A Mystery of Wolves

  “I knew you would go to her,” Ginger said. “I thought she would warn you that it is a trap.”

  “A trap?!”

  “It is you that the Wolf King wants. I am only the bait,” Ginger said.

  Little Fur stared at him. “I…I don’t understand. Why does the Wolf King want me?”

  “I do not know what he wants of you,” Ginger said. “He has a magic mirror, and it showed him something about you.”

  “The mirror told Balidor that you have the power to change the world. It is the power of your elf blood that Balidor lusts after,” said another voice. It was a familiar one, and somehow it did not surprise Little Fur to hear it here. After a soft, swift explanation to Ginger, she went along the little cavern cells until she found the one where Graysong lay. He smelled of pain, and Little Fur saw the bloody bite mark on his back leg.

  “What happened?” she asked, reaching for her healing pouch before remembering that she had left it behind.

  “My son…attacked me,” the old wolf said. “Sjoerven was right. Love made me weak. All of this is my doing.”

  “Hush,” Little Fur said. “I will go and get my healing pouch.”

  “Do not waste your healing on me,” Graysong rasped. “Leave this place at once, for your friend is right. It is you whom my son wants.”

  “There is no power in my elf blood, save that it lets me love the sky and the sun and all green and growing things,” Little Fur said.

  The old wolf heaved a great sigh. “The human that made this place learned of a substance which can hold a spirit that has departed from its body. Unable to fly away, the trapped spirit will enter the body of anything that lives. The human created a chamber and experimented with beasts, killing one and seeing its spirit enter the other.”

  “But what has this to do with me, or Balidor?” asked Little Fur. “The human is dead.”

  “It was not dead when I left the pack. Nor was it dead when Sjoerven told my son that a dark power would be born in the human keep. Balidor came here to learn what that power might be, and he was captured by the human. It had decided to take into itself the spirit of a beast, in the hope that this would better enable it to find a creature of the last age. But something went wrong, and instead of my son dying, the human perished and its spirit entered my son.”

  “What?” Little Fur whispered, horrified.

  “My son bears the spirit of a human, and the human’s desires have merged with Balidor’s. The human sought to gain the magic of the last age, and now that is what Balidor wishes. He returned to the fjord and asked Sjoerven if there was any creature alive in this age able to work magic. She offered him the mirror and bade it show him what he wished to see.

  “I do not know what he asked, but the mirror showed him your face, and it was the mirror that told him your cat friend was coming through the mountain pass. A trap was set, and once Balidor had the cat, he knew he had only to wait for you to come.”

  “He means to eat my spirit?” Little Fur asked. She was remembering the eagerness she had smelled on the Wolf King.

  “He does. He believes that once he has your spirit, he will be able to work magic. That is how he would protect the earth spirit.”

  “What will happen to me?”

  “Your body will die. Your spirit will live until Balidor dies.”

  “He told you all of this?” Little Fur asked.

  “Balidor said that he wanted me to understand. I told him that if he consumed your spirit, the earth spirit would recoil from him in horror. That is when he attacked me.”

  “I will free you both,” Little Fur began. “I will find the keys.”

  “It is too late,” said the old wolf, his eyes full of pity. “Balidor knew that you would come here. He saw it in the mirror. He is watching us now. There is no escape.”

  He looked up, and Little Fur did the same. Balidor, Shadow and several other wolves gazed down at them from a stone ledge.

  CHAPTER 13

  Spirit Eater

  They stood on the wide, flat plateau of stone at the topmost level of the keep. Behind them, the black cliff rose sheer and high, and around them lay the dark, snowy peaks of the mountains. The moon had set and the sun had yet to rise, but a faint glow of false light came from a gleaming bubble of unmelting ice. Nightwhisper had told Little Fur this was the spirit chamber and the glow was the substance that would stop a spirit from escaping, but it needed light, and so they were awaiting sunrise.

  “You should feel honored,” Balidor said to Little Fur. “You will help to restore magic to the world, and there can be no greater healing.”

