Planestuck

I looked up the mountain face I had just slid down. The grade was tricky to judge in Carceri's ground-emitted light, but I could see where I had knocked loose patches of gravel on the way down, and it looked pretty steep. The bad footing made me cautious of attempting the climb -- as did the gorge below me, almost a mile. If I hadn't caught where I had, the rest of the mountain face below here was nearly sheer.

I pulled out the possessed disk and tossed it in to the air beside me. "Do you know if this trail meets up with the one I was on?"

"I am not certain." He spun, emitting an image of the gorge as seen from above -- from the kelubar's usual flight path, I imagined. It was patchy, as might be expected from someone seeing it through a clenched fist the whole way. I located the ledge I'd fallen from, and could see that in the direction I'd come from, this trail headed down toward the gorge bottom. Further forward in the direction we had been heading, it eventually rounded a bend near a pass where two of the peaks joined on my side of the gorge. The image cut out near there, but if the two trails met, that seemed like the best bet. If nothing else, it seemed like a shorter climb up and perhaps a gentler slope.

"On the other hand," I muttered, "any flatter land in Colothys is liable to be inhabited." A gust of wind screamed through the gorge, as if to confirm my pessimism, and I flattened myself against the rock wall. "And no other trails to this peak you know of?"

"The peak with the portal to the next layer up from this orb is several mountains away," he said. "There are probably several trails, but they must eventually converge. Unless there is more than one portal upward, of course. What I am certain of is that backtracking or widely detouring could easily lead you out of my range of geographic knowledge. "

"Allright," I said after poking at the image for a bit, "forward then." I collected the disk and was about to put him in a pocket when I thought to ask, "Say -- what's your name?"

"I never had one before being bound. Most of my masters either never cared or gave me one in mockery."

"I'm not your master," I said absently. "Is there a name you might want?"

"No." So much for that -- for now, at least. I was sure I'd be wanting to give him a handle later.

The next couple of miles were as uneventful as a trip can be when one is trying to gain distance from a fiend's lair while hanging on for dear life against gusts of wind on the edge of a mile-deep valley. I rounded the last bend that the disk had been able to spot from the kelubar's flight path, and sure enough, a saddle pass had formed here where two mountains butted up against each other.

From the farther mountain, a rivulet splashed down in to the saddle and split in two. On my side, it carved out a shallow bed and spilled over a cliff face, disappearing in mist before it reached the bottom. In Carceri's red light, of course it looked like nothing other than a wound in the mountainside, gushing blood.

And sure enough, a spring meant inhabitants. In this case, several raggedy lean-tos and a shallow cave clung to the far mountainside, a couple of hundred yards on the other side of a U-sloped cut. Petitioners, possibly, though I didn't see them about. More worrisome, though, was the encampment near the spring, too large in number to be the owners of the shacks. Looked like a Blood War unit -- probably the outfit the rutterkin came from, for several more of them were scattered about, and a number of dretches and manes, which I didn't try to count too closely. Several dozen, though. A small unit, for them; such weak demons had to attack in huge numbers to be effective.

The chasme was nowhere to be seen; perhaps it was with a different group, or perhaps it had taken its prey somewhere other than the camp. The current leaders appeared to be a few armanites, but they were arguing over rank. From what I could snatch out of the Abyssal, a raid in the next valley over had gone badly, and this group was down a few of the demonic cavalry. They had retreated here and now a lower-ranking armanite was challenging a wounded superior for his failure.

The manes and dretches didn't seem to care about the argument, wandering about aimlessly, but the rutterkin were energetically taking sides, probably at random. A fight was in the borning, and I would have been more than happy to leave them to it, if I didn't have to figure out a way to the other side before one of them spotted me. I inched back around the bend and thought hard.

I kept low, belly to the ground, as I crawled along the upper track of the pass. I struggled to balance between haste and silence, for the sounds of the fight were reaching a peak, and if they settled down again before I could get across, I could easily be exposed. It was also possible that they might leave and not look around; or they might come right down whatever trail I was on. Given my odds of surviving should I be spotted, I felt that making every effort to get further away from the camp was wise.

Hands and knees, hands and knees. I thought of all the myriad forms of nature, each suited to their niche, and listing them in my head made a mantra of my devotion to creation once more. The large and powerful were respected and feared, but right now I would much prefer to be small and lowly: a cat on soft paws; a chameleon tiny and invisible; a beetle, to fly unnoticed in plain sight directly to my mountain goal; a snake, who some hated, saw as cursed, but who could impart to a patient listener the timeless wisdom of Ouroboros and the healing in the staff of Aeschylus, and who had a usefully low profile.

In the middle of the crawl I passed where the chasme had been. I have, in fact, experienced more disgusting things in my life than crawling face down over the slimy remains of a dead rutterkin, but I decline to tell such stories without needing to.

Where the track branched off into a trail down to the pass below I was most exposed, but I hurried across and heard no change in the fray. Whatever luck was with me, I made it across and around the sharp edge of the mountain on the far side.

Sure enough, the slope was slightly shallower here, and it appeared that the troop had hiked up from the valley further below. There was a pile of discarded stuff, and several bodies, on the slope below. Had the battle been here? No; there were no signs of blood and rent weapons, nor any magical residue, and the tracks I could see up the hill were fairly straight, not the chaotic intermingling of a fight.

Cautiously, for the sounds of the fight were finally dying down, I descended the far slope to a point well below view of the pass. From this closer vantage, I started in surprise. The bodies were mortals! And not baatific mercenaries, either, not unless halflings, gnomes, and even a pixie were taking devil money in large numbers these days. Some would, sure, but this was a unit -- and a unit of small folk, at that. What was that about?

Now here was a double mystery. Demons didn't often take prisoners. If the troop had retreated from a battle, why would they have carried heavy bodies? Meat? Demons ate for fun, not sustenance. If it was for the loot, why not take the loot and leave the bodies? And what was a squad of small folk doing in deep Colothys if it wasn't to do with the Blood War?

I looked up. With the fight quieter now, while I was out of sight for the moment all it would take would be a demon wandering back toward this pile of stuff for me to be spotted. "Hey," I said quietly to the spirit in the disk, "can you project illusions?"

