Firekeeper tilted her head to one side in unconscious mimicry of the way the wolves expressed a question.
"You say there are symbols similar to these in your archives," she said. "How like?"
Hope gestured toward sheets of vellum. "I could show you, if you wish. The problem is this: Even a similarity does not mean a relation. Can you understand?"
Firekeeper thought of the two symbols Plik had drawn, and realized that she did.
"It is like scents, is it not? All wolves smell like wolves, but no two wolves smell alike. Moreover, one could not tell a Wise Wolf from a Royal Wolf without more than scent to go on."
Hope gave a little bird-like chirp. "Very good, though not being as nose-driven as you wolves are, I would not have put it that way."
"Among my people," Firekeeper said, almost in apology, glancing to where Blind Seer reclined at her side studying the symbols as if he were memorizing them, "I am nose-dead, but still..."
They were seated within the Tower of Air, which housed the communal archives of the maimalodalum. Plik waited to one side. His contained bearing held some complex of emotions Firekeeper could not quite identify, for though the Royal Beasts included raccoons, her contact with them had been limited. Like jaguars, they were not social except with their own kits. That Plik's body combined human and raccoon traits only confused the matter. Of one thing she felt certain: The normally affable maimalodalu was tense and nervous.
When Plik spoke, Firekeeper listened carefully, seeking to garner every bit of meaning she could - both from what he said and what he did not.
"So, now that our resources are exhausted, do we turn this over to the humans on the mainland?"
Hope gave a crisp nod. "I think so. Not only do they have texts we do not, they have contact with peoples we do not. It may be that they will be able to recognize the manner of clothing worn by those two."
Firekeeper noted with fascination that Plik had lowered his head slightly - protecting his throat. She did not think he meant to attack, more that his action was after the fashion of the growls that would rumble in a wolf's belly when the wolf wished to express displeasure.
"And," Plik said, "from there?"
"It depends," said Hope, "on what we learn."
"Precise action does," Plik said, "but surely it is time and enough to discuss what all of us must see ..."
"See?"
Firekeeper thought that Hope was being deliberately obtuse, but she recognized this tactic. She had seen it used before by leaders who needed to draw forth their followers. Annoying as it was, it was often the mark of a good leader, for only bad leaders thought they knew all there was to know.
Plik glared at the bird-woman. "Shall I spell it out then?"
"Do."
"Six figurines. Two were known to have attempted to use magic. These are dead. One might have used magic - this Valora - but for lost opportunity. Truth ... Truth is harder to place, but I see her as a link to the others. They were used as she was used."
"By the Voice of which she spoke?" Hope asked helpfully.
"Precisely."
"Go on."
Blind Seer spoke for Plik. "Two others may remain out there - alive. Two others who this Voice has touched.
Two others who may be toying with things wise creatures know are dangerous."
Firekeeper nodded. "You beast-souled have better reason than we to know what magic misused can do - and we all know too well what the price is for that use."
"Blood," Hope said. "Yes. Our people know that. The Liglimom long ago banned such among their own peoples. We share your fear of Magic, but we respect her. Our great difference is that your people thought that by ignoring Magic you could make her go away. We did not."
Firekeeper and Blind Seer looked at each other, but they did not deny the truth of this assertion.
Plik returned to the main point. "Out there, somewhere, are two we know nothing about. What has the Voice prompted them to do? Both Melina and Dantarahma believed they did a good and wise thing in trying to bring back the old ways. What do these two believe?"
"You speak with great certainty," Hope said.
"I speak with fear," Plik retorted. "The pattern is there - and though we have Truth back with us, worn but sane, we also must face that something was sealed in that apartment beneath the earth, something that was there recently enough to carve the features of people still living. We have skirted around this matter, but what did we let loose? And what is this 'Voice' going to do now that we have set him free?"
Hope said nothing, but her clear, bright eyes turned and studied Firekeeper.