  “There is magic already in the world,” Little Fur said. “Earth magic churns under my feet.”

  “It churns in excitement,” said the white wolf. “For tonight, the earth spirit will see the birth of one who will be able to work magic, as wizard-and elf-kind did in the last age.”

  “And what will be the first act of this creature?” Graysong demanded from where he lay. “Death and destruction.”

  “Death to the dealers of death. Destruction to the humans that do nothing but destroy,” retorted Balidor. “Now be silent, Old Wolf, lest I regret my indulgence in allowing you one last chance to witness the greatness of your son.”

  “This is the age of humans,” Little Fur said. “None can work magic in this age, least of all me.”

  “Tonight our spirits will be joined,” Balidor said. “And in six nights, when midwinter comes, I will swallow the dreams of winter. And then I will go to this beaked house and use its magic to wipe humans from the earth.”

  The reek of almost-sickness flowing from the Wolf King was overpowering. Despite her terror, Little Fur felt a surge of pity for him. “This mingling of spirits has made you ill,” she said. “Let me try to heal you. It is not your fault that the human’s spirit entered you. Perhaps it can be released.”

  Balidor gave a growling laugh. “The human thought I was near death when it closed itself in the spirit chamber with me. But I sprang at it and tore its life out, and then I ate its spirit. As I will now eat yours.”

  Little Fur turned to look at Shadow, who stood by Balidor’s side. “How can you let this happen? Can’t you smell the wrongness of it? What happened with the human was its own fault, but if Balidor does this, it will be of his own choosing.”

  “Balidor is king,” Shadow said in her hard, clear voice. “A wolf of the pack obeys her king without question in all things. That is the law.”

  “Balidor is no longer a true wolf,” Little Fur said. “He is part human, and he cannot be your king.”

  “Silence!” Balidor said. “Put her into the spirit chamber.”

  “The king breaks the law of the pack if he does this.” Graysong’s voice rang out.

  A shocked smell flowed from the assembled pack.

  Balidor stalked over to his sire. “I brought you to witness a great thing, Old Wolf, and you tell me that I break the law of the pack? There is no pack law that forbids killing. Nor the killing of an outcast wolf.”

  “I must be heard. That is the law of the pack.”

  “It is true, King,” said Nightwhisper, who had been standing guard over the old wolf.

  “I know the law,” snarled Balidor. “Let him speak his charge before I kill him.”

  Nightwhisper nosed Graysong to his paws. The old wolf looked beaten, but his eyes glowed with blue fire when he looked at his son, and then at the other wolves. Slowly he straightened and lifted his head. Little Fur had a glimpse of how he had looked in his prime when he was king of the pack.

  “Speak,” Balidor commanded.

  “The wolf pack keeps its oaths, King, is it not true?”

  Balidor looked puzzled. “It is true. The youngest cub knows it. Do you think I have forgotten it? Or any of those assembled here?”

  “Then you cannot harm Little Fur, for a blood oath protects her.”

  “You are not part of the Mystery. If you swore to protect her, you made your oath as a lone
wolf.”

  “It was not I who swore it but a wolf who was king.”

  “You claim to have made an oath when you were king?”

  “Not I, but the first king—he who was born in the last days of the last age. You know of whom I speak?”

  “Brightmane, first of the wolves,” Balidor said. “But what oath could he have made that affects Little Fur?”

  “Elf blood runs in her veins,” Graysong answered.

  “I know it. But Brightmane made no oath to spare the blood of elves.”

  “No, yet he swore a brother oath to one elf—to Ardent, by whose side he fought a war. Little Fur is the daughter of Ardent.”

  “Impossible. Little Fur is half troll! Never would Ardent have consorted with a troll.”

  “Ardent died for the troll princess as Brightmane died for him. And a brother oath is a blood oath. You cannot shed Little Fur’s blood, or you break the oath of Brightmane to Ardent.”

  “How do you know this? Maybe it is a lie,” Balidor growled. His words caused a stir of unease among the wolves.

