"If they do not have the records," Plik said, "there is one other thing you can ask to see."
"And this is?"
"Geographical surveys. I am no great expert about mountains. I have never even seen one up close, but I do know something about sunsets and sunrises. We maimalodalum quite enjoy sunsets. Sometimes we would journey to where we could watch the light striking different things, and one thing I do know."
"And this is?" Harjeedian asked very politely.
"Sunset against trees tends to spread and lose its color, but when it hits rock or water, then it paints them in rather fiery hues."
Harjeedian understood, and his usually stern expression brightened. "You are saying that even if our attempts to find the location of the twins' family holdings in the records fail, we might locate them by looking for a geographical survey that indicates the existence of a cliff or barren mountain slope."
"That's exactly what he said," Blind Seer laughed, "although I am not certain which of you used more words. Plik, however, was certainly more poetic."
Firekeeper shared the wolf's laughter, and Plik wondered if her human friends had thought her insane for laughing at quips they did not hear. Then again, they probably didn't recognize a wolf's laugh.
"You will do it?" Plik asked.
"I will," Harjeedian said.
"And so will we," Bitter said, "but we will take your advice and wait until the humans have opportunity to narrow the field Why should we weary our wings while everyone else sits and grows fat?"
"So the twins may have gone to ruins," Lovable said, her mind, as usual, flying upon different winds than her mate. "You can find pretty things in ruins. I wonder what we will find?"
"Rather," Plik said, not caring that his words would seem strange to those who heard with only one set of ears, "I wonder what the twins have founds - and what have made of it."
THEY'RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK," the Voice said to Truth. "I thought you might want to know."
Truth rolled over onto her back. She was asleep. The only one awake to notice the unwonted restlessness of that sleep was Firekeeper, who sat awhile, watching the restless lashing of the jaguar's tail in the ruddy light of the coals.
"I suppose," Tram said. "My paws are not like horses' hooves. These long treks are not what I am made for."
"Then why did you come?" the Voice said mockingly. "For all the help you've given them, you could have remained on Misheemnekura."
"I sent them west," Truth protested.
"A fifty percent choice," the Voice said, "and one they would have likely taken anyhow. The weather is still warm enough that the seaboard lands are fever traps for those who have not grown to adulthood there. Tell me what other help you have been."
"I told them which city-states to visit"
"Many wrongs before you found the right one," the Voice replied, "and even this is hardly the straightest path to your goal. The twins have been gone a good while now."
"So," Truth snarled, "can you tell me more? Are we close enough now that you can give me guidance?"
"Not so long as you screw your eyes tight shut," the Voice said. "I reached you so well before because what you persist in viewing as madness assisted me. Indeed, I worked wonders with you, showed you potential you never knew, you had. I could do that again."
"But I must be mad for you to show me this."
"I didn't say that," the Voice replied, "but certainly you must take that risk."
"And if I choose not?"
"Why then, you will never achieve your goal."
"You mean we will not find the twins? I thought you said we were on the right track."
"Ah, but pretty Truth, that is not your goal now is it? What I mean is that you must risk madness if ever you will find out if you can kill me..."
Truth did not reply. She was hunter enough to know that one dipped a paw into a stream without being absolutely sure that a fish swam there. Did the Voice know her intention or was he merely dipping his paw, trying to learn whether the water had rippled with the passage of a fish, or maybe of a snapping turtle.
She changed the subject.
"You want us to find the twins then? I thought they were your tools. Why would you wish us to find them?"
"My tools?" The Voice sounded as innocent as a skull scraped clean of brain and flesh. 'The twins my tools?"
Truth's first inclination was to snap at him, to ask if he had forgotten the sculpted figurines. She drew back. Hadn't one of those figurines been made in her image? Might she be giving too much away?
"You know why we hunt these two," she said instead.
"Because Firekeeper, clever wolfling that she is, went swimming and found some rocks."
"It seemed to us you might know these two, then, for the rocks she found were in your lair."
