation or are they also—”