Dion's jaw tightened, and her own voice was hard. "It's too early to lose

her."

"But not too early to lose yourself?"

Dion's silence was answer enough.

Tehena paused. "It's a she?"

She nodded.

"You're not one to jeopardize your child's future, Dion."

The wolfwalker's face tightened. "It is the future that I'm thinking of." She

held up her hand, cutting off the other woman's reply. "What kind of future

will my daughter have with the threat of Aiueven here? And Olarun-what of him? He's always had a bent for the sciences. Will I find him dead one day, with the mark of the Aiueven? Or will he find his own death in the wilderness from raiders or worlags or worse-because he has no other option of a place to live? Do I condemn my children to the life I lead because I can give them no other choice?"

"The Gray Ones-" "The Gray Ones can't protect them-not from worlags or lepa or plague. Olarun has rejected the wolves already; he will never be a wolfwalker. But this baby... If she bonds with the Gray Ones, she'll just link herself with death in yet another way. I can't keep Ovousibas from her, not if she's my child. Even if she doesn't become a healer, she'll feel what I do and read it from the wolves' minds as easily as she'll read trails. And if she follows our sciences and strives for the stars, she'll be struck down by aliens the moment her work takes her up to the skies or it becomes recognizable to their sight or perceptions. All this hiding of our work... Aranur's goal be damned, Tehena. The aliens have ways of knowing that put all of us at risk.

And how can I ignore what could happen to my children-the death that doesn't have to be? If I have the chance to act, how can I not act now?" "Death now, death later-what's the difference? It's all the same in the end.

A long path winding up to the moons or down to the seventh hell. All you can hope is that your children live well because of the things you have taught them."

Dion stared out at the stark line of snow against the green-black treeline. "My lessons were hard ones, then. Life and death, with little in between." Tehena pointed with her chin at Dion's stomach. "You, at least, have another chance to change. How many people have that?"

Dion looked at her friend. For a moment, time flashed between them. Eyes flickered and blinked, and though they were yellow, what she saw were not the gazes of the wolves, but of alien eyes instead. She shook her head

mutely, and Tehena didn't realize that it was not her words that Dion had answered, but the threat of Aiueven.

In the morning, they found one of the barrier channels and moved carefully

through the forest of thorns to the other side of the wall. They built two shelters on the other side: one for them, and a lean-to for the dnudu. It took the entire day to build the structures, but as Kiyun said, better to be prepared to stay than find oneself out in the ice.

The next morning dawned with the sky light gray, covered in high, thin clouds. Only a faint line marked the spot where, kilometers away, the sky met the snow, and the massing clouds swirled above it. There was a cold wind sweeping down from the peaks, and it bit at their cheeks and hands.

But Dion didn't hear the wind or the crackling of trees that waved in it; instead, it was Aranur's voice she heard.

She closed her eyes. It was as though his drive to bind her to his future had followed him into death. Eight hundred years of memories, and each year's images were harder to bear. The wolves, who had given her life itself, would not let her forget him. The dull sunlight turned her eyelids red inside; it was blood she smelled on the wind.

Wolfwalker! distant voices called.I'm here, she returned.She let her mind open, and the wolves surged in. With the wolves this close, the packsong swelled, and the Gray Ones howled. They were still gathering behind her, around her, drawn to her with her Call. Already, on the other side of the barrier bushes, three of them paced the wall of thorns. Within moments, some of the wolves braved the barrier and slunk through the narrow channel. When they appeared on the other side, they lifted their mental voices to the others, then raced toward Dion, flashing past her like streaks of gray. Wolfwalker, they howled in joy. You seek our future. We run on your trail.

Go back, she told them urgently.Go back? You Call us. You hunt for us.

"Aye, I do." Her voice was low. "But I hunt this prey alone. There is alien death here that is swift like the claws of the lepa, and if it kills men as easily as they say, what would it do to you?"

But they didn't come back. Instead, they paused on an icy rise and waited for her to follow. Yellow eyes seemed to gleam in her head. Run with us, Wolfwalker.

"I'll follow you," she said softly. 'Though it will likely mean my death."

We trade with you, life for life.

Dion's hand rubbed protectively across her belly.

The Gray Ones caught the sense of the baby and wove their words into her

thoughts. Your cubs are ours. We watch your litters as our own. They will run with our yearlings and sing with the pack. We promise this, Wolfwalker.Slowly, she nodded.There were no roads on this side of the barrier; instead, they had to orient their trail to a hand-drawn map. It was slow, hard going, and they made only six kays that day. The next day they made only four. Early in the afternoon, one of the dnudu fell into a ravine and broke its neck. It took the rest of that day to get down that drop-off and recover their packs and gear.

The third day, they began to work their way out along one of the glacier valleys. At the edges, where the snow was too thin and the rocks too thick for snowshoes, they fell through the crusty, half-frozen drifts as often as they walked on the ice. The dnudu struggled with the weight of the packs. That night, they built no fire, but used their tiny fuel stoves for heating snow into water and soup. A chunk of dnudu made part of their repast and that of the wolves. Dion heard the Gray Ones worrying at the bones long into the night.

They were slow rising the next day, as though the cold kept them in their beds. When they finally started to pack up, it was midmorning, and the sun was bright behind the light-gray layer of clouds. The wolves had been close all night; the snow between the stunted trees was pocked with sleeping holes and marked with yellow urine. Dion looked back the way they had come. Their ragged, hoof-chopped path through the snow was like a brutal tear, as though some giant claw had reached down and ripped white land apart.