"No," it replied -- equally quietly, thank goodness. "My images are simply pictures, and mostly translucent, as you have seen."

"Yeah, but can you make a picture of the view down there and cover my body with it as we walk? It doesn't have to be perfect, just help me not be spotted with a casual glance from a distance."

"I can try."

I let him float, and an image shimmered in to existence around me. No one would have believed it on close inspection, but it might keep me a little bit safer as I made my way across.

As quietly as I could, I crossed the rocky slope. As I got next to the bodies, I revised my understanding of the situation. My poor grasp of overheard Abyssal had led me to a wrong conclusion.

Of course this hadn't been a Blood War battle. This was four layers down; armies went through on Othrys. And the thousand tiny cuts and burns on the halfling with the gold stripe on his wrist told me that this prisoner had been interrogated (at least if the demons hadn't been torturing him just for kicks, which was possible). This troop of demons hadn't retreated from a battle. They had lost a quarry! Maybe one particular quarry, whose friends had died for him, or maybe a larger group that this was just a few of.

I had to take a moment or I couldn't call myself clergy. No one could possibly have lain this disrespected heap of bodies to rest. Making the sign of the Eternal Circle, I addressed them hastily and quietly. "This is not your place, spirits of brave mortals, dwellers of sunlit lands. This is not the prison of your soul, neither these shells nor these nested orbs. Depart in peace for Yondalla's fields, for the green harbors of Arborea, or even rebirth, wheresoever your soul takes you."

That done, I stooped to collect one thing that I saw in a halfling's pack: a rope, with a grappling hook on the end and a small bag of pitons attached. Sensible equipment, right? I mean, what kind of fool shows up in Colothys without climbing gear?

Other than me, that is. Anyway, better I ended up with it than the demons.

As I was bent over, I saw another victim's satchel, and praised Yondalla's craftsmanship for making such a wise and hardy race. Naturally no halfling worth his salt would head to the wilderness without food and water. There might have been something else in there, but I wanted to waste no more time searching. I tucked the climbing gear in the little pack -- too small for me to wear, but easy enough to throw over one shoulder -- and hurried to the marginally greater safety of the other wall of the gap.

On this side, the rickety shacks and lean-tos gave some cover near the wall. I hugged their backs. The inhabitants seemed to have been run off, or perhaps had been killed; in one, I heard the noise of some little demon tossing one place and not finding anything of value. They crowded near the trail, and I was able to stay out of sight until I rounded the far bend.

As soon as I did, seeing no watcher at the far trail, I took to my heels. Time to put as much space between myself and those demons as I could.

It didn't take long. They ate like -- well, wolves. Soon they lolled on the ground, stuffed, their conversation muted. A couple of them set to skinning a few, though apparently they had no intention of dragging a pile of carcasses somewhere to feed a town. Wasteful.

After most of the pack was thoroughly sated, the largest one stood up. He said something slowly and languidly in their language, and looked directly up at my seat high in the tree. The rest of the pack's gaze followed. They had known I was there the whole time.

I knew if I acted like prey the pack would oblige. I stood up from the fork of the branches where I had been sitting, and hurled my spear down next to the trunk. It stuck in the soft soil. I followed it myself, jumping down and landing hard, but staying on my feet. I straightened up and looked the lead wolf in the eye, drawing my spear and pointing it at him.

He stayed where he was and growled something at me.

"I don't know that language. Perhaps you speak Planar Trade?"

He barked dismissively. In a rough Sylvan, he said, "Don't care to speak Ortho tongue. You know this one, I bet."

"I do," I replied in the same language.

"Druid." He began to circle me.

"Yes."

"You think we don't notice brand new giant stupid tree in our hunting ground?"

"I didn't want to interfere with your hunt."

"Why not eat with us?"

"I didn't take part in your hunt. Hardly fair."

"Fair! Who cares fair? You that kind of druid."

"Then let's say I'm no hyena. I want to eat, I'll kill something myself."

He was slowly closing in with each circle. I kept the spearpoint towards him.

"You are no petitioner. You don't act like Carceri. Why you in Malar's realm, fair druid?"

Malar! I could feel the color draining from my face. I should have guessed. The wolves could tell, too -- their air of satisfaction at my reaction to their god's name was palpable. "Just passing through."

He howled with laughter. "From where to where? You escape from Porphatys?" He stopped, his breath hot on the point of my spear, staring me down. "You come hunting weres without silver, balance man?"

"Didn't come hunting weres, wolf. I don't really give a flip what you think I'm here for, either. It's my business and not yours."

"Wrong! Our territory. We say who comes and goes, who is hunter and who is prey!" He batted my spear with a paw, and flinched back as the spark within flared at his touch. The pack was on its feet now. "Tool of the enemy! You die!"

I braced a foot against the tree and prepared to go all out at the lead werewolf. There was no way I could take all of them. Maybe if I killed their leader, I could convince the pack to let me go.

"Wait, Rip," said a lighter, female were's voice. "He smells funny."

"He smells like dessert!"

"He smells like death, Rip!"

"Idiot woman!" Actually, the wolf used a different word, but we can be polite. "This is no petitioner!"

"Not a petitioner -- oh, for the love of -- " The female speaker shifted to human form and approached me. It didn't seem like an attack, and I didn't want to take the spear off of the lead wolf; she drew her utility knife, and then before I could stop her, nicked my arm.

"Ow!"

She licked the blood off the blade, then made a nasty face and spit the blood out.

"Poison in his veins."

"What?" said the leader. "Not human?"

"Human blood," she said. "But tastes like rot in it. Can't you smell it?"

"Aah," I said. They both looked at me. "I was in a fight with some undead recently. They took some out of me. . ."

"Aaaaah," said Rip. "So you are temporarily out of sorts."

"Yes."

"We kill the weak." "That is proper," responded several of the others. Liturgical, apparently.

"The weak are an easy hunt," I said. If I remembered anything about Malarites, please let this be right. . .

He paused. "You are right." He opened his mouth wide and lolled his tongue, a wolf grin. "You will be our guest for a sleep," he said. "You rest. You recover. This sort of thing, it takes about a day, yes? You shake it off, prepare your spells. You will be stronger in the morning. Better hunt."

