SINCE RETURNING TO Rhinadei, Laria had been very careful about when she used her talent. She already had ample evidence that Rhinadei held vivid and potent memories locked in its soil. Sometimes, though, especially when she was relaxed or drifting off to sleep, the events of times long past would seep into her mind. As their expedition moved further away from the settled areas where new events diluted the old, even the steady almost meditation of walking might grant a vision entry. Most of these visions were not the sort she welcomed.
Normally, sensory impressions faded over time, but here in Rhinadei, Laria repeatedly sensed places that—even when she didn’t try to read them—were alive with memories. If these were the faded versions, she didn’t want to imagine what they had been like originally. She speculated that they had been seared into the terrain as lightning scars a living tree, so that even years later, the wound seems nearly as fresh as when it had been given.
Early one evening, after camp had been set up, Arasan sent Laria off to a nearby creek to see if there were any fresh greens she might harvest to augment their dinner. There was a local water plant that they all had come to enjoy, especially when the float bladder had been slit and filled with a little seasoning, then the whole plant set to steam in the coals of the campfire.
Laria was gathering a promising patch when a shadow fell over the water. She looked up, expecting Arasan, come to retrieve the first part of her harvest so he could start cooking, only to find the new arrival was Ranz.
“Arasan asked me to fetch these,” he said, gathering up the plants. “He’s going to feed the parts we don’t eat to Rusty so the goat will stay out of the journey-cake batter. Want me to come back and help?”
“Sure,” Laria said, hoping she didn’t sound too eager, then, after he’d left, worrying she’d sounded indifferent. Since they’d departed Wythcombe’s mountain retreat, she’d talked a lot with Ranz, but those chats had rarely gone beyond the mundane. As far as she could tell, Ranz didn’t think much of her—if he thought of her at all. She’d realized how very much she’d like him to think something of her—something nice, something special.
When Ranz returned, the empty reed basket dangling from his fingers, he looked almost shy. Laria’s pulse quickened, wondering if that shyness might be that of a young man who found himself more or less alone with a young woman. Only the fact that her hands were full of wet plants with muddy roots kept her from rubbing her forehead to check if she was suddenly flushing.
“Uh, Laria,” Ranz began, then stopped. After he’d pulled a few promising bunches of tubers and dropped them in the basket, he started up again. “Listen. The other day. I’ve been thinking. I acted sort of like a brat. Did it seem that way to you?”
Momentarily disappointed, Laria gave herself a mental shake. As dispassionately as she could, she considered Ranz’s rant and the sulk that had followed it. She decided to be honest. Maybe talking about his actions would lead somewhere more interesting.
“A little. Not really a brat, just, well…” She drew in a deep breath. “Young.”
Ranz’s first reaction was to swell with indignation, but he slumped almost immediately. “Yeah. I thought, I might have. It’s going to sound stupid to you, but I don’t think I ever really thought about anything beyond getting Wythcombe to take me as his student. If he did, then everything would be settled.”
“Because you’d be legitimate.”
“Yeah. And because he’d have all the answers. Especially about how to show everyone that I wasn’t steeped in anathema. Would you do what Blind Seer suggested? Have my powers sealed, I mean?”
Laria shook her head. “No. That would be admitting everyone was right—that you couldn’t be trusted. Do you really think that’s true?”
While Ranz considered this, Laria swished the muddy roots in the water and watched the swiftly flowing current carry the slightly sparkly sediment away. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to look at Ranz. It was that she did and that wanting to look created—thoughts? No. What she felt was too visceral to be a thought. More like an image of a question.
Laria knew she was “interested” in Ranz, as her mother might say. But did Ranz’s coming to talk to her mean he noticed her more than she’d thought? Was this maybe an indication he “liked” her? Or just that he didn’t have anyone else to talk with? Maybe if Ranz could talk to Blind Seer without Firekeeper as translator, he’d have sought the wolf out to sort through this question of magical ethics. Not knowing if Ranz thought of her as a person—rather than just the only option other than the echo chamber of his own mind—made it very hard for Laria to know what to do about her own interest. Should she tell Ranz? See what he said? Would that even be appropriate? One thing living on the Nexus Islands taught a person was that what one culture thought was perfectly normal behavior could be an enormous social gaffe in another.
