Wolf Who Rules

by Wen Spencer

  "Domi?"

  Tinker looked up. Stormsong was drifting toward her, a flowing angel of hazy gleaming white. The sekasha had one hand on the red thread and was following it to Tinker's tin-can phone. "Stormsong, I'm stuck in the treacle."

  "No, you aren't." Stormsong held out her hand and Tinker caught hold of it. It felt warm and intangible as a sunbeam. "Remember."

  "Remember what?" Tinker cried as Stormsong hazed to a nebulous gleaming form.

  "There's no place like home," Stormsong whispered, brilliant now.

  Tinker blinked against the brilliance. Stormsong had transformed to a shimmering ghost of Impatience. She clung to some of his snaky mane.

  "Sssssaaaammmmmmaaananana." Impatience's voice rumbled against her skin.

  A loud gasp made Tinker turn her head. Jin floated a few feet away, gazing at her with amazement. They were back in the infirmary, the wall beside her lumpy and cold and the smell of smoke and blood omnipresent.

  Am I still sleeping? Tinker looked back at Impatience.

  "Huuhuuhuuhuuhuuhuu," Impatience rumbled and faded away.

  Jin drifted toward her, his eyes still wide as he gazed at her. "Remember what?"

  Tinker scrubbed at her face. Was she awake or still asleep? Her right hand felt warmer than her left—like she had held it over a open flame. "There's no place like home."

  "That's it?"

  Dragons have a weakness for sweets and space is treacle? "Maybe." Tinker realized that she was awake now—yet somehow Jin had experienced part of her dream. "Did you hear Stormsong?"

  "The dragon's name is Stormsong? That doesn't sound like a dragon name."

  Was pinching yourself an accurate test to see if you're awake? If it was, then she was awake. "You saw the dragon?"

  Jin nodded. "And I heard it. It said, 'Remember.'"

  "You understood what it said?"

  "I'm Providence's child."

  "You're what?"

  Jin cocked his head in his birdlike inspection of her. "You walk with the dragons but don't know their way?"

  "No."

  Jin crossed to her side and settled beside her. "Providence is the guardian spirit of the tengu. Each generation a tengu child is born with the mark of Providence upon him." The tengu undid his shirt buttons to expose his chest. Over his heart was a red birthmark that looked like the flowing outline of a dragon. "We're taught the language of the dragons."

  A whole mysterious part of her life suddenly made sense. "This is what he was looking for."

  "The dragon?"

  "No, Riki. He kidnapped me and made me strip. He wanted to know if Impatience marked me but he didn't tell me what the mark was for."

  "Who is Riki?" Jin asked.

  "A tengu—stuck between a rock and a hard place. Apparently he tried to stay out of oni control, but they took his younger cousin, Joey, hostage. It put us on opposite sides, which is too bad, because I think we could have been good friends."

  Jin reached out and touched the necklace Keiko had given her. She'd forgotten she was even still wearing it. "Did he give you that?"

  "No, his younger cousin Keiko did. She said it would protect me from tengu."

  "It will." He tugged it out of her neckline so it laid overtop. "But you've got to keep it out where it can be seen. That way we can tell you're under the protection of the Chosen blood."

  "The what?"

  "I'm the Chosen one. The spiritual leader of my people. I decide the path for my people and they follow me. Riki and his cousins are all my nieces and nephews. In my absence, my people are turning to them."

  "Which made them targets for the oni wanting to control the tengu."

  Jin nodded.

  Having experienced people turning to her for leadership, Tinker felt sudden sympathy for Riki. "One thing I don't get. These people are astronauts and still buy 'the chosen one' bullshit?"

  "When you're born a mythical creature, you tend to have a different mind-set on these things."

  "Wait—so—all this colonization—going back to Onihida stupidity was your idea?"

  Jin looked away. For a moment, Tinker thought he wouldn't answer, but he sighed, and said, "We're half bird—we can't breed with humans—not without magic. Yes, a couple hundred of us came to Earth before the elves destroyed the pathway, but it wasn't a big enough gene pool. For generations we've been careful not to interbreed, but we were coming to a dead end. We had to find some way to get back to Onihida and the rest of our tribe. You have no idea what it's like to see genocide bearing down on you."

  "If Riki was looking for a chosen one, then that means the tengu don't have a leader."

  "It seems like it."

  Tinker yawned. "When this is all over, I think I'm going to sleep for a week. Are we going to get gravity back?"

  "We did another course correction, but it seems like something is pulling us down toward the planet. It's already pulled all the debris into reentry. We're not spinning up this time to save fuel."

  "So—if we don't do anything, eventually the ship will be pulled out of orbit?"

  "It seems like it."

  Tinker groaned. She didn't want to deal with dreams! "No place like home—that's what Dorothy says to get home. The stupidity was that she had the means to get home the entire time; she just didn't know it. I have no idea how that Glinda bitch gets away with being the 'good' witch. What do I have on me?"

  She unloaded her pockets, letting the items float in orbit around her. Although the dress had limited pocket space, she still managed to fit a large amount of stuff into them. Not only did she have her datapad, she also had her camera with the recording of Impatience trying to teach her—something.

