Laria was used to Firekeeper, so it wasn’t until she saw Varelle’s eyes widen in alarm—for the first time losing that aura of calm competence—that Laria considered what a very startling sight the newly arrived pair would be.
Although no more than average height and build, Firekeeper moved with a wild grace and contained power that made her instantly dominate her surroundings. Her weathered brown skin was silvered with myriad scars, her brown hair short and roughly cut. The wolf-woman’s eyes were dark brown, almost black. There was something about her gaze—simultaneously unfocused and yet preternaturally alert—that made her seem other than human.
The enormous grey wolf who padded at Firekeeper’s side did nothing to alleviate this impression of inhumanity, for he moved with the woman as an equal, not a pet or a servant. His blue eyes studied the room with evident intelligence, almost seeming more human in the directness of their gaze than those of his human-born companion.
At this moment, neither of the wolves looked their best. Firekeeper showed several fresh scrapes and her clothing—for all that she preferred to wear attire made from soft but strong doeskin—was scuffed and showed small tears along the front. Blind Seer’s fur was matted with streaks of damp clay, especially in the vicinity of his forelegs. That he had not found opportunity to clean himself spoke volumes about the haste in which the pair had made their return. When he had the opportunity, the wolf was as scrupulously clean as a cat.
Firekeeper did not introduce herself as a human might, certainly feeling that the new arrival would have just heard Laria speak her name and that of Blind Seer, so words on her part were unnecessary. Instead, she faced Varelle and, with the faintest tilt of her head—a gesture mirrored by Blind Seer—invited the stranger to introduce herself.
After a long pause, Varelle did. “I am Varelle, the Gatewatcher. I am pleased to meet you.”
Firekeeper snorted. “Then why you make the earth shake and throw itself at us? We—I—cannot think it is chance that you come, then this happens.”
Varelle neither denied nor confirmed Firekeeper’s accusation, only said with a resumption of her former, superior calm, “Rhinadei does not care for trespassers. What is left to me is to discover whether your trespass was by chance or purpose. How did you come here?”
Firekeeper increased the tilt of her head, the gesture making clear she wondered at Varelle’s lack of intelligence. “By the gate—the one there. I wonder more how you come here, for you did not come from outside, and there is no scent of you within that is not new.”
“I am the Gatewatcher,” Varelle repeated cryptically and was, Laria thought, slightly disappointed that Firekeeper did not ask what that meant.
Varelle didn’t answer even as much as she did to us with that bit about a “gate made of need,” Laria thought cynically. Firekeeper makes Varelle nervous in a way we didn’t so she’s taking refuge in being the lady of mystery.
“Before your arrival,” Varelle went on, “your friends told me you came from the Nexus Islands.”
Firekeeper shrugged in a manner that said, “Do you expect me to say otherwise?” Then her expression shifted from guarded to alight with curiosity and enthusiasm. “Shall we talk together now—all of us? You tell us about this place we have come to, we tell you about the Nexus Islands and how it is there. You do not need to be afraid. We are very friendly.”
Arasan laughed, his mouth widening in his most appealing grin—and Arasan could be very appealing when he chose.
“Firekeeper’s right, Varelle. You scared us, appearing like that when we were all but certain that this area was deserted. Perhaps we should make a fresh start.” He looked around but, other than the gate itself, the building was devoid of furnishings. “We could unroll a few blankets, have a meeting of—if not minds and hearts—at least of shared information. What do you say?”
Laria half-expected the Meddler to add some clever quip or sardonic jibe, then realized that he and Arasan would be doing their best to conceal their unusual dual nature. Not wanting her silence to be taken for distrust, Laria offered Varelle a tentative smile.
“You did seem to have questions for us. Why don’t we try talking?”
Or are you just keeping an eye on us until the guards show up?
“I do have questions,” Varelle agreed, her expression softening, “and I may be able to answer some of yours. First though, you say you came from the Nexus Islands. Why now? Why after such a very long time?”
“That,” Arasan said, going over to his pack and unfastening his bedroll, which he offered to Varelle with a flourish, “is a long story.”
Laria seated herself on her own bedroll and composed herself to listen as Arasan began his tale. Before they had left the Nexus Islands, there had been considerable discussion as to how much information could be shared and why some things should be held back. Now as Arasan—a teller of tales and singer of songs by choice—began to spin these facts into a narrative for their—host? judge?—all the rest of them could do was hope that his tale would not contain elements that would clash with some local taboo.
Arasan began by asking Varelle if she knew how, many centuries ago, the Nexus Islands had been adopted as a location where gates from various locations would meet, thus sparing those long-ago enchanters the need to create gates to each and every place of interest. When Varelle nodded, he asked if she knew of the great illness—sometimes called the Fire Plague, querinalo, Divine Retribution, or many other names—that had swept the world over a century before, killing many and crippling the ability of magic to function through much of the world.
This time Varelle’s response was noncommittal but, as she didn’t ask him to explain further, Arasan merely spoke on, explaining how when the damage from querinalo had been at its most extreme the Nexus Islands had been abandoned. The islands and their nexus of gates had only been rediscovered and put to use again some fifteen or so years before—and had been a source of contention ever since.