Firekeeper nodded slowly. "Twice before, almost unwitting, Blind Seer and I have been part of ending sorcerers. What we have seen them do with their magic has given me no great love for them or their arts. Plik, you said you speak with fear, but there is no shame in fearing a fire. Fire burns, as I know all too well. Magic seems too much like fire to me not to fear its misuse."
Blind Seer rose and shook himself. "Plik, are you looking for reassurance that whatever these symbols show us, this 'Voice' - or at least these remaining tools of his - will not be dismissed as mere curiosities?"
"I am."
"Be reassured. I don't know if we can find the two depicted through these figurines or the source of the Voice that spoke to Truth, but if there is the least hint of a trail, Firekeeper and I will go scenting along it."
"Boldly sworn." The words rasped from the open doorway where Truth had entered, unheeded. "Would you still speak so boldly if you knew you could find what you seek?"
Firekeeper rested her hand on Blind Seer's shoulder. "We would."
Truth's tail lashed. "Then count me in on your hunting. I have very mixed feelings about this Voice. If we find a trail, I will come with you. My talent is mine once more, and I think ... yes ... I am almost sure ... that the binding between myself and this Voice goes more than one way."
Plik's head dipped again. "Do you view this Voice as a friend or an enemy?"
"Neither. Rather say a curiosity," Truth replied. "I am a jaguar, and we do not take kindly to bindings, not even from our kittens once they are grown. I want to meet this one who dared lay hold of me - even if his gain was mine as well. It seems to me that the best way to find him would be to find these two of whom he has also carved figurines. What do you say?"
Blind Seer coughed. "I say we are ahead of ourselves, hunting the herds before they gather. Firekeeper and I have given Plik our promise. Now we have yours, but first we must take these figurines and the symbols to the mainland. I fancy we should go with them ourselves. What do you think, Firekeeper?"
Although she knew her time on Misheemnekuru was ending, Firekeeper felt the words she spoke cut her as sharply as her Fang did hide and bone.
"I think you are right. We must go to the mainland."
Leavetaking from Dark Death, Moon Frost, Rascal, and the little puppies was very hard, but u-Seeheera, the First City of Liglim, was not a place for a wolf pack, especially one with pups too young to demonstrate common sense.
Firekeeper held each of the puppies tightly, making sure each one drank deeply of her scent. Her parting from Dark Death, Moon Frost, and Rascal was no more formal.
"Don't let them forget us," Firekeeper said, hugging each of the wolves.
"We'll tell stories about you," Dark Death promised.
"And some of them will even be flattering," Rascal laughed, "and I'll recite each and every one of Blind Seer's proverbs - those I can remember anyhow."
Blind Seer looked at Firekeeper, and she knew he was aware of her sense of loss. Hadn't her freedom been his as well? Then his jaws gaped in a wolfish grin.
"Going to the mainland means you had better find yourself some new clothing, sweet Firekeeper - that is, unless you wish Derian Carter's skin to blush as red as his hair."
VI
DERIAN CARTER STOOD IN THE INNER COURTYARD of the Bright Haven embassy looking at the note that had been delivered to him by fish e
agle. Perhaps it said something about his current situation that for most of those in his immediate vicinity his appearance seemed stranger than his courier service. Tall, fair, freckled, and red-haired, Derian stood out among the Liglimom. These were uniformly dark of hair and eye, possessed of skin that while not actually deeply tanned gave - to Derian's eye, accustomed as it was to fairer-skinned peoples - the impression of having been warmly toasted by the sun.
The note Derian had unbound from the osprey's leg was written in the language of Liglim - Liglimosh, as his own Pellish-speaking people had taken to calling it, since the Liglimom used the same word for their homeland and their language. The Liglimom claimed there was a definite difference in stress between the two words that made them easy to tell apart, but Derian had never heard anything to differentiate the words from each other.
The note was in an unfamiliar hand, but the signature, a sketched outline of a human hand with that of a wolf's paw side by side, left him no doubt as to who was the sender. Firekeeper, finding some poor disdu to do her writing for her again, no doubt.
