Dion turned then and smiled at him, and automatically, his expression lightened. She raised her eyebrows, and he shrugged. They would talk later. They always did, when the moons were riding the sky. But the sound of the wolf on his porch made him wonder, with the elders prodding and duty pulling, how long he could keep Dion there.

Aranur had already left for town by the time both boys were ready to ride, so after saying good-bye to her older, adopted son, Tomi, and the young woman to whom he had Promised, Dion had the two younger boys to herself.

Once the three had skirted the town and made it to the southern track, Danton, irrepressible as a pup, began egging his dnu to jump this little bump or race ahead when Dion wasn't looking. Hishn, trotting just ahead of the boy's dnu, took it upon herself to discipline the youngest boy, and Dion had to hide her smile as Danton received his third warning. Hishn had the patience of a worlag, but her teeth were also just as sharp. Danton had not yet learned not to push the Gray One's tolerance, but he was growing older, and Hishn was ready to wean the boy of his antics.

Olarun, however, was a different matter. Dion smiled at her older son with pride. He was already skilled enough in the woods to have been allowed to ran trail by himself, and he was eager to learn, asking question after question. If she hadn't been so amused by Danton's antics, she could have showed Olarun twice as much, but as it was the boys competed with each other as if they were in a fighting ring. By the time they reached the intermediate town of Sharbrere, they were picking at each other mercilessly.

"You have your choice," Dion told them firmly. "Either settle down and behave, or I'll leave you here in Sharbrere till tomorrow morning. I can't have you acting this way in the clinic." Olarun flushed, and Dion turned to her saddlebag to dig out their lunch while they decided.

Danton poked his brother in the side. "It's all your fault," he whispered.

"Is not," Olarun hissed. He shoved Danton away.

But the younger boy tripped over a stone, falling on his rump. He was up

again in an instant-not to pretend nothing happened, but to hit Olarun in the stomach. Dion whirled.

"Danton! Olarun!" she snapped.

Hishn had moved away to lie down in the shade of the fence around the

commons where they had stopped, and now she flicked her ears. They have your temper, Wolfwalker.

"Don't I know it," Dion muttered. She looked from one to the other. Both boys were tousled, their clothes rumpled and dirty. She had a sudden vision of herself and her brother in front of her father's smithy. She and Rhom had fought like this-when they wanted their father's attention.

"It's another hour to Kitman," she said quietly. "I must do some healing there, and I don't think either of you is really interested in waiting for me at the clinic." Olarun shot Danton a venomous look, and Dion sighed.

"Perhaps you two should stay here tonight, with Nior. Then we'll have the next three days all to ourselves. You won't have to worry about getting lost among the patients or-" She shot them a stern look. "-getting into trouble while I'm working. When I'm done there, I'll come right back, and we can be together."

"Just you and us?" Olarun ventured. "No escorts or scouting? No

ringrunners or messengers who will take you away?"

There had been an unconscious longing in Olarun's voice, and Dion forced her voice to be steady. "Not this time. It's just you and I, boys."

Danton eyed her from beneath long lashes. "Promise?"

"Promise," she assured them. Pray the moons there would be no emergencies, she added, and that the ringrunners could not find them. She shook herself. There were other healers; other scouts. Her boys had to come first sometime.

She left Olarun and Danton in Sharbrere with some friends the boys had known since birth. When she rode out again, promising to meet them at the crossroads to Still Meadow, they were happily arguing over who would be the leader in the game of wolves and raiders.

Dion made it to Kitman with plenty of time to tend the ringrunner's eye. It had been kept raw as she had ordered, and within an hour, she was able to repair the wound enough so that it would heal the rest of the way on its own with standard treatment from the local healer.

Dion felt a strange pang as she left the young ringrunner's room. The loss, she knew, was artificial. She didn't really know Merai. But part of her rebelled at that thought. It didn't matter that she would not see the runner again; Merai was now part of her life. She could feel Merai's will as if it were tangible, and the young woman's determination was strong as a wolf- like Aranur when he was focused, or Gamon when he worked toward a goal.

"Why did you choose to ride the black road?" she had asked the ringrunner as she worked.

"I was fast," Merai had answered. "And I ride well."

But Dion had caught her hesitation. "And something else?" she prompted.

The ringrunner shrugged. "And... " She seemed reluctant, but her voice was steady as she said, "And I wanted to be like you."

