Wolf Hunting

by Jane Lindskold

  "If you have the strength," Firekeeper replied, with something almost like courtesy.

  "For this, I do," the Meddler said, favoring her with a warm smile.

  Derian remembered that Firekeeper said she had seen the Meddler with a wolf's head, and wondered how that expression translated.

  The Meddler's smile faded, and his tone became a mimicry of Harjeedian's pedantry. "First, you must understand that these gates, while rather wonderful, are as limited as any other tool. I kept those limitations in mind as I began my research."

  Truth gave a long, elaborate yawn for which there was no need of translation.

  The Meddler grinned and shrugged. "Very well. I will spare you the details of my research. Simply put, gates enable a vast amount of distance to be crossed, but the destination point must be fixed. In other words, gates are much like any other door, only the threshold between rooms is wider. Even in the great days of magic, when sorcerers ruled all the nations of the world, the gates were almost impossibly expensive to construct, both in terms of the magical power that must be expended and the physical components that must be used. Therefore, it was unlikely that any person or group would contemplate construction of more than one. This meant the gates were of limited utility until someone came up with the bright idea of having all gates share one destination."

  "One?" Harjeedian said. "Wouldn't people risk crashing into each other?"

  "One general destination," the Meddler clarified. "A nexus. The creation of a nexus meant that if someone, say, from here wanted to go to Hawk Haven - assuming there was a gate in Hawk Haven - they would not go directly to the Hawk Haven gate, but first to the nexus Then they would walk to the gate that had an endpoint in Hawk Haven and leave from there."

  "Interesting," Derian said, "and practical. Since each gate could have only two endpoints, the use of the nexus would save a lot of redundant construction."

  "The arrangement was practical from more than one standpoint," the Meddler agreed, "and before the lovely spotted lady yawns again, I would like to stress that I am getting to the point. The other reason this nexus system was very practical was that - as those of you with suspicious minds will have already thought - gates could be very dangerous indeed in, say, time of war. Why bother to load armies onto ships or mount them upon horses if the soldiers could march one by one through a door and end up hundreds or even thousands of days' journey distant?"

  "Would this nexus stop them?" Harjeedian asked. "Couldn't a private gate between destinations be constructed?"

  "You are forgetting the expense involved in building such gates," the Meddler said. "However, assuming that some power was rich enough not only to prepare an invading force, but also to build a gate into the area to be invaded, the nexus system provided another safeguard as well.

  "Use of the gates created a ripple or surge that could be detected by those who were skilled in this form of magic. The governing body of the central nexus employed those who could do this. Initially, they did this in order to anticipate use of their facility. However, soon they realized the fringe benefit that these watching sorcerers would be fairly certain to detect the use of a gate, even if it was not tied into their network."

  "And as the building of a secret gate would be rather suspicious," Harjeedian said, "in and of itself - no matter what excuses the builder made - international security would be assured."

  "That," the Meddler agreed, "was the idea. Well, needless to say, this nexus could not belong to any one nation. It was built on neutral territory, on an archipelago of large islands surrounded by nothing but sea. Despite the isolation, supplying the inhabitants was not difficult. There were the gates, after all. Nor did those who worked there suffer from the loneliness of their post If they chose, they could go to their homelands at almost any time.

  "Despite this relative oneness of purpose, security on many levels was fierce. The oceans were reported to have been stocked with monsters. I don't know if this was true, but enough people believed this that no captain lightly took his ship into the forbidden areas. The magical security was also excellent. As you know from Truth's demonstration a few days ago, there are ways other than the use of gates by which one can travel over intervening distances without physically passing through the space. Precautions were taken so that even those possessing that specialized ability could not reach the nexus. Should they try, it would seem to them as if they had smashed against a wall of stone. There were other precautions as well, marvelous and complex, but I will spare you the details, for I cannot believe that most of these still exist.

  "What matters is this. When I learned there was a gate here in this stronghold, I made the logical assumption that this gate, like all the rest, went, if not to the nexus I had known, then to one very much like it. However, given the security arrangements that were already in place at the nexus, I believed that when gates to the New World were created, they would terminate at the same point."

  "Makes sense," Derian said. "After all, my bet is that most of those who used that gate out in the courtyard didn't want to go to another point in the New World. They would have wanted a fast way to get to some place in the Old World. That nexus would have been perfect."

  "So," Firekeeper's husky voice interjected, tight and impatient, "you go there, Meddler? You go this nexus? You go how Truth goes?"

  "I tried to reach the nexus," the Meddler said, "and I failed, but even that failure told me a great deal. You see, the reason I failed was that the barriers against entering the nexus remain intact. They might not have been quite as elegant as in the days I remember, but they were quite enough to stop a bodiless fellow like myself. Moreover, I could sense that the power maintaining them was not latent - not left from the days before the Plague. It was new power, unpolished by the standards I had known, but no less a barrier."

  Derian nodded. "A finely finished granite wall without a visible seam, and a heap of roughly mortared rocks both will serve to keep an invader out."

  "Correct," the Meddler said, giving Derian one of those smiles that so reminded him of his uncle. "And that rough stone wall might even do a better job since all the effort is going into making it strong, none into making it pretty."

