Wolves of the Gods Read online

  They talked until it was almost dawn.

  And then Safar said: “I'm sorry, Leiria. I know I said that once before, but this time I have even more—"

  "—Six years ago,” Leiria interrupted.

  "What?” Safar said, confused.

  Leiria nodded. “Yes, it was six years ago almost to the day. I remember we were in the stable near the east gate of Zanzair. You didn't know if I was friend or foe and you were thinking about killing me. By the Gods, you were stupid! To ever think I'd ever hurt you!"

  "Yes, and I'm sor—"

  Leiria put a finger to his lips, silencing him.

  "Let's not make it three times,” she said. “Twice is once too many. I deserved the first ‘sorry.’ Back when we were in the stable and you were doubting me. But I don't want, much less deserve, the second.

  "As always, my love, you reach too deep for guilt. Be sorry that you ever doubted me. I'll keep that. I'll put it away for some weepy hour when I need to drag it up, along with as many others as I can. There's nothing I like more than a good cry on the eve of battle. It loosens the sword arm wondrously.

  "As for any other ‘sorries,’ I say camelshit! You didn't break my heart, Safar Timura. I broke my own heart. It was a good lesson for a naV ve soldier. And it was also something every person needs for the future. Man or woman. If you're wounded early in life it gives you something to reminisce about when nobody thinks you are worth a tumble.

  "So, camelshit! Safar Timura. You didn't break my heart, anymore than you killed Methydia or Nerisa!"

  "You have to admit,” Safar said, guarding the odd comfort of familiar guilts, “that if they hadn't met me they'd be alive today."

  "That's ridiculous!” Leiria said. “They were on whatever road the Fates decided. Sometimes you're ambushed. Sometimes you turn it around and ambush your enemy instead. Either way, you're on the same road the General commanded you to take. So you do your job. March when they say march. Fight when they say fight. Rest when they say rest. And when you're resting you pray to all that is dreaded in the Hells they keep for soldiers that you meet somebody you can love. Methydia and Nerisa had that, Safar. And if they were alive today they'd both give you a piece of their minds for feeling sorry for them. They weren't the kind of women who could bear that sort of thing. If their ghosts were to speak they'd tell you exactly what I'm going to tell you now. Which is this:

  "Almost no one ever really experiences love, Safar. You get bedded. You get warm. Maybe you even get a sort of intimacy. I don't have much experience at such things, so I can't really describe what I mean. I've only been with two men in my life, after all—you and ... Iraj. And yes, I loved him too ... once. And that's my own ‘sorry.’ Hells! I have more sorries than I care to think about when it comes to Iraj.

  "Sorry that I didn't see who he really was. Sorry that I gave him everything I had to give. Sorry that for a moment, however small, I really did think about betraying you. One thing I'm not sorry about. You killed him. And good riddance to Iraj Protarus. The world is a better place without him.

  "So don't you feel guilty, Safar Timura. Especially not about the women who have loved you.

  "I speak for all of them!"

  That was the end of the conversation. They cuddled for awhile in silence. Then Leiria rose, bathed, and dressed in her light armor.

  He didn't watch her leave. He stayed in his room, head bent over the Book of Asper. He heard her ride away. Heard the clatter of her armor. The creak of her soldier's harness. And just before the sounds faded from hearing he thought he caught a whiff of her perfume on the morning breeze.

  In his whole life he'd never encountered a scent that lingered so long and lonely...

  * * * *

  Safar shook himself back to the present, thinking, no matter what Leiria had said, his hesitation would remain. It would be a very long time—if ever—before he chanced being the cause of harm or sorrow to another woman. But guilt, large as it was, had only a supporting role to play in the drama that made up Safar Timura. To him it seemed whenever his emotions came into play it exposed him—and, more importantly, his purpose—to danger.

  Take love, for instance. The last time Safar had declared himself to a woman ... say her name, don't dodge the pain of that old wound ... her name was Nerisa.

  Nerisa was a former street urchin who grew to became a woman of beauty, wealth and power. These three things—but mostly it was his love for Nerisa—had brought him into conflict with the king. And Iraj Protarus had used that love to find a weakness to betray Safar. The incident had ended with Nerisa's death and Safar's bitter repayment. The epilogue of the tale saw Safar kill Protarus and bring down his empire.

