Wolf Captured

by Jane Lindskold

  As Moon Frost snapped air and bowled back from the sudden pain, Firekeeper crouched and brought her bunched fist, hardened by the hilt of her fang, into the wolf's throat. The impact knocked the wind from Moon Frost, and her tail dropped for a moment.

  Firekeeper didn't let her alertness falter, but she knew she had given away some valuable information to her opponent, if Moon Frost was able to analyze what she had learned. The hilt of her knife had given Firekeeper's blow a solidity it would not have had alone, but the blade could have opened Moon Frost's breath to the wind. Would Moon Frost realize this? And would she take the information as Firekeeper intended?

  There was no time for further assessment. Moon Frost had recovered and with less calculation than before had lunged forward. Firekeeper was ready for this and rolled to one side, coming up and slashing Moon Frost a long cut on one flank. This hit no vital organs, but it clearly hurt. Blood sprayed, gluing hair and blood onto the knife, forcing Firekeeper to adjust her grip.

  The wolf-woman did not press her attack, but waited, knees slightly bent, for Moon Frost's next move. The other shook as if the blood on her head and side were rain that could be shaken off at will, but the pain from both injuries reminded her that it could not. For a long moment Moon Frost stared at Firekeeper, her golden-brown eyes wide with a mingling of astonishment and pain. Then very deliberately, she crumpled onto her uninjured side and rolled onto her back, exposing vulnerable throat and belly.

  Firekeeper saw fear in Moon Frost's eyes, and heard a whimper that would not have been expressed were Moon Frost surrendering to a wolf of her own pack. The fear was that, after all, Firekeeper was not a wolf and would not honor surrender.

  Firekeeper approached and let the bleeding wolf lick her hands and feet.

  "Up with you," she said gruffly to the quivering Moon Frost. "You'll get elk shit in your cuts and the pack will be deprived of a fine hunter."

  Moon Frost rose trembling, her head low, her gaze downcast.

  "I know something of mending bites as well as of making them," Firekeeper said. "Come with me and I will make sure you do not take lasting harm."

  Together the former combatants limped off to the nearby stream, and no one, not even Blind Seer, followed.

  Chapter XIX

  Harjeedian grew very tense and sharp-tempered in the days following Rahniseeta's less than conclusive visit to u-Bishinti. She was secure enough in her knowledge that she had done everything that could have been expected of her not to worry that his current mood was somehow her fault. However, after several days, she was quite tired of being snapped at for the slightest reason. That the outburst was almost immediately followed by an apology did not help, and so when Rahniseeta reached the point that she realized she was making excuses to leave for her room almost as soon as Harjeedian arrived in their suite, she grasped the snake firmly behind the head.

  "Harjeedian, what is wrong with you?"

  "Nothing," he said.

  He had been about to take a seat in his chair at their dining table, but now he made as if to rise and leave. Rahniseeta moved behind her brother and pressed him down into the chair.

  "Nothing, nonsense," she said. "You're as edgy as a snake with pre-shedding blindness. Wash the liquid from your scales and take a look."

  Harjeedian sagged into the chair, and Rahniseeta realized that he was actually relieved to have her confront him. Oddly, this worried her more than if he had continued to assert that nothing was wrong. Harjeedian was so much the older brother, so confident—and protective—that even this mute admission of need was disturbing.

  Harjeedian reached for the pitcher of peach nectar set on the table and poured himself a tumbler. Rahniseeta took her hands from his shoulders and moved to her own seat. She had cadged some fresh blueberry muffins from the kitchens when on an errand there for one of the kidisdum, and now slid the plate over to her brother.

  Harjeedian took a muffin, but didn't bite into it. Instead, he sat staring at the pastry as if he might read omens from the way the blue fruit bled into the surrounding cake. Rahniseeta didn't press him. He had stayed, and would speak when his thoughts were in order.

  "Nothing," Harjeedian said at last, setting down the muffin untasted, "has gone right since the day we took Lady Blysse and Derian Counselor aboard the riverboat."

  Rahniseeta made an encouraging sound.