"Not precisely my lair" the Voice said. Truth growled, and he added with a laugh, "All right, not my lair, but certainly a place where I have spent too much tune. I'll even admit that I made those pretty figurines. Surely, though, you yourself should be the first to know that a figurine alone is not evidence that the person so depicted is my tool."
Truth felt her upper lip rippling in a snarl, but she lowered her head, licking her forepaw to cover the expression.
'Tool implies something made or used for one's purpose. Firekeeper's pretty Fang is a tool. Her fire-making stones are tools. Surely you, O Truth, are no one's tool. Are you?"
Truth wished she was so certain, but she merely schooled herself to steady grooming. The action was automatically soothing, but if she kept this up, she was going to have a hairball in the morning.
Does one get a hairball from grooming in one's dreams? she thought
If the Voice could read her thoughts, he made no comment Instead he went on, talking as if she had responded to his last several questions.
"I might have found a certain, call it sympathy with a few individuals, and I might have crafted figurines to help me focus on that sympathy," the Voice said. "But that does not mean I controlled those so depicted. Would a nice person like me - someone who would help a jaguar rejoin body and soul - would that person condone the actions of Melina?"
"I know no Melina," Truth said, shaking her head to loosen a claw sheath caught on one tooth.
"Dantarahma, then," the Voice said. "How could what he did have anything to do with me?"
"His figurine was broken," Truth said, "so was that of Melina. Perhaps they were your tools. Humans make balls for their games. I have seen these balls roll where the humans never intended. Once, during a festival in Heeranenahalm, I saw a ball thrown over the head of the one who was meant to have caught it It rolled all the length of the Processional Way, gaining speed until it landed in the harbor. This was not considered a good omen. Could it have been the same with you and Dantarahma? Was he a ball who rolled away?"
The Voice did not reply for a long time, and Truth felt herself drifting into more normal dreams. She was leaping upon the back of a deer when the deer turned its head and spoke to her.
The twins are not balls. They are two people, out of place, sad orphans, rejected by their kinfolk. Perhaps I wish you to find them because I feel pity for them. Your group is a mixed lot, not likely to judge on appearances alone. Perhaps that is all I wish."
"Hunt for your cubs yourself," Truth snarled, digging in her claws and feeling the hot blood well between her toes. "I am no one's dog."
"Certainly not! Why do you think I asked you to bring the wolves? They're closer to dogs than..."
Savagely, Truth bit down and broke the deer's neck at the base of the skull. The annoying Voice ceased speaking in mid-persuasion. Let him read omens in that!
ON THE SECOND DAY following the meeting with Layo, Harjeedian returned to camp, his expression somber as usual, but shining beneath the studied restraint was what Firekeeper knew was the pride of success.
"Petulia the daughter of Layo was a great help," Harjeedian began. "She has a great deal of organizational skill, and tremendous ability to retai
n information. It is a pity she feels the omens are directing her to follow the kidisdu's path. She would make a fine aridisdu."
Firekeeper glowered at him with what she hoped would be taken for pained restraint, not merely irritation.
"Give him his moment of glory," Blind Seer advised. "His kind do not permit themselves a good howl - though I think it would do them good"
Firekeeper agreed, and kept her peace. She had been busy pulling loose burrs and bits of bracken from Blind Seer's undercoat He was meticulous about keeping himself clean, but there were tilings she could do more easily.
"And you have found?" Plik said, putting aside the book he had been reading. "Tell us!" Firekeeper thought his eagerness genuine, but his manner of expressing it a bit feigned. It reminded her how pups would whine to get the adults of the pack to regurgitate after they returned from a hunt. Smiling inside, she added her own voice to the cry.
"Tell us! These two days I have wished myself able to read and write so I might be as useful to our cause as you are. "
Harjeedian settled himself on his preferred campstool and accepted the cup of mint-laced fruit juice Derian poured for him. Truth had awakened, going as far as to up onto her breastbone to indicate her willingness to listen. The ravens, scenting news as a wolf might hot meat, glided down from their perch high above the meadow. Eshinarvash trotted in and lipped the grass at the edge of the pavilion.
