Black Wolf s-4

by Dave Gross

  The other bruiser stepped between Tal and the pot-bellied leader, who shook fish guts from his arms.

  "Stay out of this," he warned, glowering at Tal. "It's nothing to do with you."

  "Go back, Tal," said Chaney. He remained where the brutes had held him and looked shaken but not seriously hurt.

  The scar-faced man gave his boss a hand up, but he slapped it away and struggled back to his feet on his own. He was soaked from the waist down. "Listen to your friend."

  "Chane," said Tal, "you know I can't just stand by and let-"

  "Please, Tal," pleaded Chaney. "We're just going to talk."

  "That's right," agreed Potbelly. "We're just having a little philosophical discussion."

  Tal hesitated. He knew he was making things worse for Chaney, but he couldn't stand the thought of letting him suffer a beating.

  "Then talk," said Tal, "but touch him again, and we'll find out whether you can swim."

  "On second thought, maybe this does involve you," sneered the man. He glanced at his henchman and nodded at Tal. When they hesitated, he shouted, "Get him!"

  By the wall, Chaney slapped a hand over his eyes.

  Tal made a quick feint toward Baldy. When the bald man obligingly flinched, Tal turned quickly and kicked Scarface in the stomach. The man doubled over with a whoosh of breath.

  Baldy threw his meaty arms around Tal's shoulders. He was even stronger than he looked, lifting Tal off the street. Tal shot an elbow into his gut, and the man relaxed his grip for an instant, only to shift it into a choke hold. Tal felt his eyes bulge from the sudden, crushing pressure. He shifted his weight to pull the man forward, but Baldy had his feet firmly planted and kept his hold.

  Scarface staggered forward, still winded but recovered enough to slam his fist into Tal's sternum. He raised his fist for another blow, then fell over backward to reveal Chaney standing behind him, a heavy wooden spoke clutched in both hands.

  Tal shoved Baldy backward, forcing him against the fishmonger's wall. The bruiser kept his hold, but then Tal jerked his head backward. The man's head cracked against the wall once, twice, and finally a third time before he sank to the street.

  Tal staggered away, rubbing his throat and gasping. He looked for Potbelly, but the pale little man had made his escape. Near the street, Chaney peered back toward the city before turning back to Tal.

  "We had better get out of here before the Scepters show up," he said.

  He tossed his improvised club aside and threw Tal his pack. They emerged from the alley and headed north. Only a few questioning glances from the nearest merchants followed them.

  "Listen, Ghane," said Tal. "I'm sorry-"

  "Couldn't be helped," said Chaney. "After all, I can't expect my bodyguard to stand aside while some creep roughs me up, can I?"

  Tal made a weak smile. Chaney had called him his bodyguard since Tal first defended him against bullies some ten years before, when they were boys.

  "Of course, I can hardly stroll back through town unattended now," said Chaney. "You got enough money for another horse?"

  *****

  Four days later, Tal and Chaney rode past the high walls of Castle Narnbra and descended into the port of Yhaunn. The midday sun shone through a light shower of rain, but it was still clear enough for a grand view of the city. It was set within a vast rock quarry whose gray cliff walls rose up to the encircling walls.

  From the vantage of the castle entrance, Tal could see some of the city's most famous buildings, including the graceful spires of Glassgrafter's Hall and the four domes of Ordulin's Manshion, a huge and famous rooming house. Not far from Orgulin's was a tall, round tower that could only be Moonshadow Hall. Its soaring walls were adorned with bas-reliefs of graceful winged devas and other celestial beings. They were miniscule at this distance, but Tal thought he recognized the shapes of owls in place of gargoyles above the seven gates to the temple. The building reminded Tal of an overgrown playhouse, with its multiple entrances and a central courtyard open to the sky.

  Elsewhere, the city seemed impossibly crowded by small houses. Some of them were so narrow that two could fit into Tal's Selgaunt tallhouse, which he considered rather cozy. The buildings were especially dense near the harbor, where the stiltways rose four stories above the street. The bustling market district was a dizzying conglomeration of shops and alehouses linked by rope bridges, ladders, swings, ramps, and even more improbable connections above street level. The waterfront was open to Yhauntan Bay, a gray expanse filled with trading cogs and barges.

