Wolf Hunting

by Jane Lindskold

  "We haven't had a chance to search those other buildings," Plik said. "I, for one, wouldn't feel comfortable using one of their residences as a refuge until we could make certain they didn't have any amulets or some such thing hidden that they could use against us. The few hours we have left aren't going to be enough."

  Harjeedian nodded. "I have spoken to the doctor here in passing. Let me do so now in more detail."

  "I'll go and review our prisoners," Derian said. "Plik, you'd better come with me. Once Firekeeper and I are down, playing jailer is going to be up to you and the yarimaimalom. You may have the advantage on me when it comes to your ability to talk to them, but I don't see how that's going to give you extra hands."

  "Right," Plik said.

  One by one, the members of the company moved to various jobs. Firekeeper found herself deputized to bring blankets and bedding that could be used to transform the cottages into a makeshift hospital. There were small donkeys in one of the stables, along with carts and harness. Firekeeper threatened one of the terrified creatures into service so she wouldn't need to carry load after load.

  Blind Seer walked with her, just out of the range of the donkey's rolling eye, his mere presence coaxing the stubborn beast into unwonted cooperation.

  Normally, Firekeeper would have been amused, but thoughts of the ordeal to come haunted her, keeping her from enjoying the present moment. Blind Seer left off his teasing of the donkey.

  "Are you frightened, dear heart?" he asked gently.

  She didn't try to pretend otherwise.

  "Everyone seems so certain I will be among those to fall," she said, "but I do not feel magical."

  "You are different from other humans," the wolf said, his gentleness unfailing.

  "But I am a wolf, and my heart is a wolf's. Nothing at I do would be impossible for a wolf," Firekeeper protested, then added for fairness' sake, "at least if the wolf had hands and walked upright."

  "Like the Meddler does in your visions," Blind Seer said. "I envy him."

  It was the first time he had raised the matter directly. Firekeeper did not evade the scent of rivalry as a human might have done, but she gave the matter a twist no human would have anticipated.

  "I envy him as well," she said. "He has almost everything I want."

  "Almost?" Blind Seer asked.

  "Well," Firekeeper said with a smile, "for one, he doesn't have you."

  QUERINALO CAME THE NEXT DAY, as Zebel had predicted. First to be touched was the jaguar Truth. Midmorning, Bitter and Lovable brought a report to where Firekeeper and Blind Seer were talking with some of the others near the cottages where their field camp had been moved.

  "Truth has found herself an isolated place near where a freshwater spring comes from the rock," Bitter said. "She says she will bite the first person to move her from it."

  "I don't think she wants nursing," Lovable said, hopping and flapping her wings. "Do you think she can survive without it?"

  Plik shrugged, "Truth has been mad and sane and near mad again. If anyone can cope with the hallucinations that come with querinalo, then it is she."

  When told of Truth's decision, Isende admitted rather shamefacedly that she was relieved.

  "Even Plik was difficult to handle at times," she said, "and his claws are not made for rending - not in the same way. Truth may be thinking of us as much as of anyone else."

  Firekeeper nodded. "I think so, too. Truth knows how deadly she is, and how dangerous she can be in madness." Derian was the next to fall ill, the symptoms coming on him some hours later. He grew quieter and quieter, but it was not until he began speaking to his younger sister, Damita, telling her how he missed her, that his friends realized he was already engulfed in the early hallucinations.

  Firekeeper herded Derian into Plik's bed, knocking the tall redhead flat with little effort. Then, Blind Seer beside her, she went running for Zebel.

  "Why didn't you smell the fever on Derian?" she asked Blind Seer reproachfully.

  The blue-eyed wolf said nothing for several paces; then he looked at her with blank, unseeing eyes.

  "I don't like this place," he said with flattened ears and drooping tail. Then he collapsed in midstride.

  Firekeeper dropped beside him, lifted her head toward the sky, and howled.

  Help came in four-legged droves, but none but Firekeeper could lift the enormous wolf. She might have been able to carry Blind Seer, but not without adding injuries to the fever that had brought him low.

