Black Wolf

Chapter 8

Tarsakh, 1371 DR

Impious shadow of the king who was," bellowed Presbart as the baron. His soldiers pointed their swords at Tal's heart. "Release the scepter stolen from his tomb!"

"I wear the crown by acclamation true," replied Tal, leaping back onto the crenellated wall. "Deny my claim and hasten your own doom." On the rhyming syllable, he struck a guard's blade from his hand.

The weapon skittered across the stage and shot through the surrounding rails, sending Sivana and Ennis diving out of the way. Ennis managed to flatten himself, causing even more laughter among the other players.

Tal winced at the accident and smiled a weak apology. The distraction almost caused him to miss the incoming attacks. He parried one blade and leaped over the other. When the guard swung again, he leaped up to stamp on the blade, trapping it on the wall. His kick missed the guard's face by less than an inch, and the man flipped backward to lay still.

"Your reign was not ordained, O faithless prince," declared Presbart, brandishing his own sword.

The first guard grabbed a spear from the back wall and thrust at Tal's head. Tal parried easily, then bound the spear's shaft with his sword and thrust it into the baron's sword, blocking them both.

Tal leaped from the battlement to arch over both men. He twisted gracefully to land facing them from behind. Still distracted by his earlier blunder, he neglected to bend his knees to cushion the blow. The impact of his body sent a booming echo through the trapdoor room below.

Before his foes could turn around, Tal thrust his blade under the arm of the guard, who cried out, clutched his heart, and fell to the floor. The baron dropped his sword and ran to hide behind the stage right pillar. Tal followed, slashing first on one side, then the other, as the cowardly baron dodged.

"In faith, I am a prince no more than thou," said Tal, "As this, my final answer to your base demands will… oh, dark and empty. What's the line?"

"That's enough," said Quickly from the floor. Her big arms were crossed over her chest, and she gnawed on the stem of her unlit pipe.

"I almost had it," said Tal, walking to the edge of the stage. "The sword going off the stage threw me. We should probably reverse that so it goes backstage."

Quickly nodded. "Right. Show Mallion what to do."

"You're giving the part to him?"

Mallion was the most beautiful man in the Wide Realms troupe, and he knew it. Even at nearly thirty, he looked only a few years older than Tal and the other young players. They all teased him for spending so much money on skin creams, hair tonics, and eye cosmetics, but his flawless complexion and rich black curls garnered him a flock of adoring admirers after each performance. Worse yet, in Tal's opinion, he really was a fine actor with tremendous range. His elocution was second only to Presbart's rolling phrases, and he was one of Tal's few rivals for physical scenes.

Behind Quickly, Mallion buffed his nails on his chest. Beside him, Sivana flicked his ear and shot Tal a sympathetic wink. With Mallion and Tal, she was one of the most accomplished stage fencers in the company. Of them, only Tal had any real weapons training, but Sivana's lithe, androgynous figure made her a better foil for the slender Mallion. Both of them squeezed together would barely make one Tal.

"He's better for it, Tal. You know that." Quickly beckoned him down from the stage. He leaped the rail and landed heavily on the ground. Walnut shells left by last night's groundling's crunched under his feet. "Besides, one more vault like that one and you'll go straight through to the Nine Hells."

"I can fall into a roll, instead," he said. "Or we could move the wall to curve around there, and…"

"I've made up my mind, Tal, my lad You're good, especially at the swordplay, but Mallion makes the better villain."

As if to prove the point, the handsome actor leered menacingly behind Quickly. Without looking, she poked him in the chest with a beefy elbow.

"Oof," he said with exaggerated injury. Then he smoothed his neat beard in a gesture that made Tal think of a cat cleaning itself.

"What about me?" said Tal. Hearing the whining in his own voice made everything that much worse.

"I was thinking of Maeroven," said Quickly.

Tal rolled his eyes. He didn't want to play the bumbling cook. "But I played the nurse in The Curse of Brynwater Abbey" he complained. "People will start expecting me to wear a dress every time I get on stage."

"You should have thought about that before you perfected her voice," said Quickly.

Tal wasn't so distracted that he didn't catch the change in her tone. He was about to suffer a tweaked nose.

"What voice is that?" he asked innocently.

Both Mallion and Sivana were hiding their faces. They'd told her about Tal's Mistress Quickly imitation, which he was careful to do only well out of the troupe leader's hearing.

"You know the one," said the brawny woman, slapping him on the bottom. " 'No, no, that's all wrong! Say it with guts. With guts!'"