Laria had heard that in the culture Derian Counselor came from, who made the first move was dictated less on gender than on social standing. Among the Liglim, courtship was much the same, although exactly how that weirdly egalitarian culture worked out social standing among those who weren’t members of the disdum was a puzzle Laria hadn’t even tried to figure out. From what Firekeeper had let drop about her and Blind Seer’s courtship, wolves fought for their mates.
Was courtship or flirting or whatever always shaped by who held the power, then? Was Ranz automatically senior to Laria because he was a few years older, because he was spellcaster? The Spell Wielders who had ruled the Nexus Islands certainly thought having the ability to cast spells made them superior. Arasan and Wythcombe clearly thought being older made them wiser. Firekeeper? Who knew?
Without even realizing what she was doing, Laria reached out with her talent, trying to get a feeling from Ranz as to what had brought him to her. Her desire didn’t really have words, but if it had, they might have been something like: “I want to know what you are. Who you are. What you think of me. If you think of me at all.”
The impulse took less time than the current needed to carry the sediment away. Unlike the current, which ran clear, Laria’s probing touched something that opened to her touch, offering answers. She reached deeper, eager now.
I am lost without you. With you, I can be who I would be. Of you, I think you could help me. I do think of you, think of you, think that I could be more with you.
With that last wordless phrase Laria realized that whatever she had touched wasn’t Ranz. He still knelt on the bank of the creek, considering her question.
This other was within the water, within the soil, a disembodied something flowing into cohesion through the medium of her talent. It was coalescing, taking on not so much shape as power, a power more definite than her own, one that was driving in and up, seeking to use the opening she had foolishly created to give itself access to her body. What it would do then, Laria didn’t know, but she wasn’t about to wait and find out.
One of her earliest lessons, when Arasan was still more Meddler than Arasan, had been learning to block the impressions that clamored for her attention. When her talent had been newly awakened, Laria had been like a person without skin, someone even otherwise benign elements like water or a soft breeze could sting. Random impressions leaked into her mind, drowning her so that her personal reality became a very tenuous thing. In defense, she’d learned to slam up a sort of wall, but it was crude and blocky, and would collapse under the least pressure. Moreover, Laria had been her own worst enemy. Convinced that everything would be better if only her father hadn’t died, she would seek out impressions of Ollaris—at first unconsciously, later consciously. She’d become addicted to a past that was killing her because moving into the present hurt too much. Considering the future was impossible.
The Meddler had taught Laria how to make a barrier that more resembled a glove than a wall, then how to make that glove thinner or thicker, depending on circumstances. He told her to wear the glove at all times, thinning it gradually if she needed to probe. At this moment, the glove was in shreds.
Thickening it wouldn’t help because it didn’t cover anymore. Laria flung up a version of her clumsy wall, felt the intruder slam against it, stopped for a moment. However, the problem with the wall had always been that—just like a real wall—it had edges. It had a top. Now, rather than trying to pound through, the intruder was sliding up, oozing over, dripping its will so that it mingled with her own.
A whispery voice said inside her soul, “Why are you troubled? You asked me what I am. You invited me into you, to complete you, to help you where you are helpless. Here I am. Your best and dearest friend. I will help you be stronger. I am helping, you, me, just as you asked.”
The words soothed, sensible and rational. Laria had reached out to Ranz, wanting someone, something, whatever it would take to make things right again. This new friend wanted to help her. Hadn’t the Meddler said long, long ago that the first part of her getting control of herself was admitting that things were wrong, that she wanted help?
Wait! Was that what he had said? No. He’d been much crueler. Memory spoke with a melodious, somewhat caustic voice. “Either you will master your talent or it will master you. Give up any hope that you’ll wake up one day and find it gone.”