He turned to two subordinates, who I had seen slinking around the others' carcasses. "Runts! Take his spear and armor back to den."

"You think I'm going to give up my --" he looked at me disdainfully.

"You in no place to bargain, weak little druid. We will give you the lesson of the hunt. You are safe for a while." He kicked a carcass. "Take some meat. I know your type -- don't worry, these don't talk." He looked up. "You rest. Battle your poison. When you taste better, we let you go. You can run, or you can try to find your arms and then run, or you can come back and try to kill us. Your choice. Is a good hunt, hmm? It is fair. You like that kind of thing." He laughed again. The two smaller wolves changed into human form and came up to me.

I thought about it for a minute. Refusing him presumably led to me getting clawed to pieces here and now. I handed one of them my spear, and he took it gingerly by the lower portion of the haft. Another minute or so, and I was disarmored entirely, and their prisoner.

On the other hand, at least I had a place to sleep.

I passed on the venison. Could be lycanthropy in the wounds, you know.

I awoke to the sound of thunder. Normally, I enjoyed a good storm, but here the storm approached from the inter-orb space in a lightning-rent mass, driving before it not the smell of petrichor, but foul scents swept up from the orbs of the prison world. Lit red from below by our glowing orb, it grew in the sky, as if it intended to engulf and consume us.

It was time.

I did what I could to freshen up, but the facilities weren't really set up for guests. When I turned around, a bearded, long-haired pack member in human form, wearing furs that had apparently been chosen for their consistent black, was glaring at me and shouting in their tongue.

"What?" I said. "I don't understand you."

He glared at me some more, then turned around and stalked toward the cave Rip had entered last night.

The female whose name I had yet to learn looked over from the boulder where she had been perched, keeping an eye on me. "It was Night's tree," she said in Sylvan. "You just challenged him."

". . .oh." I shrugged.

"You shouldn't take it so lightly." From Rip's cave there sounded first shouting, then snarls, and the pack scattered outdoors. Tumbling into the open space, Rip and Night were in a blood match. They separated and started circling each other. "He's demanding that Rip let him take up your challenge."

"I wasn't really challenging him."

"He knows. He's also smart enough to know that if he lets you off because of that he can be accused of cowardice by some other ambitious upstart."

"If he wins, will he let me be long enough to get prepped?"

"I wouldn't count on it. He didn't like the idea of letting you live in the first place." They closed, bit, drew back, circled again. "Night's ambitious in the pack, but when it comes to hunts and fights, he doesn't care to make things complicated."

"I'd better get busy then."

I knelt right where I was and made the sign of the Eternal Circle. To the sound of the approaching storm and the snarls of the fight, I began to meditate.

This was Malar's realm. Therefore, I hunted. My quarry were my memories, trapped beneath a fog of evil. My net was my consciousness. Into my mind, I set forth.

"The first act is the one that cannot be understood," old Adhertos had said. "We live in a world of cause and cycle. The sun draws forth clouds from the ocean, the clouds descend as rain upon the land, to run in river to the ocean."

Rain began to spatter on the slope around me.

"Where, then, is the beginning? What force creates from nothing?" He addressed his students.

"The Lifewell," I replied. "All manner of energy and matter come from there, even fresh souls."

"Chaos," said Marocatos. "All forms emerge from the roil of formlessness." We had been rivals, in that schoolboy way.

"Good answers both," said Adhertos, "but it is the nature of the Lifewell to create life, it is the nature of Chaos to shape and destroy. What maade them?"

We hesitated. Could the Positive Energy Plane have created itself from nothing? Marocatos ventured, "Just because it's not logical for Chaos to have created itself from nothing doesn't mean it didn't. Logic doesn't hold there."

In my memory, I struggled to reach for memory. Meditating on the slope, I tried to remember how to remember.

I piped up, "Since the Lifewell can create anything else ex nihilo, it might as well have created itself first." I wasn't going to be outdone by him.

Rip and Night closed again, claws raking flesh. They separated once more, Night being tossed downslope. He stood, shook himself, and charged upward again.

"So both of you, favoring your creation theory, have a one-time event where your source of all other things gives rise to itself first. You will, I trust, recall the creation stories we have discussed from various religions. Atum supposedly created himself. Several other gods claim to be uncreated. For all I know, they're all right. As Marocatos points out, something not quite logical happened at the point where all the cycles began. Something different. That is the one glimpse we have of the incomprehensible boundaries of divinity from within this mortal world."

"And that is why, as druids, we pledge ourselves to the protection of Creation. All of creation, without fear or judgment."

The wind began to pick up. Rain slicked the stone.

"What is there to protect creation from, then?" I asked.

"Lord Shiva is the Destroyer," ventured young Roveca.

"And Re-Creator," Marocatos and I simultaneously appended.

Rip and Night both landed a swing on their opponent's face at the same time, and they backed away, clearing their heads.

"True on both counts," said Adhertos. "Perhaps one day we will come to disagreement with Shiva about whether the time has come to destroy this universe. And perhaps we will agree with him. We are fairly sure now is not. For there are still creators: artists, and builders, and fruit-bearing trees, and vibrant creatures."

"Builders make cities," muttered Marocatos. "Them I don't like."

The black fog in my skull rose up and battered at me. It didn't like me. It hated. It wanted me to hate it, fear it. The throbbing in my head matched the pounding of the rain on the rocks and the spatter of blood from the fighters' wounds.

"You're a builder when you pitch your tent at night," I pointed out. "They're ours to protect too. From. . ."

Night recovered first, and launched himself at Rip. His jaws surrounded Rip's neck.

"From. . ." I thought hard.

I pushed forward. I would not fear. Pain would not stop me. My thoughts we my own -- get out! I am me, creating myself in the midst of creation!

"From uncreation." I looked up. "From senseless destruction. From acts that end cycles without restarting them. From creatures that steal souls from reincarnation and the afterlives where they can serve their deities to make a better universe."

Rip had gotten his paws under Night, though, and before Night could close, he heaved with all the strength of his body. Night tumbled into the air, and where he came down, Rip was waiting to grip his neck and look into his eye, threatening death for anything other than capitulation.

Marocatos would not be outdone. "Didn't the Lifewell, or Chaos, or whatever created everything else, create the Deathwell too?"

