“But it is because she is High Prince that my sister might act to spare the lives of Riders who are, after all, still her People.” Moon shrugged. “If they can be forced through the Portals, as Sunset on Water says his squad was, they need not be killed.” She contemplated Alejandro, almost as though she were measuring him. “You forget, while you were here, we have all lived through a civil war, and that is something she will work to avoid.”
“Wait just a second.” Chin in hand, Elaine was tapping her cheek with her index finger. “Right now the High Prince can’t send us any soldiers—not unless we come up with the Horn. But these guys, who are already here, are willing to fight against the Hunt? How is this a bad thing?”
“Sure, but once the Hunt are gone, and the Portals are closed, what keeps these Riders honest? Why should they keep their hands off us, Ellie?” Nik had a lot more experience in dealing with nonhumans than Elaine had.
“But couldn’t the High Prince make them swear to keep their side of the bargain?” Elaine looked from Alejandro to Moon and back again. “That’s what they’re doing right now, isn’t it? Keeping their oaths?”
“But that is a dra’aj oath,” Moon said. “Even if Cassandra had the Chant to it, even if she would consider using it, a dra’aj oath can only be given once.”
Elaine sat back in her chair, holding her cup in front of her, silently whistling through her teeth. Finally she nodded. “Okay. If the Hunt isn’t stopped, none of this is going to matter to us. So we’ll deal with the Rider problem if it ever comes. We don’t even know that the High Prince will agree to speak with these new guys.” She waited until Alejandro and Moon both nodded before continuing. “Okay. Now, if these Basilisk Warriors are open to negotiation, is there any way for us to negotiate with the Hunt?”
“No.” Both Riders spoke at once.
Nik held up a finger, and Elaine, still blinking from the abruptness of the answer, turned to him. “Valory said they’re addicts, that they’re actually addicted to dra’aj.” He glanced at the Riders, and they nodded. “You know what that means, Ellie. They’re junkies. They’ll do anything, say anything, and then won’t feel bound by it. And, in any case, I don’t see what we could offer them.”
Moon looked from Nik to Elaine. “How is it that you have such a quick understanding of this curse? The High Prince has it as well, and the Guardian.”
“Addiction is something known and understood in the Shadowlands,” Alejandro pointed out. “Humans have lived with it for all of their history.”
Elaine frowned. “I was hoping we could offer them controlled access to the dra’aj we—the Outsiders—use.” She turned to Nik. “People are dying all the time, all over the world, so there must be lots of dra’aj we’re not using. Surely we could offer them that? An orderly and organized use of the available resources?”
“You mean like in some countries where you can register and get your heroin or whatever from the government?” Nik said.
“Exactly.”
Moon leaned forward, frowning, searching all their faces. “But why would they agree?” she said. “You speak as if you could control this access, as if you could stop them, or as if they needed you to find and provide dra’aj for them. Why would they care about controls? They believe the dra’aj here is limitless, they will not stop.” Moon held her cup close to her, as if using it like a shield. “They cannot stop.”
“Cows don’t negotiate with us to provide milk,” Nik said. His voice sounded hallow to his own ears. Elaine turned to him, the distress on her face replaced with determination.
“So some kind of treaty with these other Riders may be a smart move, if we can’t negotiate with the Hunt.” She nodded. “But if we also help to destroy the Hunt…” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes grew distant.
Nik brought his hands down on his knees. “Look, if we can destroy them without an assist from the Basilisk Warriors, so much the better. If we can’t, we accept their help and hope we’ll find some way out of that quicksand when the time comes.”
“‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’” Elaine said. This time her smile was real.
“Yeah, exactly. So this new offer doesn’t affect us, not really. We’re still waiting to see if the Horn gets found.” Nik paused, his thoughts still turning. “The Hunt can only be killed by a Rider—and a Rider who has gra’if at that.” He looked at Alejandro. “What about injuring them? Slowing them down?”
The Rider was shaking his head, but as if he was thinking. “The Troll, Mountain Crag, drove one off with his hammers. So they can be injured.” He looked at Nik. “Can you use a gun?”