  After they secured lodging at Orgulin's, Tal immediately ordered hot baths and refreshments brought to their room. While waiting for the tubs, Tal composed a brief note of introduction and paid one of the inn's boys to deliver it to Moonshadow Hall.

  Within an hour, two pairs of house boys arrived and set a couple of deep wooden bathtubs before the fireplace. With precise economy, they filled the tubs with hot water from the cauldron above the fire. As the boys worked, a maid set out a warm jug of brandy with two small cups, as well as dishes of candied fruit, spiced lamb, seeded bread, and pickled onions. Then she arrayed the clean clothes neatly while Tal and Chaney stripped off their travel-sodden garments and handed them over for laundering. The servants left with the dirty laundry and a coin for each of them.

  Tal and Chaney stepped into the hot water with hisses, then sank down to their chins with sighs of contentment. For a long time, they let the heat dissolve the knotted muscles and cold aches of the journey while they sipped warm liquor and nibbled from the tray between them in contented silence. Only after Chaney had refilled their cups for the second time did Tal broach the subject that had been troubling his mind since they left Selgaunt.

  "Who were those men on the bridge?" he asked. He was surprised that Chaney hesitated before answering, since he'd had the past three days to formulate an excuse for his latest predicament.

  Chaney slowly slipped under the surface of the water. He remained submerged so long that a faint, irrational anxiety plucked at Tal's imagination. Before he became concerned enough to grab his friend by the hair and pull him out, Chaney raised his head out of the water. Rather than answer the question, he grabbed a bar of soap and began lathering his hair.

  Vexation paced along the back of Tal's mind, but he did not repeat himself. Instead he followed Chaney's example and scrubbed himself clean with a lavender-scented bar before leaning back to soak up the heat again. The warmth gradually reached his bones as he tried to empty his mind as Master Ferrick had taught. The meditation was much easier while sitting in a hot bath, he soon discovered. He had almost pushed away the question of Chaney's trouble when a house boy returned with his reply.

  Tal gave him a penny and broke the wax seal to read the note.

  "That was quick," said Chaney. "Will she see you?"

  "It doesn't say," said Tal. "But I have an audience tonight with someone, if I want it."

  "You probably have to impress some functionary first."

  "Probably," said Tal.

  "Want me to go with you?"

  "No," said Tal.

  He folded the vellum sheet and exchanged it for his glass on the small table between the bathtubs. Both he and Chaney sipped their drinks and settled back into the silence that had fallen over them since the fight at the High Bridge. Tal wanted to know more about Chaney's problem, and he felt it was only fair to tell him since he had confided everything in his friend. Still, while he felt compelled to intervene when it came to blows, he would not stoop to nagging Chaney.

  While he waited for Chaney to share his secret, however, Tal would drag his friend no further into his own private affairs. Maybe it was petty, he realized, but maybe it was prudent. If Chaney were mixed up with hard criminals, not just a few cheated gamblers or a gentleman's loan gone sour, then Tal had to consider how to limit his own involvement. Despite his relative independence from Thamalon and the rest of his family, he knew better than to invite real trouble back to Stormweather.

>   He only hoped Chaney was not in real trouble, and he wouldn't know until Chaney confided in him.

  *****

  Tal was surprised to find that Dhauna Myritar was a short, plump woman of perhaps sixty or as many as eighty years. She had brown skin and eyes of no particular color, with laugh lines that reminded Tal of Mistress Quickly and perhaps also Maleva.

  The high priestess wore her fine blue and silver gown as comfortably as a fishwife would an old shawl. It was all bustles and lace with a fantastical collar that rose high above the top of her head. In her coifed hair she wore a silver tiara of six crescent moons surrounding one perfect disk in the center. It should have looked ridiculous on her, but somehow it did not.

