“The post of the Gatewatcher does not exist,” Varelle added, “merely because our ancestors had many reasons not to trust. We did not discard the possibility that whoever came through might be someone who shared our beliefs or might become a possible ally. When centuries had passed without any communication from elsewhere, Gatewatchers were taught to take into account the possibility that someone might come through who was completely ignorant of Rhinadei’s existence.”
“Like us,” Firekeeper said. “Or mostly like us. We did not know, but we did have hopes.”
“Therefore,” Hanya continued, “it was decreed long ago, that before we would treat with any who broke through our seals, they would be subjected to a test. Your behavior during the challenge exceeded all expectations.”
“So will Blind Seer have a teacher?” Firekeeper asked.
VI
BLIND SEER HAD listened intently to the discussion, content enough to let Firekeeper and the others speak for him, but now he knew he must speak for himself.
“Firekeeper,” he said, “say this to them for me: ‘We have reason to believe that you speak with us so easily by means of a spell. Can you extend that spell so that Blind Seer—and Farborn if he so wishes—may join in this discussion?’”
Firekeeper blinked in astonishment, for in all their long relationship, he had always trusted her to translate for him. However, she did not argue, only repeated his request with the special care she gave when speaking for others rather than herself.
The Rhinadeians looked at each other in simultaneous surprise that shifted quickly to interested calculation to something that smelled like fear. That this last—from Orten—was hidden behind a blandly interested expression could not hide itself from Blind Seer’s nose. Of course, Blind Seer did not know precisely what the man feared: that the Rhinadeians might fail in this test of their power or of hearing a wolf speak for himself or something else entirely.
Hanya spoke first, her scent bright with a flash of excitement.
“We might be able. However, we cannot simply use the same spell. For one, that spell is designed for humans. Speaking with animals is different.”
Laria frowned. “But you said you’d never heard of the yarimaimalom. Now you’re talking as if you can speak with animals. Which is it?”
Erldon laughed. “Both. The desire to speak to animals is one of the oldest known to humankind. Old tales often take place in the days when animals and humans could understand each other as easily—more easily, even—than humans can understand each other.”
“Grandmother tales,” Laria objected. “Not anything real.”
“Didn’t you ever have a pet dog or cat that you wanted to be able to talk to?” persisted Erldon.
“No,” Laria said with a bluntness that so sounded like rudeness that she flushed and hastened to clarify. “I grew up on the Nexus Islands during the reign of the Once Dead. Having pets wasn’t anything any of us wanted. Too easy to be used against you.”
Erldon’s scent soured as he digested the implications of Laria’s statement, perhaps finally understanding deep in his belly that the horrors of blood magic that his distant ancestors had fled were all too real to the Nexans.
Hanya came to his rescue. “Laria, Erldon didn’t mean to offend. We’re still learning about each other’s cultures. Please remember that.” When Laria nodded and even offered a sunny smile that fooled none of her companions but seemed to relax the Rhinadeians, Hanya continued. “There are various rotes and rituals that enable humans to speak with animals, but they are neither easy nor comprehensive. Nor do we have them for speaking with wild creatures such as wolves.”
“Do you have wolves here?” Firekeeper interrupted, then ducked her head in apology at Blind Seer’s growl. “Sorry. I am rude. I just wondered if animals were the same at the bottom of the world as at the top.”
Hanya gave a brisk nod. “Reasonable. Yes. There are wolves here, but they may be descended from creatures brought here long ago, rather than being native to the land. Humans have always been impressed by dangerous animals—killing them yet courting them. But to return to Blind Seer’s question.” She turned and addressed the wolf almost as naturally as she might another human. “There are spells for speaking with dogs. They might be adapted. However, it might be easier for you to continue employing Firekeeper as a translator unless you wish to wait days, even moonspans, while we do so.”
“The translation spell we are using now,” Varelle said, “will not last indefinitely. It was created so that new arrivals could be questioned quickly and easily. This is why I wished to answer your questions immediately, rather than risking that you would not learn what you came for because we had so many questions.”
Blind Seer nodded, then leaned slightly into Firekeeper, who threw her arm around his shoulders.
Blind Seer said to Firekeeper, “Thank them. I am disappointed that I cannot join in, but not unduly. Were such spells easy, then certainly the Liglimom would have found a way. I had things I wished to tell them, but I will do so through you.”
Firekeeper translated. “We also wondered, what is the language spoken here? We have some gift with languages—especially Arasan. It is possible we might be able to speak with you even when the translation spell fades.”
Varelle replied, “The foundation language spoken here in Rhinadei is the language spoken on the continent of Pelland.”
“Pellish?” Firekeeper said, grinning. “That is very good. It is the language I—we—first learn to speak when we come among humans.”
Blind Seer snorted loud enough that the humans looked at him in astonishment. Firekeeper thumped him once with her knuckles between his ears and translated.
“Blind Seer says that if I do not speak more carefully, you will doubt that I really know this Pellish, but I do. How is it that your language is the same?”
