As we walked the river border west, looking for the ford I knew was there, somewhere, it was Elana Traiana who could not take her eyes off the Wolfwood.
“This forest ate my father’s rule,” she said on the afternoon of the second day. “The settlers and loggers had not had his blessing to cross the border, so when the wolf-men united to drive them out, he was slow to react. There are those who say that hesitation that cost him the crown, others that he merely sent too few soldiers.”
I turned to look at her as we walked. Her eyes were haunted and distant.
“I’m sure it comes as little consolation,” I said, “But it was the ambition of House Solirium that ate your father’s rule, not the Wolfwood or its denizens. Had the peers and the people approved of his handling of the Wolfwood settlers and their deaths, they would have chosen or invented another issue to use as a wedge and a goad. Your grandfather’s so-called reforms. The Traianum policy of overlooking abuses of small cults and temples by the Tirumvirate and the Court of the Sun. A manufactured crisis on the Namoran border. The Usurper wanted the throne. His House and the Cabal wanted to rule.”
Elana turned to me.
“You would know,” she said, a little bitterly. “You were there.”
“I was,” I said.
A look of consideration crossed her face.
“You speak of House Solirium and the Obsidian Cabal wanting to rule,” she said, slowly. “But of Ie – of our enemy wanting the throne … as if, just the chair.”
“The magical chair,” I said. “Older than humankind. A relic of the Heroic Age or of the Elder World. Found buried in a salt mine under the reign of the first Illustrian governor of fresh-conquered a’Rasyr.”
The Crown Prince Elana Traiana looked a little green.
“And, having helped him murder thousands of people to acquire that chair,” she said, “you are now helping me take it back in exchange for a tower at the edge of the known world, where you can study your blasphemies in peace.”
I sighed.
“In short,” I admitted.
“Khanaarre,” Elana said. “Are all wizards this mad? And elven sorcerers?”
Khanaarre looked perturbed to have been drug into the conversation so.
“I do not believe that I am mad,” she said. “Though my master may have been, at the end. The Sisters of Amalai are quite sane, though I have heard of treesingers and fire dancers losing their minds to the elements with which they commune.”
Elana shook her head in disgust.
“I apologize,” I said. “The point I had been trying to make was that your father did not fail as Emperor, but that he fell victim to the ambitions of others.”
Elana was silent for a moment.
“Thank you,” she said grudgingly, then increased her pace, leaving Khanaarre and I relatively alone.
After a long moment during which her long ears swept high and low, Khanaare looked to me, half sympathetic and half frustrated.
“I do not believe that she was ready for that conversation,” she said.
I grimaced.
“I believe that you are correct,” I conceded.
===
Though many people now seemed to remember it as a flashpoint, the conflicts and scandals that became known as the Wolf War had been generations in the making.
The nation of Vencar had three natural borders, emphasized and enforced by the Compact of Nations. In the west, the River Venn and the Great Crystal Lake marked the boundaries with Namora and Georg. In the south, the River Naam marked the border with Naal, which claimed (thought it did not control) the whole of the Sacred Desert of a’Rasyr. The northern border was dominated by the Wolf River. Only the eastern frontier was completely uncontrolled except by the poor but independent minor Houses that eeked out a living raising the nation’s grain and lumber supplies, and overseeing mines that lasted longer than Liddarn. But further east was a land of monsters: serpents and gryphons and strange gods, hostile to Vencari settlers and explorers.
So restless Vencari, eager for independence and the chance of wealth, had begun to trickle north, through the sixty-mile gap between the River Venn and the great bend of the Wolf River, skirting the borders of Georgi and elven and dwarven territories. Strong and resourceful people made modest fortunes hunting and trapping the stunningly large red deer and wood wyverns of the north. Over the course of a hundred years, the trickle had become a flood. Furrier’s tradeposts grew into logging communities which grew, in turn, into proper cities. And settlers began crossing the Wolf River into the heartlands of the uurnigath.
