Wolf's Bane

by Tara K. Harper

  “So it’s for Dion, not me, that you offer this apology—this Kum-jan.”

  “No. It’s for me, and you.”

  She eyed him warily, as if he would bite, and the older man shrugged.

  “I might be arrogant as an Ancient, Tehena, but I’m not too proud to apologize. And if, for once, you want to spend time with a man you know respects you, then take Kum-jan with me.”

  He waited. She didn’t speak. He waited still. Finally, he stepped forward and took her arm and led her to an empty room upstairs.

  * * *

  In the village, Asuli finished her trading and made a beeline for the local healer’s house. It was an older woman with faded white hair and spidery arms who came to the door. The old woman’s circlet was simple and old—made more than two centuries ago—and Asuli nodded at the healer in acknowledgment of her status.

  “How can I help you?” the old woman asked.

  Asuli stepped inside.

  * * *

  Dion could feel the wolves gathering outside the village. The packsong had grown since they had cut through the ridges and come down into the valley. Something had disturbed them and pulled them after her, and their voices were beginning to cloud her mind.

  It had been hours since Dion and the others had arrived in the town, but for once she didn’t want to move on. She knew almost no one here, and it was quiet except for the wolves. They were thick here—as though, she admitted, the closer to her childhood home she got, the stronger grew the graysong. Last night, the wolves had been in her mind, whispering and howling and curling around the slitted yellow eyes. This morning, they were a growing din that crashed against the insides of her skull. She clenched her fists to separate the sense of lupine pads on the palm of her hand from that of her own fingers.

  Twenty years ago, Ramaj Randonnen had been one of the few counties that still bred a wolfwalker every decade or so. Twelve years ago, the wolves had come back to the county, spreading from across the River Phye into Ariye and Randonnen. If, in the years since then, the wolves had multiplied as they seemed to have, there should be wolfwalkers in every mountain village, wolfwalkers in every town. But Dion didn’t stretch her mind to feel them. There were faces, old friends and teachers, in these villages who might recognize her still, and she had no wish to see anyone but strangers, who would not ask what had happened to make her eyes so dark.

  The commons house had cooled quickly once the sun went down, but the chill, like the wolves, seemed to draw Dion outside to the balcony between the rooms. Kiyun was already out there, watching the stars and the black silhouette of the mountains. For a while, they simply leaned on their elbows and watched the yellow lights in the homes and the people moving through the streets carrying late-night bundles and walking beneath the summer stars. Dion’s voice was quiet when she finally spoke. “I hear his voice at night, sometimes,” she said.

  Kiyun glanced at her. “You hear the wolves—he’s in their memories.”

  “I know.” Yellow, slitted eyes flickered, and Dion shivered in the packsong. Hishn’s voice, so distant, barely touched the back of her mind, as if the wolf howled her longing from a year away. Dion closed her eyes. She imagined she could see the massive wolf, but the eyes that looked back at her were foreign, not familiar.

  Wolfwalker, the Gray Ones howled in her head. Run with us tonight.

  “You have to let him go,” Kiyun said. “You know that, Dion.”

  She blinked and rubbed her arms. “It’s the dreams on which he has the strongest hold. At night, when the lights fade … The wolves howl inside my skull, and I see him when my eyes are closed as though my mind fights fever demons.”

  “He’s dead, Dion. Let go of him, and you’ll begin to sleep again. Hold on much longer, and you’ll dig your own grave with him.”

  “It’s not me holding him—it’s his voice in the packsong. Danton died, and there was nothing left but emptiness. But with Aranur … I set the wolves to find him, and they hunted him even as he was dying. He could feel them, so he was in their packsong. And when he died, as he fell, he set his words in their memories, so that all I hear now behind the wolves is him calling, over and over and over again, ’Wolfwalker, wolfwalker, wolfwalker.’”

  “He loved you, Dion.”

  She looked at him. “He was jealous of you, Kiyun. He was afraid you would take me away from him, just as the wolves sometimes did. He never understood that I could no more leave him than I could leave Hishn.”

