Wolf's Bane

by Tara K. Harper

  “(Blood-debt?) There can be no (debt) with Humans.” The soft, yellow-bright voice was like a fingernail scraped across slate.

  “Death is always a debt,” she snarled back. “Look at what you have done.” The images of the scattered dead from an Ancient city-dome spilled into her mind. The skeletons, bare and twisted, lay where their bodies had fallen, eight hundred years ago. Dion pulled on the threads that bound her to the wolves, and death howled back out of the packsong. Images she herself had seen and images eight centuries old mixed and projected like blades into the minds of Aiueven. “(Blood-debt),” Dion said harshly. “(Blood-debt/life-debt) and (payment/retribution).”

  “We (traded/agreed) with Humans long ago,” one of the aliens projected. “But there was no debt between us.”

  “(Agreement),” another said. “Knowledge was (traded/paid-for) for the safety of the dens. We have no other agreement.”

  “You reneged on the one agreement you had,” Dion snapped back at them. Her eyes were open, but she could see only with her mind, and the swooping, tearing of the Aiueven’s mental talons pitched her fear higher than a physical tear could ever have done. “You flew (death/pain) into the (bargain/trade) so that the knowledge was (destroyed/lost) after being given.” She had had the fever herself, and she had touched it in others. Now she stretched into the memories of the wolves and let them fill her mind. Like a soiled stream flowing beneath a heavy sky, the memories streaked in. Old death stank in Dion’s mind. Fevers burned and convulsions broke bones. Minds shattered as hearts burst. Hallways filled with fallen men and women, and the tiny bodies of a thousand children twisted in the throes of the plague. The Gray Ones’ grief, the Ancients’ grief, Dion’s own grief splashed into alien minds. And the death mounds rose, and the white stones grew, and the smoke lingered on the funeral pyres.

  Even the Aiueven shuddered.

  “It knows grief,” Whose-wings-make-the-grass-flow said softly. “It brings that (grief/debt) to us.”

  The yellow-bright alien stirred. “That is your (father’s father’s mother’s) debt,” it said to the purple-dark voice. “It is your (honor/stigma) to clear.”

  “(DENIAL)!”

  One of the others raised his wing, and the icy blast it sent shut the other up. He sent a shaft of demanding (rage/skepticism) to Dion’s (mother).

  “It is Named. It cannot lie,” Whose-wings-make-the-grass-flow said in a determined voice.

  There was silence.

  “Then there is debt,” the silver-ice voice said finally. “The Human must be paid.”

  The purple-dark voice was thunderous. “Balance cannot be found in this, no matter what debt is paid. Kill it and the debt is gone, lost in the centuries.”

  The others hesitated.

  “The debt died long ago,” urged the purple-dark voice. “Let this … (Human/horror) live, and the debt (grows/reaffirms) again.” His images were clear.

  “Kill it …” The sharp-blue voice seemed to roll the idea around between them. The horror that had hit them with their realization of her was suddenly a prod. “Kill it?”

  The dark, purple voice said almost softly, “Kill it.”

  The Aiueven seemed to converge. Death seemed to center in their minds, and the power they focused shook her.

  “(Mother)!” Dion screamed. She threw up one arm, the other protecting her belly.

  Abruptly, their movement stopped.

  Dion opened her eyes. Whose-wings-make-the-grass-flow was in front of her. The alien’s slender white arms stretched away from her wings, leaving a hollow among the furred feathers. And the mother-creature blocked the talons of the others.

  “Do not touch it,” the Aiueven warned, her soft, gray-blue voice like steel. “If it is to die, then I will do it. My own (youth/horror/child-debt) betrays me, so I must (betray/kill) myself.”

  “(Contrition).” The sharp-gray voice acceded.

  “(Agreement). (Contrition),” voiced the others. The Aiueven stepped back.

  The mother-creature turned to face her, and Dion’s chill did not lessen. “You would kill me to (hide/deny) your debt?” she threw out desperately. “What stigma does that create?”

  The blue-gray voice hesitated.

  Dion stared at the talons that seemed poised before her and waited for them to strike. It didn’t matter that the talons were small—almost delicate to her. It didn’t matter that they were no longer than her fingers. The sense of power they radiated was enough to tear her without touching her flesh, and she knew suddenly how other humans died.