There had always been legends of the wolf-men of the wild north: wild, hirsute people who wore little more than leather kilts and sticks in their hair, who rode or became massive dire wolves. Furriers’ and explorers’ disappearances were dramatically attributed to these people, even when harsh winters and accidents were equally likely culprits. But the more Vencari went north, the legends proved true. At first, the Children of Enhyl were as likely to trade with the furriers – wondrous rare pelts for tools and treasures – as they were to fight with them. But the loggers and the settlers were another matter, and the wolf-men turned universally hostile, killing Vencari interlopers whenever they were caught out alone.
It went on like that for most of a generation. Individually, the Children of Enhyl were powerful, implacable enemies. But they were ill-organized: hunting packs not military units. The Vencari continued to go north by the hundreds, many of them military veterans and mercenaries capable of organizing and inventing new tactics. Twenty years ago, at the height of Gustinos Traianus’ rule, human industry had expanded most of the way up the Georgi border and almost to the headwaters of the Wolf River.
Then a leader – perhaps even a prophet – had appeared among the Children of Enhyl. In just a handful of years, they had united the various packs against their invaders. They developed counter maneuvers to the Vencari tactics. The very forests seemed to rise up against the human settlers. And with each mile that the Vencari were driven back, the forest regrew at an impossible rate – centuries of growth in each single season. One by one, each abandoned settlement was swallowed by the Wolfwood.
And the emperor did nothing. The settlers had been people of Vencar and had claimed the land in the name of the empire. But no emperor had given them commission. The northern border of Vencar was established by the Compact, and none had come to him to beg that the Compact be amended. From a legal perspective, it has been the right decision. And he had been reviled for it.
“I understand,” I had told Aemillian, “that the Wolfwood is the key to unseating Traianus. The Great Houses are furious at him for this, on top of the reforms. More importantly they can attack him for this, unlike the so-called reforms, which are popular with the Lesser Houses.”
We were in his office at the top of the great Black Tower of the Obsidian Cabal. From the huge windows of transmuted crystal, we could see both the famous Three Towers Hotel and the Imperial Palace, itself, against the gleaming backdrop of the Great Crystal Lake. The appointments were simpler than they’d been a few years ago, when Aemillian had first been awarded the Grand Mastery. This office was the first room in a suite which included a private bath and tower-top laboratory – the privileges of leadership.
“What I don’t understand,” I went on, “is what you intend to do about the Children of Enhyl once the throne is yours?”
Aemillian Solirius, his posture as tall and upright as always, sat behind a desk larger than two grown men, one of the few things he had kept from the previous Grand Master’s tenure. All that graced its surface was the orrery that had so intrigued me when I had first been called into his office, years ago: an assemblage of rings made from silver, gold, brass, and bone, all spinning in concentric circles.
“What of them?”
It was the orrery which held the majority of his attention. It was a divining tool from the first days of wizardry, when scrying had been a more elaborate and less precise science. It was a conceit of the Obsidian Cabal to favor such devices over the simpler and more reliable – if, sometimes, less powerful – tools that had been developed in more recent centuries.
“They are not mortal as humans are,” I pressed. “A generation ago, before they were unified, we were able to push them back. Today, they are a force that may well resist the full might of your armies.”
The orrery slowed, his back stiffened. I had his attention now.
“What do you know of the uurnigath?”
“They are children of Enhyl, born from the womb of the earth, possibly fathered by Esthraal. The Illustrians knew them and traded with them through Tanirinaal. They are stronger than humans, faster, and wild. It is said that they can take the shape of wolves, but all that is known for certain is that they keep company with the massive dire wolves of the northeastern forest and mountains. They heal faster than humankind, though how much of that is myth and how much is true is hard to say. What is certain is that two or three could destroy a logging operation; united as a people, they have already turned back the emperor’s territorial armies once. They are strong, and their gods are with them.”
Aemillian made a noise deep in his throat. He rose and pulled a bottle of brandy from a shelf on the far side of the room. Pouring a small glass for each of us, he came and stood beside me at the window.
“Fortunately,” he said, “I have no designs upon the Wolfwood.”
“Oh?”
“My rebellion will capture the public imagination. My reforms will hold their attention until the inevitable unrest is settled. Then I will control the populace much as my predecessors have: through spectacle and charity.”