  “A wolf does not lie,” Graysong said gravely.

  “I meant that you may have been told a lie,” Balidor said, bluster in his voice. “Where did you come by this story?”

  “The fjord spirit told it to Little Fur. And it was not a story but a thing Sjoerven witnessed in the last age when she was but the sprite of a small stream. As you know, her mirror was bestowed upon her by Ardent, who died on the shore of the fjord in her arms. The choosing of the fjord valley as our territory was the pack’s way of remembering Brightmane. Little Fur’s blood is the reason Sjoerven could not make the waters of the fjord harm her.”

  “The mirror did not show any of this to me,” Balidor growled.

  “That is because Sjoerven bade the mirror show you what you wanted to see. It could not show a lie, but it did not show you any truth that you would not want to see. And now I say again to you, you must not shed the blood of Little Fur.”

  There was a resounding silence. Little Fur could smell the confusion of the wolves and see it in the looks they exchanged and the way their fur crackled with indecision.

  Balidor turned to them. “What I will do this night will break no oath, for the spirit of Little Fur will not perish. It will live on in me, the king, and is it not fitting that the King of the Wolves should join with the daughter of Ardent, who swore blood oath with Brightmane? There is a greatness that stirs my blood and tells me that what we do this night is a noble deed. Did not Little Fur come here of her own accord? She has spent her life healing and serving the earth spirit, as has the Mystery. It is fitting that we join spirits now and turn our wills to free the earth of humans.”

  There was a glorious certainty to Balidor’s words, and Little Fur could feel the doubts of the pack fading. Added to Balidor’s beauty, their every instinct and desire was to obey their king.

  “You argue like a human,” Graysong said.

  “Silence,” Balidor said coldly. “You have made your charge, Old Wolf, and I have answered it.”

  “My king, I have a doubt,” said a new voice. It was Nightwhisper, his head hung low to show respect.

  “Speak,” Balidor said.

  “Perhaps it would be better to go and speak with Sjoerven before this thing is done. To see if this joining will truly serve the earth spirit.”

  “Are you challenging me?” Balidor asked in a low, fierce voice.

  “No, my king. I only—”

  “Then obey me!”

  Balidor turned to the rest of the wolves. “Do any of you wish to challenge me? If so, do it now.”

  None of the wolves spoke. Several had dropped to their bellies in a display of obedience. Balidor turned to Nightwhisper and said, “The sun is near to rising. Put the healer into the spirit chamber.”

  Graysong spoke quickly. “My son, did you never wonder why Sjoerven gave her mirror to you?”

  Balidor glared. “What do you mean?”

  “Did it never occur to you that she sought to revenge herself upon you—for driving me away—by ensuring that the mirror would tell you only what you wished to know rather than what you needed to know?”

  “What do I need to know?” Balidor’s voice lashed out.

  Graysong sank to the ground, his legs too weak to hold him. There was blood all along his side. “I…cannot tell you,” Graysong rasped. “I break no law in refusing to speak, for I am no longer of this pack, and you are not my king.”

  “Then I will eat your spirit and learn what I need to know that way!” Balidor snarled. He lunged at his father and closed his teeth in the old wolf’s mane. Graysong did not struggle as Balidor dragged him into the spirit chamber.

  “Close it!” Balidor snarled.

  “We must do something!” Little Fur whispered to Ginger, who lay with his paws bound beside her.

  “Being quietful is what you can do,” hissed a voice.

  Little Fur looked down in astonishment to see Gazrak half hidden under Ginger’s tail. His red eyes shifted from her to the spirit chamber, and his nose trembled with purpose. Little Fur had not seen the rat, Gem or Crow since the wolves had taken her captive. Gazrak must have sniffed his way to the roof of the keep after them. But what was he trying to do?