Harjeedian looked around his assembled audience with satisfaction.
"The estate we seek is in the deep west, in the foothills of the mountains, in a broad plain cut by where the river comes from the heights. It is good land, very good. Significantly, the geographical surveys..." Harjeedian paused and inclined his head to Plik, indicating that the maimalodalu's suggestion had proven useful, "... note specifically that the land is low in iron ore."
Eshinarvash raised his head and snorted, "Why does this matter?"
Harjeedian answered as automatically as if he had actually understood the Wise Horse's words. "Iron seems to have dampened the effectiveness of magic, Eshinarvash. It could not prevent its use, but it did make it more difficult, rather as a muddy road is harder to travel than is a one." Derian nodded. "There's some indications that the presence of lots of iron over a period of time might actually harm a sorcerer. Most of the lore has been lost in my homeland, but in New Kelvin the name given to what we called the Iron Mountains is the Death Touch Mountains."
"Here we simply called them the Barrier Range," Harjeedian said, "and it would be very nice to know if they are precisely the same range as those of which you speak."
"Maybe someday," Firekeeper said, "the yarimaimalom tell us for now, does the name and nature of these matter?"
"I suppose not," Harjeedian agreed. "What does matter is that I have a fairly good idea where we must head next - assuming that we are correct in our assumption that the twins returned to make some effort to reclaim their family estate."
Firekeeper restrained herself from asking why the aridisdu did not check the omens. She knew he had attempted to do so, and found his deities unequivocally silent on the matter. In any case, her words would be nothing but mockery - and Harjeedian did not deserve such a reward for his labors.
Harjeedian went on to pull out maps and charts.
"These are not the originals, needless to say, but the archives were happy to loan me an apprentice cartographer to make swift copies. Petulia copied salient passages of verbal description while I read ahead."
He offered Plik, the only other member of the expedition who read Liglimosh fluently, his notes.
"Although this seems to have been a rural holding," Harjeedian continued, "even when the original owners were in residence, there also appears to have been a regularly traveled route between this city and the Setting Sun holdings. It was not paved or cobbled, nothing like that, but the route was marked with regularly spaced cairns. We should be able to locate these. A hundred years is a long enough time that we may find the road overgrown, but then again, we may not"
When Harjeedian seemed to be drawing to a conclusion, Firekeeper interrupted before he could start repeating himself.
"No matter how good are these notes and charts," she said, "it seems a long run - longer as we must bring the packs and horses. Eshinarvash will slow no one, but the other horses may do so."
She shrugged. "I think is best if we break into groups. I go ahead with some and find what is there. The rest follow more slowly. Eshinarvash will warn you of the night wanderers even as we would have done."
Bitter squawked, "Even at your swiftest, wolf, you are slow. Lovable and I should go ahead of the rest. We can fly back and report to you, and even send someone back to inform the slowest goers. Plik can translate."
"There is good thought in that," Firekeeper said, and she quickly explained what the raven had suggested.
"I think it's a good idea," Derian said. "I mean, it's not like the twins will expect anyone to follow them, and even if they do, they're going to be looking for their mother's kin, not wolves and ravens."
"Unless," Plik said, glancing over at the book he had been reading, "the Meddler somehow lets them know."
Everyone's gaze drifted momentarily to Truth, but the jaguar only stared at them with cool indifference. No one needed a translator to know she had said, "And how would I know?"
"Then we is decided?" Firekeeper asked. "We can leave nearly at once."
"It will be dark before long," Derian reminded her.
"I know," Firekeeper replied, "tonight we only need to run. We not need to look for cairns. The weather cools, but Blind Seer is still hot in the day. Travel by night would be best, and we are very, very well rested. By when we need to look for landmarks, from what Harjeedian say, we will be where is forest and cooler."
