This was no part of his work, Wolf thought. The High Prince had given him a task and he should even now be about it, instead of lying here pretending to rest. But those he was to find, those who had chosen to hide themselves, they had been waiting long already; surely a short time more would not displease anyone?
While that same short time could be all he required to learn what he needed to know. The truth of the strange scents, the truth of the Pack, the truth of himself, if it came to that.
Surely the Dragonborn Prince, full of the fires of knowledge, would understand his need?
Wolf got to his feet. In his mind he pictured the room where they had sat drinking beer. He subtracted the bed behind him, the heavy curtains to his right and the window behind them. The thick wool of the carpet beneath his feet, and the hard oak floor under it. He added a wide uncurtained window with cranking mechanisms to open the glass. A cushioned bench, a basket chair with matching cushions. Added a rectangular table made up of a streaked marble top resting on curving metal legs. Stiff woven matting on the floor, with panels of some strange wood composite beneath.
CRACK! And he was standing in the small room at the back of Valory’s house. Enough light bled in from the streetlamps outside that, even without Rider’s eyes, he would have been able to recognize the room and navigate within it. He held still, waiting to see if the noise of the displaced air brought any response from the Rider Graycloud, but there was no sound from anywhere else in the house.
And there was her scent. Now that he had a person to connect it to, he no longer smelled only the faint essence of Rider that had first drawn him to her. Now he knew the scent of warm vanilla that was Valory Martin, and no one else. A perfume in his nostrils. He followed it through the kitchen area with its cooking smells, so common here in the Shadowlands, the next room, narrow, with its long wooden table, glass-fronted cabinet full of patterned plates and drinking glasses. He could smell the traces of bone in one, and silver in the other. To his left was the staircase.
I knew that Wolf was in the house before the movement of air told me the door to my bedroom had been opened. He hadn’t made any noise that I could hear, but I’d known he was there just the same. I let him get all the way into the room, and close the door behind him before I turned on the reading lamp next to my bed.
I blinked, and not just at the light. For a second I actually couldn’t remember whether I’d ever seen a man naked before—and then I realized that of course I would have remembered. This wasn’t something I could ever forget. I decided not to say anything. Think about how pale his eyes are, I told myself. Not dark like Nik’s. Okay, don’t think about Nik either.
He saw that I was awake, but he didn’t say anything, just stood there with his brow furrowed, and his lips in a thin line, as if wondering why he was there. I put my finger to my lips, but his eyes only narrowed, and I realized that he didn’t understand me. I made a mental note that the meaning of that particular gesture didn’t carry over to the People. I signaled him to come closer—that gesture was apparently the same—and tried to keep my eyes above his waist. A girl can be curious, but there’s a time and place for everything.
“Can you be very quiet?” I said, placing my finger on my lips again so he’d get the connection, and then patting the air in a downward motion.
He nodded, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to my bed. Fortunately, that meant his lower half was now out of my line of sight. As long as I didn’t move.
“What is it you need to ask me?” I figured I knew, but I found I wanted to hear his voice.
“How do you know what you know?” he asked me. [The gray-eyed woman with her masklike face; fear and longing.]
“I told you, I’m psychic.” He waited, so evidently more was needed. “Alejandro says the Rider that was my ancestor was guided by a Dragon, and that everyone who is can see the truth. Wouldn’t that be it?”
Wolf sat quietly for a moment, his gaze turned inward. “The High Prince, Truthsheart, is Dragonborn.” [A great beast, black, and silver and the red of dark, dark blood, rises over the edge of a cliff, smoke of eye and fire of breath]. “She is a Healer; she does not read the truth as you do.”
“I don’t think I’m related to her,” I said. “Or rather, Alejandro doesn’t think so. I would have to meet her myself to know for sure.”
“You will go, then? To the Lands, to meet the Prince?”
“That’s the plan.”
Wolf nodded, still looking off into the dark corner of my room. “Do you see other truths? The Hunt? How is it they can now hold their forms?”
