Wolf's Bane

by Tara K. Harper

“This isn’t some sort of miracle, Asuli. It saps you like a mudsucker.”

  The intern didn’t budge. “So you’re not even going to try. The great Ovousibas Healer Dione won’t lift a finger to help someone else—not when she can wallow in self-pity instead. Yes, I know,” she added at Dion’s wary expression. “I figured it out. I’m not called smart for nothing.” Asuli failed to notice the way Dion’s eyes began to burn. “I know what you’re capable of, Dione. But you’d rather watch this woman die than soil your grief to save her. Look at her—” Asuli reached out to grab Dion’s arm, then cried out in shock and jerked back, staggering against the bedpost. “Moons!” she gasped. Her arm tingled as if it had been struck with a sledge, and the pain radiated up.

  Dion clenched her fists. Violet eyes and yellow, slitted eyes had merged into a single gaze, and the blast of energy had flowed through her body like rage. Her mind had spun left, focused her own self, and spun out again, loosing that fire at Asuli.

  Caught in the sense of it, she Called to the wolves and felt them race to gather around her. In the village, in the ridges … The Gray Ones were close, as if they had felt her coming. They were eager, as though they had hunted her voice. Had she Called them or had they Called her? She swallowed hard and tried to separate herself. Her words were low and harsh. “The healing isn’t to be spoken of. Do not mention it again.”

  Asuli, still backed against the bedpost, retorted, “You deny what you can do?”

  “I sent Hishn away long ago. I have no wolf to help me.”

  “There are a dozen wolves around this town. Call one of them instead.”

  A shiver crossed Dion’s face. They were too close, too thick in this village. If she opened to the Gray Ones here, they would Call her even more strongly.

  Roethke looked up at her. “Please,” he said. “You have to help her. She’s my mother.”

  “Dione can’t be convinced like that, boy,” Asuli snapped at him. “She doesn’t know what it’s like to love someone else like a child does its mother.”

  Dion’s lips tightened so far that skin around her mouth went white. A muscle jumped in her jaw. “I may not have grown up with a mother myself, but at least I know what it is to love like one.”

  Roethke touched her sleeve, snatching his hand back as he felt the fury within her. “If you don’t have a mother, you can use mine,” he said quickly. “She can be your mother, too. But please, don’t let her die.”

  For a moment, Dion didn’t move. Her violet eyes seemed to gleam. Then, as the boy got up quickly and moved almost hurriedly out of her way, she sat beside his mother. Blindly, she pulled back the sheets. Then she touched the woman’s body, letting her fingers feel the sluggish pulse.

  Gray Ones in the dozens seemed to shout inside her head. Wolfwalkerwolfwalkerwolfwalker…

  Deliberately, she opened her mind to them. Help me with this, she sent.

  Wolfwalker. Hear us. The pack Calls to you. By the Ancient Bond, you must Answer.

  Help me, she whispered deep in her mind.

  Answer! they howled back.

  Her fists clenched against her temples. Her face went taut; she made a strangled noise. From the doorway Gamon cursed. Tehena grabbed his arm, holding him back. “Not now,” she said sharply. “Don’t touch her. She’s deep in the Call of the wolves.”

  Asuli eyed Dion intently. “Is she doing the healing?”

  Tehena cursed the intern coldly. It was Kiyun who said, “Not yet.”

  Dion heard but didn’t hear their words. The sense of the Gray Ones had swept in and filled her head like a maelstrom. Her consciousness was sucked down into the whirling gray. Images of dens, of night, of hot sunshine, of dusty trails clogged her mind. The hunt-lust of hot blood and tendon, the eagerness of the yearlings, the tumbling sprawl of pups, the snap of bones, the snap of teeth …

  A howling rose outside the house, and inside, Tehena shivered. Dion didn’t notice. “What do you want?” she whispered.

  Your promise, Wolfwalker—of life, not death.

  The images blurred and shifted. The voices of the wolves were suddenly overlaid with dimmer sounds, faded scents, and she knew they projected their memories. Back, back through time and distance … Back to trails she had almost forgotten. Back to Hishn, when the wolf was still young. Back to mountains, where snows fell like drifts of time, and the dome of the Ancients was a coffin of death filled with an alien plague.

