Wulfston's odyssey se-6

by Jean Lorrah

  With no thought except slaking his thirst, Wulfston rushed to the pool, sinking calf-deep into mud among the rushes that lined it, and on into the water itself.

  It was cold and clear. He sank into it, drank it in, let it wash away salt and sand and sweat.

  But it was too cold to stay in. He swam to the rock wall and pulled himself out onto a secure perch, where he sat and watched for fish to return to feeding now that the disturbance was gone. He knew that it was safe to eat any scaly fish, and he hoped that he still had enough strength to kill a fish and make a fire to cook it.

  A wave of hunger swept through him as he thought about grilling fish. His mouth watered.

  But the fish stayed out of sight.

  He would have to call them, his desperate need for food outweighing his reluctance to lure a creature only to kill it.

  This ability to influence animals had been the first Adept power Wulfston had manifested, when he was three years old. He had used it for amusement then, calling rabbits and squirrels to play with him, to the delight of the other village children. Over the years he had used it to calm frightened horses, or wounded animals so he could heal them.

  Now, though, he had no choice but to use it to feed himself. He felt more naked without the full strength of his powers than without his clothes.

  He began to picture the pool from beneath the water, where he had been a few minutes before. He thought of a big, fat fish wanting to go up toward the surface, where there was food.

  Sure enough, just such a fish swam lazily to the dappled surface of the pool. Wulfston began to lure it closer, giving it the desire to come within his grasp. When it was just below the rock on which he perched, he stopped its heart quickly, painlessly, and reached down-

  Wulfston got a fleeting impression of something with teeth enough for an army as the fish was snatched away!

  He started back, fear tingling through his nerves and emerging from his skin in cold sweat.

  There was a monster in the pool!

  He stared as the thing resurfaced, a lizardlike animal as large as a man, with a back like a log, a tapering tail that moved lazily to rudder it through the water, and a head that was ugliness personified. Eyes atop the head stared coldly at him, defying him to dare try again for its prey, but it was the creature’s snout that held his gaze. His impression of endless teeth was verified-there were so many that the mouth could not contain them all, and they snaggled in sharp array around the outside of the vicious maw.

  Hungry and tired, Wulfston shivered uncontrollably with the realization that it could have been a part of his body, rather than that hapless fish, that made a meal for the water-beast. He had probably aroused it when he splashed unthinkingly into the pool. He had gotten out just in time! It could have attacked him while he was swimming, or just now it could have taken his hand.

  Wulfston did not command the powers Zanos and Astra had seen in the frozen isles to the far north, where sorcerers knew how to make severed limbs regrow.

  Dapples of yellow turned orange around the green pool, and Wulfston knew that soon the sun would set.

  He couldn’t stay by the pool. Predators were likely to come to drink under cover of night, perhaps great cats that could see in the dark. He needed sleep. If there was to be no food, at least he could rest, and hunt again in the morning.

  So with his stomach growling in protest, he set out in search of a safe place to sleep. Was there any safety for him here, in the land of his ancestors?

  There was a cave in the rocky wall, bones, feathers, and bits of fur strewn on its floor. Wulfston could build a fire in the cave mouth, but once he fell into the virtual unconsciousness of Adept sleep he would not rouse to stoke the fire. It could go out, leaving him helpless before whatever had left those remains.

  So he moved away from the pool, looking upward and wishing once again that he could Read. A perch in a tree was the only haven he could think of-provided he did not fall to his death in the night. To a Reader darkness was meaningless, and wild animals could be sensed at a distance and avoided. He knew the power was in him; Adept and Reading powers sprang from the same source. But there was no use now in grieving over his inability to manifest the other half of his talents.

  In the dimming light, he saw a tree with wide, forking branches. The climb was not hard, and he found a place where he could wedge himself between a broad limb and the trunk of the tree, with a second limb beneath to catch him should he fall. It was not very comfortable, but he could not see the ground when he looked down. Predators relying on sight should not notice him.

  If animals followed his scent, he could only hope that they were not the kind that climbed trees. Once he settled in one spot, it was hopeless to try to stay awake in the face of his body’s need to restore itself.

  Despite the hard, rough tree against his bare skin, he carefully arranged his body in the best compromise he could manage between safety and comfort. Wulfston felt himself sucked inexorably into the oblivion of Adept slumber.

  Perhaps the gods would grant him protection for this one night-whatever gods held sway in this dark and alien land.

  He was gorging on fresh meat, aware only of the smell and taste, and the emptiness in his belly. The pack leaders had brought down a water buifalo, and gorged their fill on the smoking entrails and the liver, but there was meat aplenty for the two young ones who now chewed on the tough muscles, struggling even with their sharply pointed teeth to tear off chunks to swallow whole, ready to run if-

  Snarls warned him.

  He saw the hyena coming up on the other side of the carcass, warning him away.

  But he was still hungry! He had had only a few mouthfuls! And his sister-

  She was gone already, had turned and run from the scavenger, knowing it perfectly capable of killing if it wanted to.

  For the first time in his life, hunger combined with male instinct, and he stood his ground, his hackles rising, growling in return, baring his teeth to show their sharpness and the meat that was rightly his.