The bulk of the rest of Arasan’s tale was centered around how the summer—their summer, Rhinadei’s winter—before, the Nexus Islands had come into the care of their current custodians.
“Once differences of opinion were settled,” he concluded, “as settled as possession of such a strategically sensitive location can ever be—the current ruling council decided to allocate resources for examining those gates whose end points were unknown or that had not been opened for a great deal of time. In this way, we discovered the gate that brought us here.”
Varelle shook her head, not in disbelief but in amazement. “I hardly know where to begin with my questions. You didn’t have any difficulty finding this gate? Our belief was that the other side was either hidden or perhaps even destroyed.”
Firekeeper’s response was a dry laugh. “Oh, we not sniff it out first, nor second. We open and go through many gates. This one—when we found it—was on a little island, easily overlooked. Also, it looks as if it had been buried away to be forgotten.”
“And that didn’t make you reluctant to open it?”
Laria held her breath. Was Firekeeper going to mention how the gate had been nearly impossible to open? They’d agreed that telling this would be unwise. Rather than letting those on the other side know they had the power—or at least one of their allies did—to force the powerful spells that had sealed the gate, they had decided that they should leave the impression that the wards had decayed over time.
But what Firekeeper said next might have been—judging by Varelle’s reaction—even worse. “When we find this gate, when we read what is written near it, we think on the other side is a place we have been seeking—a place nearly lost to time.”
The manner in which Firekeeper rested her left hand on Blind Seer’s head indicated to those who knew her that by “we” she meant herself and the blue-eyed wolf in particular. Laria didn’t think that Varelle caught the subtlety. Laria waited, breath tight in her lungs, as Varelle turned her shrewd gaze fully upon the wolf-woman.
> “This place? Do you mean Rhinadei?”
“Interest and fear both,” Blind Seer reported. “Stalk carefully, dear heart.”
In acknowledgement, Firekeeper gently squeezed where her hand rested half-buried in the thick fur of Blind Seer’s shoulders, but she knew he could not help but scent her excitement.
“A place,” she began, trying to find the right words, “whose name we did not find. A place hinted at in many places, many stories, but whose trail was brushed out almost as soon as we would find it.”
“A legend, then,” Varelle said, her inflection casual, even dismissive. “A myth.”
“We have hunted legends to life before,” Firekeeper said, unwilling to swallow this wolfish boast. “Our hunts have been more for the cause of others, less for ourselves, but this one he and I”—she indicated Blind Seer with a toss of her head— “want for reasons of our own.”
“Firekeeper…” Arasan began, his tone urging caution, but Firekeeper shook her head. If this “Rhinadei” was the place she and Blind Seer had begun to suspect existed, she wasn’t about to stop her hunt with sniffing about the edges.
She looked directly at Varelle. “What do you know of magic?”
Varelle met the question with a broad smile that nonetheless held challenge rather than friendliness. “Ask me what I know of today’s weather or how the seasons change or some other routine thing. The telling would be easier—shorter, too.”
Once words such as these would have made Firekeeper uneasy and caused Blind Seer to growl, but the pair had run many a long mile since those days. Now Varelle’s words—and the brag that lurked beneath them—lit hope, not fear, in Firekeeper’s heart.
“We know something of magic, too,” she replied, locking Varelle’s gaze with her own. “But we do not always like what we know. When we look for traces of other ways, we find few who think our hunting of such good or wise. They have their ways. When we look for another way, even that we do look for another way—this is taken as a challenge. Most will not help. Many become angry.”
“This Varelle’s scent holds touches of curiosity now,” Blind Seer reported, “but Arasan is growing more uneasy with every word you speak. Laria is frightened.”
Firekeeper had expected both reactions. Back on the Nexus Islands, she had argued in favor of her and Blind Seer making this passage alone, but others had not thought this wise. Indeed, Virim would not agree to release the seals on the gate until she and Blind Seer had sworn they would bring the others along.
Even our friends do not trust us to put the interests of the Nexus Islands pack before those of we two, and who is to say they are wrong? Blind Seer feels the need for this search with all his heart, and what his heart desires, mine does as well.
When the tense silence had held for long breaths, Varelle chose to let a little of her curiosity show. “I will not put words in your mouth, Firekeeper. Tell me openly what it is that you know of magic yet do not like.”
Firekeeper glanced at Laria, Farborn, and Arasan. Arasan and Farborn both dipped their heads to indicate that she should speak on. Laria echoed them a moment later but, where she clearly thought it out of sight, one hand clenched and unclenched, expressing an apprehension she wouldn’t voice.
And no wonder, since if I speak wrongly, who knows what may happen? Ah, well… You can’t take a summer-fat buck without risking the sharpness of his tines.
“Talk!” Blind Seer demanded. “As the proverb says, ‘Rabbits may be safe prey, but in that safety the pack will starve.’”
Firekeeper nodded and faced Varelle once more. “You have heard of the Nexus Islands. Arasan told you of those who held the place and its gates before us: the Once Dead, especially those who called themselves the Spell Wielders. It is from them and those like them that we of the New World learned of magic, for in our lands all magic except for talents born into a person had become unknown.”