  He'd fled the glorious demon city of Zanzair, leaving palace and riches behind in the flames that had consumed the city—flames evoked by the great spell he'd cast to slay Iraj.

  Six years had passed since that day. A little longer, actually, since it had been several months since the day Leiria had noted the tragic anniversary. Six years of relative peace—at least in Kyrania. In the outside world things were much different.

  Safar went to his bedroom window and looked across the beautiful valley he called home. His house—a narrow, two-story cottage set on a hillside near the cherry orchard—overlooked the dazzling blue waters of Lake Felakia, named for the goddess whose temple was now in his care. On the lake he could see fishermen casting their nets. In the rich farmland surrounding the glistening waters men and women were tending the green shoots that were just now poking their heads from their warm blankets of soil to greet the spring sun. In the distance two boys were driving a herd of goats up into the mountains to the high meadows where the lush grasses made their milk sweet. The shouts of the boys and bleating of the goats drifted to him on the breeze flowing down the mountainside. It was an idyllic scene, which Safar doubted could be matched anywhere in the world.

  Yet his thoughts were not on the beauties of his native valley that morning. Or even—after he'd stirred through the pot of guilt—were they permanently fixed on Leiria, Methydia or even Nerisa.

  He was still troubled by the dream that had awakened him. It was no ordinary nightmare. It was so strong an experience he wondered if it might actually be a vision. But there was no magical scent lingering in the nightmare's aftermath, so he was fooled for a time, thinking that maybe it really was only a dream. So when Safar looked through the window he barely saw all the beauty that so beguiled the rare outsider who visited Kyrania. Instead he focused on all the troubles the beauty hid.

  Three poor harvests in a row, followed by harsh winters, had sorely tested the people of Kyrania. They had lived in ease for so many generations they were ill prepared for the hard times that had descended on the world in recent years.

  The income from the great caravans that had once crossed the Gods’ Divide from Caspan to Walaria and back again each year had ceased. Kyrania suffered from this. Yet once again in the age-old Kyranian story, Safar's people didn't suffer nearly as much as everyone else.

  In the outside world—the world beyond the foothills of the Gods’ Divide—all was chaos.

  Protarus’ shattered empire had turned Esmir into a confusion of petty kingdoms, so weak they couldn't keep the bandits off their own roads, so unstable that any bold warrior prince with an army at his back could easily step into the gap left by the mighty Iraj. Kyrania was cut off from the rest of Esmir, so Safar couldn't be certain that such a prince hadn't risen.

  In the past, news would have come through the great merchant princes who knew the route over the mountains to Kyrania. But they were either dead, or huddled at home praying the chaos would soon end.

  Safar thought it unlikely their prayers would be answered anytime soon. If at all.

  He looked north and saw the Demon Moon—a silver comet trailing in its wake—rising over a mountain peak. As long as that moon ruled the heavens, he thought, plague and war and hunger would ravage the land. From his studies he knew things were likely to get worse, not better. Someday the Demon Moon might reign over lifeless seas and plains and mountains. The world, Safar believed, was slowly poisoning itself—shedding humans and demons and animals and plants as if they were so many parasites, like lice or ticks or aphids.

  Once Safar had thought he might find the answer—the means to end the abysmal reign of the Demon Moon. It had been this search that had brought him to Protarus’ court and all the terrible things which followed. Now, after more than six years of study and magical experiment, Safar was starting to wonder if he had been a fool from the very beginning. And that there was no answer to the riddle.

  That damned old demon, Lord Asper, claimed the gods were asleep in the heavens and didn't care a whit about the fate of human or demonkind.

  Safar eyed the brandy jug, thinking, if Asper were right, why should he, Safar Timura, care?

  He picked the jug up, thinking, why should I fight the natural course of things? The gods must hate us, he thought. From what Safar had seen in his three decades of life the gods had good reason to abandon this world to its fate. Humans as well as demons were masters of misery, striking out at themselves as much as at others.

  He started to pour himself one more drink, thinking, to the Hells with them all! If that's what the gods want, who am I to say nay?