  The hyena gave a bark of warning, and leaped over the buffalo carcass.

  The one eating growled in return, but the hyena thrust its sharp nose under his tail, challenging.

  He turned sharply, trying to do the same to the larger beast, but the hyena went for his throat, tumbling the younger animal head over heels in an attempt to escape the slashing teeth.

  Hunger made him brave. He got his feet under him and leaped for the hyena’s throat-but the larger animal was wily and experienced. He caught the young dog by the thick throat fur, shaking, trying to snap his neck.

  This time youth and lack of experience overtook him- when his opponent let go he cringed in fear, whining. The hyenas wicked yellow teeth gashed his thigh. In response, he turned on his back, belly exposed in submission.

  The hyena snarled and threatened, standing between the buffalo carcass and the dog, but he did not attack further.

  The dog whined, then slunk off in the stink of his own blood and fear musk, his stomach still empty and protesting.

  At the edge of the jungle his sister waited anxiously, crying, ready to lick his wounds-

  Wulfston woke with a start, to full daylight. What a strange dream-he and Aradia as dogs-?

  As he turned his stiff body to climb down the tree, Wulfston found himself eye to eye with the biggest snake he had ever seen. The body was wrapped around a branch above him, the head hanging down to peer at him from cold reptilian eyes.

  Wulfston backed down the tree as hastily as he could without any sudden moves. His limbs were stiff from having remained in the same awkward position all night, but he didn’t hurt. His body’s healing powers had come automatically into play. But still his stomach demanded food.

  He reached the foot of the tree and straightened, stretching his arms upward to ease his back-and his makeshift loincloth slid down to his ankles!

  Wulfston picked up the silk shirt and unknotted it to retie it more securely about his loins. He knew wh
at had happened: he had not provided his body with food to restore his strength, and so it had taken energy out of his own flesh.

  He had to find food-his gut was aching. The fact that he was wide awake and feeling good except for the raging hunger told him that his powers were restored, but he could not use them without replacing the energy his body required. Adepts carried no extra body fat; the night’s fast had taken all he could spare without giving up muscle.

  He was still within the sound of the waterfall, so he went back, easily caught a fish and lifted it from the water with Adept power, and cooked it over a small fire he built on the rock ledge. He ate the first of it half raw, unable to wait for it to cook through.

  When he had caught, cooked, and eaten a second fish, although he was not satisfied, he had at least given his body something to work with. He also felt more confident, now that he dared use his powers again.

  Having fulfilled his first priority of nutrition, he had to decide what to do next. Surely the other survivors of the shipwreck were looking for him.

  Were there other survivors? There had to be. Zanos and Astra would have combined their Adept powers to save themselves. And what about Chulaika and Chaiku? Sukuru had used them to bring Wulfston to Africa. Their usefulness over, had he discarded them? Or had they rejoined him?

  He wasn’t going to find them in the middle of the jungle. If he worked his way east for a few miles he would come out onto a plain-

  How did he know that?

  He realized the knowledge came from that weird dream, in which he and Aradia were half-grown wild dogs driven from their meal by a hyena.

  Was that what the dream was really about? Or was that just the interpretation he had put on it when he woke up?

  When he opened his mind to it, Wulfston realized that in the dream he had been the dog, not himself at all. The female had been sister, litter-mate, companion… but not Aradia.

  It had been… real.

  He had been in that dog’s mind.

  He had been… Reading?

  Torio had once asked him how he knew where the animals were that he called. Had his defenseless state of last night dropped some barrier?

  He sat beside the pool, and tried to Read. As always, nothing happened. Of course nothing happened.

  He d had a dream, that was all!

  So how did he know that a grassy plain lay beyond the jungle?

  Well, how did he know? Maybe there was no plain. Maybe there was nothing but more jungle, and if he went east he would be farther and farther from any other survivors of the shipwreck. If he went west, he would certainly come back to the ocean. But wouldn’t the shore be where Sukuru expected to find him?

  He had been attacked there once already.

  So… east or west?

  And then, with chill prickles up his spine, he realized that he knew east from west. He was no longer lost, although the sun rode too high to be an indicator of direction, and he had no lodestone. He just knew!

  Something had happened to him in the night. Perhaps it really was the opening of his Reading powers at last. He had to find Astra-she’d quickly train him to use them. But he had to keep from being captured or killed by Sukuru, or by Z’Nelia’s forces, who might assume he was on Sukuru’s side.

  They knew he was not a Reader. They would assume that, unable to traverse the jungle, and not knowing that the plain lay within easy distance for an Adept, he would go back to the sea.

  Therefore he would go eastward, to the plain.

  By high noon he came to the edge of the jungle. Before him stretched the plain he had seen in his dream-grassland as far as the eye could see, teeming with life.

  Some animals he recognized-elephants were used for heavy labor in the Aventine Empire, and lions had been kept by the Emperor’s family as if to demonstrate their power by their hold on the king of beasts.

  But he did not know the names of the many deerlike creatures, large and small, some with horns that appeared too large for their small heads to carry.