  “I know.”

  Her voice trembled. “He thought I bought all that art for you because I took Kum-jan with you. He went to his grave thinking that I wanted more than him and took what I wanted from you. He never knew that I bought that art because you … you …”

  “Because I was too embarrassed to buy it for myself.” His thick, muscled hand covered hers. “And you were the only friend I could trust to buy it for me and not laugh at me.” He squeezed her hand. “After all,” he added wryly, “Who would believe that a fighter like me was really a frustrated artist?”

  That won a faint smile from her, but it faded almost as soon as it had touched her lips. The wolves howled, and her hands trembled, and she pulled away from him to clench her hands against her arms. “I loved my son, Kiyun.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to go on without him.”

  “I know,” he repeated softly.

  “And I hate him.”

  He glanced at her soberly.

  “For leaving me.” Her voice was low. “For racing away to the moons before I could explain the things I didn’t say to him before. For abandoning me to deal with everything he planned and expected. For taking the path to the moons where he’ll be up there with Danton, and leaving me a son who hates me. Moons, Kiyun. It isn’t Danton who needs him in the heavens; it’s Olarun who needs him here. But he’s gone, and he’s locked me into a life of nothing but duty. I blame him for dying—isn’t that rich? And I blame the wolves for haunting me with his voice, his touch, his eyes, while they let my Danton’s memory sit as still as stone.” She rubbed at her temples.

  “It’s natural, Dion, to feel as you do.”

  “Is it? I wonder sometimes if this is some exclusive human thing—this blaming that we do. Is it the only way to balance the guilt in our lives—to blame others along with ourselves? Olarun blames me. I blame Aranur. Aranur blamed the raiders. The Ancients blamed the Aiueven.” She stared out at the darkness where the stars hung like a swath of gems. “We’re so far from the stars, Kiyun. We’re so far from everything but ourselves. When we look here, at ourselves, what do we really see? The brightness of our future, or the blame we hold in our past?”

  “The future is what you make it, Dion. If all you want to see is blame, then that is all you’ll have.”

  Slowly, she turned her head. “Hard words, Kiyun.”

  “You need to hear them, Wolfwalker.”

  A woman and child walked on the street below them, and Kiyun eyed them absently before he recognized the intern beside some unknown boy. He pointed, and Dion followed his gaze. Her face stiffened slightly.

  “Want me to stay?” he asked quietly.

  She hesitated, then shook her head.

  He shrugged and left. He passed Asuli on the steps. The intern had the boy in tow, and she barely nodded to him as she marched determinedly up the steps. Kiyun gave the boy a thoughtful look, paused, and after a moment went back upstairs. He stood in a shadow of the corridor and watched and listened.

  Asuli barely knocked before entering the room. Dion didn’t answer her, but simply eyed her steadily.

  “Healer Dione—” Asuli reached behind her to push the boy forward. “This is Roethke.”

  The boy stopped hesitantly. “Please,” he said. He faltered.

  Asuli pushed him forward again, then stepped back into the hall, away from the doorway. She glanced at Kiyun, then pressed herself against the wall and like him, listened in silence. inside the room, Dion and Roethke looked at e
ach other. Finally, Dion spoke. “I’m no longer a healer, boy.”

  “Yes you are.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are. That woman said so.”

  “I have no circlet, no healer’s pack.”

  “But my mother—she’s sick, and you can help her. Asuli said you could.”

  “Asuli knows nothing, and you have a good healer in this village to see to your mother. Call on Elibi, not me.”

  “My mother has hairworms. They’re in her blood. She didn’t know, and they were there too long. Healer Elibi can’t help her.”

  “Then I cannot help her either.”

  “But Asuli said—”

  She cut him off. Her voice was harsh. “I’m nothing and no one.”

  “Please. Just look at her—”

  Dion’s palm hit the wall. The slam shocked the boy into silence. “I told you, I can’t help her. I’m no longer a healer.”