  Harjeedian came with the donkey cart, and helped Firekeeper lift and slide Blind Seer onto the boards.

  "Can you get him to the cottage?" he asked. "I'll go for the doctor."

  "Not need," Firekeeper said hoarsely. "There."

  Zebel was coming, herded by a group of yarimaimalom that included a fox, a doe, and a bear. A golden eagle soared overhead, watchful, but the doctor showed no sign of deserting his trust.

  "I'm not a veterinarian," Zebel began, hoisting himself onto the wagon bed and beginning to examine Blind Seer. "I know mostly about treating humans."

  Firekeeper snarled at the donkey, who began trotting at a fair clip despite her burden. Firekeeper paced alongside, near enough to keep the donkey on course, while remaining near to Zebel. Thus far his examination matched those she had seen in the past, and she felt a certain amount of relief.

  "But you know how to doctor for wolves?" she asked.

  "A little," Zebel said. "There were a few in our number with better skills than mine in animal medicine. I haven't seen them since your group's, uh, assumption of administration, but one of them might be better able to treat your companion than I."

  "Women?" Firekeeper asked. "Three, living in house near where yarimaimalom were kept?"

  "That's right," Zebel agreed. He'd peeled Blind Seer's upper lip back and was examining the gum.

  "Not here anymore," Firekeeper said tersely.

  Zebel glanced at her as if he was about to ask for clarification, took one look at her face, and hurriedly returned is attention to Blind Seer.

  "Well," he said, "I can do something. The important thing is trying to keep the fever down. Unhappily, when the fever rises, that's when the hallucinations are worse. Is someone willing to take the risk to sit with the wolf and do what needs to be done to tend the fever?"

  "I will be with him," Firekeeper said.

  Zebel glanced at her. "Forgive me, but I was told who were most likely to be my patients. Your name headed the list."

  "I will be with Blind Seer," Firekeeper repeated stubbornly. "No matter."

  The doctor sighed but said nothing more. Evidently, he thought it a waste of breath to argue with one who was clearly already suffering from the irrationalities of querinalo.

  Firekeeper snorted. She felt fine. Maybe a little warm, but then she had done a great deal of running already that day. True the weather was cool, but she did not think she was feverish. She resisted the impulse to touch her forehead as she had seen others do. Even contemplating the possibility that she could become ill might give the illness entry.

  "I am fine," she said, and almost believed herself. Plik met them at the gateway into the pair of cottages. The eagle perched on the gate, snapping at the blood briar vines that were trying to snare him, gave explanation for Plik's readiness.

  "We're going to put Blind Seer in the same room as Derian," Plik said. "There's plenty of space, near ..."

  Firekeeper raised her eyebrows, daring Plik to finish his statement, which almost certainly would have been "near to where we've prepared a bed for you."

  Plik looked at her and concluded, "Near one of the windows." "Good," Firekeeper said.

  "I've brought a heavy blanket we can use as a stretcher," Plik went on, "if you take one end, and Harjeedian the other."

  Harjeedian, forgotten to this moment, came from behind where he had followed the donkey cart. Together they eased the unconscious but restive wolf onto the blanket. Firekeeper stayed close to Blind Seer's head. She wouldn't hav
e blamed Harjeedian if he had dropped his share of the weight if Blind Seer had snapped at him. The wolf's fangs were very sharp, and his jaws could crack bone.

  Isende and Tiniel watched in anxious silence as Blind Seer was carried in and made as comfortable as possible. Zebel took advantage of the delay to examine Derian. The young man was tossing restlessly on his bed, talking in Pellish to people who weren't there.

  "He was fairly lucid not long ago," Isende said. "I managed to get him to drink a good amount then - and he kept most of it down."

  "You know what to do," Zebel said, "and this time I will be able to be here to assist."

  Firekeeper found this statement, with the implication that Zebel had been prevented from attending more closely to Plik during the maimalodalu's illness, interesting. Then again, Zebel might be licking the jaw of those he now saw as Ones. Humans were no less inclined to do such groveling than wolves. They were simply less honest about when they did it.