“I have, sure. And with the newer ones it’s fairly simple.” He made a pistol shape with his hand. “Point and shoot. The trick is to get hold of one, not so easy in this country.”
Alejandro waved this away. “For someone who can Move?”
“All right. Now we’re talking. If Wolf and Valory come back with the Horn, we’ve got a weapon against the Hunt. Remove the threat of the Hunt, and we don’t need any help from the other guys.” The two Riders exchanged another look. “Or am I missing something?”
“Wolf’s goals may not be identical to ours,” Moon said.
“Wolf’s okay—” Nik started to respond, but Elaine put up a hand and he subsided.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“Wolf means to offer the Hunt a chance to be Healed, as he was.”
Nik was on his feet. “You mean Wolf is a Hound?” He leaned across the table toward Moon. “And you let him take Valory?” Alejandro was also on his feet, but froze when Moon clapped her hands, once, sharply.
“Sit down, both of you.” She waited until they had. “Yes, Wolf was once a Hound. But he was cured by the High Prince herself. Cured, trusted, and made part of her fara’ip. Is it so surprising that he wishes to offer the same opportunity to those who stand in the same mire that once dirtied him?”
“What if they refuse Wolf’s offer? They’d be destroyed then, wouldn’t they?” Elaine asked.
“Like mad dogs,” Nik said.
Moon frowned. “They are dogs, and they are mad.” She looked up. “Wolf agreed.”
Nik’s cell rang—he didn’t remember programming it with “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies”—and he fished it out of his pocket. “It’s Hawk,” he told the others. “We’re at the office, but—”
A SNAP! of displaced air, and Hawk and Poco were in the room.
“Gee, lucky I already had company,” Elaine said, getting to her feet.
“Your pardon, señorita.” Hawk was suddenly next to her, kissing her hand. “I presumed—”
“Relax, I was joking, mostly.”
Hawk, Elaine’s hand held between his, searched her face. “You do not look as though you are finding much at which to laugh.”
Poco nodded at Nik, his eyebrows slightly raised. Nik rolled his eyes, and was answered with a shrug. He supposed he would have to put up with everyone checking him over for the next little while. Poco propped himself against Elaine’s desk, leaving the other client chair for Hawk.
Both Hawk and Poco switched their attention to Alejandro and Moon, but, after retrieving her hand from Hawk and sitting down, it was Elaine who spoke up. She’d had plenty of practice summing things up for courtroom digestion, and had the newcomers up to speed in no time.
“Which of us will take this Sunset’s offer to the High Prince?” Alejandro said. Nik joined everyone else in looking at Moon and Hawk.
“When we are ready, I could easily go,” Moon said. “But I suggest we delay. This Rider wants to meet with Nighthawk.” She raised her eyes to look at the Sunward Rider. “You knew his father, and it’s likely you would be able to make an assessment of him, and his offer.”
Hawk nodded. “Then I should be on my way. I would like to get to the meeting point early.”
“I’ll come with you.” Poco straightened to his feet. Poco was more relaxed than Nik had seen him in days. The time he’d spent wi
th Nighthawk must have done something to improve his opinion of Riders.
Hawk, however, was shaking his head. “Better I should go alone. Whatever he may have said, Sunset on Water may speak more freely to me if there are no witnesses.”
Poco shrugged and leaned on the desk again, crossing his arms.
Alejandro, however, got to his feet. “I shall return home, in case Wolf brings Valory there.”
“Then I’ll go with you,” Nik said.
“It’s just that I’m not sure how long it’s been since I’ve eaten.” I rubbed at my forehead with the thumb and fingers of my right hand. My left had a grip on the pommel that was making my knuckles numb. “I feel faint, but how much of that is the motion sickness, and how much is lack of food?”
“Whichever it may be, you are getting worse. Should I take you back to the Shadowlands so that you may at least eat?”
“Can you remember any more of the Song without me?” I knew the answer, but Wolf needed to know it, too. As it was, I’m pretty sure he started to say yes before doubt shadowed over his face. Fact was, he remembered every lyric perfectly once I gave it to him, but he couldn’t remember what came next, no matter how hard he tried.