  "They were not at all the type of people Waln Endbrook led me to believe they would be," Harjeedian continued. "In some ways they were far better. Waln's report had made them out to be connivers and scoundrels. Although I distrusted him sufficiently not to take his opinion at face value, still my three captives had more honor than I expected. They were angry, yes, but they kept the terms of their parole, and Derian, at least, made a serious effort to learn our language.

  "I am beginning to think that very parole is the wellspring of our difficulties. In showing them that we valued them and were willing to treat with them as equals, we permitted them to keep some sense of self-worth. Had I kept them belowdecks, fed and exercised them only when they performed as I wished… "

  His voice trailed off, and Rahniseeta knew that these thoughts were not his own. Harjeedian was ambitious, but he was not cruel. He would never have answered obedience with harshness. It was her place to remind him how he had seen the situation then rather than how he saw it now, through the distorting glass of later events.

  "Harjeedian, you were the teacher who taught me that one does not train a snake to dance by making it fear the swaying of the flute," Rahniseeta said. "Why would you have done differently with these humans you wished to train? Moreover, Lady Blysse companioned a Wise Wolf. Could you have harmed her without offending the wolf, and so offending the deities? Your behavior was perfectly in keeping with the teachings of both the temples and the gods."

  Harjeedian picked a blueberry from his muffin, but didn't raise it to his lips.

  "Perhaps," he said, "but the fact is that when we arrived here, my captives—no matter how prettily u-Liall names them 'guests,' they were captives—were prepared not to serve, but to negotiate. Negotiate is what they have done, and the only gain we have taken in these negotiations is a greater knowledge of their language and country—things we could have learned from the northerners already in our keeping."

  "You are too harsh with yourself," Rahniseeta replied. "First, you speak as if that knowledge is useless. It is not. Second, I do not think even Barnet Lobster knew as much of Hawk Haven as do the other two. They also have traveled to this other land, this New Kelvin, and have told us something about that place and its customs. Barnet knew little more than fireside stories about New Kelvin. I know this for certain, for he has told me how eager he is to learn more."

  Harjeedian squashed the blueberry into his plate.

  "But that is not why they were brought here!" he said. "They were brought here specifically so that Lady Blysse might teach us the language of the yarimaimalom. Not only has she failed to do that, now there is even talk that our learning such would be sacrilege—an offense to the deities and the beasts alike."

  "I don't understand," Rahniseeta said.

  Harjeedian drew in a deep breath and finally took a drink. He seemed vaguely surprised to find the nectar warm—as it would be, after being left so long outside of the cooling thickness of the pitcher.

  "What is strangest," he said, "is that while there are several factions willing to argue that our learning to speak directly to the yarimaimalom would be sacrilege, they do not all agree why our learning to do so would be sacrilege. Indeed, some of the objections verge on being sacrilegious themselves."

  "I think," Rahniseeta said, "that before you explain further, you had better tell me what some of these objections are. Why, by the way, didn't anyone make them before Fayonejunjal was sent north?"

  "Who knows?" Harjeedian said. "It is a jaguar year and everyone is insane."

  Then he grinned. "Actually, I think no one bothered with any objections because no one really belie
ved we would find Lady Blysse or that if we did find her we would be able to bring her back with us. The fact that we succeeded has unsettled those who were ready to protest the cost and wasted resources of such an ill-thought expedition."

  "And now they look for other ways to protest?" Rahniseeta guessed.

  "That," Harjeedian said, "and a hand of other reasons. As I said, it is a jaguar year. The ahmyndisdu is very young and has enemies."

  Rahniseeta put this aside. "Tell me how learning to speak to the yarimaimalom could possibly be thought sacrilege. We can go from there."

  Harjeedian sighed, but he actually ate half of his muffin before beginning, and Rahniseeta felt relieved.

  "When Waln first told us of Lady Blysse and her ability to speak with the yarimaimalom, most of us thought that this would be a wonderful thing to do. It would almost be as good as speaking directly to the deities themselves. As things are now, we must rely on signs and portents. Even the wheels and charts we use are limited in the range of meanings they can convey."