  There, deep in the packsong, the voices sharpened like teeth. Colors swirled and yellow eyes gleamed. White wings cut through the skies. Fire burned in Ancients’ bodies, eight hundred years ago. Time jumped, and the fire jumped with it, searing her blood and burning her own body with the fire of a fever that would not cool. Her brother, Aranur, Gamon … Their bodies, wracked, convulsed in places of white light and flattened walls. A Call— hers, replayed in her head. Lupine voices drowned her in memory while flashes of healing swept forward. Ovousibas— she saw it again as the wolves remembered it through her. And her words cut over the healing, stubborn in her desperation, replayed over and over like a drummer layering beats on a song.

  Take me back. Her own voice, spoken years ago, echoed in her skull. Not just once, but back… Time… She shuddered as the memories took hold. Her words rang in the packsong, and her own history struck her with the images of the wolves. Show me how. The fever burns. Time … Time …

  And the shades of long-dead wolves, their voices raised in ancient howls: The fire strikes. We die, Wolfwalker. We burn. The fire strikes… Death, Wolfwalker. Death, not life.

  Over the wolfsong, over the memories, Dion’s voice rang out… Teach me, Gray Ones. Ovousibas… Ill help you kill it… Kill it… Til take it from your bodies…

  Death, our pups. The wolfsong howled. Death, our births. The fire kills …

  Til help you. Dion’s voice layered over the packsong. Show me how to keep my brother, the rest of us alive. Show me, and Til help you.

  Live now. Live tomorrow. Live…

  The packsong faded, and the eyes of the wolves stared into her mind. A single gray voice spoke then. You hold life in your hands, yet you seek death. You forsake your promise, Wolfwalker.

  Plague. The image was clear. She could not help but recognize what she had felt before. “I’ve tried,” she whispered. “But there is no cure. I cannot find one for you.”

  We bought your life with our deaths, the wolf voice answered. And time fled backward, but now the images were sharp and clear, and the death, she knew, was her own. She saw Aranur through the eyes of the wolves; saw Olarun standing near him in the dark. Saw the wolf pack gather at the meadow and race with her mate toward her home. Saw the Gray Ones force the dnu to run, and felt her death again. The darkness swirled. The ragged pain that throbbed through her heart—her old heart, her heart of months ago—weakened, dimmed, and stilled. And Aranur screamed her name.

  Her nails cut through her skin. “No,” she whispered.

  We carried you. We held you—as you still hold our future. And we died for you because of it. Died with the fire in our wombs, in our blood, in our bodies.

  The single voice withdrew. Dion sat, blinded by the images. In the room the boy stared at her. He started to speak, but Kiyun touched his shoulder to stay him. The boy swallowed and stepped back.

  Dion let her own mind range free in the gathered packsong. Each wolf passed her voice on, each pack picked it up and howled it to the moons. And far away, as if amplified by hundreds of wolves in between, she felt Hishn touch her thoughts.

  Wolfwalker! the Gray One howled. The voice was faint.

  Dion touched the wolf, reveling in the shocking joy she had almost forgotten. Then she went on beyond even Hishn. Back, she stretched, through the ninans. Back, to read the song of the wolves who had run with her to her home. The yearling that Yoshi had killed … The three wolves who had moved too slowly when worlags caught them against a cliff … The wolf packs that Dion had healed near her house, too blind in grief to notice what she did to cleanse
them of the fever … And the slow deaths of wolves—thirty-two Gray Ones—who died at the hands of predators after they were sapped by the fire of the plague …

  Her lips moved, but her voice had no strength. “Dear moons,” she breathed.

  Now you understand.

  “Now? What do you mean?”

  You have borne children, while our cubs die. You grieve with us now; we grieve with you. We are brothers in the pack.

  “There was not enough death in my life already? My mate, my son—” Her voice broke. “—had to die that we could be bonded more tightly?”

  Your promise was empty of urgency. The promise of life, to take the fire from our wombs. Our pups still die, Wolfwalker.

  “I’ve kept my word,” she whispered. “Every month I’ve worked to find the cure. I’ve gone back to the domes; I’ve searched your songs; I’ve learned every story of the Aiueven. But I can’t find what I need to heal you.”

  Time moves on, Wolfwalker. We Call you now to help us.