  Blind Seer seemed to be coming conscious. He lifted his head, then rolled onto his breastbone and balanced there. The gaze of his blue eyes seemed truly blind now, casting about the room, fastening on things that Firekeeper could not see, looking through most of those present. He saw Firekeeper though, and nuzzled her hand when she sat beside him.

  "Can you drink, dear heart?" Firekeeper asked anxiously. "The doctor says you should drink as much as possible to combat the fires fever will set in your blood."

  "I will drink," the wolf replied, and tried to struggle to his feet. He could not, and Firekeeper held the bowl in her lap, ignoring how his sloppy lapping spilled water all over her.

  When he had finished, Blind Seer slowly collapsed back onto his side, but he did not sleep.

  "Where are we, Firekeeper?" he asked.

  "On the island with the gates," she replied. "Do you remember? "

  "I remember, but instead of salt air and stone I seem to smell the forests where we were born. It is summer there, early summer. The leaves are soft, giving shade and coloring the light in hues of green. There is moss underfoot, or soft duff. I am chasing a certain Little. Two-legs, who runs surprisingly fast for being so hampered by her odd gait. Of course, she has the annoying habit of climbing trees."

  "I think," Firekeeper said, stroking along the bridge of his nose, "you are remembering when you were a puppy. That's the last time I could run faster than you, when you were a fat little fur ball. Climbing, though, there I still have the better of you."

  "You have the better of me in so many things," the wolf replied. "Those hands are marvelous - especially once you found human tools and skills to fit them. It seems there is nothing you cannot do. You can even hunt better than I can."

  Firekeeper bent and kissed the wolf on one ear. "Not hunt. Never hunt. Kill... perhaps. Certain kinds of kills. Coward kills from a distance. That I have learned. But you have the ears that can hear a butterfly landing on a rose petal. You have the nose that can tell you past as well as present. You can never be stripped of your abilities, but I can be stripped of my tools."

  Blind Seer said nothing in reply. At first, Firekeeper thought he was thinking over what she had said. Then she looked to where his paws were moving just a little, but in a pattern clearly recognizable as that of running, and she knew that he had gone somewhere she couldn't follow.

  Was he running in the forests of their childhood? Was he reliving one of their journeys? Was he somewhere that was real only in his own mind?

  Plik had recounted how during his own illness he had met the Meddler, and spoken with him. Firekeeper wondered if Blind Seer would also meet that strange person, and if so what they would speak about. She had the distinct impression Blind Seer did not like the Meddler one bit. She was honest enough to admit that part of the reason for this was the Meddler's interest in her - and hers in him as well.

  Oh, sweet hunter, my best and dearest friend, Firekeeper thought, wherever you run, remember to turn your paws and find the trail that will bring you back to me.

  XXXII

  TRUTH STRETCHED OUT IN A FRESHWATER stream that overflowed from a patch she'd found where the groundwater ran just below the surface - not quite a spring, but almost. Normally the water here seeped away through the porous, rocky soil. Now the jaguar's bulky body dammed the clear liquid, soaking it up, cooling her against the heat of querinalo.

  Truth didn't feel well at all, but she wasn't about to go creeping down to those stone-walled cottages and have some feather-skinned human try to tend to her. Truth had enough guilt on her conscience without adding killing or maiming someone who was just trying to help.

  Much had been made of the responsibility the Liglimom took toward the yarimaimalom. Less was said of the responsibility those same yarimaimalom took toward "their" humans. Truth had been reared with not merely the expectation, but - courtesy of her ability to read omens - the knowledge that in most time streams she would someday serve as jaguar of her year. She had grown to adulthood feeling a certain arrogant awareness of how fragile humans were, and a realization that if she were to serve the deities as their voice she must learn to accept human fragility.

  So now Truth lay in a spreading puddle, hallucinations treading about the verges of her awareness, trying to decide whether living or dying was the better option.

  So far her hallucinations had been mild. Truth had considerable experience telling reality from possibility, so she didn't even find the visions of the tangled forests of Misheemnekuru through which she now prowled particularly disorienting. Rather she welcomed them as she welcomed the coolness of the water in which she repeatedly dipped the hot leather of her nose.