I thought about the images I’d read in Nik and in Elaine, trying to concentrate. “They’re feeding on humans now, deliberately, but I don’t know why that would do it. They began because there weren’t enough People around.” He nodded again, shifting his eyes until he was looking at my pillow. I cleared my throat.
“Will you be able to find everyone Alejandro’s told you about?” I asked, trying to get him to look directly at me. “You won’t be able to Move everywhere.” He’d been able to Move here, of course. And I was pretty clear, I thought, on why he’d wanted to. He wanted to know what I knew, not just how I knew it. But part of him was afraid to ask me. Part of him thought that no one other than the High Prince herself could know the truth about him and not turn away. If I admitted out loud that I knew, would he run? Never come back again? Because I realized that I wanted him to. In a way, he was the first friend I’d made on my own since Alejandro had rescued me.
It wasn’t anything to do with seeing him naked.
“No, I cannot Move to any of the places Graycloud has told me of. They are all new to me, and some distance away.” And that was something I should have noticed myself. Was Alejandro up to something? “But I have been instructed in the modes of travel in the Shadowlands, and I have sufficient wealth to obtain it where necessary.”
He looked at his clasped hands, flicked his gaze up to mine and away again. Suddenly, I got it. Never look it in the eyes, keep striking, no matter what you see. Instructions on how to kill a Hound.
I made a decision, suddenly sure that it wouldn’t backfire on me. “It’s all right to look in my eyes,” I told him. “You can’t hurt me by looking at me, and looking away doesn’t keep me from knowing things about you.” I paused to let him take this in. “I already know everything you’re afraid of—what you were, how you changed—and I’m still here, talking to you.”
He shook his head, slowly, his jaw tight. Then he looked me right in the eye. I didn’t flinch. His breathing got faster. Or maybe it was mine. I could feel my heart beating. I could hear it. Could he?
“I can feel your dra’aj.” His voice was very rough.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “I know. Alejandro can feel it, too. I imagine others can as well.”
“Others of my kind?”
“Riders. You’re a Rider. Just like any other.” I held up my finger to silence him. “Think what you like, I know.”
“Do you know how many have died because of me? How many Faded, their dra’aj taken, the Lands deprived and their spirits lost?” His voice was harsh.
Now it was my turn to shake my head, my eyebrows raised. Some of the tornado of images I’d had of his Healing began to make sense. “No. Their dra’aj was returned. Their spirits are at peace.” Now I sounded like one of these afterlife people.
He was very still, for what felt like a very long time. Finally, he licked his lips. “I was there—”
“That’s right. You were in the Lands when the High Prince restored you, though she wasn’t that yet, was she?” I put my finger on my lips. “Alejandro’s waking up.” He was on his feet before I finished the words. That reminded me. “Oh, and Wolf? Word of advice? In this world you should put clothes on when you leave your home, no matter where you’re going.”
Chapter Nine
ALEJANDRO CAME DOWNSTAIRS, favoring his leg, as I was sorting through my backpack.
“How does i
t feel this morning?” I asked.
All I got for an answer was another one of those Spanish shrugs as he passed me on his way into the kitchen. I followed him, reaching out to take his wrist as he poured himself some café con leche from the thermos jug I’d prepared earlier. He must have seen me out of the corner of his eye, because he shied away, spilling coffee on the counter.
I pulled my hand back as quickly as if I’d been scalded. Riders are never clumsy.
“Alejandro!” I grabbed a cloth and started mopping up coffee before it got onto the floor. I contrived to brush against his leg as I did—and got three images flick-flick-flick [doors to the lounge at Union Station; a waterfall in Asturias; his wife’s face]. Ah, that was it. He knew he had to go, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“It is nothing, I am a little tired. I did not sleep well.” I turned away to rinse the cloth out in the sink, so he couldn’t see my face. He couldn’t have heard noises or voices, could he? Wouldn’t he have come to check?