  And the birds! Acres of flamingos turned the shore of a lake a brilliant orangey-pink. Small brown birds hid in the grass, while bright parrots perched in the occasional tree. Crows and magpies lent their raucous cries to the snorts of the lions and the trumpeting of the elephants, while above it all floated an eagle, watching with keen eyes for his prey.

  In the grass, besides smaller birds there were mice and rabbits, little squirrellike animals, snakes, lizards and chameleons, insects.

  The life of the plain called to something in Wulfston’s blood. He was one with that community of nature under the open sky. It didn’t even seem strange that he was seeing and hearing things too distant or too small and faint to perceive with his normal senses.

  He knew what he had never consciously known before: his ancestors had come from here, from the plain, not from the jungle where enemies lurked. This… was home.

  As if to reassure himself that he was not imagining his new senses, Wulfston became aware of two dogs-the young dogs of his dream. They were at the edge of the jungle, in the shade, the male lying down while the female licked at a nasty wound high on his left hind leg.

  They were black, about half-grown. Wulfston understood they had been turned out of the pack to learn to fend for themselves, and would not be able to join another pack until they were grown. So they struggled to survive, their once happy rabbit-chasing no longer a game, but a deadly-earnest search for food.

  Wulfston turned, and made out the two dogs because he knew where to look. They blended into the shadows, but he recognized that their black color would make them as conspicuous on the golden plain… as he was in the Savage Lands.

  Using his power to make animals trust him, Wulfston walked toward the two dogs. When he came near, he saw that despite the way they had cleaned it with their tongues, the gash inflicted by the hyena’s filthy teeth was starting to fester.

  “Easy, boy,” Wulfston murmured, offering his closed hand to the male. The female bristled, and snarled at him from behind her brother.

  But when the male sniffed his hand and accepted a pat on the head, Wulfston turned his attention to the young bitch and soon had her nuzzling his hand. He wished he had food to offer, but he was as hungry as they were.

  When both dogs were calm, Wulfston laid his hand over the wound and sent healing heat to drive out the infection. He closed the wound from the inside out, while the female paced nervously and tried to shove her nose under his hand. When the healing was complete he let her, and watched both dogs sniff and lick the area where the wound had been, unable to understand where it had gone.

  The male got up and tried his leg; he didn’t limp at all. In a moment he was belly-down, hindquarters-up, inviting his sister to play.

  Wulfston let the pups tumble for a few moments, then mentally called them to his side. “You,” he told the male, “are Traylo, and you are Arlus,” to the female, “and we are going to hunt some rabbits!”

  Wulfston did the actual hunting, but the dogs didn’t know that. When he called a rabbit from its burrow, Traylo and Arlus dashed after it. The rabbit tore off through the grass with the yipping dogs in hot pursuit.

  But the object was food, not games. Before the rabbit could pop down another hole, Wulfston stopped its heart, then tried to control the dogs-

  They were on their prey, hungry and victorious! Gleefully, they ripped into the warm, quivering flesh, fighting over the tender innards. Fur flew as they shredded the skin to reach the flesh, filling their bellies at last!

  It was only when the dogs began to gnaw on the stripped bones that Wulfston came to himself, to the demands of his own empty stomach. He could smell and taste the raw meat, and the lingering memory when he withdrew forcefully from the dogs’ perspective made him momentarily queasy.

  Not for long, however; he had used what energy his early-morning meal had given him in healing Traylo, and his body once more clamored for food. Leaving the dogs to their prey, he caught and killed another rabbit, an
d soon had it spitted over a small fire.

  Watching that the fire did not throw sparks into the grass, Wulfston pulled the outer flesh off the rabbit as it cooked, and ate while he considered what to do. Head toward that lake he had Read, for a drink of water. Perhaps he would find a trail there. Surely people would have settled along such a body of water, or would stop there on journeys across the plains. Perhaps he would find a trail leading south. To people.

  He would have to approach people soon, if only to discover what fruits and vegetables he dared to eat in this land. Meat alone was inadequate nutrition, yet he feared to risk poison by eating the bright red berries that tempted him from a nearby thicket.

  Traylo and Arlus came back. They accepted the bones from his rabbit, but buried them, as they were no longer hungry. Soon they were curled up together, fast asleep.

  The more he thought, the more Wulfston realized that he could not avoid human habitation. Although his Adept powers allowed him to clean a rabbit without a knife, that was wasteful. And Adept or no, he had no way to carry water without some kind of container.

  Zanos and Astra and the others would be looking for him in the settlements, too, not out on the plain.

  Yes, he would walk to the lake and see what trail he might pick up there.

  Making certain the fire was out, Wulfston wrapped what was left of the rabbit in some leaves and set out.

  Traylo and Arlus trotted along beside him until his direction was established, then veered off after fascinating scents.

  It was hot under the direct sun. Wulfston’s black skin never burned like Aradia’s fairness, but after a while he wished he had a covering for his head. The animals had ceased their restless activity, spending the heat of the day in burrows or in the shade of grass or thickets. Even the herd animals lay down to rest in the hot afternoon glare.

  Wulfston could see the lake ahead… or was it a mirage formed by the waves of heat? He noticed the two dogs now moving straight ahead, no more forays to either side, and wondered if they could smell water.