And Laria had mastered her talent. This other was twisting her desires into its own. Sure, she had been shy about asking Ranz what he thought of her, of even trying to reach out to him. Shy. Afraid of embarrassing herself. Silly, really. What could words do to her? Even an honest rejection was friendship of a sort. This “friend” talking to her—this wasn’t a friend. Friends didn’t try to make you something you weren’t. They didn’t try to take you over.
But the revelation had come too late. Whatever Laria had awakened had shredded her glove, was seeping over her walls. She’d tried to sneak her way into someone else’s heart. This was the price. Worse—with the realization that she’d been ready to invade Ranz’s private self just to save herself the possibility of a little embarrassment—the price seemed perfectly fair.
Even in the earliest days of his awareness that he might have a magical gift, Blind Seer had realized that what worked for human spellcasters would not necessarily work for him. His human friends who had fought querinalo had done so as humans would—by talking, thinking, weighing and balancing. He had hunted. He had found his prey and attacked it. He had won. This didn’t mean humans didn’t have anything to teach him. If Blind Seer had believed that, he would never have begun his search for someone who could explain different options to him. But, unlike Ranz, he had never believed that finding a teacher would relieve him from the need to make his own trail.
Finding that trail was what Blind Seer was about when senses he had shaped so they would scent both magic and his surroundings caught a rank odor that was not precisely natural. Something had invaded his pack’s territory. He was already wheeling about as he spoke to Firekeeper.
“Something is wrong, very wrong, close to camp. We left Wythcombe sleeping. I do not trust the Meddler/Arasan to catch the scent. We run!”
Firekeeper did not argue as a human might. She did not say that after footsore wanderings they had finally found spoor of something that might be edible game. She did not say that she neither heard nor saw anything. Wolf packs operated on perfect trust, and no matter her shape, Firekeeper was a wolf.
As the pair sped over the broken ground in the direction of the camp, Farborn saw the urgency in their gait and dropped from the clouds to race over them.
“What?” his actions said, but like any good hunter, he did not waste breath on sound, nor risk the hunt with unnecessary noise.
Firekeeper said, “Blind Seer scents a danger near the camp.”
The wobble of Farborn’s wings showed that the merlin was tempted to ask questions, but he knew that he was the swiftest of them, that unimpeded by the trees and rocky outcroppings Firekeeper and Blind Seer must dodge around, he could reach the camp first. The wobble vanished, the merlin cut the air as Firekeeper’s Fang cut flesh, and the falcon was gone.
“Good,” Firekeeper grunted. Then, stretching out their legs, the wolves ran, leaping gullies and streams, hurdling brush and shrub. The reek of wrongness grew stronger as they closed on the stream near which they had made camp. A series of large, flattish boulders formed one bank. Blind Seer ran up along them, slinking so that his belly fur brushed the stone. Firekeeper dropped to hands and knees to creep alongside. As one, they came to the edge and peered down.
Blind Seer knew what Firekeeper saw, what Farborn high above saw as well. Laria and Ranz had clearly been gathering water plants to add to that evening’s meal. Ranz was setting a newly washed bundle in the loosely woven reed basket beside him. He spared a glance for Laria, but the younger human had turned away just a little, her shoulders saying “Don’t bother me.” Or perhaps, “Please bother me. Show me you’re interested enough to make an effort.” Sometimes, with humans, it was difficult to tell the difference.
But none of the others saw what Blind Seer did, how rising from the fast-rushing waters of the stream came something that was meshing itself with Laria, sliding into her as a human might into a tightly fitting pair of trousers. Blind Seer suspected that Laria had created an opening for the invader by unfolding to mesh her awareness with some fascinating impression within her surroundings. She must have been like a pup, so caught up in a hot scent trail that she had not realized that the source was right in front of her until it had clamped its jaws solidly around her throat. The source of that scent lay beneath the water, something Blind Seer thought of as a glint of light, although it was neither glint, nor light.
Firekeeper rested her hand on Blind Seer’s shoulder, asking wordlessly, “Where is the danger, sweet hunter?”
Blind Seer replied, “You will not be able to see it, but you can make its hunting more difficult. Take hold of Laria and shake her. Beware, she may attack you—and you could too easily kill her in defending yourself.”