  Then he heard a small voice in the other room:

  "You show him!"

  Another voice protested.

  "No, no, you show him!"

  "He'll get mad."

  "No he won't."

  "Yes, he will."

  "All right, all right. I'll do it."

  Listening, Safar smiled, thinking—There's your reason, my friend!

  He heard his son call, “Come here, father! Come and see quick!"

  Safar laughed and went into Palimak's room. He entered cautiously, not knowing what he'd find.

  The smell hit him first.

  It was like something had died, then risen from the dead just short of complete mortification. It was more redolent than flesh. It was more like ... Then smell shock became vision shock and Safar jumped back as a huge creature lumbered toward him.

  "Surprise!” Palimak shouted.

  The creature confronting him was buttery yellow with holes running through it so huge you could see to the other side. One of those holes opened—Safar imagined it might be a mouth—and then he knew he was right when the creature spoke:

  "Cheese!” it said in a deep bass voice. Or at least that's what Safar thought it said. And then he was sure because it spoke again, saying: “Cheese!"

  It waved clumsy arms at him, like an clockwork toy from a child prince's chest of pleasures.

  Safar buried a smile, then made a motion and the creature froze in place.

  Palimak clapped his hands, chortling, “What do you think, father? Isn't it good?"

  He was a handsome boy, not quite eight, with curly brown hair and a slender body with long legs and arms splayed across the bed. He had a long elfish face, with rosy cheeks and skin so fine it was almost translucent. At the moment his normally hazel eyes were huge and golden—dancing with magical fire.

  "Well? Say it!"

  Safar put on a solemn face and examined the creature, trying not to laugh, which was difficult because behind Palimak was a small, green creature, doing its best to keep out of sight. It was an elegant little figure—about three hands high—dressed in fashionable tights, tunic, and feathered hat. It had the body of a man, but the face and talons of a demon. The creature was Gundara, Safar's Favorite. Gundara knew he was in a great deal of trouble with his master, ducking behind the boy, teeth chattering like a monkey's and giving him away.

  Safar ignored Gundara for the moment and observed his son's creation. It wasn't yellow all over as he'd first thought. It also had brown, loaflike arms and legs that bore neither hands or feet. And it was indeed, shaped like a man—a stick figure with a big ball for a body and a smaller ball stacked upon that for a head.

  Safar couldn't quite tell what the creature was made of. He sniffed the air. “What's that?” he asked.

  "Guess!” Palimak demanded.

  Safar looked past the boy to glare at Gundara. “Come out here,” he said.

  Gundara grumbled and hopped out onto the bed. “It wasn't my fault, Master!” he said. Suddenly his head swiveled around, little eyes fixed on a small stone turtle sitting next to Palimak.

  The turtle had the mark of Hadin painted on its back: a green island, outlined in blue, and on that island was a red mountain with a monster's face spewing flames from its mouth.

  Gundara's long delicate demon's tongue flickered out, and he said, “You just shut up, Gundaree. You hear me! Shut up!"

  "That's not nice,” the boy admonished Gundara. “You shouldn't say shut up!"

  Gundara was hurt. “You used to say it all the time, Little Master,” he said. “'Shut up,’ were the very first words you spoke. Why, I remember when—"

  "Never mind that!” Safar broke in. He pointed at the moldy, man-high thing. “What's this?” he asked Gundara.

  Gundara hung his head. “Cheese, master,” he muttered. “Just like it said.” And he lowered his voice to match the creature's, intoning, “Cheese!’”

  Despite himself, Safar laughed. For just as Gundara said, the magical creature Palimak had created really was made entirely of cheese—other than the legs and arms, which he now realized were made of bread.

  "It's breakfast, father!” Palimak piped. “See. I made you breakfast!” He wrinkled his nose. “Although, maybe it doesn't smell too good."

  "I told him not to use the stuff under his bed, master,” Gundara said. “But he wouldn't listen. I said, ‘that's somebody's old snack ... some dirty little thing's old snack. Some dirty little thing who sneaked under the bed to eat.” Gundara glared at the stone turtle. “I won't mention any names, but we all know who I mean."