  Suddenly a loud humming sound filled the air, and a great transparent bubble closed over the metal plate on which Balidor stood above Graysong’s prone body. Beyond it the mists that filled the deep little valley and wreathed the mountain peaks were flushed with delicate pink and a faint gold. A rainbow rippled over the spirit chamber as the first rays of sunlight streamed out, and Balidor looked down at his father.

  “Tell me what I need to know now and I will spare you, for you were once king of the wolves, and you were once my father,” Balidor said.

  “I am still your father,” Graysong said, and he leaped and sank his teeth into his son’s throat.

  Balidor gave a howl and reared back in shock and pain. Then he lashed out with his forepaws and shook his head. He was powerful and young, but Graysong was grim and tough, and he did not let go. There was a long, nearly silent struggle, hard to see in the shifting rainbow and in the mist of the wolves’ breath that filmed the inside of the unmelting ice. Then came a deadly quietness, broken by a long, desolate howl that sounded of deepest grief.

  “Open it!” snarled Shadow, hurling herself at the chamber.

  Slowly the bubble rose with a hum, throwing out knives of brightness. Graysong was standing over the body of his son. Gazrak scuttled through the pack of shocked wolves, but Sleet slapped her paw down on his tail, bringing the rat to a halt so sharply that he squealed with pain. Crow swooped out of nowhere to attack Sleet with such a furious cawing force that the wolf flinched, releasing Gazrak. The rat was up in a second and across to the spirit chamber, where Graysong still stood. The old wolf lowered his anguished gaze to listen to the rat, then he opened his jaws and let Gazrak put something into his mouth.

  “King Graysong,” Nightwhisper said, suddenly and loudly. “You have challenged and won. Command us.”

  Graysong looked at him, and the anguish of a moment before was gone. “Yes, I am king. It is my first and last command that you go from this place and live as true wolves. Obey the law of the pack. Keep your oaths.”

  Then Graysong fell dead over his son’s body.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Great Weaving

  “I do not understand,” Little Fur said.

  “I think I do,” Ginger said softly. It was snowing lightly, and the flakes lay in a soft white dappling over his fur. “Graysong goaded his son into the chamber so that he could take his spirit. It was the only way he could prevent Balidor from breaking a blood oath. The only way to prevent him from becoming a monster.”

  “And Gazrak?”

  “He took the nut with the poison from your healing pouch, and he gave it to Graysong because Gem bade him do it.”

  “She must have seen that he would not want to live, having killed
his own son,” Little Fur said.

  “That,” Ginger agreed, “but also I think Gem foresaw that the madness which corrupted Balidor could do the same to Graysong. She was making sure that did not happen.” Ginger paused for a moment. “She is a seer, of course, just as the Sett Owl is.”

  Little Fur shook her head. “I always thought the Sett Owl’s visions came from the still magic.”

  “So did I, but it must be that the still magic chose the Sett Owl because of what she was. And now Gem will go to the beaked house, too.”

  “I think the Sett Owl was trying to tell me about Gem, but I was too anxious about you to listen,” Little Fur murmured. She looked to where the owlet sat on a boulder between Crow and Gazrak, who had already declared himself protector of the small Herness. “I wonder what she told Gazrak to say to Graysong.”

  “I asked, but he refused to tell me. He said it was between him and the small Herness. I don’t suppose Gem will tell me either.”

  Little Fur nodded somberly.

  Ginger continued, “But for my part, I am most curious about what the Sett Owl will say when she realizes that she is going to have to put up with Crow’s singing to gain an apprentice.” He sounded amused.

  “Perhaps she knows,” Little Fur said, and she hugged the gray cat, her heart suddenly brimming with the joyous knowledge that she had succeeded in her quest to find him.

  Nightwhisper approached. “We are ready. The spirit chamber has been destroyed.” He looked back at the towering human complex that cleaved to the black cliffs. “Balidor was a noble wolf. It was the human spirit that twisted his mind.”

  “His spirit is with his father’s now,” Ginger said.

  The gray wolf looked at the gray cat. “I am sorry we trapped you and kept you prisoner, Cat.”

  “It is finished,” Ginger said.