Now the entire company broke into laughter. Sivana actually fell onto her back, kicking the empty air. She shook her head back and forth, sweeping the hard packed ground with her hair, which was black this month. No one could agree on its natural color, which was the source of speculation even among the majority of the company, whom she'd taken to bed.

"That's not it," said Tal. "It's more like, 'What's the matter with you street buskers? Leave your spines backstage? Stand up straight and tell me that!' "

The laughter turned to wails and gasps, and even Quickly herself was fanning herself with one meaty hand.

"You're a good play, Tal," said Quickly with another sharp swat to his buttock. "Glad you understand about the part."

He did understand, but Tal still felt a strong pang of disappointment. For months he'd been pestering Quickly to give him a role in which he could show off all he'd learned at Master Ferrick's. Despite all his auditions, he always ended up with a supporting role, usually a comic foil or a character with a peculiar voice. He had no one to blame but himself for the latter, since he'd been mimicking the butts of his jokes since he was a small boy.

Quickly turned to address the company at large. "All right, you bunch of street buskers…" She paused for the laugh. "Back here tomorrow, in costume by noon. Don't forget your wands for the jig."

Half the company moaned at the reminder. Since last summer, Quickly began adding a jig to the end of the tragedies. She said it was to give people a lift after all the death and despair. Sivana joked that it was to scare the audience out of the playhouse so the players had a fair chance to get a seat at the alehouses before the places were filled. Tal liked the absurdity of showing the dead princes and queens dancing merrily after their death scenes, shaking their skull-topped wands for the audience. It was a reminder that nothing was real on the stage.

"Hey!" called a voice from the first balcony. Chaney hoisted a pair of leather tankards and set them on the railing. "I brought you something from the ale cart."

Tal scrambled up a beam to the middle gallery. He was nowhere as nimble as Lommy, but he was becoming quite the climber thanks to all the time he spent helping Quickly repair the thatched roof after the winter storms. It gave him a workout as well as an excuse to avoid the tallhouse, where Thamalon had been sending him messages. Tal refused to read them. He was still angry about Thamalon's lecture about Larajin.

"Thanks," he said to Chaney, taking the tankard and draining it in one long draught.

"Nice one! I thought you were taking it easier these days."

"Special occasion," said Tal, wiping the foam from his upper lip.

"So I see. You were pretty good up there, but I did worry you'd go right through that floor."

"That's ridiculous. It's an excellent floor. I reinforced it myself only last month."

"Well, there was that business with the sword, too."

"Nobody was hurt."

"And it might have helped if you'd remembered your lines."

"All right," sighed Tal. "That part was a problem."

"Want another drink? I think I've got a few fivestars left."

"No, thanks. Let's get out of here."

As they rose to leave, Chancy spotted someone on the far side of the gallery. "What's she doing here?"

Tal followed Chaney's gaze until it came to Feena, sitting alone in the gentlemen's gallery. She wore a simple blue dress over a cream blouse, without the night-blue cloak she usually wore. Someone had embroidered the dress with bright green and yellow leaf patterns, and Tal wondered whether Feena had done the work herself.

Despite the efforts, she still looked like a country girl, but more like one visiting the city to see the sights. Tal almost expected her to dart away, as she did when she first began spying on him last winter. Instead, she walked up to the railing dividing the gentleman's gallery from the common seats.

Tal considered whether he should just walk away. He was in no mood for her arrogant preaching, even though she and Maleva had saved his life twice. Still, his feelings toward the clergy of Selune had mellowed since his meeting with Dhauna Myritar, and he was curious why Feena had returned. He met her at the rail.

"Well met," he said, hoping the common greeting would hold true this time.

"Well again," she said, glancing at his face only briefly before casting her eyes down at the rail. She did not seem shy so much as uncomfortable, and Tal was pleased to know he wasn't alone in that. "Sorry you didn't get the part you wanted."

Her reminder of his failure annoyed him, especially since he found it hard to believe she was truly sympathetic. "It's good not to get everything you want," he said. "We spoiled rich children have trouble with that."

"I didn't say a thing!" said Feena. She turned to Chancy for corroboration. "Did I say a thing?"

"She didn't say a thing. I'm pretty sure she didn't."

Tal took another of the deep breaths that were becoming the punctuation marks of his life. As he let it out, he said, "You're right. I'm sorry. I must be a little more disappointed about the audition than I thought."

"That's no reason to be sarcastic."

"No," he agreed. "It's no reason at all."

"All right, then," she said.

"All right."

"This could be a long conversation," observed Chaney, "if the two of you keep repeating each other."

They both turned to glare at him.

"Of course, I could help by butting out, couldn't I?"

"Are you-hungry?" asked Tal. "Care to join us for dinner?"