“I could bring you back. We would use another Portal, one where we could be somewhat sure that the Hunt does not await us, and return here, directly to this spot, with no time wasted.”
I took a firm grip on my lower lip with my teeth. The temptation to agree was enormous. I was beginning to forget what it felt like not to be dizzy and nauseated. “What if I didn’t make it? I’m a lot sicker this time.” I remembered that Cassandra had said my illness could get worse each time I was exposed. I suppose I should have been thankful that on top of everything else I wasn’t swelling up and itching. “Then where would you be?”
“Then we must find you some food that you can keep down.” Wolf frowned. He looked around us, eyes narrowed, lips pressed together. We’d ridden across the Moor of Ravens, and were now on a rocky hillside covered with scraggly pine trees. It was autumn here; there were oak leaves on the ground, blown in from who knew where, and the grasses and plants between the trees were dry and browning. Where we were standing, in the sun, it was warm, but there was a not unpleasant chill to the air, as if winter was on its way.
“Is there a Solitary within sound of my voice?”
I was startled enough to almost let go of the pommel. Wolf waited a minute and called again.
“I am Stormwolf, on a task of the High Prince. Is there any who can hear me and answer?” Still nothing.
Wolf looked at me, frowning. “If there is a spirit in these trees, it is too young, or too wary to speak with us. And it appears there is no Troll or Ogre nearby.”
I admit I felt relieved. The Cockatrice, cute as he’d turned out to be, had used up all the energy I had left for strange beings. “What did you want one for?”
“Riders usually find a Healer if they are sick or injured,” he said. “The Wild Riders are an exception, but there are none here. Solitaries often suffer from the same kinds of illnesses and injuries that Riders do, but have other ways to treat them. I thought, if there was a Solitary near us, they could advise us what to feed a person who suffered as you do.”
What do you give a person when there’s a danger of vomiting, I wondered. Aside from a glucose IV. “Liquids,” I said.
“But you are drinking water. Would you prefer ganje? Or wine?”
I remembered just in time not to shake my head. “No. I meant a clear broth, like you use for a soup. Beef, or chicken broth.”
“That is not food, it is a flavoring.”
“There’s enough food in it, at least the way it’s made in the Shadowlands.”
Wolf pulled a dark green flask from his pack. “A broth? Made from a chicken? What else should it have?”
I tried to remember what Alejandro had told me. “Onions, carrots, celery. Peppercorns. Parsley. Rosemary. Thyme.” What else? I remembered I was going to drink it, not use it for as a base for something else. “Salt, but not too much.” Alejandro put in other things, I knew, leaves and stems and pieces of veggies that he saved in a bag in the freezer, but surely I’d covered all the essentials. I was afraid to ask for vitamins, since Wolf might not know what I meant—and frankly I wasn’t so sure myself. I thought about my queasy stomach. “Skim most of the fat out. As much as you can manage.” I swallowed. “That’s all I can think of.”
All the while I was talking, Wolf had the flask in his hands, turning it over in his strong fingers, humming, tapping it with his fingers almost as though he was playing a tune on it that only he could hear. “Fascinating,” he said. “We do not cook here, we ask for what food we desire, and the container provides it. I would not have known what ingredients to ask for, to make sure it would be effective.”
Finally, he turned the flask upright again, pulled the stopper out, and handed it to me. It was now about the size and shape of a soup thermos, made of some kind of stone, or opaque ceramic. It was cool on the outside, but the contents steamed, just enough to show that it was warm. I must have got the ingredients right, because the smell was astounding, taking me right back to the first time I’d smelled it, in Alejandro’s kitchen in Madrid. I took an experimental sip. My stomach turned over and I swallowed again, two or three times, but then everything settled down once more. I managed six more sips before I handed the flask back.
“You have not taken much.”
“Let’s see if this stays down before I use up any more.”
“There is as much here as we may need,” he said as he replaced the stopper and tucked the flask away again.