  “You have a healer’s band—that woman said you used to wear it all the time. That you took it off because you didn’t want us to know you could help people like my mother. Why won’t you do it? She’s going to die. Why won’t you help her?” he cried.

  Something in Dion’s chest broke. Rage blinded her, whirled through her brain with the wolves. “Damn you—” She struck out, snapping the bedpost with her hand. Roethke trembled but stood his ground. Dion no longer saw him. Too many Gray Ones flooded her thoughts, swamping her with heat and fire, hunger and hate, lust and eagerness and rage. Yellow eyes mixed with the graysong, and ancient voices screamed. She spun, smashing the nightstand, then striking it again as a drawer hung out, half broken. Wood shattered; splinters flew. Like a wire too tight, her body shook. The howl that tried to scream out from her lungs strangled instead in her throat.

  “Please,” Roethke begged in the abrupt and jagged silence. “She’s my mother.”

  Dion’s hands were paws; her skin was covered with a pelt of fur; her nose wrinkled back like a wolf. Her violet eyes were rimmed with yellow, as though a hundred wolves looked out her eyes.

  “Please,” Roethke said softly.

  Somehow, the young voice filtered through. Slowly, Dion stilled. Her fists, clenched, pressed against her forehead; her ragged breathing smoothed. She looked at him for a long moment. He was not so young, she realized. He was as old as Olarun—as straight and tall. His young, thin face was pinched with fear, but he didn’t back down—he didn’t retreat in the face of her rage. Slowly, her nostrils flared, and she caught the scent of his stubbornness. The Gray Ones that coursed through her brain picked up the scent and echoed it back.

  “Please,” he said. “Don’t let her die.”

  “Show me,” Dion whispered.

  XIX

  I does no good to grasp what you can reach.

  Stretch, because everything of value is beyond

  what you can easily see and understand.

  If you are afraid, if you have lost too much

  and withdrawn from others, you must stretch

  even further to touch what burns you and hold

  what you fear. It’s the only way you will ever

  be alive again.

  —Yegros Chu, Randonnen philosopher

  The force of the Gray Ones hit her as she walked toward the boy’s home, and she staggered with the weight of it. Roethke caught her arm to steady her, as though he had done it before, and Dion realized he must have nursed his mother as the woman had grown weaker. The pain caught her suddenly, like the stab of a knife, and she gasped. The gray wolves howled. The sound was in her ears, not just in her head, and the boy clenched her hand sharply.

  “It’s just the wolves,” Dion tried to soothe, but her voice was half growl, half words. “They won’t hurt you,” she forced herself to say.

  “Why are they here? What do they want?”

  “Me.” She could hear the wolves gathering, thickening, closing in on the village. They searched for her voice in the packsong and howled when they found the thread of it so close, so strong. Then, ahead of her, at the end of the road, one of the wolves gave voice.

  Back at the commons house, Tehena, standing at the window, cocked her head as the howl rose. “So,” she muttered. “They did come.”

  Gamon, standing beside her, didn’t hear her. “That’s close.” He frowned. “They’re practically in the village.”

  Absently, she rubbed one bare foot against the other. “They’ll be closer, too, before long.”

  This time, he heard her. He glanced at her, and his gray gaze caught her expression. “What do you know that I don’t?” he asked. But there was a half knock at the door before she could answer, and Kiyun looked inside. “Asuli brought a boy to see Dion,” he said quickly. “She’s gone to do a healing.”

  Tehena turned swiftly. “A healing? Now?” She pushed away from Gamon and grabbed her socks and boots from the floor, hurriedly pulling them on. Gamon stared at her, and she stomped to set her feet in the boots, the left one only half on. “That wasn’t part of the deal—” She cursed as she hopped on one foot. “Moonworms on every Ariyen bootmaker…”

  “Part of the deal—what do you mean?” Gamon grabbed her arm, steadying her. Then he caught the look on her face. His gray gaze went cold. “What have you done, Tehena?”

  The woman paused. She looked him straight in the eye. “I Called the wolves,” she said.