Varelle looked fascinated at this human/wolf discussion, but put aside the questions she clearly wished to ask and said, “Most of the original Rhinadeians—at least those who were skilled in magic—trained at a university that was devoted to the magical arts. As this was part of Pelland, a nation that occupied most of the continent, learning at least some of the local language was fairly usual.”
Arasan looked thoughtful. “I believe I know of the university of which you speak. After querinalo, Pelland split into three different nations: the Mires, Hearthome, and Azure Towers. The fourth nation that shared the continent, Tishiolo, spoke a different language and possessed an entirely different culture.”
“While it’s good to know that we share a foundation language,” Varelle continued, “from reading the documents in our own archives, we know the language has changed a great deal over time. Although most of the original colonists spoke at least some Pellish, many spoke other languages as well. Some of those languages had useful terms that were incorporated into the language of Rhinadei. Other terms were coined at need.”
“Coined?” Firekeeper asked, tilting her head to one side.
Arasan hastened to explain. “Like that word I’ve heard Derian Counselor use any time someone brings up creating awards or titles for the residents of the Nexus Islands: ‘unzoranic.’ That’s a relatively new word, created in Hawk Haven as a quick way of saying ‘Queen Zorana the First, also called “the Great,” founder of this nation, thought that complicated titles were not only unnecessary but foolish. I think she had a point.’ One word for a complicated combination of historical and philosophical information.”
“I understand,” Firekeeper said, although aside she said to Blind Seer, “But what any of that has to do with coins, I don’t understand. Humans!”
Arasan turned to the Rhinadeians. “A similar linguistic shift is happening in the Nexus Islands, although the base language is that of the land of Liglim, a New World colony that was founded by a land you may know—that of u-Chival. We have not had nearly as long, but our population is more mixed and with peoples from different lands coming through on a daily basis. I
suspect that by the time Laria is a grandmother, the Nexus Islands will have a distinct dialect of its own—one that may well become a trade tongue for other areas. Already we see traces of this occurring when we hold a market, and our language is the only common one held. Linguistic drift is a fascinating process.”
He sighed happily, then grew serious. “But I suspect that Blind Seer had a reason for asking if you had a spell you could use so he might speak for himself. Now that we have resolved this magical/linguistic problem, perhaps there is a question he wishes to ask.”
Blind Seer nodded, that so useful gesture, then turned to Firekeeper.
“Translate for me, beloved.”
“I will speak as best for you as I can,” she promised, then listened. “I,” she began, pointing to Blind Seer to indicate that she now spoke for him, “had a very strange experience when we were crossing the plains. I had lost much of my mana to that void sphere. After Farborn destroyed the sphere, my mana flowed back to me, but something came with it. I would like to call it a voice, but it was not shaped in words. Rather it was an assurance that here was one who would be the teacher I sought.”
“Wishful thinking brought on by mana depletion,” harrumphed Orten, not quite under his breath. He paled when Blind Seer turned his gaze on him and growled, ears pinning to his skull, lip curling in a snarl, a friendly reminder that wolves heard far better than did humans.
“Blind Seer say you is rude,” Firekeeper interpreted unnecessarily. “I say he is right. Will you remember we are not your pups to be treated so?”
“Of course, of course…” Orten swallowed hard. “Thinking aloud. My apologies.”
“You were not thinking at all,” Firekeeper corrected him.
“I have more to say,” Blind Seer told her with a nudge of his nose. “Please translate.”
Firekeeper leaned into him in acknowledgement, then, when he spoke, continued her translation in the deeper, more stately tones she had adopted as her Blind Seer voice. “I was given not just this promise but a sense of urgency. That there is one who has taken a vow—taken a stance he will not break is perhaps a better way to explain what I felt, for there is a sense of stubbornness to it. This one has used this vow to separate himself from Rhinadei in general, but if he would become my—Blind Seer’s—teacher, this would bring him back into your community. I have a sense that this one sometimes wishes to come back, but he is so stubborn that he makes mules seem as wet wax.”
Firekeeper shrugged. “Blind Seer says that he is sorry that he cannot say more, but he is not used to something that isn’t there speaking to him. He wonders, though, if perhaps he can sense what his magic needs, even as his nose can scent what his belly needs.”
She shrugged again. “I am sorry, too. Even my best words are not enough.”
“I understand,” Varelle said, “why Blind Seer began by asking if we had a translation spell that would enable him to speak to us directly. I wonder if he hoped the spell would find words that neither he nor Firekeeper have?”
Blind Seer nodded at her, then opened his mouth in the pant he used to show laughter. Varelle nodded back.
“I don’t know…” Sour Orten was beginning when rust-haired Bordyn cut him off with that abruptness that is more dismissive than any deliberate rudeness.
“I wonder if Blind Seer was being told about Wythcombe? Could their coming be the answer we have been looking for?”
Laria saw a flicker of excitement pass over the assembled Rhinadeians before, nearly as quickly, they put on their formal manners again. Nonetheless, she couldn’t be fooled, nor could her companions. Bordyn’s words had struck a nerve. She remembered how Varelle had seemed excited all out of proportion when she had returned from her meeting with the council. Could this Wythcombe be why?