"We don't know," said Adhertos sadly. "We don't know much of the era of Creation. What we do know is that the creatures of Uncreation universally appear to consume and destroy without replacement or rejuvenation. They are unlike all other things of this world, which exist in balanced cycles. We are willing to use the energies of that plane when we must, when the conscious choice to destroy can serve the greater balance, but if our duty to the world, if our very survival instinct as living creatures, is to mean anything, it means that we fight them."

Survival and rage warred in Night's eyes, but survival won out. He went limp, signalling submission.

"So, today we will study the meditation techniques you will need, if you ever come in to contact with such powers. . ."

The storm rose. Uncaring, I knelt in the rain, hands in the sign of the Circle, and reached for my memories, for my strength. The clouds in my brain battered back at me, refusing to surrender. As I pushed past them, they vanished like smoke, only to choke me and coat my inner eyes with soot, my muscles with the torpor of the grave.

But I was alive. I fixed on old Adhertos' face, strained for the sound of his words. Mantras and affirmative verses ran through my mind. I was alive!

Rip released Night, and Night clambered to his feet. Pausing for one last look at me, he turned and ran in to the storm.

The last of the internal fog cleared, and I felt cleaner under the downpour, as if black ink were washing off of me in the rain.

Mostly, I knew, this was an illusion. The evil power had not vanished; it had only dulled my senses to the point where I could no longer distinguish its presence. I was like an acolyte again.

But it had not been entirely in vain. As I thought over my training, I recalled something that would be very useful today: how to glide tracelessly through wilderness. I still lacked the clear insight that had allowed me to touch the greater powers of nature in both form and spell, but I remembered more than I had, and I knew that at least a few more powerful spells were at my command.

I looked up to see Rip among my guards. He growled something to them, and they nodded. He turned and went back to the cave; waiting for him in the entrance was a pack member in human form, carrying some bandages and some kind of herbs. He didn't seem terribly damaged; I was sure the hunt was still on.

I backed up under the tree, where it was not remotely less wet than the rest of the place, but at least for the principle of the thing, and tried to recall the best selection of spells I could muster. I was coming back for that armor; I seriously doubted I could survive Carceri without it. Which meant that I needed to have a really good plan.

Unarmored, I had no intention of meeting him skin to fang. My trump cards had to be saved for Rip, or the pack entire, unless I was really about to die. I kept the spear between me and him as much as I could, not attacking, just trying to get around him.

The weapon had been blessed by our entire circle, consecrated to the war against Longmont's undead. It had served me well in many battles. Night barely noticed it; the spearhead would plunge and retreat with hardly more than a singe where the holy power had flared, and sometimes not even that. Only by the physical impact did I manage to keep him off of me.

Struggling for a few seconds, I managed to edge past Night towards the opening of the cave, and started backing out. I hadn't been bitten yet, but my luck wouldn't hold out forever. I had expected to use this spell to buy myself some time to put on my armor, but it would have to do now.

I called upon the earth in its gentle aspect, addressing the ceiling of the cave. The gap in concentration on my defense was enough for one of Night's attacks to succeed, and I felt his claws tear a gash in my side.

Years of discipline kept me focused, and I felt my spell succeed at the same time. With a swing of the spear's butt I batted him away from me, and into the area of the fall of thick mud and chunks of rock I into which had turned the cave's roof. Night was effectively buried -- whether he suffocated before he could get out wasn't going to be my concern. I turned around.

Petra was standing between me and the cubs, bristling. I shook my head. "I don't care, lady." I looked up in the rain. "Disk? Where are you?"

"Behind you, boss." He flashed a bright image of sunshine to show me where he was hovering on the slope above the cave. "Last I saw, most of the pack was running a search pattern near where I cut out. I don't think Rip was fooled, though. He never rejoined them that I saw."

"I have to find him."

"What? Why?"

"Because I'm pretty sure he --"

Petra barked. A warning. Not to me. Unheeded by excited children, headstrong boys. She had grabbed one by the neck and pinned another with a paw.

I looked down, to a youth who could not have fully understood the danger his tiny bite to my calf had put me in.

I said something which apparently isn't a naughty word anywhere but my homeworld.

I grabbed the cub by the neck and bodily tossed him back toward Petra, who promptly began beating him soundly. I knew the gist of her raging; Night had used his claws deliberately. A bite was a gift, unless your bites killed.

To Disk, I said, "I bet you didn't see a single spring of wolfsbane anywhere in your trip, did you."

"No, boss. I wouldn't expect it to grow wild in Malar's realm. Do you think it took?"

"I guess I'll find out next full moon."

"Our childrens' bites don't tend to carry the full Gift until they're adolescents," said the voice I had both wanted and dreaded to hear.

Rip approached from the edge of the woods, my female guard from last night following him. "It's a possibility, though. If you'd like to check, try to change. The change is easy here, by our lord's grace. Look." He reared, and took his human form.

And there it was. My armor.

I leveled the spear. "Allright. Let's make a deal. If I kill you, I take my armor and the pack lets me go."

"I don't think you understand how a wolf pack hunts. I certainly recommend you kill me. But all it will mean is that you have one less wolf to deal with when the rest of my pack gets back here."

He changed to wolf form again, and howled. It cut clearly through the wind, and I knew I had perhaps a minute before the pack got back.

Time for the last significant spell I had dredged from memory this morning. As Rip closed the distance, I uttered in a magical tongue words that I knew would offend the very land about me, and prayed that it didn't draw Malar's attention -- or that if it did, he decided to let his worshipers deal with it or die.

"Eclipse the silver light within. . ."

. . .and Rip stumbled and collided with me in human form.

His shock was great, and it instantly flared to rage. "Blasphemer!" He drew the shortsword that had appeared upon his body.

But now the protective skin of moonlight had left him, and my spear found its mark almost before his sword was out of its sheathe. The spear flared in the wound, and his skin blackened. He gripped the shaft, falling to his knees, and looked beyond me. "Take him. . . wait -- who. . ." he said.

His companion! I turned, trying to free my spear from his deathgrip.