  Harjeedian set beside him the papers he had been holding. "So after all this time, the nexus remains active.

  How, I wonder? Did the Divine Retribution not slay those who dwelled there? I would have thought they would have been particularly susceptible, for all of them must have had some skill in magic."

  "Not all," the Meddler said. "There were lots of sweepers, garbage collectors, cooks, and such. Transit between the gates took time to prepare. Sometimes travelers would stay a day or more to sightsee. Negotiations - financial or diplomatic - were held there, too, for the nexus was neutral ground. There was a marvelous marketplace on one of the islands in the archipelago. Expensive, yes, but often one could find things there that could not be had elsewhere."

  "Even so," Harjeedian said, "there must have been a huge number of sorcerers at this nexus. Worse, there must be sorcerers present today or that barrier which you encountered would not be in place."

  "As to that last," the Meddler said, "you are certainly correct As to whether they have been there all along, or whether this occupation is a new development, I do not know. I have rather been out of circulation for quite a while."

  For a long time, Derian thought, long enough that the world of which you speak is an alien one to all of us. You talk about it and your voice is full of wonder and longing. But sorcery is a thing of nightmare to me and my people, and to Harjeedian and his, and maybe even more so to Firekeeper and Blind Seer. The Royal Beasts have no love of magic.

  Aloud Derian said, "My guess is that the twins would have known nothing of this elaborate system of gates and all the rest. At least we have found no mention of it in our research - nor did any mention remain in the tales I was told as a child."

  "Nor in those of my land," Harjeedian said. "I am not surprised this is so. The O
ld World rulers did their best to keep ignorant all but those few they chose to teach."

  Derian nodded. "If the twins did open the gate - and it was not opened without their doing - they probably expected to find a deserted building on the other side, a vacant stronghold to match this one. They may not have even realized their end point would be in the Old World."

  "I don't know," the Meddler said with disarming honesty. "I can't even speculate. Have you learned anything in your research?"

  "Little enough," Harjeedian admitted. "My guess is that this library has been picked over time and time again. The original inhabitants would have borne away what they could. Then there may have been looters, perhaps a succession of them over time. Then the twins came and hunted about. Lastly, I suspect, those whose scents Truth and Blind Seer reported - the strangers whose scent is not that of the twins - probably carried away anything left. What I have been reading is interesting in its own way, but useless regarding the gate."

  "Then," the Meddler said, "Blind Seer's plan may be the best choice - that is unless you wish to wait here until one of those on the other side decides to come through."

  "No," Firekeeper growled. 'That could be forever. Why would they come here now?"

  "How old are the scents?" the Meddler asked, glancing at Truth and Blind Seer. He clearly understood the answer given, for he said, "So some humans have been here fairly recently, recently enough that they are probably responsible for the blood briars and the bracken beasts being set on you. They may well have had someone staying here as a guard all along."

  "Not when we come in," Firekeeper said. "Not that we see. No one here."

  "The guard may have retreated," the Meddler said. "You alone, Firekeeper, then you and your fellows destroyed a small army of those bracken beasts. They're not the most complex of constructs, but nothing magical is easy to make. You probably set their creators back several moonspans of work - if not more. The blood briars would be easier to set. Probably the ones that hurt the ravens were passive guards, but there is no way the bracken beasts were."

  "You suggested," Harjeedian said, "that we should follow Blind Seer's plan. By that do you mean we should trip whatever alarm may be interwoven into the borders of the copse and hope someone comes to investigate?"

  "That is precisely what I mean," the Meddler said.

  "I have been wondering," Harjeedian continued, "is it likely that they have been spying on us all along?"

  The Meddler grinned, his candor disarming any sting implied in Harjeedian's words. "You mean like I spied on my candidates? I don't think so. For one, scrying like that is another specialized skill. Even I needed physical tools to help me maintain long concentration. For another, the nature of that barrier around the nexus is such that any magic has trouble getting through it. That's why in the old days they employed sorcerers to watch the gate ripples. It was more reliable than any other way of knowing what was coming their way."

  "I admit to being relieved," Harjeedian said. "I have been worried we were putting on a show for unseen observers. Still, my concern is that if we deliberately alert whoever is on the other side, those who come will arrive expecting trouble."

  "There's no way I can see to avoid that," the Meddler said. "If they have learned anything about the gates, even your using one may well provide an alert. However, I doubt they will come through more than two at a time. Unless gates have changed tremendously from my day, there will be a pause between sendings."

  "That's something," Derian said. "The gate's big enough that I had imagined gangs running through waving clubs or firing bows - or worse."

  Firekeeper had been listening with that dark-eyed concentration Derian knew meant she had accepted the necessity of a fight.

  'Tell us," Firekeeper said, "everything. One time you say you make us map of here. Can you make one of there - of this nexus place?"

  "A very outdated one," the Meddler said, "but surely the bigger landmarks will not have changed."

  "Good. Do this. Tell us all. Then we will go hunting."