Feena shook her head and opened her mouth to decline, but then she changed her mind. Perhaps it was as difficult for her to be civil as it was for Tal. "Yes, please. I would like that."

They made an unusual spectacle as they strolled west down Sarn Street, two of Selgaunt's most eligible bachelors on either side of an uncultured young woman who might have fallen off a milk wagon. Tal wore Perivel's sword at his side, and even Chaney went armed with a slender blade. After the fight on the High Bridge, they were both more careful not to travel alone. Going armed made them look like bravos, especially when they swaggered down the streets in mockery of their more popular peers.

After a whispering group of Soargyl girls sniggered at them as they passed by, Chaney gallantly offered Feena his arm. He was always quick to defy the mores of his class. Feena looked at his crooked arm and shook her head. Chaney looked hurt, and Tal could tell his reaction wasn't just in jest.

"I thought you and Maleva had gone home," he said to her.

"We did," she replied. "Mother wanted to see whether there was any sign of Rusk near the wood. Besides, the people there count on her for help."

"Was there?" asked Tal. When Feena looked at him blankly, he added, "Any sign of Rusk."

"No," said Feena. "Not for certain, at least. His pack still roams the forest, but one of the other nightwalkers might be leading them."

"Are they all nightwalkers?"

"Yes, but Rusk also leads a wider congregation on festival days. Even the good folk are afraid to turn him out of their villages at festival."

"I don't understand that," said Chaney. He crooked his fingers above his head and capered like a goblin." Tm the great bloody monster of an animal god, here to devour your children. Please come to my ceremony, and don't be stingy at the offering box.' "

"You have no idea what you're talking about," said Feena.

"No," agreed Chaney, "you're right. I might be ignorant in the ways of rural beast gods, but it seems ludicrous to invite some barking madman into town when you know his people turn into wolves and eat folk."

"That's not all they do," said Feena. "They're hunters, and they don't prey on the villagers."

"Why are you defending them?" asked Tal.

"I'm not defending them," said Feena. "I'm explaining why the people pay their respects to their god. You live in a port city. Don't your sailors pray to Umberlee?"

"Sure," said Chaney. "They pay tribute so the Sea Queen doesn't sink their ships."

"Ye-es?" drawled Feena, encouraging Chaney to make the connection.

"They're warding off evil," said Tal. "Like paying off bandits to leave your caravans alone."

"Ha! You sound like Thamalon when you put it that way," said Chaney.

"You take that back!" said Tal, capturing his friend in a headlock. They wrestled in mock combat for a moment before realizing that Feena was staring at them impatiently.

"How old are you two?"

"I'm one-and-twenty," said Chaney, squirming out of Tal's hold. "This big lout's the baby, though you wouldn't think it to look at him."

"You're both behaving like ten-year-old boys."

"We were just having a bit of fun," said Chaney. "You could stand to have a little fun yourself. In a few years, they'll be calling you an old maid."

Tal winced at Chaney's crass remark. Feena was probably still a few years shy of thirty, but she was in no danger of appearing past her prime. True, her round hips and unrestrained breasts were not noble Selgaunt's feminine ideal, but Tal doubted she cared about city ideals.

"I'm not here for fun," she said, turning her back on Chaney and stabbing a finger at Tal. "I'm here to look after you."

"I don't need looking after."

"Besides, that's my job," said Chaney, puffing out his chest. "I watch his back."

Feena snorted derisively. "Why do I have the feeling you're the one who gets him into trouble?"

"Hey!" protested Chaney.

"Hm," observed Tal. Remembrance of the attack on the High Bridge darkened his thoughts, but he was too pleased that Feena had turned her sharp tongue back on Chaney to dwell on it. "She's more perceptive than she looks."

"Hey!"

"Let me guess," said Tal, voicing a thought he had been considering since the moment of Feena's return. "You're the one Dhauna Myritar sent to help me."

Feena lifted her chin. "That's right," she said, "and she also told me you promised to cooperate."

Tal laughed. "We'll see about that," he said. "Now come on. Here's the place."

He nodded at a small shop whose sign depicted a pie through which poked the heads of three singing blackbirds, and through its door came the savory odor of chicken pies. They went inside and found a vacant table, where the proprietor took their orders and left them with a steaming pot of the hot black tea Sembians favored.

"Mother says she's sure Rusk is alive," said Feena. She poured for Chaney and Tal before filling her own cup.

"How does she know?" asked Tal.

"I don't know," Feena answered. "Sometimes she just knows things, and it does no good to ask how."

She looked down at the table, and Tal realized she must be as frustrated with her mother as he had been with Chaney.