“Wythcombe?” Firekeeper asked. “Who is this?”
“Wythcombe,” Bordyn said, “was one of our leaders, one of the greatest of our number. Some years ago—a decade, maybe two—he suffered a grave disappointment, one he blamed on himself, saying that if he had not been so old, so certain of himself, perhaps even so set in his ways, the problem would not have happened. In reaction, he renounced all his positions and honors, then took himself away from all association with our community, saying—vowing is really not too strong a term—that he would not rejoin general society unless presented with a problem so unique that he could not fall into carelessness again.”
Hanya ran a hand over the short fuzz on her head as she took up the thread. “Since then, many attempts have been made to bring Wythcombe back, for not only is he a repository of much knowledge, he is a spellcaster of tremendous power and versatility. Each time, he has rejected the approach, but this… Wythcombe has had many students, but never a wolf. Never even one who did not have at least some human heritage. Those among us with a gift for divining the future have long held that there was a possibility—a slim one—that Wythcombe could be lured out of his enforced exile. Beyond that, they could not say.”
Laria—as with all the residents of the Nexus Islands—had some familiarity with the art of divining the future. “Truth would probably say that there are too many streams and they run too shallow for her to see the course where they might meet.”
Hanya gave Laria a bemused smile, but she was too excited to pursue this. Laria wondered if there had been something personal between her and this Wythcombe. Hanya turned to her associates. “What do you think? Shall we set these newcomers on Wythcombe’s trail?”
Orten permitted himself a portentous cough. “What do we have to lose? If Wythcombe turns them away as he has so many others, well, then, we lose nothing. If this is possibly the answer we have sought, then both they and we win.”
Firekeeper translated, although from the way Blind Seer leapt to his feet in one easy motion, words were hardly necessary. “Where do I find this one?”
Hanya pointed toward distant snowcapped mountains. “There. While we can give you directions, even maps, we cannot provide you with a guide. That would predestine you to failure, as was learned long ago. The presence of any of the council, or any of our designated agents, would defeat you, for Wythcombe would doubtless decide this was a calculated ploy on our part.”
“Which,” Bordyn said dryly, “it is, now that we know of it. But since Blind Seer himself raised the question first, hopefully we will escape that particular problem.”
“Even without a guide, we go,” Firekeeper stated. “We are great travelers, he and I, and these three are not so without value, as you must have seen in the challenge. Give us your maps, tell us your laws so we will not break them from the lack, and we will go hotfoot to find this wise one who was such a fool as to believe that he had seen all there was to see.”
Firekeeper knew that her request for information about the local laws surprised the Rhinadeians. Like so many humans, once they learned she was a wolf, even if shaped like a human, they believed she was without law. But wolves are fiercely hierarchical, and one cannot have a hierarchy without having a sense of law. Moreover, she and Blind Seer were widely traveled—that had been no empty boast. They’d been through every one of the known gates, as well as through many that had not been explored until they had made the transit. Few others could make that boast, and fewer had gone more than a day or so on the far side.
This hunting then, through unknown lands, after a quarry barely more than rumor, was oddly enough a familiar thing to both her and Blind Seer.
“We will take on this hunt,” she said, “but first we must return to the Nexus Islands, tell them what we have learned. Else, as Varelle was warned before the challenge, in time through that gate—no matter how you have locked it—or from over the seas will come those looking for us. You have spoken of vows. This is not a vow. This is simply truth.”
There was debate—always there was debate—but in the end, the Rhinadeians agreed, as Firekeeper had known they must agree.
The next day, their transition through the gate back to the Nexus Islands
was handled by Varelle, for this was the only way they could avoid using blood magic. For the same reason, the Gatewatcher accompanied them, coming through last paired with Firekeeper. Upon emerging, they were greeted by two Wise Ravens: Bitter and Lovable. Bitter, scarred and battered, said nothing, only turned the gaze of his one remaining eye to view them with dry appraisal. Lovable more than made up for her mate’s taciturnity. Her voice croaked, but the words were recognizably Liglimosh.
“Back! Back! All! Who? Who?”
This last was directed at Varelle, who looked oddly shaken. Firekeeper knew the Gatewatcher was using a complex translation spell, so the meaning should have been clear, but nonetheless, she had to ask what should have been apparent.
“It spoke. Didn’t it? I have seen a raven or so trained to mimic spoken phrases but this one, am I right? It’s talking?”
Firekeeper didn’t need Blind Seer’s nudging her hand to remind herself to be polite. “She speaks, sometimes too much. Do you understand her?”
Varelle frowned. “Yes. The Gatewatcher’s gift is still with me. That is why I asked you—for a moment I wondered if I was now understanding the speech of birds.”
Bitter made a sound somewhere between a hoarse caw and a sardonic “Haw!”
Firekeeper placed a hand on Varelle’s arm, then turned politely to the ravens. “This one is Varelle the Gatewatcher. She comes as ambassador to us from a very interesting place called Rhinadei. We have much to tell the Nexans. We will take the boat. Will you go ahead and tell someone—maybe Derian—to meet us at the docks?”
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