I turned to look at him. His thin lips were pulled up in a thin, sharp smile. This was not the first we had discussed what he might do once he was emperor, but it was the first I had heard of that!
“Reforms? The Tregyn reforms are unpopular enough. It is their taxes on cannabis and the small temples, their prohibition against dreaming herbs, and their lenience toward the sun-worshipers’ assaults on cults not recognized by the Throne, that make your ambitions possible.”
Aemillian sipped his brandy, his smile widening.
“Your sympathy for the small cults has always intrigued me, dear. Such universal piety is unusual, to say the least.”
I did not answer him. I knew that to deny the smallest of the gods was to insult the greatest of them. And I also knew that the highly selective piety of houses such as Traianum and Solirium was something only the greatest of the Great Houses could afford. Such hubris – even at the behest of the Sun Lord – had been the downfall of a’Rasyr. Vencar should not be so foolish as to repeat her father’s mistake. Had the War of the Compact taught them nothing?
We stood in silence for some time, turning strategies over and over in our minds. Much would be left to the generals of House Solirium, of course, but we needed to provide the vision for which they would provide the details.
The lake glistened under the sun, shifting from bright blue to darker hues as the sun drifted toward the west. Pink, orange, violet, and crimson stripes danced across the surface. The Mirror of the Gods, some called it.
“Should I expand the borders of Vencar,” Aemillian’s voice was distant, his eyes focused beyond the horizon, “in ten or twenty years, when my reign is uncontested, I would first aim south. Naal has drawn many secrets from the desert that she has not shared with the world. I would possess those ruins. I would make a summer-home of great Aeruh-Tah.”
===
The prince – and the rest of the party, following her cues – was cold to me for the rest of the day, and for the day that followed. We continued the pattern we had first established on our journey from So’renner to Liddarn. The knights ranged ahead, scouting for danger and preparing our camp. Veralar hung behind, watching our rear. Elana and Khanaarre kept close company. And I trailed in between.
Each day, Veralar rose early and stepped away after dinner to perform her exercises and meditations – half an hour of each, before dawn and after sunset. Khanaarre, too, slipped discretely away from the group each evening to perform her mediations and honor her gods. The Vencari and I kept a respectful distance: we were all members of temple cults, albeit different ones, and had no obligations so far from our shrines. They had gone to their gods the nights before we had left Liddarn. I had not enjoyed the embrace of my mysteries since leaving the priestesses that had raised me. I could have joined other temples, other mysteries, here in the south. For whatever reason, I had not.
At night, after the prince and her knights had laid down to sleep, Khanaarre joined me on first watch. We spoke little – what was there to say? – but we watched the moon come out as the sun slipped over the western horizon, followed by the emergence of the stars. The wanderers were the first to emerge, of course: six bright points that ran across the sky, outpaced only by the sun and moon, rising away from and falling toward the horizon a few degrees each day, week, month year, sometimes so bright that they could be seen in the light of day. Behind them turned the Great Wheel of twelve constellations. Faintest of all, visible only in the darkest, clearest hours of night, were the fixed stars.
All peoples turned their eyes to the stars. Much of the oldest human writings were star-lore: tracking the sun and moon and wandering stars as they moved through the constellations of the Great Wheel, and their conjunctions with eachother and the fixed stars behind them. The astrologers of a’Rasyr had looked these movements to divine the futures of nations. To this very day, the movement of the sun through the Great Wheel formed the basis of the Vencari solar year, and elven matchmakers used the configurations of stars at the moment of birth to divine the characters of children and their prospects in marriage.
Early wizards, bartering for secrets with demons and nymphs and gods of the earth, had turned their eyes heavenward, too. But, except for certain diviners, they ultimately left the study of the wanderers and the Great Wheel to wonderworking priests. It was in the infinitely layered complexity of the dome of the fixed stars that wizards saw hints of the written characters of the divine languages that we used to reshape the world.