"Fox Hair," the note began without the flourishes and titles that either Derian's own people or the Liglimom would use in a note to one who was, after all, a high-ranking assistant to an ambassador, "We come. Today, with evening. Truth is with us. Can you be at harbor?"
That was all, but those few words gave Derian quite a bit of reason for thought. Firekeeper had only rarely touched the mainland in the past year - and one of those times had been to greet Derian on his own return from a voyage home to Hawk Haven.
Part of her reluctance to leave Misheemnekuru was because after two years spent more or less among humans, she was back among wolves. Part, and Derian smiled slightly as he recalled this, was because Firekeeper became violently seasick whenever she got on a boat. There were drugs that helped her deal with the malaise, but as these had to be mixed up fresh, she could not carry a supply with her, and it galled her to ask any human for help.
Derian glanced up at the sun. Midday. Hours yet before he would need to be at the harbor. He supposed that he should go inform the ambassador that one was coming who, while not really a citizen of either Hawk Haven or Bright Bay - the two kingdoms sponsoring this embassy - certainly had ample claim on the hospitality of both.
I wonder if Firekeeper got news of our new arrivals, Derian thought. Some seagull or otter or whatever might have passed on a bit of gossip. That might be enough to make Firekeeper interrupt her running about like a wild thing, and come to the mainland. But why would she bring Truth with her? Maybe it would be a courtesy to send a message to the ahmyndisdu...
Derian thought he'd better clear that thought with the ambassador. The ahmyndisdu was one of the members of u-Liall, the ruling counsel of the Liglimom. Derian had met with u-Liall before, but that had been under different circumstances. Now he was no longer just Derian Carter, victim of some very peculiar circumstances, he was Derian Counselor, and what he said might be interpreted as coming from Bright Haven.
The idea - the entire mess of ideas - still was almost more than Derian could accept. Start with this idea of having the embassy come from Bright Haven rather than either Hawk Haven or Bright Bay - or even a joint embassy from them both. This Bright Haven gambit seemed to be anticipating events just a bit, for the two kingdoms were not supposed to officially merge until both their current rulers had died.
King Tedric of Hawk Haven, well, he was an old man and me Ancestors might issue him an invitation any day now - though Derian sincerely hoped the Ancestors would withhold themselves the pleasure of the king's company a while longer. But even if King Tedric could fairly be said to be in his last years, Allister of the Pledge, ruler of Bright Bay, was a man of only middle years, one who could be expected to reign for a long time to come. Yet it had been Allister, not Tedric, who had suggested this course of action.
"It is the best way I can envision to emphasize our commitment to a pledge that is now - after all - nearly four years in the past. Sending a Bright Haven embassy will help not only our own peoples, but our neighbors adjust to the idea that Bright Haven is a reality - Hawk Haven and Bright Bay are merely convenient fictions, old shoes kept until the new pair can be made comfortable."
King Tedric had agreed, as had the joint heirs. Since Derian was one of a very few from either Hawk Haven or Bright Bay who had been to Liglim, Derian found himself back in Liglim, a place he had not been at all certain he had ever wanted to see again. Nor was he there in his accustomed role, that of a minor advisor to an indulgent monarch - or even that of "kennel keeper" to Firekeeper. No, Derian was here as assistant to a man whose people had been enemies of his own until just a few years past.
But for all his tendency for introspection, Derian was honest with himself. He actually - "liked" wasn't quite the right word - respected and admired Ambassador Fair-wind Sailor. Although a scion of one of Bright Bay's noble houses, the ambassador had served in his country's navy before taking up whaling. Later, after he lost one eye in some accident, Captain Sailor had delved with enthusiasm into the land side of the processing and sale of whale oil. There he had shown a taste for innovation. This, added to his familial connections, and the fact that he was sincerely interested in foreign peoples, had made him the final choice from the many considered for the post.
And, Derian thought, all of the ambassador's professions have made him a stickler for hierarchy. I'd better tell him about Firekeeper's message, and somehow manage to make it sound like her note was meant for more than me.