  "Oh my, these could be my ruby slippers!"

  Tracking Malice proved difficult, despite his size. The massive dragon leaped and bounded and shifted through buildings like he was a ghost, leaving a shattered trail. Wolf chafed at the slower speeds that others traveled, but True Flame would not relent, and Wolf had to acknowledge that the older elf had battle experience, whereas he did not.

  The trail led up the Monongahela River valley to beyond the Rim, and then disappeared without a trace.

  "There is something wrong here," Wraith whispered to Wolf as his Hand gathered close. "Smell the blood?"

  Wolf gazed at the still, boulder-strewn forest around them. There was a slight blurring to the trees, as if a mist hazed the air. He would not have noticed it if the sekasha hadn't called his attention to it. Pulling out a survey map for the area, he confirmed his suspicions.

  "I think this might be an oni encampment, covered by an illusion."

  The sekasha pulled their ejae, readying themselves for a possible ambush.

  Forest Moss did a ground scry, took a few steps, and repeated it several times until he stopped beside an ironwood sapling. "Wolf Who Rules, break this tree."

  Wolf aimed a force strike at the sapling and unleashed it.

  The sapling vanished when the leading edge of his blow struck it. A tall square stone, inscribed with spells, replaced the sapling for a heartbeat before disintegrating into rubble. An oni camp sprang into being around them. The boulders changed into rough cabins. Mossy logs became well-gnawed humanoid carcasses. Blood soaked the ground and everywhere were dragon tracks.

  "All the magic flowed toward the sapling." Forest Moss nudged the remains of the crude oni spell stone.

  The sekasha moved out to search the cabins.

  "Malice has wallowed in magic and feasted on oni." True Flame used his sword tip to point out that the skulls were horned. "Maybe it slipped its bonds, like the little one did."

  "There were no spell markings on Malice." Wolf wondered too the significance of the dragon's name. Tinker had called Impatience "hyper." If the dragon's names reflected a personality, perhaps one named Malice needed no prodding to wreak havoc.

  "I am not sure what the other beast is, but there is no mistake here, this is an oni dragon." True Flame pointed out a four-toed print in the dirt. "The lit
tle beast has five claws like the hand of an elf."

  Red Knife reported for the sekasha, saying that the cabins were empty of oni and any evidence of what they planned. "There were, though, a hundred oni here only hours ago."

  "It is a good thing that we delayed, then." Earth Son earned a sharp look from even his First, Thorne Scratch. "We would have had to face both oni and the dragon at the same time."

  Instead both had vanished away after having time to lay cooperative plans.

  The dragon tracks led down to the river.

  Earth Son made a sound of disgust, eyeing muddy water. "None of us will be able to track it in that."

  "If Malice was sent by the oni on Onihida to distract us, then he will circle back to the city and attack." Wolf was glad that Jewel Tear was protecting the enclaves. While the Stone Clan was weak on attack spells, they had the strongest defensive spells. "We should return."

  Tinker and Jin found a working computer station and with some jury-rigging managed to get her state-of-art camera interfaced with the two-decade-old systems.

  "I recorded about six hours so this is going to take a while." Tinker started the playback.

  ". . . we'll build a dictionary of his words," her recorded voice started out the recording. Cloudwalker had been filming the dragon but had trouble tracking it as it moved through the scrap yard's offices.

  "Riki says the dragon's name is Impatience," Tinker said, "but Riki has lied to me—a lot."

  Jin attention was on the recording. He said nothing but he frowned slightly at this.

  ". . . mmmenananannaaaaaaapoooookaaaammmammamamyyyyyyaaanananammmmoooo . . ." Impatience rambled on the recording.

  "I'm not familiar with the name." Jin paused the recording after another minute of the dragon's monologue. "Dragons usually use a lot of words to say anything. Like 'a pleasantly warm but not too warm, sunny, cloudless time of the day that isn't dawn but the sun hasn't quite reached its zenith' for 'good morning'. It is considered rude to get to the point too quickly. When you talk to a dragon, you're supposed to elaborate as much as possible."

  "Dragon Etiquette 101?" Tinker asked.

  "Historically, rude tengu are dragon snacks. This dragon, however, is being very to the point. He might come across as impatient to other dragons, which would explain his name."

  "So you understand him."

  "Yes, so far he's said, 'What is this object? Oh, this moves. Ah, it makes light. I wonder how. This part twists. What are these? I see. It does not work without those. Why does it not make light? Have I broken it? It seemed as if it was supposed to come apart. A diagram. I must have them backward. Ha, ha, ha.'"

  "Yeah, I got the laughing part."

  A female astronaut flew into the cabin with tengu grace, "Wai Sze is awake and wants to see the Scarecrow."

  The tiny tengu woman was awake and looking surprisingly well compared to how awful she had been before. She gasped as Tinker swam into the infirmary. "Oh my, you are here! Oh, look at you! You're so beautiful."

  Tinker blushed. As a female elf in a deep jewel-red silk dress in zero gee, she was attracting a lot of attention from the crew. "It's the dress."