“So I recall,” Varelle confirmed. “You explained that you came from colonies—former colonies, rather—that were controlled in part by how the rulers restricted any knowledge of the more complex magical arts, spellcasting in particular.”
“I did not say,” Firekeeper corrected, wanting to avoid even the slightest accusation of lying, “but Arasan did, and he knows the most about history of any in our company.”
Did Varelle smile slightly at this careful correction? If so, Firekeeper tried hard not to be offended.
Blind Seer shifted against Firekeeper. “Tell!” he said, the word and the accompanying growl one and the same.
Firekeeper stroked him, the caress holding promise and soothing both. As much as this search meant to her, for Blind Seer it meant more. If not for him, she would have likely given up, whereas she suspected that he would continue until death took breath from his lungs.
“All spell using magic we have seen shares one thing, no matter how different in other ways. It burns living energy, especially as found in fresh blood, the way a fire uses wood. More, in some types of magic, the fuel and the fire cannot be pulled apart. Even more than with a fire, the one—or so we are told—cannot live without the other. This is something we do not like.”
Varelle seemed to understand Firekeeper’s explanation but the Meddler—Firekeeper was certain it was him, even without the almost inaudible rumble of Blind Seer’s growl coming to her through where her hand rested on his back as confirmation—must speak out and clarify.
“What Firekeeper means is that, in all the magic as the art is practiced in the present, in the lands we have encountered, we have not been able to find any that is not intertwined to a greater or lesser extent with blood magic.”
“Except for talents,” Laria hastened to clarify.
“And even those,” the Meddler said ruthlessly, “may rely on a version of blood magic—in those cases the life force of the person who employs the talent. In circumstances where the user extends his or her talent outward—such as when Sir Jared Surcliffe uses his healing talent—the user is often exhausted by the effort.”
Varelle nodded. “When earlier you spoke of the illness that for a time wiped magic from the Old Countries and the New alike, you glossed over the details—and rightly, for that did not fit your tale’s focus. Now, I must ask—were those with talents as likely to become ill as those who had the ability to cast spells?”
Arasan—back in control, Firekeeper sensed with relief; she would not have wished to force the Meddler into silence in front of Varelle, since that would likely involve revealing Arasan’s uncomfortable dual nature—spoke. “As best as we have been able to tell, initially those with talents also became ill. For most of those who recovered, this meant losing their talent. However, the talented were the first to safely resist the plague—at least in the New World, where the Plague was much less virulent.”
“Doubtless,” Varelle said, “because those with stronger abilities were exported to the Old World, so the chance of a child being born with a magical gift diminished over time, and even those gifts that manifested were likely to be the weaker or more specialized.”
Firekeeper knew that why various people caught querinalo was much more complicated, but what Varelle didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. After all, the risk of querinalo killing anyone was much reduced from what it had been. Instead, aware of the rumble of Blind Seer’s growl, Firekeeper asked her question.
“Because of the Once Dead and those who used magic cruelly, we do not care for blood magic. But magic can be useful. We seek ways to do magic that is spell magic, but spell magic that does not use blood magic. Do you know any of this lore?”
Varelle looked so stern that Firekeeper believed that once again their search would come to nothing, but her reply was unlike what they had heard before.
“Why do you think I would know anything about this?”
Firekeeper answered Varelle with wolfish directness. “We have learned—found traces of, rather—that long ago there was a conflict. This conflict was not a fight with weapons, but of ways of
thinking between those who practiced blood magic and those who would not do so. Not able to change the thinking of those who thought blood magic was best, these others went away. Most of those we ask believe these tales are as you said before, a legend, a myth, a…”
She paused, searching for a word to express a difficult concept that had come up frequently in the debates on the Nexus Islands. Arasan supplied it.
“An allegory.”
“That!” Firekeeper vigorously nodded her thanks. “But we think this fight between ways of thinking is not allegory. We think it may be something that actually happened. Maybe if we can find this outlier pack then we can learn other ways from them.”
Varelle looked interested, but Firekeeper did not need Blind Seer’s nose to tell her the Gatewatcher was far from won over. “If, as you say, this happened long ago, why would these ‘outliers’ have survived? Wouldn’t the plague you have told me of have damaged them as severely as it did the spell users in your Old and New Countries?”
Firekeeper frowned. “Maybe harmed, yes, but I—we—think not harmed as bad. We have learned that the Plague is worse for those who use blood magic. Those who do not—like with the talents—may become ill but do not die as often.”
“Also,” Arasan put in, “although querinalo attacks those with magic, it persisted in the Old World long after it had vanished from the New. It is completely possible that this legendary community may not have experienced querinalo at all—or if they did, they may have recovered more quickly and with less devastating results.”
Varelle nodded. In that nod Firekeeper read the thoughts of one who weighs and balances old knowledge against new. “So the users of blood magic were unable to use magic for a long time—and only relatively recently have those skilled in the art had time to learn how to use it. But now… You say that the threat from this querinalo is gone?”
“Not gone,” Firekeeper clarified, “but is much smaller.”
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