  "May Selune guide your steps in the night and bring them to the new dawn," she greeted him. She had an air of comfortable formality, as though she'd said the words a hundred thousand times but still meant them honestly.

  She handed the bright ceremonial scepter to one of the three young novices attending her before dismissing them from the room. It was a small, comfortable antechamber, thickly carpeted and appointed with furnishings that looked more appropriate for a gentleman's lounge than a temple. The servants had left a decanter of wine so white it was nearly silver, and the high priestess gestured for Tal to pour her a glass.

  He obliged with practiced grace learned more from the stage than a courtier's habit, careful to hand it to her delicately and say, "Your grace."

  "Thank you, Talbot," she said. She sat back and put her slippered feet up on a stuffed footstool. "You may call me 'Dhauna' when we're alone. Why, I feel as though I know you already. Oh, don't look so surprised. You are not stupid, and you needn't pretend to be."

  "No," said Tal. "Of course Maleva told you about my problem."

  "Oh, much more than that," she said.

  She drained half of the wine from her glass in one smooth motion. Far from seeming crude, the gesture was natural and homey. Tal thought more than ever that she reminded him of Maleva.

  "I see," said Tal, not knowing what else to say.

  "To be honest, I expected you much sooner. Or else I expected you to go rushing off in search of Rusk. Revenge!" She lifted her glass like a sword.

  Tal just stared at her. Each time she opened her mouth, she flabbergasted him anew.

  "Actually," he admitted, "a friend of mine talked me out of that."

  "Good friend," she said, finishing her glass and raising it for a refill. Tal poured again. "You'll need good friends if you plan to keep your curse a secret. But you can't keep it that way forever, you know."

  "Yes," said Tal. "That's why I'm here. I want to know more about-"

  "You want to know more about moonfire and why you can't buy any," she said. This time he was not surprised. "That part is simple. It won't work for you. You could drink a barrel of the stuff-if it weren't a sacrilege, that is-and the best it might do is cure your sniffles or maybe make you glow in the dark for a while."

  "But Maleva said-"

  "Maleva said it would control your shapechanging for seven moons."

  "Right."

  "But only if you worship Selune."

  "Yes, that was the deal."

  "It wasn't a deal, Talbot. Mind if I call you Tal?" She was sipping on her wine now, but her cheeks were already pleasantly flushed. "She was explaining how it works. It suppresses the call of the moon if you are a worshiper of Selune."

  "Oh," said Tal. "That's not exactly the way she put it."

  "That is exactly the way she put it," said Dhauna. "It's just not exactly the way you heard it. Drink some wine. You look confused."

  "Thank you," he said, following her example and draining half his glass in one smooth draught. He frowned to think he'd come all this way only to hear the high priestess of Selune tell him the same thing Maleva had already told him.

  "Now you look sad. I like you the other way better. Drink some more."

  At that, Tal laughed softly. Dhauna's banter took the edge off his disappointment far better than more wine could ever do.

  "You're welcome among the faithful," she said in a less frivolous tone. "You truly are, and not just because the ratio of women to men is approaching eight to one. In fact, I think you will find eventually that your place is among us."

  Tal shook his head gently, but she spoke again before he could comment.

  "Just not yet," she said gently, reaching over to pat him on the knee. The gesture seemed far more friendly than patronizing.

  "No," Tal agreed. "It's not that I mean any disrespect."

  "I know," said Dhauna. "You're just a bit of a hot-head, a little too young, a little too wild. Our job is to see that you have a chance to grow out of it."

  Tal wasn't sure whether he liked the sound of "our job," but he already knew he liked Dhauna Myritar and wanted to hear what she had to say. He had not done a particularly good job of listening to advice from Maleva and Feena.

  "I do need help," said Tal.

  "Then I'll send you someone," said Dhauna. "It will take some tune to arrange, but soon. In return, you must provide room and board, and you must listen and take what she says seriously."

  "She?"

  "One of our initiates," said Dhauna. "As you might have noticed, most of our clergy are women."

  "Chaney would like it here," said Tal.

  "So would you," said Dhauna. Before he could protest, she added, "Just not yet."