The wolf he had been speaking to was backing off from a new creature. I couldn't even identify it, at least not under the circumstances. Like a big cat, but there was intelligence in its eyes. Not a weretiger, though. It sniffed the air and turned to me. Its expression was conspicuously missing its largest upper right fang, which at least partially explained what it said to me:

"You've got my tooth, human."

The pack poured up the slope, eyes glinting in the downpour. The newcomer was as unknown to them as to me, apparently. But was this a fresh foe to divide my flesh with the weres, or an ally?

The rain was starting to slacken to a steady drizzle as we hiked over wet grassy slopes in the red reflections of the distant light. I was the slowest of the three of us, to their annoyance, but by Rip's agreement to save his icon, we were safe until we reached the border.

"Can't you shift wolf again?" she asked.

"No, that wasn't a natural talent of mine. Just a spell. And I'm out of those for now." She snorted. I shifted the conversation away from my remaining spell energies (which happened to be minimal at present). "So what's your name? I've been meaning to ask."

"Does it matter? Aren't I your enemy?"

". . .actually, I bet you're not." She stopped and looked at me coolly. "You kept Rip from killing me out of hand at our first meeting."

"You would have poisoned him."

"Not enough to matter. You were one of my guards all night."

"Keeping you there."

"Keeping me under your eyes rather than someone else's. And you came back with Rip, alone, when he turned away while the others were hunting my distraction."

"He's my pack leader."

"Everyone else stayed with the main search. But you could have attacked me while I fought him."

"We don't interfere--"

"Yes you do. Wolves are pack hunters. It's not about honor. It's about the efficient kill." I waited. She was silent. "Fine. I'd still like to think of you as something other than 'that female wolf with the gray back patch.'"

She looked back at her coat as she trotted. "I don't have a gray--!"

"Gotcha."

She looked at me quizzically and shook her head. "I don't get it." The cat rumbled, a chuckle. The wolf sighed, and said a word in the wolf tongue. "It's their word for ice."

"Their, huh."

Ice tsked. "Fine. But you won't get more details out of me willingly. Not yet. You're too eager to trust, and it will kill you before you get out of here if you don't unlearn it."

"She's right," the cat added.

"And what's your name? Mine's Abaris," I offered.

"I am Hybrid Creation Number Twelve of Project Sampsa."

"Talk about a name with a story behind it."

"Like Ice, not one I care to talk about with someone I just met."

"Mind if I call you Sampsa?"

"That's fine."

"And how do you intend to put the tooth back in?"

"Put it back in? I just don't want part of my body to be part of a power key for a god worshiped by the Vile Hunt. I can sense the thing while it's in there. It's how I tracked it. All of the teeth in there are from creatures that are still alive, and bothered by it; if they die, that tooth will fall out. Enough fall out and it'll be rendered powerless." He paused. "Are you saying it can be put back in?"

"My world has a large stock of simple incantations. They're not hard to learn; our druids tend to pick up a bunch of them. One of them will replace a tooth in its socket and heal the gum."

"I heard incantations were dangerous," said Ice.

"They are," I said. "If you use them too frequently, or try one that's beyond your skills. But this one isn't hard, and I have the healer training needed. Although we'll have to find some materials I don't have immediately. Powdered limestone and such."

"Huh." He was thoughtful for a moment. "Well, I admit that would be a bonus. Perhaps I'll stay with you long enough to get that done."

"How did you come across that thing anyway?" Ice asked.

"Dead halfling."

Ice tensed. "You killed him?" she asked.

"No, it was a small unit. Err, no pun meant. Demons got them."

"A unit? Was their leader dead with them? He would have worn a purple cloak, or carried a shield blazoned argent, three violets one and two purpure leaved vert."

"Your heraldic grammer is excellent for a--"

"Just answer the damned question!"

"No. I didn't see that device or a halfling in a purple cloak." She breathed again, and we walked on in silence for a bit.

"Look," I said, "ever since I saw those guys I've been eager to know what they were down here for. It's a long way down from the Styx. And halflings and gnomes and the like are, you know, just as commonly good and bad as any other race, but pixies tend to the Upper Planes, plus anyone demons slaughter, you know, I figure they've got a point in their favor."

"Allow me to introduce you to a little scrap they've been having with devils," Sampsa interjected.

"Understood," I said, "but as a general rule the point still stands." I turned to Ice. "If you were with them, and it has something to do with this power key, then maybe being a little more open about it will help us escape this tangle with our lives."

Ice chewed on that for a bit. Finally, she said, "The Vile Hunt has been more active recently. They used to be just a stupid lot of speciesists with a pathological obsession with the Beastlands and the impossible goal of empyting it out of talking animals. But lately they've expanded their ideas. Some of them are talking about hunts as vision quests. They were never very philosophical before. And get this: they're claiming that they've made friends with the Athar."

"Why?" I asked, because she wanted me to. "What percentage do the Defiers have in the Vile Hunt?"

"Athar are about seeking, in a way. And more importantly, the Hunt's claiming that they've started cluing themselves in on humanity's creator god. They've gotten all Gnostic on the other gods, calling them secondary creators and saying that they're hiding the true Creator from humans."

"So they're looking to expand in to god-hunting?"

"Animal god-hunting, at least. So their activities have gotten a lot more focused. They're poking around on the Beastlands for secrets. Strong word has it that they're looking for ways to take on one of the animal lords." She glanced at my scavenged pack. "And then Malarite artifacts started showing up with them. A holy symbol here and there, known priests. And then stuff like that." She addressed Sampsa. "It would help if you divulged to us the circumstances under which you lost your tooth."

"You would know all of that if you were involved with this from the Malarites' side," said Sampsa, "and following the icon would be an excellent way to locate and deal with a group come down from the Upper Planes to put a stop to such activities. Thus, I will decline to provide details until I have much more reason to trust you."

"See, Abaris? That's how you survive around here," Ice said, and turned back to the trip.

"How long do we have?" I asked later.

"The border's not rigidly defined," Ice replied. "We should reach it. . . oh, right about the time you get tired from the day's march."

"And what are your neighbors like?"

"There are fewer weres in their pack; mostly regular humans. No love for Rip, and sometimes they're willing to buy something from outsiders rather than eat them. But you? And with what you're carrying? I can't see them giving you any better a deal than Rip."