  "Ah, yes, it not so practical in space, is it, my dear? Xiao Chen, can you find her something to wear?"

  Xiao Chen had been the crew member who summoned them to Gracie's side. The tengu female nodded, cocking her head to study Tinker's size before moving off, graceful as a bird in flight.

  Jin looked at Tinker as if noticing the silk flowing around her for the first time and then smiled. "I don't know. It's good for morale. At least with the guys."

  Tinker smacked him and found herself floating backward.

  He laughed, and caught Tinker before she could hit something. "I am only joking."

  "Shoo, shoo!" Gracie waved Jin away. "I want to talk to her without your noisy squawking."

  Jin smiled fondly at his cousin and flew away.

  Gracie held out her unbroken hand to Tinker. "Let me look at you." Gracie had tears in her eyes, which Tinker expected, but not the brilliant smile that the fragile tengu bestowed on her. Tinker found herself smiling back. "You've got Leo's eyes and his smile."

  "Yeah, I guess. The patented Dufae face."

  "I'm so happy to see it. It hurt so much that I hadn't been able to give Leo a baby. It made losing him all the more horrible. He was a wonderful, wonderful man and he was utterly gone."

  It occurred to Tinker for the first time how awful to lose your husband—never see him again—and a sudden fear took root in her. What if she couldn't get back to Windwolf? What if she never saw him again?

  "There, there, my love." Gracie wiped Tinker's tears away. "We'll get you back to him somehow."

  "Yeah, I know, we're working on it." Tinker sniffed.

  "Let me see your leg. I know Jin, he probably didn't think to clean that cut. He might be Dalai Lama of the crows, but he's hopeless with first aid."

  Gracie deftly took off the bandage, gently cleaned the wound and applied an antiseptic, and rebandaged the cut.

  "Are you a medic?" Tinker asked her.

  "I'm the ship's xenobiologist," Gracie said.

  "You're kidding."

  Gracie looked up in surprise, and Tinker found herself talking about Lain, and then about Esme. "Have you told her? I don't think she's realized who you are yet."

  Tinker shook her head. "Right now, it's all too weird. I don't even want to think about it. Besides, I'm kind of ticked at her. Not about leaving me. About everyone having to lie to me about it because—I don't know—some strange family stuff. I didn't know the truth for eighteen years. She can go on not knowing for a couple of days. I'll tell her later."

  Xiao Chen flew into the area, carrying a set of clothes. "These should fit our Scarecrow."

  "I don't know if I like that nickname." Tinker took the clothes and drifted awkwardly as she checked the pant size against her waist.

  Xiao Chen laughed. "I am sorry. For so long, we did not know your name, just that you were the Scarecrow."

  "Did you tell everyone about your dream?" Tinker asked Gracie.

  Xiao Chen, though, answered. "All of us that slept that night shared Wai Sze's dream—that is her ability. She is our dream crow."

  "In some ways, we are more bird than human," Gracie said.

  "Can you see the future?" Tinker asked "How am I going to get us out of this mess?"

  Gracie shook her head. "Where one person can determine the future, the way is clear, but we're in a tangle of possibilities. Many people can push the future one way or another. This is a time when everyone will determine the end."

  Since there were no private places, Tinker turned her back and they pretended to ignore her, talking in Chinese, as she changed. She tried not to feel like they were talking about her. Certainly with the ship falling out of orbit, they had plenty of things to discuss. At least with the dress on, she was able to change panties and pull on her pants without flashing them. The pants were a little loose, but Xiao Chen had included a length of nylon cord to serve as a belt.

  Tinker turned back around and pulled on the knotted cord. "I look the part of the scarecrow now."

  The tengu laughed.

  "I've been greedy." Gracie reached out and squeezed Tinker's hand. "I've kept you here too long. Thank you for letting me see you."

  Tinker hugged her good-bye and returned to the task of finding out how to get them back home to Windwolf.

  * * *

  Impatience, it turned out, had been trying to teach her a spell. It incorporated math, something that Elvish spells didn't do, and used magic to manipulate time and space. It took everything she knew and pushed it in a new direction using an entirely new symbol set. Jin translated the words and then, later, the number system that Impatience used but looked mystified by most of what he was saying.

  "You understand this?" Jin asked.

  "Yes, yes. The roots of elfin magic are here, but taken to another order of understanding. This is recognizing the qu
antum nature of magic and its effects across boundaries of realities. My god, I really screwed up. I never considered that I could warp the fabric of space and time on this kind of scale."

  "What?" Jin cried in surprise. "You made this mess?"

  "I had help. Okay, here's what happened." She found a marker in her pocket and drew a planet on the nearest wall. "The oni forced me to build a downsized gate on Elfhome. I set up a resonance between my gate and the orbital gate." She drew both gates in their proper positions and the wavy resonance line between them. "Now, Leo's gate was flawed. The time coordinate was never set." She drew the ships entering the orbital gate. "So the default time coordinate became the moment of the gate's destruction—or around midnight Eastern standard time, seven—eight days ago."