  They smiled at each other.

  "There is one thing that Maleva didn't tell me," he said as she sipped some more wine. "I overheard her daughter say something about a Black Wolf heresy."

  Wine spurted from Dhauna's nose. She caught most of it in the glass, which she set aside.

  "Your grace, I didn't mean-"

  "It's all right," she said, mopping her chin with a handkerchief drawn from her sleeve. "I should have expected that. Just don't mention it openly, not here. After all, it is a heresy."

  "Of course."

  "You know what heresy means? It means it's untrue. Still, it's a big lie that comes from some little truths. Did you tell Maleva when you were born?"

  "Yes, she asked me that. The time, too."

  "Were you born during a new moon?"

  "I don't know. She didn't say anything more about it."

  Dhauna sighed.

  "What does that mean?"

  "Well, it means either you were born under a black moon or you weren't. We don't know, since Maleva enjoys being mysterious. That works well with the people where she lives, but it's annoying to civilized people like you and me."

  Tal chuckled.

  "That wasn't a joke," she said, frowning.

  Tal wiped the smile from his face, but he felt a blush rise to his cheeks.

  "But that was," said Dhauna, shaking her head mirthfully. "Don't be so gullible."

  "You don't seem very much like a high priestess," said Tal.

  "You don't seem very much like a werewolf," she replied. "Not tonight, at any rate."

  "About the Black… thing… business," he prompted.

  "If you were born during a black moon, a new moon, then it might be easier for you to learn how to ride the moon. That's our poetic and mysterious way of saying, learn how to control the change."

  "Why didn't Maleva tell me about that?"

  "Well," said Dhauna, "perhaps she was trying too hard to persuade you to join the temple."

  "That can't be it. She was really trying to help me. I can't believe she would just leave out telling me that I can control the change."

  "You haven't proven that you can," said Dhauna. "Not everyone succeeds at it, especially those bitten by wolves, boars, and the other savage beasts. Those who suffer the benign lycanthropy have it much easier."

  "Benign lycanthropy?"

  "Werebears, for instance," said Dhauna. "They are not as susceptible to the call of the Huntmaster."

  "You mean Malar, don't you?"

  She nodded.

  "He's also called the Black Wolf, isn
't he?"

  "Sometimes my attendants listen at the door," she said. "Don't embarrass me."

  "Sorry."

  "The temple of Selune does not actively oppose the Beastlord," she said. "We're not friendly with his followers, and some of our clerics take it upon themselves to defend folk against lycanthropes-with our blessing, naturally- but we concern ourselves primarily with other evils."

  "Like Shar and Mask," suggested Tal. He had read that the clerics of Selune were especial enemies of the goddess of darkness and the god of thieves.

  "Exactly," she agreed. "There are so many dark gods, and we of Selune's faithful must devote our energies to thwarting the minions of her foes."

  "And Malar is not one of her foes."

  "No," said Dhauna. "Not in the same way."

  Tal had a glimmer of insight, a half-formed idea that dissolved even as he tried to make it take shape. Somehow he realized that he had almost grasped a hidden truth, but it had slipped away. Its passing left another, lesser question.

  "Maleva is not in good standing with the temple, is she?"

  "No," allowed Dhauna. "Even though we are old friends, she has chosen a different path."

  "Because she wants to oppose Malar."

  This time Dhauna's sigh was full of weary resignation. 'The matter is more complicated than you know, for reasons that I won't share with you."

  Tal thought about what she had said. "You said Svon't.' "

  "I did."

  "One of the Old Chauncel-the old families who run Selgaunt-one of them would have said 'can't.' "

  "But that would have been a lie, Tal."

  He smiled. Perhaps he had not found all the answers he had hoped for, but he trusted this Dhauna Myritar, and through her he trusted Maleva more than ever, despite her mysterious ways.

  "Thank you," he said, standing up to bow to the cleric. "May I visit you again some day?"

  She rose and offered him her hand, raising one sly eyebrow. "Are you already considering joining us?"

  "No," he said, "but perhaps we could sit and drink some wine."