  Her mother came to talk with her, leaping down from the boughs of a moss-shrouded oak.

  "Your friends are worried about you, fur ball," Mother said, licking damp earth from one of her front paws. "Do you see them watching you from the trees?"

  Truth did. The raven pair, Bitter and Lovable, had kept a steady but non-intrusive watch since Truth had gone to ground. She had also glimpsed the white-faced barn owls, Night's Terror and Golden Feather, and thought she knew who would take over the watch come dark.

  "What does their worry matter?" Truth asked. "It's not going to change what I do."

  Mother studied her paw critically, noticed a speck of dirt still remaining, then began to lick it again. She'd always been a very clean cat.

  "And what are you going to do?" she asked, starting on the other paw.

  By reflex, Truth started to reach out and read the various omens to guide her to one choice or another. Then she pulled back. Madness was far, far too close here. If she ventured into unreality, especially when cloaked within hallucination, she might never return.

  Truth pulled back, and when she did, her mother was no longer there. Truth remained in the forest, though, nestled in a damp space beneath a cluster of honeysuckle in early spring flower. A stream chattered over rocks within reach of her paw and little, bright, slim-sided fish darted between the rocks, sliding with the current.

  Not in the least hungry, Truth watched the fish dance for a while. Not even the lumbering advent of a snapping turtle, usually one of her favorite foods, could draw her from the comfortable languor that was seeping into her bones. Deep down, if she chose to probe beneath the hallucination, Truth could tell that her body was suffering badly from fever. Her joints ached. Her nose was dry. Even the folds of her ears hurt.

  Truth plunged her nose into the stream. The fish scattered, and the snapping turtle did its best to become a rock. Truth rewarded them for speed and stealth by leaving them to their cold wet lives, but she couldn't resist using the snapping turtle's shell as a stepping-stone when she rose from her honeysuckle bower and went to follow a faint game trail.

  She didn't remember the trail being there before, but now it called to her. She padded along it, going up from the declivity the stream had followed, along a slope so thick with duff that she didn't even need to watch her step. Everything was so lusciously damp that Truth couldn't hav
e broken a twig if she'd tried.

  (Deep inside, Truth knew the fever was bad now, so bad that someone had gone to the trouble of dumping water on her. She suspected the ravens. They'd find the act funny, as well as virtuous, a combination they couldn't resist. Truth tried to care enough even to be insulted, but she couldn't. That reality was too far away.)

  She padded on, rising with the slope. Sunlight dappled down through the trees, warming her spots. She heard a sound from upslope and angled toward it. It was a warm sound, a deep sound, one that comforted her, easing a loneliness she hadn't wanted to admit was present until she had the remedy.

  The ground underfoot was changing, the duff giving way to thick grass, soft as springtime, thick as midsummer when the rains were heaviest. The grass felt good underfoot, springing back when she passed so that even her weight left not the faintest of traces.

  She was a spirit passing over, leaving even less impression than did the wind.

  (Truth wondered if she was indeed a spirit. Her body seemed very far away now. She could hardly feel the heat, couldn't feel the pain.)

  Truth followed the sound until it resolved into voices joined in easy conversation. She followed until she knew the voices. Three. All male. All familiar.

  She arched her neck and sniffed the wind, peeling her lips back from her fangs so she might taste the scents as well as smell them. By scent and sound she knew the speakers long before she finished her wandering progress up the hill and they came into view through the thinning greenery.

  Three. All male. All familiar. Derian. Blind Seer. And the Meddler.

  The trio sat on enormous pale grey boulders arrayed in a rough grouping amid thick grass so interspersed with a riot of wild flowers that telling where the one began and the other ended was impossible.

  Blind Seer reclined on his rock, paws outstretched in front of him, tail long behind. Derian and the Meddler sat upright, Derian as if his boulder were a rather uncomfortable backless chair, the Meddler sprawled on the grass, using his boulder as a rest. He had just plucked a stalk of clover with the rounded fuzz of the flower intact. As Truth approached, the Meddler set the stem between his teeth and began to slowly chew.