Firekeeper huffed astonishment, but accepted her assigned role. When she leapt down, seeming almost to fly, Blind Seer leapt with her, but his prey was not Laria. His was the glint in the waters below. Together the wolves landed, causing Ranz to jump, dropping his bundle of freshly harvested plants to swirl away in the current. Now that the attack was joined and silence would not help, Blind Seer howled to Farborn.
“Awaken Wythcombe. We may need him.”
Then the wolf dove beneath the water, seeking the thing that was oozing into Laria. But here his wolf’s body defeated him. Despite his size, Blind Seer could not swim deep enough, even once his fur was sodden. Gasping, Blind Seer emerged. Firekeeper struggling with Laria, a struggle made more difficult because not only was Firekeeper trying not to harm the frantic younger woman—who felt no such restraint—but because Ranz was trying with all his young man’s not inconsiderable strength to pull Firekeeper away from Laria. He might as well have tried to move one of the huge boulders that bordered the stream, but he did inconvenience the wolf-woman.
Water running from his coat, Blind Seer surged from the stream and barreled Ranz over. Planting his paws firmly on the young man’s chest, then sitting to bring his weight to bear, the wolf howled to Firekeeper: “Tell this young idiot that I need his help. Whatever has driven Laria mad rests beneath the water, but too deep for me to reach. Tell him to use his ice to dam the water. Then I will go down.”
Blind Seer had considered asking Ranz to make the dive, but he didn’t know how acute was the young man’s ability to see magical auras. Firekeeper’s intervention had slowed whatever was trying to wear Laria’s body, but it was obviously dominating her.
Or maybe, he thought, as Firekeeper snapped out a less than eloquent translation, Laria runs with the intruder on this.
Ranz, to his credit, accepted what Firekeeper said. Perhaps he could now see how Firekeeper struggled to restrain Laria—when holding Laria would normally be as much a challenge to the wolf-woman as cupping her hands around a newly hatched chick.
“Let me up,” Ranz said to Blind Seer
. Swiftly dashing one sleeve over his face to remove the worse of the water that had dripped onto him from Blind Seer’s fur, he got to his feet and ran a wide circle around the two women. Firekeeper held Laria in a bear hug, but the girl wriggled like a newly caught eel, demanding all of Firekeeper’s attention. When Ranz reached the stream’s edge, he sunk his hands to the wrist and began muttering. Ice grew like frost flowers on a windowpane, first freezing the top of the water. When frost flowers connected the stream’s edges, Ranz drove the cold down, making bars almost like icicles. These filled in between, first slowing the current, then beginning to block the water. Given time, the area below his dam might have drained, but Laria might not have time.
Sniffing to clarify competing auras, Blind Seer could tell that the invader had not completely succeeded in taking Laria over. Firekeeper’s attack had not driven it off, but at least by restraining Laria, Firekeeper kept the invader from using her as a weapon. Laria’s expression was curiously slack. From this, Blind Seer guessed that she was probably unaware of anything going on outside of herself.
In the distance, shrieks from Farborn informed them that Wythcombe was awake, but slowed by sleep as he was, the old spellcaster might need to gather his wits before he could help. And Arasan—or rather, the Meddler? Might that problematic soul’s sympathies lie with the invader rather than with Laria? Blind Seer had never been certain that the Meddler was as powerless as he claimed, but right now the wolf wasn’t going to count the Two Lives as an ally. Indeed, he was fully prepared to view them as an opponent.
Thus, even before Ranz had done much more than slow the current, Blind Seer waded into the stream, his senses alert for attack from any and all sides. Who was to say that the thing that invaded Laria was without a pack? Who was to say that it must restrict itself to one skin? Creatures lived beneath the water that even a wolf might fear.
As Ranz’s dam became more complete and the water drained downstream, Blind Seer sought the reek that had first caught his attention. Finding the source was difficult, for the reek had spread like a fog, making finding the point of origin nearly impossible. He gave up trying to use his sense of smell, and quested about as a human might, using his eyes. There, where the water still pooled deeply, he caught a glint of something green nearly buried in the sandy stream bottom.
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