  He stared at her. “Have you lost your mind? They almost killed you before.”

  “Between Dion and what y—” Her voice broke off. She shrugged. “I didn’t figure I had much to lose.”

  “And your arms and calves—those bandages? They don’t hide sap marks or rashes at all,” he stated more than questioned. “You’re hiding slash marks from the Gray Ones.”

  “You talk to the wolves, you pay their price.” She jerked free and jammed her boot on the rest of the way.

  From the doorway, Kiyun looked at her oddly. “And the wolves,” he said. “They listened to you?”

  Her voice was hard. “Don’t worry, it’s not likely to happen again.” She tossed her cloak around her shoulders.

  He half shrugged in apology, but he didn’t take his gaze from her face. “What… what did you say—to get them to come?”

  She stared for a moment at her lean, hard hands. Then she looked up and met his eyes. “I told them that Dion was lost in grief and could no longer see the packsong. That she needs the wolves to help her find herself. To force her to live. I told them to find her a future.”

  “You Called them to … Call her?”

  “Aye.”

  “But if she’s doing a healing when they Call her…”

  Tehena nodded. “She’ll be drawing mem like a magnet to help her with the healing, and they’ll be converging on her like a storm to Call her to heal them, too.”

  “She’ll be too weak to resist them,” Gamon put in. “She could be sucked into the wolfsong so far she can’t come out again.” He flung his own cloak around his shoulders and followed Kiyun into the hall.

  Tehena’s words, so quiet in the night, were lost as the two men strode out of the room. “And then where will I be?” she asked.

  They asked directions to the boy’s home from one of the men on the porch and strode quickly down the street. There were shadows of movement along the roads, flashes of light reflecting from eyes. Dogs barked constantly as the Gray Ones neared the town. Like Gamon and the others, the wolves followed Dion, gathering like a siege.

  At the low, decorative gate to Roethke’s home, Tehena eyed the two wolves she could see. Her arms and legs bothered her where the gashes were raw. She hadn’t told Dion what she had done; she carried enough of a trail kit to treat her wounds alone. Now, facing the Gray Ones brought a shiver to her shoulders. She steeled herself to walk steadily past the gleaming yellow eyes.

  It wasn’t Asuli who opened the door, but a woman from the village. The woman nodded to them and motioned for them to step inside, but as Gamon tried to move past her, the woman
stopped him. “I was told that they needed to be alone with Xiame,” the woman said. But as Gamon heard Asuli’s voice in the back room, he pushed firmly past.

  “Wait.” She pulled at his arm. “They said they need quiet—”

  He shook her off. The woman looked at Tehena’s face, then Kiyun’s, and seeing their uncompromising hardness, hurried out the door.

  In the back room, Dion and the intern stood beside a bed on which lay a woman. Roethke’s mother, Xiame, was haggard, her face lined with pain even in unconsciousness; and the boy, between the two healers, clutched at his mother’s hand. There was a cloudiness to the air, as if the song of the wolves had become tangible, and Dion’s voice was hard as she answered the intern. “She’s too far gone on the path to the moons; there can be no cure for her.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Asuli retorted.

  Dion’s shoulders tensed, but she forced her words to remain steady. “At this stage, there are too many worms clogging her veins. If I kill the worms, their decomposing bodies would fill her blood with clots and toxins. It would be like giving her a hundred tiny heart attacks with a heavy dose of deathbriar—she would die within a day.”

  “Imminent death hasn’t stopped you before.” The intern nodded at Dion’s expression. “You know what I’m talking about.” Dion shot her a warning look toward the boy, but the other woman ignored it. “I’ve seen you work. I know now what you do.”

  “I do nothing that others can’t—”

  “That’s a pail of moonworms,” the other woman retorted. “You can save her—if you want to.”

  “I can’t,” Dion snapped. “Even with … there’s only so much I can do. This—it is beyond me.”

  “You don’t know that until you try. What have you got to lose except a few minutes of your oh-so-precious time? It’s not as if you have something better to do. You’ve given up everything useful.”