  Yet the alien still stood without moving.

  Dion stared at her, stared deep into yellow eyes. Like knives, each pierced the other’s mind. Hurts and dreams and joys and griefs swam together in a howling sea. They bit at each other, then blended. They cut at each other, then melted together. And in a flash, Dion understood. The link between her and the mother-creature was already fixed, like a twenty-year bond with a wolf.

  Her voice was quiet. “You can kill me, but not who I am,” she said. “I am too strong in your mind already. And no matter how quickly you do it now, my death won’t hide your debt.”

  Dion’s words echoed into their minds and hung there like ice.

  “It calls for honor,” said the sharp-gray voice finally.

  “It is Human,” the dark one returned.

  “Still, it calls for honor.”

  The purple-dark alien shoved the shock out of his voice with so much effort that the air shook around him. It was minutes before he controlled the enraged flashes of power. “Human,” he said rigidly. “What is your payment?”

  “Knowledge.” Dion’s voice shook. She steadied it carefully. “Knowledge (equal) to that (lost/taken) by your plague.”

  “It is too much!” The furious clamor rose instantly. “How can it ask for such from us?” And, “How can it be worthy, this Human?”

  At the last voice, the others fell silent. The sharp-blue voice added, “There is debt, and the (debt-price/repayment) is within honor, except that it is paid to a Human. How can it be (worthy) of such knowledge which was already given in trade?”

  “Paid for, then stolen back by death,” Dion said harshly.

  “My (youth) is right,” her mother agreed unwillingly. “The bargain was never honored.”

  “So I must honor it to a Human like this—one with no flight at all?” The purple-dark birdman spat at her feet. “At least her (father’s father’s ancestors) could fly with us to (talk/trade). Show me that it can Fly, and then I will pay the debt-price.”

  “That is right, (too).” The consensus was relieved, as if a test of flight would put them in balance again.

  “(Mother),” Dion protested. “(We/humans) have already paid the price. Why should I prove (myself/us) again?”

  “The price was paid by Humans who had flight,” the alien returned. There was still loathing in her voice. “You have no flight. You must prove your (worth/flight/ability), or the debt will be paid to a—” Her voice faltered. “—Human that can Fly.”

  “(Agreement),” the purple-dark voice said. “Show that (it/human/primitive) can Fly, and I will balance the debt.”

  Dion’s voice was desperate. “Mother?”

  The gray-blue Aiueven looked at her a long moment, its slitted eyes blind to Dion’s physical body. “It is Human,” she said finally. “Its wings are not real. It cannot be tested with Flight.”

  “But it must still be tested,” others argued. There was grim determination in their tones. “If it has no wings, why should it be given full (power/knowledge/past)?”

  “Do you claim its (proof/flight) for it?” the strong, silver voice demanded.

  “(Denial).” The Aiueven, repulsed by the idea that she was bonded to the Human, was shocked at the suggestion.

  “(Pity),” the silver-voiced birdman sent to Dion’s mother, recognizing the other’s horror. To have to defend a Human to keep one’s own voice clear of the darkness that colored another’s tones … “Let it
prove itself if it wants the debt paid. But let the proof be within (honor/balance) or we will pay again (later/descendants).” The image of plague and blood coloring the purple-dark voice was clear.

  “When I brought it,” Eastwind-rider-across-the-rocks cut in slowly, “it said it was a (healer).”

  “Then I will test its (healing),” the purple-dark voice snarled.

  Before Dion’s unfocused eyes registered what happened, he moved blindingly fast. A tearing, indescribably burning pain shrieked through her body. Dion froze, unable to move. And she looked down to see her parka torn from one side to the other. Blood gushed out over her hands.

  It was then that she finally screamed.

  XXIII

  What gift is given that has no giver?

  What glass returns a stranger?

  What song has words of honesty?

  What lesson is a thief?

  —Second Riddle of the Ages

  “It makes sound,” Sweeper-of-ice-ridges-sharp-on-the-horizon said with satisfaction. “It doesn’t (heal) itself. It thought itself (worthy).”

  Dion strangled on her shriek. In the back of her mind, the gray wolves surged, slipping past the voices. Her child, her daughter … The last of Aranur… She tried to feel her womb.

