"Firekeeper, sometimes in order to make a wise decision a person needs to consider what might be the result of that decision. Equally, there are times you need to know what came in the past in order to decide wisely what to do in the future. That's what we've been trying to do here."
Firekeeper nodded, but said nothing, hearing in the intake of Ynamynet's bream that the other woman had more to say.
"How long has it been?" Ynamynet went on. "Only ten days have passed since we went through the gate to the New World stronghold, thinking to find some confused or wounded yarimaimalom. Instead, we found ourselves captives. Even then I could tell there was something dangerous about you - not just your group, you in particular. I tried to stop you, even though that stopping meant I would never see my husband or daughter again. I don't know what power you called on to bring you through ..."
Ynamynet paused and Firekeeper knew the other woman was hoping for information, but Firekeeper wasn't about to tell her - or this gathered throng - about the Meddler. Harjeedian might not be the only one who had grown up on tales of the Meddler's well-meant actions going awry.
Curling her lips into a slight smile was enough to let Ynamynet know this silence was all the answer she was going to get. After another ragged breath, Ynamynet continued.
"It's obvious that your people would rather take over this place than destroy it, equally obvious that you will destroy it if you must."
Harjeedian said conversationally, "We will begin with those gates that go to the Old World. It may be by the end that, faced with isolation on these islands, you will decide to change your mind."
Ynamynet nodded, "I supposed as much."
"And you should consider something else," Harjeedian said. "We have been speaking as if you are the one and only key to this facility. Thus far, this is true. However, one of these days someone on the other side of a gate is going to come through. Then there will be someone else with whom we can deal. The yarimaimalom watch even now. How long will your power to make deals last, Ynamynet? A moonspan or maybe only a few more minutes?"
Firekeeper had to admire how Harjeedian followed her lead and added pressure, but then the aridisdu had always been skilled with words.
Skea turned to his wife. "They're right, Nami, and they're well prepared. Right now it's our choice. Later, it's going to be someone else's."
Urgana added softly, "All the Old World was so certain that querinalo meant the end of the rule of the cruder type of sorcery, but it didn't take very long for someone to see the advantage of being willing to use a tool his neighbors shunned. Maybe the next ones to come through the gates will share your conviction. Maybe even the ones after that, but you know that not all who wield sorcery are ethical and loyal."
Zebel said, his tones so level they were almost flat, "Most are not. Querinalo forces people to make choices: to live or die, to decide what is valued, what is not. Many of those who kept their magical abilities feel they are owed something for what they gave up. This is not a state of mind that leads to valuing the good of the community over that of the self."
Again, but briefly this time, Ynamynet pressed her fingers to her eyes. When she lowered them, none of the vagueness remained. Her voice was loud and strong as she addressed not only those from the New World but her own community as well.
"Consensus has never been the way of the Once Dead - except occasionally among ourselves. Zebel is right. We have long taken the view that our sacrifices make us superior to any others. However, in this case, I cannot decide for everyone else. I must know that I am supported in whatever decision I make."
She turned to Harjeedian. "May we have a vote? A silent one, so none is swayed by what others choose?"
"We would rather have all of your cooperation," Harjeedian conceded.
He glanced at the others. Firekeeper nodded, as did most of the others. Plik spoke for the yarimaimalom.
"They will agree - though many think this very strange."
The meeting was adjourned while arrangements were made for the secret vote and the discussion to this point was summarized for those who suddenly realized they had made an error in not attending. When Blind Seer howled the meeting to order again, the room was noticeably fuller and the air reeked of sour sweat and hastily dried tears.
There was a clicking and clattering as the humans shifted broken bits of ceramic from hand to hand. Skea rose from his place and held up an opaque jar.
"Voting will be very simple. If you favor an alliance, with Ynamynet agreeing to open gates for these New World peoples and to teach them - if possible - how they might do this themselves, put in the red piece. If you favor refusal to cooperate, waiting to see if assistance comes through one of the gates, then put in the green piece. It's that easy."
There were a few questions, most of them the type that made Firekeeper edgy, but that humans of all cultures seemed to need.
"It's like when all the pack howls as one," Blind Seer said, bumping his head against her in reassurance. "They make all this chatter to assure themselves that they are a pack,"
"That may be," Firekeeper replied grumpily, "but if I had fur it would be on end."
"Then perhaps it is a good thing you don't have fur," Blind Seer replied dryly.
Firekeeper punched gently, noting tenderly how different his fur felt without the thick undercoat. She draped an arm around the wolf, and felt him press into her.
Side by side, they listened as the broken shards of pottery dropped into the jar, the bright sound dampening and becoming deeper as the jar filled. As far as they could tell, no one tried to peek inside the slit cut in the jar's top to see what others had decided, and most cupped their hand so that those close by could not see what their own vote would be.
Eventually, the jar was handed down from the surrounding seats. Skea dropped his own piece in, then handed the jar to Zebel. Last to vote was Ynamynet, and if her face was tight and strained as she did so, Firekeeper would be the last to call her a coward.