"If that ambulatory carpet comes back here," said Chaney brightly, "Tal's going to lop off his other arm." The table rocked as Tal kicked him in the shins. "Ow! Well, you said so yourself, didn't you?"

"You were lucky last time," said Feena, fixing Tal's eyes with her own. "You realize that, don't you?"

"Maybe," said Tal.

Feena's face flushed as she raised a finger to berate him.

"Yes, I was lucky," Tal added before she could speak. "I know, but I also didn't know he was coming. Now I'm better prepared."

"With what? That great ridiculous beam you call a sword? Rusk can stop you with a word. The only reason he didn't do it last time was because he was seducing you."

"Seducing me?" said Tal, grimacing at the word. "He didn't even buy me dinner."

"Can you be serious for once and listen to what I'm telling you?"

"We're quarreling again, aren't we?" said Chaney. "You two should just rent a room and get it out of your systems." He pushed back from the table before Tal could land another kick.

"All I'm saying is that you need a plan if you want to be ready for Rusk." Feena tossed back her tea and slammed the ceramic cup on the table. Tal refilled it.

"Wait a moment," said Tal. "Rusk hasn't gone back to his lair, right?"

"Right, as far as we can tell."

"So where in the Nine Hells has he been hiding all this time?"

"Perhaps somewhere in Selgaunt," suggested Feena.

"He's not exactly inconspicuous," said Chaney. "He'd have to have someplace to hide for those two or three months."

"Somehow, I don't see Rusk spending that time at an inn," said Tal. "He must have friends in the city. What do you think, Feena?"

She thought for a moment before answering. "It's possible," she said. "Rusk is older than he looks. Mother said he roamed all over Sembia when he was young."

"If he was interested in you the whole time," said Chaney, "then it all started with that hunting trip. Whose idea was that?"

"I don't remember," said Tal. "One of the Soargyls, maybe."

"Wasn't it Alale who actually invited you?"

"Maybe," said Tal with a frown. "Dark and empty! I think it was."

"Why don't you ask him?" said Feena. "Maybe he has some connection to Rusk."

"He does," said Tal. "Or rather, he did. He's the one Rusk killed in my tallhouse last winter."

Tal's appetite vanished as he remembered waking up to find the man's mutilated body in his own bedroom. At first he feared he'd done the killing himself. Later, Feena assured him that she'd seen Rusk commit the murder in an effort to inflame Tal's bloodlust. Tal remembered none of it, for he remained completely unconscious of what occurred while he was in wolf form.

"That means Alale can't have been the one hiding him all this time," said Chaney. "If he has a friend in the city, it's someone else."

"Good thinking," said Feena.

Chaney missed her sarcastic tone and basked in the compliment.

"We can work on figuring out who Rusk's city friends are," said Tal, "but I'm more interested in finding out what he wants with me. Dhauna was very nice, but she didn't tell me anything about that."

" 'Dhauna,' is it?"

"Yes," said Tal. "We hit it off. You could say we're friends."

"She's the high priestess of Selune!"

Tal smiled over his teacup. "She likes me."

Feena turned away but glanced back at him out of the corner of her eyes. Rather than rise to the bait, she returned to the subject at hand. "Mother will give us a sending if someone spots Rusk."

"Isn't it dangerous for her to stay so close to the pack?" asked Tal. "Even with two of you there, aren't you horribly outnumbered?"

"She can take care of herself," said Feena. "Selune grants strong powers against shapechangers."

"They didn't stop Rusk last time," said Tal.

"That wasn't our fault," protested Feena. "He surprised us. It didn't help that you'd locked yourself inside a cage and were no help in the beginning."

"I was only in the cage to keep from hurting-"

"Girls, girls," said Chancy. "You're both pretty."

"You stay out of this," said Feena.

"He'll probably come during a full moon, won't he?" said Tal, pouring more tea.

"Not necessarily," said Feena. "Unlike you, he can change shape whenever he likes. So can most of his pack."

"You're going to teach me how to do that, aren't you?" said Tal.

"Maybe," said Feena. "It all depends on you. Not everyone can manage to ride the moon."

"It won't matter if he just wants to kill you this time," suggested Chaney. "You did cut off his arm, after all. I'd be pissed about that. Wouldn't you, Feena?"

Feena ignored the remark. "Rusk is a proud man. You wounded his pride as much as his body, but I don't think he wants you dead."

"Because he thinks I'm this Black Wolf?"

"Where did you hear that?" demanded Feena. Her voice was tinged with alarm. "Did Rusk say it to you?"

"Actually, I heard it from you," Tal smiled, "when you and Maleva left my tallhouse." When Feena looked perplexed, Tal added, "My hearing has been getting keener. I wasn't trying to spy on you."