  “(Distress). It is dying,” said her (mother). “Look how it centers itself away from the gash and onto its own (child/future). It cannot stop its (blood/life).”

  “It uses (skin/fur/crude) to stop its (blood),” disparaged the purple-dark voice.

  Dion heard their voices as if in a fog. The blood on her hands; the sudden frigid touch of air inside her body. The sense of the mother-alien was heavy in her mind, but it was watching, taking up her thoughts without helping her to be strong. Dion fell to her knees. The jarring spurted more blood into her parka, soaking the front of the coat.

  “Hishn,” she whispered. “Aranur…”

  It was the shock of the ice that focused her. The alien mother did not seem to touch her, but still, its strength was part of her. A bond, she thought, like the one with the wolves. A link to power… She grasped the sense of the Aiueven and used it as she used the Gray Ones. She felt her own heart and slowed it; felt for the blood and stopped it. The slash had not torn her womb, but the child within her struggled for more of her blood.

  “It is dying,” the hard, gray voice said.

  A silver voice seemed to frown. “(Denial),” it answered the other. “It is just slower than you wish. It is stopping the (blood/life-flow) now.”

  “But it does not (even) try to (regenerate/heal).”

  The gray-blue voice of Dion’s (mother) was a knife that twisted in her mind. She shuddered and tried to cling to it, but the alien seemed to back away. The Aiueven shifted from foot to foot as she tried to condemn and yet defend the bond into which she was locked herself.

  “It is Human,” the silver voice attempted to comfort. “They do not have the (ability) in their bodies.”

  “But see how it (protects/life-debt) its (baby/child-debt),” her mother said in despair. “It makes honor-pact with its own (child-debt/future).”

  The ice-blue voice snorted. “It is Human. It knows no honor-pact.”

  “(Denial). It has (youth) in it now.”

  “How can this be? It is a (yearling) itself.”

  “It is Human,” the orange-red voice snapped. “They (procreate) like rasts.”

  “Does it (really/disbelief) pact with its (young)?”

  “(Affirmation).” Dion’s (mother)’s wings beat as if to clear the air for them to see.

  One of the others looked closely. “You are right,” he said with resignation. “It has (youth).”

  “(Despair/pity).”

  With a shudder, the Aiueven mother reached out to Dion’s hands.

  “(Denial)!” the purple-dark voice snarled. The alien snapped his lips so that flashes burst back in the recesses of his mouth. “It cannot (heal/future) itself, so let it (die/stop/end-debt) like it should.”

  “It has honor-pact with its own (young),” the birdwoman spat. “Do you break this pact as your (father’s father’s mother) broke the one you test now?”

  “(Shame). (Hate).”

  “(Agreement). But it is frail and weak and confused by its dreams. And it is now my—” She shuddered. “—(youth/child-debt).” She watched while Dion tried to protect her baby. “(Look) at it.”

  There was shock in her body—Dion could feel it. The cold crept up from her legs. She had to struggle to control her heartbeat now, to force her lungs to breathe.

  “Human.” The birdwoman shuddered again. She turned to the others. “This place is (contaminated/dead). Take our (children/future) and go. There are other dens in which to (live/grow/dream). I will see you at (home/ship) before the storm rides me down.”

  “(Relief). (Lingering loathing).” As one, all but the mother-debt alien rose and flew from the cave, their voices calling, urging, commanding the young to listen. Two flew back toward the warmer, lower cave to grab up the brown-furred youth. A few seconds later, those two flashed through the cave, following the others, and the sound of collapsing stone shuddered up from below. Icicles snapped and crashed to the floor of the cave, spattering Dion with slivers. She could hardly see through the fog. The white walls around her blurred with her shock, and she couldn’t think anymore. The cold reached through her like talons. There was no energy for her to suck from the wolves, so she sucked off herself instead. But her focus faded like an old man’s sight, and the blood kept weeping out.

  The Aiueven’s eyes were slits, blank and waiting.

  The pain grew and lessened, pulsing with what was left of Dion’s blood. “Mother!” she cried out finally. “Help me or hurt me, but don’t just watch me die.”

  “(Distress). (Denial).”

  “Does my Name mean nothing? Can you not accept anything outside yourself?”