Low along the southern horizon, this time of year, hung the thick band of densely interwoven constellations known as the Starry Serpent, Ün. In Naal Ün was counted a god of the Earth Court, powerful but inscrutable. In Vencar, Ün was named one of the Seven, an alliance of gods who opposed the Five Gods, ruled by Althaeruh the Sun. Sun cults like the Triumvirate and the Sun Court took that enmity a step further, naming Ün and the rest of the Seven as Demon Gods, ruled by the Storm Lord Tal Thannuu.
By day, we all took turns watching the Wolfwood. We were looking for the ford, yes. And we both hoped for and feared a sighting of the uurnigath. But the wood, itself, seemed to draw our gazes. Our destinies lay within and beyond it.
Eventually, the prince remembered either her courtesy or the desperation of her need for me, and I was once more included in her councils with her fighters.
“We have been making good time,” Rennin said that evening. “If the ford remains where you described it, we should find it in the next two or three days.”
I nodded.
“That was my thought, as well,” I said.
“What more can you tell us of the Children of Enhyl,” asked Elana. “What can we expect when we find them?”
I shrugged.
“Very little that I have not told you already,” I said. “Mostly we should expect trouble. It has been some time since I have seen the Black Ear Pack, and while I have every reason to believe that they remember me fondly, you all are unknown to them, and there is no guarantee that we will encounter them, first.”
“And some reason to believe we won’t,” said Orland. “We’ve all seen signs of movement beyond the tree line. I think we’re being followed.”
I nodded. I had thought I had seen the same.
“Yes,” I said. “Tonight I will set up my tent and attempt to divine the best course of action from here, and for once we cross the river.”
“You need your tent for that?” asked Elana. She sounded more curious than suspicious, but it was always hard to say. She was, after all, a lifelong politician.
“For your protection and mine,” I said. “My crystal ball cannot be exposed to the light of the sun or moon, and the words that call the future into it are dangerous to hear.”
The prince and her knights looked to Khanaarre. It was amusing, because I had inadvertently encouraged them to do so. It was also heartening, because credulity is not a good look on a ruler. And it was frustrating, because it meant that the prince did not fully trust me.
“I am not a diviner,” Khanaarre said with a shrug. “But divination has always been among the most dangerous arts.”
I wondered if that was the literal truth – a possibility, given the explosive proclivities of the Black Mask – or if she were taking my side as a fellow wizard, or on account of Elana’s discourtesy. In any case, it served my purposes.
They helped me pitch my tent, and I retreated inside as the sun slipped entirely below the horizon. A drop of blood on the door flaps and a spoken word sealed the tent against entrance or listening. Another lit the blood-lamp that hung from the ceiling.
I opened my pack and fully withdrew my wizard’s chest, placing it carefully in the middle of the tent. Another drop of blood and a few words restored the chest to its full size: four feet deep, seven feet wide, and three feet tall, every square inch of it covered in arcane runes and glyphs. I opened the top, revealing the densely and carefully packed assortment of my travelling gear. My folding chair slid easily from its place, and I set it up behind me. Then I carefully extracted the velvet-lined box containing my crystal ball and closed the chest.
Another word of power extinguished the blood lamp, leaving me in near-absolute darkness. By touch and the benefit of long practice, I placed the box at the center of my wizard’s chest, unlatched the box and pulled the top off of it, revealing the gently glowing enchanted sphere of tourmalated quartz.
I pulled my chair up behind me and sat, carefully clearing my mind. When I was sufficiently composed, I turned my attention to the sphere. Its unfocused blue-black glow brightened, sharpened to white shot through with violet beams. I sat with it like that for half an hour, letting the light sharpen my focus until the mortal world almost completely slipped away.
I was almost ready to spill more blood and speak the words of possibility when a voice emerged from the sphere. The voice was familiar, beloved, furious.
“So, at last you have left the rebel’s enchanted fortress.”
“Were our protections so useless?” I asked, keeping my voice cool and indifferent. “Were my wards insufficient against your all-seeing eyes?”
The voice scoffed. “Where else would you have been?”
“And do you know where we are, now?”
Now it was amused. “In search of your precious Sword, of course.”
“And do you aim to throw more obstacles in my way?”
“I have every confidence that the path, itself, shall be sufficient.”
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