  LATE THAT NIGHT, Plik's illness reached a crisis. He hurt everywhere, even to the roots of his teeth. As his fever rose, he began shedding voluminously, but at the same time he shivered with cold, as if the very marrow in his bones had turned to ice.

  His muscles ached so that he could hardly open his mouth or swallow, but he craved every droplet of the water the anxiously attentive Isende forced into his mouth. Tiniel brushed the bare portions of his skin with alcohol. During one lucid moment, Plik heard the twins discussing the possibility of putting him in a bath, but as he alternately sweated and shivered, they didn't dare take the risk.

  Later the hallucinations began. He held long conversations with the distant maimalodalum, telling them what he had seen, of the kindness he had met from his traveling companions, from Isende and Tiniel.

  "Maybe," he said to Hope, "we were wrong to think that humans would view us as monsters."

  "Maybe," Hope said, "but the reality is, we are monsters."

  Later, Plik rested on a cloudy plain, leaning back against a heap of clouds. He felt exquisitely comfortable, but distantly he was aware that he was also racked with pain so great that his body twitched and convulsed. He would have fallen to the floor if Tiniel had not held him down. His mouth tasted of pine, and he realized there was a stick in his mouth, pressing down his tongue so he would not bite it.

  "Nice place, isn't it?" a voice said.

  Plik blinked, realizing for the first time that he was not alone. Another sat with him, a chubby raccoon-man like himself, so much like that Plik thought it his own reflection come to visit. Given some of the conversations Plik had had that night, he was not in the least surprised.

  "It is nice," he replied, but he felt rather guilty as he said so.

  "You've heard of me before," the other said, "but I don't believe we have met. Your friends call me 'the Meddler.'"

  Plik was interested now, remembering the many stories he had read. "And what would you call yourself?"

  "The Meddler will do, though I think of myself as a Meddler. Certainly, I am not the only one who has ever meddled."

  "Are you meddling now?"

  "In a sense. I haven't been able to reach you before this, although I have been trying."

  "Practice makes perfect."

  "Actually," the Meddler said, "the reason I can speak with you now is less than perfect. I think you should know - you're in rather immediate danger of dying."

  Plik thought about this. The idea did not terrify him as much as he thought it would. Living, especially when he allowed himself awareness of what was happening to his body, was rather more frightening.

  "You're not afraid of dying," the Meddler said.

  "Is there a reason I should be?" Plik asked. "You seem a spirit yourself. What can you tell me of the afterlife?"

  "Very little. I've never been there. This is a between place, where the dying often come. I left means of being notified if you showed up."

  "You'd think it would be more crowded," Plik commented.

  "It is quite crowded," the Meddler said, "but as everyone is alone in dying, so you are alone here. I'm rather intruding."

  "That would be in keeping with the stories told about you," Plik said agreeably. "You always get into places where you shouldn't be - and you always have an excuse."

  The Meddler nodded. "My reason for seeking you is this. Your friends are preparing to come rescue you. Originally, all I hoped was to learn something of your situation, anything that would help them find you."

  "I am in a cottage," Plik said, "being tended by two who have no idea just how great a role you have played in their recent, unhappy lives. That's all I know. I haven't been outside. Oh! And the cottage is somewhere in the Old World. We reached it by some sort of gate, but as I was unconscious at the time, I have no memory of this."

  The Meddler rubbed his raccoon hands over his chest ruff.

  "Well, it would be nice if you knew more, but if you don't..
. Tiniel and Isende are well?"

  "Alive, but I think they are as much captives as I am. I have been extremely ill since my arrival, first with blood briar poison, now with querinalo. Needless to say, I have learned less than I would like."

  "Captives?"

  "Of some people they referred to as the Once Dead and, again, as the Twice Dead. I don't know anything more. I think I saw one of them, though. A doctor. Polite enough. Professional. Seemed completely alive to me."

  The Meddler straightened. "Alive! That's right. You need to make a decision, and, although time runs somewhat differently here than it does where your body is, you need to make that decision soon."

  "Decision?"

  'To try and live or to stay here and let your body die. You're half dead already. In a way, you're already dead, your body just doesn't know it yet. If you don't return your spirit to its residence, the dying will be complete."

  Plik fell back into his body just a little and was met with a wash of pain. The surf sound had returned, and the pounding in his head was more than he could take. He slipped back to his cloud-pillowed refuge again.

  "Dying doesn't seem so bad," he said.

  "I doubt I can stop the others," the Meddler said, "even if I tell them the truth. They don't trust me, you see. Even if they do believe me..."

  "Believe you?"

  "If I tell them you have died," the Meddler said, and Plik knew he was being deliberately harsh. "Even if I tell them you have died, then they will still insist on knowing for themselves. Will you leave them nothing but sorrow as a reward for their efforts?"

  Plik fell back into his body again. A second time the pain, the pounding in his head, the burning heat that lit his skin, the freezing cold that drilled through his bones, a second time these drove him back to where there was no pain.

  "Will you?" the Meddler asked.

  Plik thought he would. What sorrow would they feel for him, maimalodalu, monster, rejected child of the only parent he had known? They were chance companions who had known him for a handful of moonspans. Surely their mourning would not be deep.