Skea met Harjeedian halfway across the room and handed the now full jar to the aridisdu. Harjeedian had not trained in reading omens without learning something about detecting the temper of a gathering. Rather than carrying the jar back to the table where the New World contingent sat, Harjeedian removed the covering from the jar. Bending slightly at the waist, he spread the gathered shards in a broad arc across the stone-flagged floor.
There was no need to count. A wash of red spilled out against the grey. Here and there a defiant bit of green showed, but overwhelmingly the color was red - the color signifying a choice to cooperate.
"It looks like blood," Firekeeper said softly to Blind Seer.
"You have been too much among the Liglim," Blind Seer replied. "This is no omen, only a choice."
But Firekeeper felt the wolf shudder, and knew that he too wondered just what had begun with that bright scattering of choice.
AS FROM ONE THROAT, Truth heard the rumble of voices. She did not need to be from a long line of diviners to know what she heard.
"They have made a decision," she said to Eshinarvash.
The Wise Horse swiveled one ear back, but kept most of his attention for the gate complex they patrolled.
"I hear the howls of wolves and the yapping of foxes. Each says one word only: 'Home!' So it seems the humans here have decided to work with us rather than against us. That is good. I had wondered how well I might live on a diet of kelp. We wild horses have less finicky gus than our domesticated cousins, but I had wondered..."
Almost idly, Truth watched the folding and unfolding of futures triggered by Eshinarvash's statement. She was learning to accept Ahmyn's gift. Being constantly enwrapped in visions would never be easy, nor would she ever again be able to completely trust what she saw, but she was learning.
"Now you do not need to choose," Truth said. "I, for one, am glad. I am not overly fond of horsemeat."
Eshinarvash shivered his skin at this, but did not edge away. Really, he was very brave, especially for
an herbivore.
"'Home!' they howl," Eshinarvash said after a time. "Do they realize that not all of us can return? Not now, perhaps not for a long, long time to come?"
Truth rested on her haunches and began to lick her left front paw. (Visions of her beginning with her right paw or at the tip of her tail, milled at the edges of her vision, rather like gnats on a summer evening. She ignored them.)
"I will stay," Truth said. "The omens agree this would be my best course. These humans respect the Once Dead, even as they fear them. I am flamboyantly Once Dead."
"So is Derian," Eshinarvash said. "I think he can be convinced to remain - -if the omens think this is wise."
Truth tilted her head and studied the various visions swirling around her.
"Derian must choose his own course," she said at last, "not be convinced either to stay or to go. All the omens agree that if he is persuaded against his will, evil events will follow."
Truth did not say what these events were, but watched in idle fascination as armies marched and a warrior in armor all of brass and silver led an invincible army two by two through a gate. It was only one of many visions, but it was certainly the most colorful.
"I will decide after Derian does, then," Eshinarvash said. "Wherever he goes, Derian will need someone with whom he can talk. I think that one should be me. He is of my people, at least a little bit."
Truth let the spiraling movements of army fade and concentrated on the question she heard in the Wise Horse's statement.
"Yes," she said. "Derian would benefit from your friendship, although he will not always be grateful for the reminder you give him of his changed state."
"I can live with that," Eshinarvash said, biting off a clump of stiff, salty grass and chewing.
"Yes," Truth agreed, "you can."
XXXVIII
THE YARIMAIMALOM WERE THE FIRST to leave, a pair of wolves initially, followed by two bears in singularly bad humor as hey contemplated trying to survive a winter for which they had not stored sufficient fat.
Firekeeper had listened to the bears discussing going farther south, as if they were some sort of enormous, furry birds. Harjeedian had politely suggested that the bears might find welcome in Liglim, where the appropriate temple would be happy to give them shelter.
Whatever decision the bears chose to make, the wolf-woman did not fancy the chances of any who crossed them as they inspected the other side to make certain all was well. However, when Night's Terror - who, along with Golden Feather, had been in the next pair to make the crossing - was brought back and reported that the surrounding area seemed as she remembered from before their departure, many of the yarimaimalom were eager to return.
For the carnivores, returning to the New World was more than a matter of at last escaping where they had been held captive. It was a question of getting in some hunting before winter moved in fully and made their prey lean and stringy. The herbivores felt a similar pressure, for although these lands farther south did not experience winters as severe as those Firekeeper had known in her childhood, still the plants became dormant and did not offer as much nourishment.
However, knowing full well that Firekeeper's small pack could not control their still untrustworthy allies without assistance, many of the yarimaimalom agreed to stay on. The winged folk and smaller hunters, like the foxes and wild cats, made up the larger part of the occupation force, so the Once and Twice Dead and their companions were aware that they were watched - and watched by creatures who had ample reason to interpret the least oddity in their behavior as threatening.
Given the situation, Derian resolved to remain. Teamed with Eshinarvash, he made a translator almost as adept as Firekeeper or Plik. Within days, the two were rarely seen one without the other, and Derian was too busy to brood over his altered condition.