I’d been undecided, but at that moment I knew I shouldn’t tell him about my moonlight visitor. I had a fairly good idea of what he would think of my having a naked Rider in my room. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I had a feeling that plenty of teenagers had used that argument before me.
“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” Though, at this point, they’d be more like third thoughts, or even fourth.
Alejandro steepled his hands and tapped his lips with his fingertips. Then he reached for his cup. “I wish I did not have to take you, but there is really no safe place for you to stay, between the Hunt, the Outsiders, and the Rider, Stormwolf…” He shrugged again. “I am sorry, querida, but he still troubles me.”
“Which is why you sent him to all the People farthest from us.” He looked up, startled. I waved. “Hey, remember me? Psychic? I don’t have to be paying attention, I know anyway.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t smile. “Perhaps you are right, perhaps that is why I sent him where I did.”
Not that he went, I thought. At least not right away.
“He makes my teeth itch. I cannot describe it any better than that.”
It should have sounded silly, put like that, but somehow the mention of teeth made me shiver.
“The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be back.”
“If we go too soon, we may be back before we have left.” Alejandro took a sip of his coffee and put the cup back on the table. “What? Time passes differently between the two worlds, or it can. But do not fear. We are going. I only hope the information we have is worth the help we are asking for.”
“The stable Hounds,” I said, nodding.
“The stable Hounds, indeed.”
“So let’s go.”
He nodded, slowly, red-blond hair catching the sunlight that came in from the window. When he looked at me, his eyes seemed gold. “But we will return, will we not?”
Was that what was bothering him? “Our lives are here.” I wasn’t sure whether I was agreeing with him or reminding him. I’d just been starting to feel that I had a life of my own before all this mess began. I wanted to get back to that feeling. Something of what I was thinking must have shown on my face because Alejandro relaxed in his seat.
“Therefore our fight is here,” he said, agreeing with me. He tossed back his coffee and stood up, setting the cup down on the table. “Are you ready?”
For an answer I held out my hands. I’d dressed casually, jeans and a silk T-shirt, running shoes and my backpack. Alejandro took my hands in his.
CRACK! I stumbled a bit, and Alejandro’s hand under my left elbow steadied me. We were in a back corridor of Union Station, voices and footsteps echoing off stone floors in the near distance. Fewer voices, and fewer footsteps than I would have expected.
“Give me more notice next time, would you?” I grumbled. “I could have left my bag behind.”
“I saw you had a good grip on it.”
“Alejandro.” I tried to keep my voice as gentle and neutral as possible, but I could feel how tight my throat was. “What we’re about to do frightens you. Please don’t let that make you angry or careless.”
Alejandro pressed his lips together and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “I apologize.” He shrugged. “I am not angry, but I am afraid.”
And why not? He’d spent more of his life here, pretending to be human, than he’d ever spent in the Lands. This was going to be a very strange homecoming, if you could call it that at all.
“We’ve promised to ask for help,” I said. “It’s not just your leg.” He didn’t want to be going back, asking for a personal favor.
I saw he was actually leaning on his sword cane, not just using it as an accessory. “Will I need a weapon?” I said, only half joking. Now that we were about to embark, his warnings of the day before were echoing in my ears.
“Certainly not. Not while I am with you.”
What he meant was, for some of the People a human was bad enough; an armed human was just asking for trouble.
I slipped my arm into Alejandro’s and we strolled down to the departure concourse, making our way around the people lining up for their trains, heading for the far end and the doors of the Panorama Lounge, where the VIA One passengers waited in comfort. Alejandro raised his cane as we neared the doors, hugged my arm tight against his side, and I braced myself. We’d come through the crossroads when we first came to Toronto, but this would be my first time through a Portal.
I took a good grip on Alejandro’s wrist with my free hand just as a giant fist grabbed me around my middle, crushing the air from my chest, and throwing me toward the door.