Something clenched Dion's gut. Was she also to blame for this ringrunner's

blindness? "Like me?" she managed to ask.

"You're the Heart of Ariye," Merai answered.

"That's just a story, Merai."

"They say you Called the wolves once, back before the Dog-Pocket War,

and that the Gray Ones Answered. They say it's why there are so many

wolves now in Ariye."

"I suppose that's true enough." Dion's memory flashed back to an image of a tall, thin man who clutched her arms as she gripped his, while their minds paired in the Call. Sobovi, who died later on the Slot, a hundred meters from safety...

"And they say you can trail like a ghost... "

Dion shook herself out of her memories. "That," she smiled faintly, "is

exaggeration. I slip up as often as anyone else. The storytellers just don't like to admit it-makes the stories seem mundane."

Merai thought about that for a moment. "I heard neRittol telling some boys

about Pacceli's and my ride, and he never mentioned that the whole way

back I was so scared that every breath I took felt like a scream."

Dion began rebandaging her eye. "That sounds about right. A good storyteller lets you feel as if you could do everything the hero did and still feel everything you would normally feel. Which means, of course, that they always tell the story right, but they never quite tell the truth."

Merai gave Dion a twisted smile. With her lips only half healed, the scabs stretched in a macabre expression. "It was a story neRittol told that made me want to be like you, Wolfwalker. I remember it from when I started training to ride the black road, and I had to choose to work the town towers

or learn the longer night-relay shifts. I was scared of the night sounds at first, and neRittol found out about it. So he told me how you came to Ariye."

Dion raised her eyebrows. "And what are they saying about that now?"

Merai grinned wider, then winced as her lip split. "They say that Aranur stole you from Randonnen because he realized you were a moonmaid. And that you brought the wolves to Ariye to keep you company, and that they howl at night because you are lonely to return to the moons. I was never afraid of the wolf sounds again," she added. " 'The moons are Dione's

home,' neRittol told me. 'As they will again be ours. She is our guide to the stars.' And I've wanted to be like you ever since."

Dion had no answer for that.

She didn't linger once she had healed the girl's eye. Merai's words

disturbed her as much as the ringrunner's blind faith that she could heal that damaged eye. And, difficult as it was to hide the internal healing from the eyes of nurses and others, it was even more difficult to answer a patient's questions without revealing more of what she had done. The healing art of the Ancients, taught to them by Aiueven, was considered something lost with the domes. The few times wolfwalkers had tried Ovousibas since the plague, their wolves had died in fevers. Whatever trick the Ancients had used to keep their wolves alive was thought to have died with them in the plague.

When, thirteen years ago, Dion had tried the healing technique, Hishn should also have died. But the wolves Dion had Called to show her how to use Ovousibas also showed her a different way of using the bond-an

Ancient way, not the way of healing described by the stories that had resulted in so many wolf deaths. So when Dion healed others, the focusing of internal energy burned only against her mind-like light through a lens - leaving the Gray Ones untouched by death. And the wolves acted as a buffer for her-against the patient's pain-so that Dion could aim the energy where it needed to go, healing the body instead of burning her mind.

She put her thoughts aside when she stopped by to see Merai's healer before she rode back out of Kitman. He was in the clinic still, laid up with spring fever.

Brye frowned when she entered his quarantine room, but she simply shrugged. "Wolfwalkers don't get sick," she returned in answer to his unspoken question.

He scowled at her, but she knew it was more because she was able to get around than because he didn't want company. "Merai?" he asked without preamble.

"As well as can be expected. She'll lose the one eye, but the other should heal."

"Pacceli?"

"Recovering." Dion smiled faintly. "But you knew that already."

"You blame me for asking?"

"Not with you stuck in this bed."

He harrumphed. "I heard you brought your boys with you. Planning on sticking around this time?"

"Uh-uh," she shook her head. "And I left them in Sharbrere for the night. They'd have done nothing but fight if they'd come here with me, and they can stay with friends there. Besides, I'm heading back tonight, so you can't

stick me with any more healing."

He ignored the jibe, frowning at her other words. "It's still spring, Dion.

Riding the black road isn't the safest way to travel. I'm sure you heard what happened to Merai and Pacceli." He gave her a deliberate look.

She made a face at him. "I'm going only halfway, and I have a bit of an advantage over ringrunners, Brye. There's a wolf pack gathering in Moshok Valley. I'll spend the night with them. I'll meet my boys at the crossroads to Still Meadow well into the daylight."