Eshinarvash's choosing to remain brought to the fore the need for a regular source of supply, for the island did not provide good forage for a horse. Harjeedian and a contingent of yarimaimalom made their way to Gak and negotiated with Amiri and Layo for supplies. Lovable reported rather coyly that Harjeedian had spent a good deal of time visiting with an argumentative aridisdu, and Firekeeper speculated what this might mean for Harjeedian's own eagerness to return to Liglim.
The supply run into Gak meant formulating a story to cover their continued absence. Harjeedian did so with such facility that Firekeeper remembered all over again why she had once distrusted him. The explanation was that they had indeed located Tiniel and Isende, and had found them weak from an undefined illness. Given the lateness of the season and the fragility of the twins, the group had decided to stay with them and assure their care.
If anyone wondered at the gaps in this tale, the lingering fear all New World residents held regarding illnesses that might spread as the Plague had once done provided ample distraction. A pair of ospreys agreed to fly to Liglim and deliver written messages to Harjeedian's people and to the Bright Haven embassy so that there would be no worries on their account.
"Will Elise have whelped?" Firekeeper asked Derian as he scribbled out their own message. It was a long one, for although it had been agreed that nothing would be said about the gates or the Meddler, still there was a great deal to tell. He was also including a letter that would be forwarded to his family in Hawk Haven, because "Even if I can't tell them almost anything important, I am alive, and I'm beginning to realize that's a lot to be grateful for."
"Whelped?" Derian replied as he finished scratching out a sentence. His grin was almost as easy as it had been before querinalo, and Firekeeper felt warmed. "You know, had the baby."
"Not yet. Humans take longer than wolves at this. You should remember. In the spring." Firekeeper sighed, and Derian took pity on her. "The ospreys have agreed to carry a return message and I've specifically asked Elise to report on her condition. We should know how she is faster than it would take for us to travel to u-Bishinti."
"I know. I miss them, though. This would have been easier with them to help."
Derian nodded. "But remember, Doc would have had to go through querinalo. I can't wish that on anyone."
"I wonder," Firekeeper said thoughtfully, "if Ynamynet and the others didn't tell us because they thought we might be killed by it."
"Probably," Derian said. "Querinalo isn't like any disease I've ever heard of, but I do know that people develop resistances to diseases that touch their populations frequently - like that swamp fever that makes going to Waterland in summer so nasty for anyone but the people who live there. Ynamynet's not stupid. She may have hoped we would have no resistance and be killed as easily as those Old World sorcerers were back when the Plague first hit."
"We not know much," Firekeeper said. "So much we don't know."
She was thinking about how little they knew one of the times she made the transit back to the New World.
Ynamynet had found an apprentice, or rather the apprentice had found her. It was Enigma, a puma who had been among the captive yarimaimalom. He had announced himself and his interest in learning the spell by padding to Ynamynet as she was about to perform the ritual and going through the ritual with her. Afterward, when Ynamynet had time to consider, the Once Dead said that she had felt a familiar sense of someone else sharing the transmission of power with her, and although not a word was spoken between them, even in translation, she had known what Enigma wanted.
"So the name that was augered for me is fulfilled," the puma said, "for I was a definite puzzle to those who viewed the omens of my birth."
The spell had to be slightly adapted so Enigma could work it solo, but Ynamynet had admitted with a slight shiver that the puma had taken to blood magic "as if it were his first nature."
Knowing how carnivores loved blood-hot meat, Firekeeper only wondered that Ynamynet thought this worthy of comment. Indeed, although the yarimaimalom's tales of the days when magic had been more commonly in use did not include beast sorcerers, Firekeeper was growing cynical on what she had and had not been
told.
"Paws," she said to Blind Seer, "and teeth are not the best for creating gates and other artifacts, but as Enigma's experience shows, when someone else makes the tools ..."
Blind Seer didn't comment, not even with a proverb, but Firekeeper didn't see how he could do anything but agree. Still, the blue-eyed wolf did not like going through the gate, and so Firekeeper had made this return trip alone.
She was going to be gone only a few hours, checking with representatives from the various packs and herds, all of whom had promised to report if querinalo surfaced among any of their peoples. Thus far it had not, and since many days had passed since the return - more than it had taken for the illness to appear before - and no sign had occurred, there was reason to believe that querinalo could not be transmitted by one who had suffered it to one who had not.
Firekeeper was in the stronghold courtyard, eating a rather withered apple and waiting for Enigma to return from her hunting, when the Meddler stepped from behind the apple tree.
"So, Firekeeper, you've done it again."
"Me? What?" Firekeeper dropped the apple and reached for her Fang, although she was not at all certain the blade could touch whatever the Meddler was.
"Changed things around you."
"I did no more than all the others," Firekeeper protested, although she knew this was not true. What the others had done had been important, but not even Plik could have created the bridge between human and beast as she had done. "I am one with a very odd pack."
"You are One of a very odd pack," the Meddler said, and as they were speaking the language used by the wolves, there was no question as to his meaning.
Firekeeper shrugged, and the Meddler panted a wolfish smile.
"This is the first time," the Meddler continued, "since I helped you cross to the Nexus Islands, that I have been able to speak with you alone. I have come for my favor."
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