  She cried out almost silently. “But I can’t see what I have to do anymore. I can’t see beyond the blackness. Don’t you understand? To me, death doesn’t bind us together. It tears my promise apart. I can’t work like this—even for you. I have no future without my family. I have only a past of blood.”

  Life, death—both live in us. They are the same, Wolfwalker.

  Dion closed her eyes and rocked herself silently on the bed.

  Time, Wolfwalker, lives in our minds as well as yours. Fight to live, not die.

  “You ask much.”

  We ask for a future.

  “And what if I have none to give?”

  Then we will find one also for you.

  Dion made a low, bitter sound.

  Time, Wolfrvalker, is life to us. We Call you now to run with the pack for the future of the pack.

  “My promise …”

  Life, not death. For you. For us.

  The packsong raged suddenly, and Dion cried out. The harsh sound hung in the room like a ghost. Then it faded. Outside, the wolves began to howl. Dion’s sight cleared slowly. The wolfsong was still there in her mind, thick as a winter pelt. The Gray Ones stilled, waiting. She swallowed, and her throat seemed to work. She felt something warm slide down her wrist; a trickle of blood spilled out from the cut of her own fingernails in her palms.

  Wolfwalker, they howled. Seek this life, as it is something you must do. The image of Xiame was clear. Seek life—your life so that you may seek ours. Your promise binds us as well as you. We will be here with you.

  She lowered her hands. Her fingers were stiff and white. She looked at Asuli. “You have your healing kit?”

  The intern nodded.

  “You will make incisions along the body—short and shallow where I indicate. Two incisions for each small area.”

  “You intend to bleed the worms out of her?” Asuli’s voice was suddenly professional, matter-of-fact.

  “Aye. You will swab the first incision with cytro to get it into the patient’s bloodstream. When the worms appear at the second incision, you will wash that area with cytro again to kill any still-living worms. Remove all worm masses to a bowl—make sure none of them live.”

  The intern nodded.

  “We’ll do her feet first, then calves and legs, hands and arms. Torso and chest last. If we need to turn her, or do more than that, I will let you know.”

  “Should I close the incisions as you finish with one area?”

  “Not till I’m done. Some of the worms will loosen and float free in her bloodstream; those will have to be pushed out wherever I can find an open incision.”

  “She could bleed to death.”

  “I can control that.” Dion glanced at the boy, who had made a strangled sound. “I will do my best, Roethke. I can promise no more than that.”

  Silently, he nodded.

  Dion looked at Tehena, Kiyun, Gamon. “I will need help,” she said flady. All three moved forward, but it was Gamon who reached Dion first. He placed his hands on her shoulders and stiffened almost immediately. The wolfwalker’s eyes were clear, but the sense of the wolves was strong in her, and he could feel the Gray Ones howling.

  Slowly, she stretched her hands over the woman. Take me in, Gray Ones.

  Then run with us, Wolfwalker.

  Still caught in the senses of the wolves, her mind spun left and down. It was not a gentle thing, but a swell of power that sucked her along like a raging torrent. The body of Roethke’s mother was suddenly owned by Dion. Her lungs barely lifted; her mind fought the sea of blackness that pushed in on herself. Her heartbeat slowed and pounded heavily as it was dragged down by the worms in her blood vessels. She almost choked with the sense of it.

  Slowly, she dug herself out of the blackness and back into the gray of the wolves. Then she sank her mind into the walls of the blood vessels, where she could feel the worms. Entwining, burrowing into the walls of the blood vessels, the worms sought their natural symbiotic places but found human tissue instead. Where they would have strengthened a badgerbear’s vessels, they clogged the human veins.

  Dion felt this, saw this, sank her mind into the sense of it so that each tiny pain from the dying tissues became a pain of her own. Then she followed the first of the pains till she found the incision Asuli had made in one of the woman’s feet. It was bleeding lightly, and from inside Xiame’s body, the cold air hitting the blood was a tiny shock to Dion. Even as she located the site, she felt the cytro wash into the bloodstream. The toxin pulsed along the blood vessels, sweeping by the worms or paralyzing them in place. Dion’s consciousness followed in that wake. Gently, she pulled a worm mass away from an artery wall. Carefully, she untangled the clot they formed and pushed it along the blood vessel. When she reached the area where the incision was, she opened the incision wider. Blood spilled out, pulling the worm clot with it.