  Palimak clapped his hands. “Gundaree!” he shouted. He grinned at Safar. “Gundaree likes eating under the bed, father,” he said. “And he likes his cheese, really, really old.” The boy pinched his nostrils to show just how old Gundaree preferred his cheese to be.

  Gundaree was Gundara's twin. The two of them had dwelt in the stone turtle for at least a millennium. A gift from Nerisa, the idol and the Favorites it contained had been created in Hadin—a world away from Esmir. Whoever owned the idol had the decidedly mixed blessing of the twin's magical assistance. They had a constant war going between them, making it quite disconcerting for whoever was their current master. The only consolation was that they couldn't appear at the same time before normal beings. Gundara serviced humans, Gundaree demons. Only little Palimak—who was part human and part demon—could see them both at the same time.

  Mischievous as they were, their magic was very powerful and Safar had ordered them to protect Palimak. The boy kept the idol with him at all times, giving him a permanent set of child minders and magical playmates.

  At the moment Gundara was doing his best to appear the innocent above all innocents.

  "I warned Palimak, master,” he said. “I told him, ‘Oh, no, you shouldn't use that smelly old stuff to make a breakfast spell, Little Master. Your father will be angry.’”

  "You never said that!” Palimak protested.

  "Yes, I did!"

  "You taught me the spell!"

  "No, I—"

  Safar clapped his hands twice. The first won him silence. The second commanded the collapse of the cheese beast. There was a pop! and it returned to its original, disgusting shape, which was a small mound of old cheese and bread piled on the floor. Safar swept the mess up and dumped it out the window, counting on Naya, the old goat who made her home in his yard, to make short work of it. Then he mumbled a cleansing smell, snapped his fingers and the air in Palimak's room was sweet again.

  When he turned back Gundara had vanished—fleeing into the retreat of the little stone idol where he would, no doubt, continue his argument with Gundaree.

  Palimak sighed. “I'm awfully tired,” he said. “Making breakfast is hard work."

  "I suppose it is,” Safar said.

  "The hard part was making the Breakfast Thing talk,” Palimak said. “I thought that'd be a really, really Big, Big Surprise!” He spread his hands wide to indicate just how amazing the effort was.

  "It said, ‘Cheese!'” Safar said. “You can imagine how surprised I was. I've never had breakfast speak to me before."

  Palimak hung his head. “I'm sorry it was so smelly, father,” he said. “There's some good cheese in the kitchen, but Gundara said I couldn't get out of bed until you woke up.” He shrugged his shoulders. “There sure are a lot of rules in this house,” he said.

  Safar aped the sigh, making it long and dramatic. “I guess there are,” he said. Then he shrugged—again mimicking Palimak. “But what can we do? Rules are rules!"

  "I suppose you're right, Father,” Palimak said with weary resignation. “What can we do? But I'd sure like to know who makes up all those rules!” He yawned. “Well, maybe I'll go back to sleep for a little while."

  Palimak made a magical motion and soft dreamy music floated out of the stone turtle. He hugged his pillow tight, yawning again. “Wake me up when it's time for breakfast, father,” he said.

  Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep. Lips trembling with his last words. The child went from wakefulness to sleep in less time than it took for a heart to beat. Safar smiled at the boy, watching how the sun streaming through the window lit up his milky skin. Palimak positively glowed and Safar could see, deep, deep, under the child's skin, the faint gleam of bluish green. Demon green. And his little hands, clasped together, had pointy little nails, so paper thin you could only tell they existed because of the darker blush of the pink skin beneath them. When Palimak became excited and forgot himself those pointy little nails could hook out like kitten claws and accidentally draw blood from an unwary adult.

  Palimak possessed amazing magical powers for his age. Although he called Safar “father,” the boy was a foundling, a child of the road, whom Nerisa—an orphan herself—had taken pity on and adopted. Safar had assumed responsibility for Palimak's care after Nerisa had died, raising him as if he were his own. How a demon and a human—bitter ancestral enemies—had come together in love to make the child was surely a tale of complexity and tragedy. Unfortunately, Nerisa had died before she could tell Safar much about what she knew of Palimak's origins and as the boy had grown older it had become increasingly difficult to explain that his all-wise father should be ignorant about something so important.