No use sighing. I marched, and tried to think of our next step.

"I say we kill him."

And things had been going so well.

"What is your response to his riddle, then?" asked the leader of the new pack: as Ice had said, not all of these were wolves. This man was young, bronzed, with sun-bleached hair and golden cat's eyes that suggested a touch of fiend. Tieflings, if I recalled correctly, couldn't be made lycanthropes, which would explain why the scars he bore hadn't transmitted the dise-- err, circumstance -- to him.

"He was hunted this morning," said the other speaker. This one was human-looking too, but he had the otherworldly air about him, an aura of muted affect and coolly distant threat -- he was a petitioner. Fascinating, that a living mortal could achieve a position above a petitioner in this realm. A certain straightforward meritocracy applied here after all. "He has traveled on foot, at human speed, from Rip's den. He cannot have diverged far from the direct path." We hadn't, either. I kept my face as straight as I could. "Somewhere between here and there we will find the missing piece -- the one that remains after we seize the other teeth from him and his treacherous allies."

Ice snapped a response in their own tongue, to which the petitioner replied. They argued briefly, and the new pack leader considered.

I piped up, "To a petitioner, forever isn't so long. If you have all eternity, a finite amount of space can be combed as thoroughly as you like. But if I survive the trip through this realm, you can have that tooth back in, what, a week?" Surely the pack leader wanted the icon -- preferably in good repair -- for himself, and sooner rather than later.

"There is also," added the petitioner with quiet menace, "the small matter of the fact that you have desecrated a gift from the Lord of Hunters himself."

The pack leader nodded. He said casually to me, "You realize, that sacrilege means your death is assured regardless. Even if we let you cross the territory, once you've told us where the missing piece is you have no further leverage."

"I suppose I feel confident enough that I'll be able to run once I've gotten to the border." And perhaps by the time I had crossed the territory I would have obtained more leverage.

The petitioner growled something to the pack leader. Ice said, "He says you must have a trick up your sleeve."

"Doesn't everyone?"

The pack leader snorted. He eyed the icon, still held in my hand, then looked up at me. "Know fear, Abaris. Even if you escape us at our border, even if you think you can run, we have many trackers experienced in hunting across planes. Your life will one day be forfeit."

I shrugged. "I'm a mortal. I was born with Death stalking me. 'One day' doesn't scare me."

"So be it." He turned to his underlings. "We let him through," he said in Sylvan, presumably for my benefit. "You will keep silent as to his crime, lest he be killed by angry brothers of ours before he can reveal his burial site." Nicely vague antecedent on that last clause there.

He turned back to me, and held out his hand.

Time to see if our negotiations were going to hold any water at all. I handed over the icon.

He took it reverently, kissing the larger remaining teeth, and was about to slip the string over his head when Ice said, "Are you sure it's okay for you to do that?"

He stopped. "What do you mean?"

"The human got it from some unit of troops outside our borders. Not brothers. It must belong to someone."

"It belongs to whoever holds it. You know that."

"Say rather that it belonged to someone, then -- someone favored by the Hunter. If they are still alive, they might come back for it."

"Let them!" he laughed, and slipped the string over his head. "If they come in peace, I will be honored by their presence. If they come in war, I will fight them. If they win, I will die at the hand of a great one. If they lose, then they were unworthy of this thing which they lost."

He stood taller with the icon on his shoulders, and the men with him, petitioner and mortal, were distinctly more respectful. I almost hated to give the thing up, except that I couldn't think of any other way to get through here.

"So you hadn't heard of such a thing being given out?" I asked. "One would have thought that they made news."

He glanced at me. "News travels fitfully around here. We live under the aegis of our god -- who cares what goes on elsewhere? The outside doesn't bother us."

"People hire Malarites for their skill at tracking, though, don't they?"

"Of course. And sometimes there is the call to increase the faith. . . are you just going to stand around now that we have made agreement?"

I tugged at my hat. "It's been a busy day. If I'm not going to be fighting for my life in the next few minutes, if it's all the same to you I'd like to look for a place to make camp."

He stood there for a beat. Then he blinked. "What? I should help you?"

No, of course not. I turned to Ice. "Is there any place along this fault to get a bit out of the rain?"

"This pack has a hunting lodge about a mile-"

"You're not welcome there," said the petitioner.

"--there's a shallow cave or two a couple of miles to our right," she offered.

"Let's go then." We trudged along the escarpment. The delegates of the new pack didn't follow us closely, but we were under no illusion that we walked alone.

A day's march in rain and river, bookended by fighting for my life twice, had left me completely spent. The hours had been short but full. As I dragged the croc's corpse into view of the shallow caves where Ice and Sampsa waited, my vision wavered. I was old, I realized -- I had once been toughened by years of war and adventure, but much of that had been taken from me, and now I was left with little to show for my years.

"Damned wraiths," I muttered, and fell to the wet soil beside the croc.

There was a black time.

When I awoke, hunger had clawed its way to the front of all other motivations. But first I had to interpret my sensations. There was a musty, organic smell. My surroundings were dim, but warm, and I was in a tightly enclosed space: rock on one side, and a large but softer mass on the other -- "Sampsa?"

"Ah, you're awake." He shifted away from me, and I realized that he had taken me to the cave and pressed me against the back wall, keeping me warm in my wet garments.

"I appreciate the warmth."

"I took payment from your catch."

"As long as you left me some!"

He laughed. "Plenty for a human."

"I must have been asleep for several hours. Did someone --"

"Yes, he came by. Since you weren't awake to confirm the terms, he said he'd return later."

"Allright then." I sat up.

It was drier outside, and so was I, although my robes were still damp. The skies had begun to clear, though a bit of chill still hung in the air.

Ice was sitting by the croc in human form. There was a small pile of wood beside her, peeled of its wet outer bark, and she was still passing the time shaving bits for tinder. She glanced over at me. "You eat anything on your trip?"

"Not yet," I replied. My stomach growled at me, insistent. "Best satisfy the local rules, I suppose," I said. I reached down to pry open its jaws and cut a slice of tongue, which seemed like the most appetizing bit to eat uncooked.

Ice cocked an eyebrow at me but said nothing. I held the little shred of raw meat in front of my mouth, hunger driving me, aided and abetted by rationalization (rules were rules, right?), warring with civilized reflexes and worries about contamination.