Derian headed inside, and immediately felt the temperature drop. Even the humid air felt a trace dryer, for the Liglimom knew well how to deal with their hotter, wetter southern climate.
I wonder if their Old Country was like this, he thought. For surely they did not invent this all at once when their ships landed.
Not for the first time, Derian found himself wondering just how the Old Country rulers had gone about parceling up the New World. Had they made agreements in advance? Had it been a race of white-sailed ships, each hurrying to see who would arrive first? Had there been trading of parcels once they had arrived, exchanging parcels of land until all had something to their taste?
It struck Derian as odd that he knew more about the coming of the Old Country rulers to the New World from the point of view of the Beasts than he did from that of the humans, for the humans who resided in the New World now were descended from colonists, not from the rulers. The rulers had left when the Plague - what the Liglimom called Divine Retribution - had arisen.
They had abandoned the colonists to illness and chaos. Those who had survived the upheaval had had no reason to love their former rulers. The stories that remained of them told of their cruelty to the humans they ruled. In the north, where Derian's people lived, the Old Country rulers had first made treaties with the Royal Beasts. Later, when they felt more secure, they had attempted to wipe out the Beasts. Although their genocidal aims had not been achieved, they had succeeded in driving the Beasts west of the Iron Mountains.
Here in the south, the truce had held longer, but even the Wise Beasts, the yarimaimalom, told tales of betrayal.
Clearly, the Old Country rulers, rich as they were in the magical arts, were poorer in those of ethics.
Derian knew he was thinking of such things in order to distract himself from worrying about what was bringing Firekeeper to the mainland. However, even as his mind had wandered, his feet had carried him to his destination. He raised the polished brass ring that adorned the door into Ambassador Sailor's office, and rapped it sharply.
"Enter."
Derian obeyed, shutting the door behind him. Fairwind Sailor sat in a chair near the window, the book in his hand tilted so that his one eye might take better advantage of the light. He was a man of medium height with stiff, coarse, iron grey hair pulled back in a braid tied with a ribbon, rather than the loose queue Derian wore. Like Derian, the ambassador wore local dress. The fitted britches, waistcoats, tailored jackets, and the o
ther accoutrements that were common at home would have been stifling in Liglim's damp heat.
Ambassador Sailor's left eye was covered with a patch of black silk.
"Derian Counselor," Ambassador Sailor said, "what may I do for you?"
"A message has come, sir, from Firekeeper - Lady Blysse Norwood. She's due to reach the mainland this evening, and has requested I meet her in the harbor."
"Did she say why she is coming?"
"No, sir, only that she was coming - and that means Blind Seer as well. She also mentioned that Truth, a jaguar, is coming with her."
"Truth... I remember being briefed about her." The ambassador tapped his chin with one broad, flat finger. "She was rather important, wasn't she? A diviner, they say. I believe she was retired for medical reasons?"
Ambassador Sailor tried to keep disbelief from his voice as he spoke of the jaguar as if she was a person, but then, unlike Derian, he had been given only a short time to grow accustomed to the idea of intelligent animals. It was one thing to hear stories, another to know the reality for yourself.
Derian didn't mince words. He knew the ambassador would prefer having all the details to being humored. There was much Derian could not tell Ambassador Sailor about the events of the previous summer, but he could say this.
"Truth went insane. I am hoping that this message indicates some improvement in her condition - but it could indicate the opposite. I was wondering, sir, should we send a message ahead to Ahmyndisdu Tiridanti? Truth served with her, and Firekeeper... well... Firekeeper probably hasn't sent any message there."
"And Truth might not have been able to do so. Yes. We should draft something. I'll ring for my translator." The sharp rap of the brass ring against the door interrupted him. "Wait! This should serve even better. Enter!"
The door opened and a beautiful young woman with pale golden hair and sea green eyes stepped over the threshold. Lady Elise Archer was a close friend to Derian, and more importantly, given the business at hand, to Firekeeper and Blind Seer as well.
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