Feena frowned. "Never mind the Black Wolf prophecy. It's nothing to do with you anyway."

"It's a prophecy? I thought you said 'heresy.' That's what Dhauna called it."

Feena looked to the heavens in exasperation. "Stop calling her that! It gives me the creeps."

"So tell me about the prophecy."

"It's something Rusk believed. The temple of Selune declared it heretical back in the Eighth Century."

"Why?"

"Because it is heresy. It combines legends from the cult of Malar with philosophical discourses from sages devoted to Selune. Besides, it's a load of rubbish that's been the cause of no end of trouble since Rusk first heard about it."

"Because Rusk thinks I'm the Black Wolf? Or because he thinks he is?"

"It's nothing to do with you or Rusk, and it's bollocks anyway!"

The shop owner returned with a platter of steaming pies, setting them before each of his guests before hastening back to the kitchen. He looked glad to escape his bickering patrons.

For a while they ate in silence, blowing on the molten spoonfuls of thick gravy filled with chunks of meat and vegetables before tasting them. Chaney managed to burn his tongue and flapped his hands helplessly until one of the cooks ran to him with a cup of cold water.

Eventually, Tal broke the silence.

"All right, so you don't want to talk about the Black Wolf, whatever that is. How are you planning to help me learn to 'ride the moon'?"

"Is that another country euphemism like 'roll in the hay'?" asked Chaney. Feena flicked a glob of hot gravy at him, and it stuck on his cheek. Chaney wiped it off with his thumb and sucked it clean.

"It means controlling your change, making it happen when you choose. It's hard, and not everyone can do it."

"How do you know how to do it?" said Tal.

"It's something the clerics of Selune have been teaching for years. It's a discipline, a kind of meditation. It would have been a lot easier if you were one of us, because then you could take the moonfire. It'll be even harder for you, since you have the attention span of a toddler."

"She's got you there," said Chaney. "Master Ferrick was always calling Tal 'unteachable.' "

"I've been doing very well lately, thank you. I've won a challenge almost every meet these past two months. You could've watched me whip Mervyn Elzimmer next time if you hadn't dropped out."

"Too expensive," said Chaney. Before Tal could offer to pay his tuition, Chaney added, "Besides, I'm a lover, not a fighter."

Feena appraised him again, shaking her head in disbelief. When Chaney saw that she was looking down on him, he sat up straight.

"I guess everyone moved up a rank when Malveen quit," said Chaney.

"He didn't quit," said Tal. "Pietro sold Arryn Kessel one of those weird paintings of his and said Radu was just out of town on business."

Like most others in Selgaunt, Tal had little use for the peculiar Pietro Malveen, but he admired Pietro's older brother and hoped one day to challenge him to a match at Ferrick's. First he would have to earn that right, however, and the prospect of testing his skill against that of Ferrick's best student drove him more than any other force to hone his skill.

He had little hope of besting Radu Malveen at the blade, he knew, but Tal consciously tried to imitate the older man's cool grace. Some might consider him aloof, but most of the other students were young and shallow in comparison, a good fifteen years younger than Radu.

"Can you two save the gossip for another time?" said Feena impatiently. "It's not as if I know anything about your little social circles."

"Sorry," said Chaney.

Tal nodded. "All right, when do we begin learning to ride the moon?"

"The next full moon," said Feena. "But there are things I can show you before then. Breathing's the first thing."

"I think he's got that one licked," said Chaney. This time it was Feena who kicked him under the table. "Ow! Between the two of you, I won't have a leg to stand on."

"Actually," said Tal, "Breathing is one of the first things Master Ferrick taught us. Breathing and balance."

"That's good," said Feena. "It's probably similar to what we'll be doing."

Chaney opened his mouth to make another jest, but one dire glance from Feena shut it again.

"What are the two halves of balance?" asked Feena.

"The red and the white," said Tal. "Aggression and passivity, anger and calm, force and acceptance."

Feena looked impressed. "Then you understand that Malar is the red, Selune the white."

"Motion and stillness," said Tal, nodding.

"Good and evil," offered Chaney.

"No," said Feena and Tal at once.

"Malar is evil," corrected Feena. "That is, evil in the sense that we understand it. His followers are cruel and often wicked. But for what we're discussing, it's not a question of good or evil. It's the light and the darkness, the moon and the shadow."

"And you want both of them inside of you," said Tal. "Right?"

Feena nodded, not in response to his question but in silent appraisal of all he had said. "I think this just might work," she said.

"I hope so," said Tal, "because otherwise I'm going to have to charge you for the room and board."