Whether it was the broth itself, or just having something warm inside me, I did start to feel a bit better—enough so that after a while I asked for the flask again and drank more. I felt functional again, but I didn’t get my hopes up. No one with seasickness has a career as a sailor; they either get over it, or they go ashore. Staying in the Lands wasn’t something I could do for very long, no matter how good the broth was.
We had come to the end of the pine wood by this time and to the edge of what looked to me like pictures I’d seen of the prairies in Canada. Tall grass as far as the eye could see. Though we couldn’t feel anything here under the trees, there must have been a breeze, as the grass was moving, fitfully as though the wind was gusting.
“What are the next lines again?”
“‘Green the waves are, gold and white. Clear the sky and the hot yellow sun,’” I said.
Wolf repeated the line and his Cloud Horse took a step forward, with mine following at its side.
Nothing happened. There was still nothing but grass in front of us. Wolf turned to me. “Have we missed a line?”
Gritting my teeth, keeping my grip on the pommel, I touched his wrist again. At first I thought I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate, but finally I heard the Song once more, softly as though Wolf were singing it to himself. I found myself relaxing.
“No,” I said. “Those are the next lines. We haven’t missed any.”
“This is no sea.” Wolf breathed out through his nose and looked around, eyes narrowed, lips pressed tight.
I saw what he meant. “I could see green and white, or blue and white, but how can waves be golden—oh, for heaven’s sake. ‘Amber waves of grain.’” I rolled my eyes. I waved my hand at the prairie stretching out in front of us. “This is the Sea of Ma’arban. Not an ocean, not water, a sea of grass.”
Now Wolf was smiling. “First green, then gold, then white, as the grass matures and dies. Very good, then we are still on the correct path. The Mountains of Ice Tor should be very close now. What are the next lines?”
“There are only four lines left,” I said.
“Then give me them all.”
“‘Winter skies are icy dark,
Rocky hills around us lie.
Shadows born of Ice Tor fly
The caller of the Hunt.’”
This time Wolf sang the lines b
ack to me, a strange tune, the music changing the emphasis of the lines a little bit.
“This is the fragment Moon knew,” Wolf said. “Was it…Do you know if it was my Song?”
“No.” I licked my lips. “But you learned it from the person who first Sang it.”
He nodded, his eyebrows lifted slightly as if my answer hadn’t been of any real importance, but I wasn’t fooled. He’d been hoping the Song was his—his creation, his work. It would have meant he had something from before he’d become a Hound.
To the eye the Sea of Ma’arban stretched out to the horizon, but with Wolf Singing it took us only a few steps to leave it and find ourselves on a rocky plateau, bleak in the meager light. It was night, but the clouds obscured any stars that we might have seen, though a brighter spot showed where the moon was. A cold wind made our clothing flutter.
“I was expecting more snow,” I said.
Wolf was looking around and now he nodded. “It certainly does not seem like an ice tor.”
“Who speaks my name?”
Sunset on Water walked slowly along King Street, mentally reviewing the encounter he’d had with Graycloud and the human. He could have Moved back to his post, but he needed time to think, and the sidewalks here were strangely empty, something that matched his mood.
The encounter had gone well, he thought, due very likely to his great luck in meeting with a Rider who had lived here throughout the reign of the Basilisk Prince, and not one of the others. Someone who had suffered at the hands of the Basilisk, or who had always been loyal to the Prince Guardian, might not have listened to him, but Graycloud had chosen no sides in the recent conflict. Even the human had seemed disposed to consider his offer. There was more to the creatures than he had been led to believe, and Sunset began to hope that he and his fellows could find refuge here in the Shadowlands after all.
Who knew? Perhaps one day a way might even be found to free them of their dra’aj oaths, so that they could once again go home, perhaps even serve the Guardian—
Sunset stayed bent over until the terrible stabbing pain in his head eased. His lips were pulled back from his teeth when he straightened, though the smile had no humor in it. If even thinking of following the…person in question brought on such a reaction, how likely was it he and his fellows could be helped?
Shadowlands Page 36