I dropped it. This realm tried to brutalize you. I wasn't going to let it. "Give me an hour to pray, and I'll be readier."

"Whatever," she said.

I knelt down by the cave, made the sign of the circle, and meditated on the teachings.

"What's the point?" said Marocatos. "We already have two rabbits in the traps. We're eating tonight."

"You don't leave an animal - pant - wounded," I said as we ran through the forest. The deer would have been faster than us, but its bloody back leg was hampering it.

"It's getting dark," he said. "And we're close to the Nevdan border. Word has it he was -- pant -- in negotiations with Longmont. The night -- pant -- isn't safe to get lost in here."

"Then let's catch it fast," I said. We came to a stretch of thinner trees. I nocked an arrow on the run, and paused for a step. I loosed, and missed.

Marocatos passed me the moment my arrow was leaving the string. "But seriously," he said as I charged of after him again, "what's the point? Mercy? We're going to kill it. Some mercy."

"It's not right to leave an animal in pain."

"Don't you think it would rather live with a wound than die?"

"It'll --" we jumped a tangle of roots -- "fester. If illness doesn't kill it, a predator will."

"That's the way it would have died."

"Except I started this. I have to take --" we split around a tree -- "responsibility."

"Maybe it will survive. Old ones get strong that way."

"It's the rule," I said. "Don't harm things without cause." The deer reached a dropoff, which was its undoing. As it slid down the side of a gully, it lost its footing and fell. We leapt down after it. Marocatos grabbed its antlers and exposed its throat. I put an end to it.

In the sudden silence, Marocatos said, "I guess pretending this was the reason you shot it in the first place. . . doesn't make enough sense to me. It's a stupid rule." He looked at the deer, its eyes still open, seeing now the next world. "It gave us a good chase. We should have let it go."

"Lots of druids are vegetarians," I said as I lashed its feet to a convenient branch.

He picked up his end as we climbed up. "I'm not that broken up over it," he said.

I returned to the world. Now, without further ceremony, I dusted myself off, went over to the pile of wood that Ice had gathered, and quickly arranged it for a fire. With a simple spell, I had a flame in my hand, strong enough for the wood to catch quickly.

Ice had left the slice of tongue alone. I quickly cut several more, enough for a small meal, and in case of parasite or some planar toxin that might have lodged in the croc's flesh, I spoke a word of purification over them. I stuck them on a bigger skewer and let them dangle for a while, turning my attention to opening up the hide with my spearpoint. It wasn't the most convenient tool, but it kept me distracted for a few more minutes.

When the meat had cooked just enough to give it a semblance of civilization, I ignored the croc, grabbed the tongue slices off the fire and burned my tongue having my first bite in 24 hours.

I sat back. "Oh, thank goodness. Something in your stomach makes a man feel whole again." I looked over at Ice, who was warming herself by the fire. I looked at the tongue slices, and passed the stick over.

She looked up and waved me off. "Eat."

"You were patient."

"You killed it."

"We're traveling together. And two days is long enough for you to be hungry again." I pushed the stick at her. "What, don't you eat cooked food?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not entirely a wolf, you know," she said, and grabbed a slice off the stick.

I munched on another bit. I hadn't had a chance to really look at Ice in human form before. Her waist-length hair was long and black, the same as her coat as a wolf, her eyes the blue of her namesake. She wore leather, the same as everyone else around here, jacket to moccasins. She had a little wealth, choosing clear and blue stones set in gold bracelets and anklets. Her knife was one with a vial in the hilt, usually meant for poison, and from the weight of it as she moved it I guessed it was loaded -- I'd have laid long odds the load was silversheen. Probably a capital crime around here.

"So where to now?" I asked. "Do you know this territory?"

"Not as well, obviously," she said. "I know Tigereye's den is further along the river, I've been there a few times. They're on a crossroads of paths that lead in and out of the domain towards one of the biggest dens, Night's Rest. They're further in, near the center. Night's Rest actually has a town, built up around a temple and everything. It's where outsiders usually go when they want to hire trackers. That's where we should head."

"Hope I don't meet Malar at the temple."

"You only wish for that honor."

"That honor probably be the end of me."

She looked over at me coolly. "Maybe he'd try to convert you, you know. Gods can be pretty persuasive regarding their own philosophies."

"Did he persuade you?"

Now she glared. There was a moment's silence in which I think she actually considered attacking me, and I tensed. Then she breathed again. "Sampsa is right about one thing. I am a Malarite, Abaris. You had best treat the Beastlord with more respect if we are going to work together."

I shook my head slowly. "There's no way. You have to be lying. You don't act anything like what the God of the Bloody Kill teaches."

"There is more to him than the bloody kill. If you will listen you may learn."

"If you're a Malarite and I'm a druid why am I still alive?"

She did not reply for a moment. "Perhaps I'm a heretic," she said.

We did not speak again until Sampsa came back. "I see you have eaten too," he rumbled. "We are waiting for the trader?"

I nodded.

Sampsa looked back and forth between us, and decided to ignore the conversational dynamic. "And then where?"

"Night's Rest," said Ice. "It's a little to the left of the direct path across the realm for us, but there are roads to speed our travel. Also, I want to stop in there and do a few things." She glanced at the fire. "Abaris may wish to keep his spellcasting to a minimum. And cover up some of those markings on his armor." She snorted. "And I wouldn't acquire an animal companion between here and there if I were you."

I thought about Cirrus, waiting for me at Tidesea. "Keep the druidry a secret. Understood. Why do you want to go to Night's Rest?"

"It's convenient," she said. "And like I said, I have things I want to do there. Do you need me as a guide, or do you want to strike across territory on your own?"

"Side trip it is," I said. "Sampsa?"

He shrugged. "I have no objection. Powdered limestone, you said?"

"Yeah." I went back to peeling the hide off the croc as we waited.

"The short answer is, I was selected due to my relationship with my creator. You'll need the details on that, which will explain a bit of my reluctance to talk about it. . ."

He was silent for a bit.