  Rahniseeta nodded. She knew this, but like most who have spent a great deal of time in teaching and being taught, Harjeedian had a very orderly way of presenting information.

  "One of the first objections raised to our learning to speak the language of the yarimaimalom was that it would further lower the lesser beasts in our estimation, for who would go through the more laborious divinations if they could simply ask a question and get a clear answer?"

  Rahniseeta nodded again. "I can see this. It would further intensify the debates that have been going on since our people first encountered the yarimaimalom. Aren't there those who have never trusted the Wise Beast auguries?"

  "They are reactionaries," Harjeedian said rather angrily, though Rahniseeta knew the anger wasn't directed at her. "If we followed their ideas to their logical conclusion, we would be pushed back to the days of animal sacrifice."

  "True," Rahniseeta replied. "Though how many of those would like the reinstitution of the ancient rite wherein one of every beast that crawled or swam or walked or flew—including human beings—were sacrificed I am not certain."

  "A few of them probably would like it," Harjeedian said darkly. "If you read between the lines in some of the older histories, it is implied that this was a great way to get rid of enemies."

  Rahniseeta smiled. "But none of those who currently sit as u-Liall will let the yarimaimalom be rejected, so we need not worry. Is the only objection to our learning the language of the yarimaimalom that the lesser beasts would be discounted?"

  "That is only the slightest ripple that heralds the windstorm," Harjeedian said. "Related to the first objection is another. These say that the achievement of free speech between humans and yarimaimalom would encourage the yarimaimalom to turn the auguries to their own advantage. Some have always argued that the yarimaimalom gave less true auguries than the lesser beasts because the yarimaimalom might have their own agendas and seek to promote them. This argument has always been countered by reminding that the yarimaimalom 'speak' to us within the context of holy traditions—that the deities have provided a balance in this way."

  "But," Rahniseeta said, "if we could talk to the yarimaimalom directly, there would be no need for these traditions and rituals."

  She felt a chill touch the back of her neck, though the weather remained hot and sultry.

  "I can see," she said, speaking honestly, "why some fear we verge on sacrilege. This begins to frighten me."

  Harjeedian gave her a crooked smile. "If it frightens you, sister mine, imagine how it frightens the aridisdum. You and I have spent enough years in the temple precincts that I know I can speak honestly. I think all who rise high in the divine service have some respect for the deities, but though I may be verging on yet another sacrilege, I do not think that all those initiated believe with the same depth. Indeed, I suspect our mat-weaving mother believed in Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Magic more devoutly than do many who dwell within the temples and daily walk before the altars."

  Rahniseeta felt a little sad, but she knew what Harjeedian said was true—even of herself. She thought how she had felt when u-Liall had met and she had been expected to remain. She had not feared because they represented the divine, but because she knew they were all too human.

  An extension of this was that she no longer felt awe of them as if they were near to the deities. Her mother would have been nearly as impressed to meet the ahmyndisdu as to meet Fire. However, it had never occurred to Rahniseeta that the aridisdu who spent so much time and energy studying the holy writings and traditions might lose some of their own simple faith.

  She looked at Harjeedian and wondered if he still believed in the deities he had striven so hard to learn how to serve. She also knew she would never ask.

  Harjeedian went on, "Leaving faith and depth of faith aside, let us take this new course to its logical extension. Let us say that we learn to speak directly to the yarimaimalom. Next, let us say that it happens that the yarimaimalom come to be favored over the lesser for auguries. Perhaps except in the temples where the lesser beasts give other service—as in our own and in the Temple of the Horse—the lesser beasts are all released, or at least their populations are not replenished. In a human lifetime, we would reach a point where many would think the aridisdum would no longer be necessary."

  "No!" Rahniseeta said, but Harjeedian was shaking his head and looking sour.

  "Yes, sister mine," he said. "The primary role of the aridisdum is to interpret auguries. If we spoke directly to the yarimaimalom, then there would be no longer any need to interpret auguries."

  "Are you so certain?" Rahniseeta asked, but she knew her own argument was weak. "I have talked some with Lady Blysse. I admit she's a foreigner, but it is quite clear she does not see the world as you and I do. Who is to say that a wolf or jaguar or snake would speak without need of interpretation?"