Derian nodded. "There's some sense in that."
Harjeedian inclined his head in solemn agreement "Yes. I have noticed how Blind Seer has suffered - and admired his tenacity. Will the ravens also leave tonight?"
Lovable bounced. Bitter replied with a tipping forward of his body that Firekeeper was certain was meant to imitate Harjeedian's solemn nod.
"We will wait until morning," Bitter said. "With our swift flight, we will certainly pass the wolves even with their head start."
Firekeeper translated, then turned her attention to Truth.
"And you, Truth, do you go with us or remain with the humans?"
"I will remain with the humans," Truth said, "and help Eshinarvash to guard them. Jaguars are not made to travel long distances afoot, chasing after herds as wolves do. We hunt our prey with cleverness, not by roaming all over the landscape."
Firekeeper let the mild insult go unchallenged, not bothering to include it in the translation she supplied. Plik grinned at her, but didn't question her choice. Let him think she was practicing tact when in fact Firekeeper was quite happy with the idea that she would have the next several days alone with Blind Seer. Although they had been gone from Misheemnekuru for only a bit over a moonspan, it seemed much longer.
"Then we are decided?" she asked, rising to her feet.
"I suppose we are," Derian said. "You will take a canteen with you at least, won't you?"
"And a hatchet, and rope, and a few other useful things," Firekeeper promised. "I do not wish to be slowed where tools can help."
"Let me help you find what you'll need," Derian said.
Over where their packs had been stowed, they had some small amount of privacy. Derian rested his hand on Firekeeper's arm.
"You will be careful," he said. "Promise?"
"I promise," Firekeeper replied.
"No running off and forgetting that we need you?"
Firekeeper grinned at him. "Only running off, no forgetting. These twins is my hunt, too, remember."
She grew grave. "And you be careful, too. Stay near Eshinarvash and look for his signs. Prey creatures - though I not be first to call him so within reach of his teeth - they are even better than hunters at knowi
ng when danger is about."
I've noticed that," Derian said. 'Tell me. Is Eshinarvash, well, enjoying this trip?"
"He is. He goes where his people have not gone for long years, and sees many things - and he also likes being admired."
"Who doesn't?" Derian laughed. "I know I find myself staring at him. Familiarity doesn't make him any less the finest horse I've ever seen."
"Let him know," Firekeeper advised. "Horses is herd animals, as wolves need pack. You stand off and stare, but remember, he is lonely some."
"I hadn't thought of that," Derian admitted. "I've been trying so hard not to be less than respectful..."
"You have proved respect," Firekeeper said. "Now show friendship. Plik, too. He not say, but I think he, too, is some small bit lost"
Derian looked at her. "You've changed, Firekeeper. Once you wouldn't have said any of this."
"Have I changed?" Firekeeper replied. "Maybe this world we think we know so well - both you and I - maybe it changed around us and now those things we think truth bend until we are not sure they are truth."
"Maybe both you and what we know have born changed," Derian said. "One thing is certain, though."
"What?"
"Your Pellish and your Liglimosh both have gotten better from steady use. Don't forget how to talk while you're away."
Firekeeper grinned at him. "I not."
While they talked, they had assembled the kit she wanted. Now Blind Seer surged to his feet. Bumping Derian with his head, he turned and padded toward the darkness.
Firekeeper ran eagerly after, but she paused long enough to wave good-bye.
XIII
THE PATTERNS OF THE STARS, the pathway of moon's pale sliver, the scents in the wind, and a dozen other small things guided Firekeeper and «My Blind Seer as they ran that night.
When morning came they located one of the cairns of which Harjeedian had spoken. The stones had been mortared together with an angular one set on the top pointing the direction. From the dead bracken - mostly vines - piled at the base, much more than one year's growth could account for, Firekeeper guessed that the twins, traveling this same route over a year before, had pulled living vines down to make sure of their path.
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