  In the room, Asuli couldn’t help herself. “By the gods,” she whispered. Even as she stared, the blood at the first incision point thickened into a tiny clot. It wasn’t a scab; it was a subtly writhing, dying mass that was forced out onto the skin. Quickly, she doused it with more cytro and wiped it from the skin.

  Dion swept on. Slowly, methodically, vein by vein, artery by artery, she followed the path of the cytro. Some of the walls of the blood vessels left behind when she removed the worm masses were patchy with near-dead cells. She had to stimulate those around them to heal even as she pushed the worms on. There were no clots in the smaller veins; hairworms needed space to breed. But there were hundreds of clots to find and untangle and push out of the rest of the body.

  She didn’t know how long she was there. The gray fog remained strong, thick with the presence of two dozen wolves, but she could feel the creep of exhaustion along her consciousness. Time … She had stayed in this body far longer than she had ever been in a patient before. Feet, legs, arms … Roethke’s mother had been bled of most of the parasite masses, but there were still veins and arteries to clear near the woman’s lungs and heart. If she left her patient now, the worms would replicate within hours and reseed the woman’s body.

  Dion tried to concentrate herself into the woman’s chest, but her focus shivered. Like a thin leaf in a heavy wind, her mind suddenly shuddered. The gray sea swirled and sucked at her thoughts.

  Wolfwalken the Gray Ones howled.

  Her thoughts set grimly. Help me, she sent.

  But her body was drained. There was no more strength inside her.

  In the room Tehena watched Dion carefully. She caught the drain of color from Dion’s face, then the shiver that hit her arms. “She’s fading,” the woman told the others.

  Gamon looked at Asuli; but the intern, still busy wiping up clots of worms that trickled out of the incisions, didn’t notice. Tehena followed the older man’s glance. She stepped forward and took the wipes from the intern, then pushed Asuli toward Dion. “I’ll do this. Help Dion now,” shordered.

  Asuli jerked away. “I am helping. I’m doin
g my job.”

  Tehena pulled her back, and her lean hands were like claws on the intern’s arm. “I can do this as well as you. We’ve all taken our turn with the wolfwalker. Now it’s your turn to do it.”

  Asuli swallowed. “To do what? I don’t know what she’s doing.”

  “Ovousibas, just as you accused,” Tehena said harshly. “Now help her survive what you pushed her into.”

  “I can’t—” Her voice broke off at Tehena’s expression.

  “You want to be a healer,” Tehena snarled. “Then start acting like one, for once. Dion can’t do this alone. And we haven’t the strength left to help her ourselves.”

  Asuli shuddered. She could still feel the burning shock all the way up her arms from when she’d grabbed the wolfwalker. “I can’t,” she repeated, shrinking back.

  Tehena’s fingers dug into the other woman’s shoulders till Asuli gasped. “You’re always telling us how much you know. How much better than everyone else you are. You’ve been bragging about your skills since you attached yourself to us like a leech. It’s time you stopped talking and started doing.” She gave a shove so that Asuli stumbled toward Dion.

  The intern hesitated, but Tehena cursed her. Asuli moved as if in a dream. She dropped to sit on the bed beside Dion. This close, her skin prickled, and the hairs stood out from her arms. She could see the pulse in Xiame’s veins, the subtle shift of clots. Gingerly, she touched Dion’s shoulders.

  The sting was mental, but it shocked her. She almost let go. But she set her jaw in stubborn lines and held on. Instantly, she swayed. The drain was like someone sucking the breath out of her body. Grimly, she held on. She had seen the others do this— hold on to the healer and stagger away, weakened by this thing Dion did. But to feel it herself … Gray voices echoed in her head. A wolf howl, lonely, was suddenly filled with other lupine tones. And the body before her opened up as if, through Dion’s eyes, she saw not just the flesh and cuts she herself had made, but the inner vessels, the heart, the bones.

  She felt the worms detach, paralyzed by the chemicals that had been washed into the blood. She felt the wolfwalker untangle the parasite clots and pull them from the body. And she felt the pulse of Xiame’s body as if it were her own. Asuli’s fingers dug into Dion’s arms. She began to shake. She wondered vaguely, as she felt her knees wobble and her body weaken abruptly, if she would hit the floor hard or if one of the men would bother to catch her even though they hated her so.