  Harjeedian reached across and squeezed her hand.

  "I'll remember that argument the next time someone talks of our becoming obsolete, but I fear the quick answer—the one that immediately came to my mind—is that the kidisdum would be as good interpreters in that case, for all that would be needed would be an understanding of animal nature, not an understanding of hundreds of years of divine will."

  Rahniseeta refused to argue the point further, for she could tell it would do little good. She settled for feeling satisfied that she had made Harjeedian think.

  "So far we have three possible ways that learning to speak directly to the yarimaimalom could lead us into sacrilege," she said. "Are there any more?"

  "Isn't that enough?" Harjeedian said. "There are many. There is the question of where Lady Blysse fits into the hierarchy."

  "Does she fit at all?" Rahniseeta asked, astonished. "How could she?"

  "How couldn't she?" Harjeedian countered. "We have let her go to Misheemnekuru and the yarimaimalom have let her go among them. That means we must accept her as a Wise Beast—as she herself has always claimed."

  "And the yarimaimalom are accepted as conduits of divine wisdom… " Rahniseeta said. She pressed her clenched fists into her temples. "My head hurts!"

  "Mine hurts worse," Harjeedian said. "What I have told you are only a few of the arguments raised to suggest we verge on heresy. I have spared you those based on divine texts. I have spared you those that argue we must set aside the current u-Liall and appoint another. I have spared you those that are not religious at all, but only based on fear of finding that we disdum will be flung out into the world on the heels of the lesser beasts—or even before."

  "Before?" Rahniseeta felt a panicked fear for the same peaceful productive life that a few days earlier had felt like a trap.

  "Certainly before," Harjeedian said bitterly. "After all, we owe the lesser beasts care and shelter since many of those we keep for divination have become dependent on us. However, if they are not going to be used for auguries any longer—and, remember, this assumes that the ability to speak directly with th
e yarimaimalom would replace those auguries—then why would we need aridisdum to interpret the auguries?"

  Rahniseeta laughed, but there was no humor in the sound.

  "No wonder there is such eagerness among the aridisdum to learn Pellish. They wonder if they might need a new way to earn their keep."

  Harjeedian didn't laugh in response. "You speak closer to the truth than you realize. One place that it has been thought that lesser beast auguries would continue to be useful are in outlying areas where the yarimaimalom might not care to live. If we begin trade to the north, we would need aridisdum aboard."

  Rahniseeta did not need to reassure her brother that he would continue to be useful, even if every other aridisdu in the land was rendered obsolete. She realized that his anxiety was not for himself, but for what he might have released into their land.

  "Maybe Lady Blysse will not teach us how to speak to the yarimaimalom," Rahniseeta said, but she didn't feel a great deal of hope.

  It seemed too much that what had been started could be solved so easily. Even if Lady Blysse refused to teach them the language of the yarimaimalom, she herself would continue to exist. If only she didn't exist. If only the yarimaimalom would reject her. If only she would die.

  Rahniseeta felt horrified, for she had almost liked the strange feral woman, but the idea wouldn't go away.

  If only Lady Blysse would die. Then everything would go back to normal. If only she would die… or something would kill her.

  Waln knew what he wanted. He wanted what the Liglimom had promised him—to go home to the Isles in such a position that he could reclaim his family and fortune. He realized that the Liglimom hadn't given him a promise in any form he could insist be enforced. It wasn't as though any vows had been spoken or contracts exchanged. They hadn't even shaken hands on the deal, but Waln knew what had been implied in the silky words and long speeches: You give us what we want. We'll give you what you want.

  He'd given the Liglimom what they wanted. They had Lady Blysse, her wolf, and her keeper. That he'd gotten the satisfaction of seeing a few of those who had wronged him get their comeuppance wasn't the point. The Liglimom owed him a triumphal return to the Isles, the type of return that would make Queen Valora not only rescind his exile, but shower him with new and higher titles. He wanted a return that would make her realize how she had wronged him, a return that would make her fear him, and the threat he offered to her crown. Whatever it took, Waln was going to get what was coming to him.