The air was sucked out of my lungs until they ached, the world around me blackened, and the blood began to roar in my ears. A great pressure squeezed me like a snowball in the hands of a giant—smaller, smaller, until suddenly the pressure released and I soared free.
The air was cold and crisp, much colder than it should be considering how blue the sky and how bright the sun. And the fact that I could smell flowers. I saw bright flashes of gra’if all around me and I heard a “twang” like a harp string and I felt Alejandro’s arms go around me as my knees gave out.
Chapter Ten
“PLACE IS DANGEROUS, mate, you don’t want to go there.”
“Dangerous in what manner?” From what Wolf had seen so far, the humans in Australia—or here in Tasmania for that matter—were unlikely to frighten easily.
The patrons of the bar that seemed also to be the tourist information center, town hall, and doctor’s office exchanged glances, but no one seemed inclined to answer his question. Finally, one of the older women who was sitting in the area designated as the doctor’s waiting room used her cane to lift herself to her feet and came stumping over to lean on the bar next to him. The others edged away, but with an aura of respectful attention Wolf had not been expecting.
“Whair ye from then, young ’un?”
“Canada,” Wolf said without thinking.
The woman nodded. “Don’t sound Canadian,” she said, and a few of the others laughed. “Must be one of the French ones, then, eh?” She smiled and Wolf noted the unnatural evenness of her teeth. She put out a hand that looked as gnarled and twisted as the head of her cane.
“Becky Upfield,” she said.
Wolf was surprised by the heat of her skin. “Edmond Wolfe.”
“And what do you want with the mine, Ned?”
“I am looking for something.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she looked him up and down. Satisfied with what she saw, she spoke. “Something’s what you’ll find all right, that’s certain. Not sayin’ what, mind.” More subdued laughter. “Well, Ned, I won’t lie. There’s some say there’s acid poison out there. Some’s gone out to look for something as hasn’t come back agin—and I don’t think it’s the acid. Does that worry you?”
Wolf fixed her with his narrowest look.
The woman’s smile broadened to the point
that her eyes practically disappeared in a nest of wrinkles. “You can’t scare me young ’un. Nothing much can now.” Again, she seemed satisfied with what she had seen. She looked around the room. “Ben, you take Ned here out to the mine.” She looked back at Wolf. “He won’t go in with you, Ned. That’s more’n I’ll ask of anyone.”
“I will not require it.”
“That’s fine, then. Lilly, give the boys a drink before they go. It’s parched out there.”
“Nice tattoo,” Ben began as they got into his vehicle, and then talked nonstop all the way to the mine. Wolf stopped listening after the first few minutes showed that the young man had no idea what was really in the place. This made Wolf wonder whether the old woman, Becky Upfield, knew anything other than rumor. She had certainly seemed as all-knowing as a Singer, and had much the same manner.
Singers. This morning he had caught himself singing as he prepared to leave the apartment. As soon as he noticed, he’d stopped and then couldn’t remember the song he’d been singing. But he did remember why he’d felt good enough to sing. The dra’aj. From what the girl Valory had told him, all the dra’aj he’d taken, over all the time he’d been a Hound, had been released when the High Prince had cured him. Released and returned to the Lands, as the dra’aj of any who Faded should be. Reason enough for song.
It could not undo every evil thing he had done, but this knowledge did much to relieve the weight on his spirit. He wished that he knew more, however. What happened to the dra’aj carried by a Hound who was killed, for example? Did it, too, return to the Lands? What of a Hound killed in the Shadowlands—like Stump in Granada—what happened to the dra’aj then?
Valory might know, he realized, or she could find out. It might be that the Hunt would have to be returned to the Lands, if the dra’aj they carried was not to be lost forever. This was something he could bring to his old Pack mates: not merely a cure, but a restoration. A redemption.
It was something he could bring to the High Prince as well. Would she not wish the dra’aj restored, if it could be done? Would that not encourage her to spare the Hunt?
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