  “That is a Human thing.”

  “We’re bonded now—your voice is meshed in my thoughts. Can you deny that you are part human too?”

  A tearing, screeching sound bit at Dion’s ears. The wolf-walker cried out.

  The Aiueven’s voice was horrible in its own shock and anger. “Do you (stigma/curse) me too? What (life-debt) must I owe you?”

  Dion stared up from the ice. Her bloody hands clutched her belly. “If you are my mother, then this is also your child.”

  “(Denial).”

  “But we are bonded—I can feel you in my thoughts.”

  “(Affirmation/distress).”

  “I felt your grief; it was the same as mine, multiplied by thousands.”

  “(Grief/loss) cannot be replaced. The child-debt is my future. Without it, I am as one who is dead, but still in the land of the living.”

  Dion felt a deep shudder catch her. She had not stopped her bleeding. She tried to focus on her own tissues, but she didn’t have the strength. “Feel me,” she said hoarsely. “Feel this child. It is yours now as much as mine.”

  “There can be no (love/future) like that between us.”

  “It is already there.”

  “(Denial)!”

  “Feel it. You are part of me now. I must love you as myself.”

  “(Denial)!” This time it was stronger. The yellow, slitted eyes glared in the back of her head.

  “Is it better to be without a child—without a future—for the sake of empty pride?”

  “Generations cannot be shared.”

  “With us, that isn’t true.”

  The alien hesitated. One of its slender arms seemed to reach out, and Dion no longer knew if she saw it or if it was in her mind. Cold touched her belly, and she knew that the shock was growing. The numbness spread faster now. “My child,” she cried out. She sank to the ground.

  The alien mother seemed torn. “You have a (choice/future): Live or die.”

  “I want to live,” Dion whispered.

  The Aiueven was silent for a moment. “You (bind/condemn) us both,” she said finally,
softly.

  The alien mother stretched out a wing, and a clawlike hand touched Dion’s frigid skin. Then the alien mother made a sound, and some part of Dion’s mind realized that the sound was real— in her ears. Her mind began to blur. A hot vibration started deep in her bones, and crawled out to her muscles and skin. White fur brushed her face. Blue and gray tones washed through her thoughts, and the sounds were loud without sound. Wolf minds blended with alien thoughts; the howling became alien tones. Something shifted inside her, as though water rushing through a broken dam was suddenly slowed and stopped. Pain sagged momentarily. Then it faded away.

  Dion stared at her (mother). She could hear the echo of Hishn and a hundred other wolves. She could feel the ice against her parka; she could feel the cold again in her guts. But the life of her child was strong, and the numbness was gone. She touched her belly. It was closed. There was an ache inside and along the gash, but the flesh was smoothly seamed.

  Whose-wings-make-the-grass-flow eyed her from the icy cave. “The debt is paid,” she said.

  Wait. Dion tried to speak. A shiver hit her, and it took a moment to realize that it was the cave, not herself, that shook. “Wait,” she projected. “Take me back. Take me back to my (family/friends/barrier). Then, the debt is paid.”

  “I will not reach (next-home/den) in time. This den will collapse as the rock pressure releases, and the storm now gathers outside.”

  “Then take me as far as honor demands.”

  The alien seemed to stare at her for eternity. The slender arm shifted away from its wing to point at Dion’s belly. “This (child) is mine, as much as you are now mine.”

  “Aye,” Dion breathed.

  Abrupdy, the birdwoman clutched her. Automatically, it grasped her close to its body, then shivered and tried to hold her away so that there was no body-to-body contact. But as its wings gathered power and it lifted from the cave, it had to draw Dion close again to fly through the icy opening. Ahhh… It tried to hide its loathing—the mental voice was clear. But its horror mixed with something else, and the alien did not let go.

  Through the next cavern and the next, up into thicker ice … The caves grew cold, then frigid as the walls became solid ice, then began to glow blue-green again with natural light instead of glowing fungus. Massive icicles lay on the floors of the caverns—and more shook down as they flew through—and the walls blurred as the depths of the mountain collapsed. But the alien mother swept like a lance, driving toward the outside air till she burst out into the sky between the ice spires. There was a moment of blinding glare, then the shades of white and gray that made up land and sky saturated her sight.