"The Beastlands are a pretty inward-looking plane. Project Sampsa is one of the few interventionist initiatives you'll find there. It's a group of wizards, priests, druids, alchemists, and a few others, who are devoted to healing major environmental disasters on Prime worlds. Being based in a place where spirit is malleable and the animal nature is strong makes it easy to hasten the creation of lifeforms to fill niches or resurrect specimens of extinct species."

"I'm a little surprised I haven't heard of them," I said.

"They tend to seek opportunities rather than advertise. Work like that costs money, and nations in dire straits after a major blow to the environment will pay well."

"So they're parasites," said Ice. "Working for money, feeding off of the wounded."

"No -- at least I wouldn't call them that. They wouldn't last long if they did it for free. They're leery of operating under the aegis of a god, and relying on donors would severely restrict their operations. This is simply the way they can have the biggest effect, as they see it."

"At any rate," I urged him on.

"Yes." He licked his chops. "I was meant to be a top-level magical predator. I was an attempt to blend a base of lion and tiger with cat features of manticore and griffin."

I pursed my lips. "Manticores and griffons are intelligent." Messing with their life force was an ethically heavy proposition.

"I was not meant to be so. But ligers are vigorous hybrids. And their spells may have worked to greater effect than intended." He glanced at his sides. "I was born with vestigial wings, actually. They shriveled. But I have dreams of flying."

He continued quietly. "When their spells to mold animal creatures failed upon me, and they realized that I understood speech, I was marked as a failure."

"No living creature is a failure," I said urgently.

"I understand your philosophical position," he said, "and its moral import was shared by my creators. They gave me shelter, saw to it that I was raised and educated. A bit catch as can, they weren't set up to be a school, but when you are surrounded by mages and alchemists and priests with stacks of books on everything from abiogenesis to zymurgy, you learn a few things.

"No, the failure refers only to the original purpose of my creation. My litter-mates were more successful -- they were aged, bred, the population shipped off to the Prime that had needed them. I alone was left behind, of no particular use to those who had brought me in to being." He paced along. "May you never know what it is like to be the only one of your brothers and sisters with speech. I could grieve with Five when he lost his wizard friend, but could not tell him of an afterlife; could lie down with Seven during her difficult pregnancy, but never comfort her with the soft glow of a poem."

"I have run with packs of wolves," said Ice, "and mourned more than one matriarch before the snows broke. I do not think that sorrow compares to yours, but I offer it in sympathy."

"Thank you," he said. "At any rate, I grew up. I might have stayed around Project Sampsa as a soldier, but I decided to get away from those memories. They were based on Krigala, so I went down to Brux to do some thinking. Visited the Cat Lord and paid my respects. It was while I was there that I made the acquaintance of the Vile Hunt. You see, it's a great success among them to be the one to take out the last member of a species -- and apparently I qualified."

I made a noise. You couldn't really say there were words in it.

"I thought that would meet your disapproval," he said lightly. "After I and a few friends had taken out the first couple who tried, they apparently poked around a bit more and found out that I was a reject from my creator. That really got their attention. It was shortly after that that the Malarites showed up. Strong ones. I was captured, my companions killed. Me, they bound, and they took my fang." His face writhed into a snarl.

"The process of doing so involved a certain amount of scarring and branding. My coat's grown back now, but I can tell you. I've seen a few magical writings growing up, and I'm absolutely certain that it was important to them that I had been discarded by my creator, or was a species estranged from its god, or something to that effect."

"Damn," said Ice.

We both waited for further commentary from her. When it wasn't forthcoming, I prodded. "What?"

"I was. . . worried about this. Normally, a power key only lets you casts spells that you usually couldn't, right?"

"Well, 'only' is a little dismissive -- that's a hell of a power boost," I said. "Not to mention being a sacred thing itself."

"Right, right," she said. "But Sampsa describes an awfully specific requirement, don't you think? I mean, I know practically zero about magic. But things like other things are important for it?"

"Law of Sympathy. Sure."

"So if you want a symbol of killing power against a god, what might help? What about a fang from predator rejected by their creator, a creature that need answer to no deity? A cat with no loyalty to any cat god?"

". . .maaaybe."

"So what if that icon is more than just a power key? What if it's an anti-god weapon? Or at least an anti-animal lord weapon?"

"That's a lot of speculation."

"I know. I know." She shook her head. "We need more facts. And that's something I hope we can find around Night's Rest. Someone had to make that thing. Maybe we can hear something about who."

"You have contacts you trust?"

She laughed. "Of course not. I have people that I might be able to ask, if we're careful, and either bribe them or threaten them enough, and then get out of town before they alert someone else."

I looked to the road ahead. "Sounds like a plan."

We had gone perhaps another mile before something struck me. "Say," I said to Sampsa, "where did the Little Folk come in to it?"

"Oh," he said. "They were from the nation that put in the original order. Something had happened with some major magical or divine blow-up. Even they never knew quite what. Anyway, they needed to repopulate a swath of continent fast. Project Sampsa heard about it and offered their services; they agreed. They sent some young representatives who were willing to hang around and keep an eye on the work for the years it would take. We became friends. A couple of them came with me after my -- the others were shipped off." He paused. "They were the ones the Malarites killed. Takes an odd halfling to enjoy lounging around on Brux, but they always seemed comfortable with it."

"They were from my world," said Ice. "There's as much variation in Little Folk technology as there is in human tools across the planes, and on my world the Little Folk are the ones that have stayed closer to nature. They're not the sort of comfortable fat little burghers they are on a lot of planes; on my world they roam, they hunt, they gather."

"Who was the one with the heraldry?" I asked.

"One who had made a name for himself as a hero in human lands," she said.

"He came for vengeance?"

"Not his style. Probably investigating the same thing we are. Also. . . possibly other things related to the original disaster."

"You know what that was?" Sampsa asked.

She hesitated. "Planar incursion," she said, and over our questions, said, "You'll get nothing more on it from me at the moment."

"Fine," I said. "Do you expect to meet him in here, then?"

"Our gnomes are extremely good at illusions," she said, "but it would be very risky -- on the other hand, if he decides that coming in here is his best option I wouldn't remotely put it past him."

We went on for a bit. Finally, I asked, "If your suspicions are borne out, what do you intend to do?"

She was silent. "I don't know yet."

". . .all right."