Dion stared into the distance. The hard, bright light made it difficult to see detail, but there was something in the sky. Kiyun shaded his eyes and followed her gaze. "Too big for a lepa," he muttered. "And the glide pattern's wrong... " But something crawled between his shoulders with his words, and he was already moving, picking up the packs and moving the dnudu under the thick trees. "Dion," he called sharply.

She didn't move with him. Instead, she crunched through the snow, sinking abruptly when her boots broke through the crust and fighting to continue forward till she stood out in the white expanse. Kiyun cursed and started after her, but she stopped him with a gesture. Dion held out her arms. In her white parka and leggings, her white boots and gloves, she should have been nearly invisible. But the shadow in the sky seemed to hesitate. Then it began to glide down.

Come, she cried out. Something empty and vibrant hit her at the same time-some kind of power so vast that it filled her consciousness. Suddenly, there was a bigger void with the power than there was without it. Words, images struck her like a sledge.

(Child/youngling)?

The Gray Ones surged in Dion's head. She tried to check the flow of gray that swept in on the tail of that voice. Instinctively, the wolves urged her to run, while instead she stood her ground. The wolves' fear of power almost blinded their minds to the promise they had used to Call her. But her promise was like a leash, strangling her terror, holding her in place through their need, while she wanted to flee.

The vastness seemed to sense her struggle. Like a blast of cold air, it swept across her mind. Slitted yellow eyes blinked.(Child/youngling), it cried.

Come, she forced herself to send. Come, she said. I am here.She saw the Aiueven as it closed on her and felt her chest freeze. She wanted to run, wanted to turn and flee in panic. She wanted to dive beneath the snowpack and burrow to some sort of safety. Gray voices howled at her in her head. Aranur's voice was sharp. Seek life, not death...

She stood her ground.

The alien dove at her like a rock. Its claws were long, like those of the lepa; its lips were more beak than teeth. Instead of a mouth, it had a gash, as if an ax had been taken to a smooth plane of metal. Instead of eyes, this creature had slits. Instead of a nose, its face was split by a ridge of silver spines. And where the lepa's color was a greasy black, the Aiueven's color was scaled and white as though its feathers were more like a solid surface. Its feet were more like hands, and there were tiny arms along the arch of its wings, with small hands at the midpoint of the arch.

Her jaw clenched as she fought her fear. Come, she called it to her.It swooped. For an instant, she glimpsed Kiyun and Tehena staring out from the trees. Then the power struck like a furnace. Arrogant claws crushed her arms to her sides as she was lifted from the snow.

"Dion!" Kiyun screamed at her.

His voice was lost in the rush of air that followed her into the sky.

XXI.

Skickitic kitlitic, Kin Winter brushing the tops of the trees Stettitic siklitic, Stin Wind brushing my wings Kitlis tik'klis abriklis, Kin Youth brushing the stars with its dreams Skit'lettic kitlitin, Kin Our wings, brushing the stars Previous Top Next The birdman carried Dion like a lepa carries its prey. Its hand-like feet clutched her around her chest, and its legs drew her up against it. Colder than she would have thought possible, she clung to its talon-hands. Instinctive terror blinded her while the ground dropped farther away. At the same time, some obscure part of her mind marveled at the speed of its flight, and another part of her brain objectively and remorselessly calculated the time it would take to fall to the ground if the alien let her go. Vast words rambled through her head-questions and demands. Images she didn't understand blocked both her fear and her thoughts so that she could not even try to answer. Why/what is your flight ? sent the birdman. Where is your (mother/ancestry) ? Why/name (name/image) wings? A rough hill skimmed up below, then fell away like water as they shot out on the other side of the crest. The bile rose in Dion's throat as even that tentative closeness thrust itself away while the wind whistled and cut like vicious, icy jets.

(Wings/name) your flight/why? (Color/name) your (mother/ breeding) ? What/color your mind? Flight too (early/youth/cold). Why/why? The talon-hands gripped her ribs like a steel corset, then shifted, laying her body flatter to the wind. The deepness rolled on and the cold cut in closer. Her hands, without her gloves on, were already a purple white.

Dion, Dione, woman, healer, grief... Wings/name? Scout, Aranur, bitter, wolves, Dione. Her mind was too shocked from the blasts of ice-laden air to answer coherently.

Why are you (alone/cold/too-young)? Where is your (mother-debt/comfort/ future)? Why (flight/freedom)?

"No mother," Dion gasped, not realizing that she instinctively projected her answer through her mind. "Don't have... mother. No flight." The Aiueven seemed to understand her. You are (cold/young) to try (freedom/future), he returned. His sharp-gray voice sounded labored, but the impression of youth he sent to her hit Dion like a fist. She felt suddenly like the child he assumed her to be: wingless, immobilized by the cold.

Child... Children... Her stomach muscles contracted as though the baby in

her own belly reacted.(Mother/mother/comfort/source/mother), the Aiueven returned, picking up her distress.

She tried to dig her fingers deeper into the Aiueven's leg. Her temples, barely covered by the fur-lined warcap, felt naked to the wind. They ached with pounding icy hammers, and her teeth burned with the freezing air. She could hardly feel her ears. The edges of her eyelids were freezing, a little at a time, from the tearing that the wind stripped from them, and all she could do was duck her head like a bird against her arms and chest.

It was the drop in altitude that made her raise her head again: The alien was descending. Two other Aiueven floated down in tight turns around the one who gripped her, and when she forced her eyes open to see their shapes, Dion's stomach spun at their conflicting motions.

They dove straight at an icy ledge. Fear clenched her mind. Hishn- she screamed. Aranur...

Gray voices howled back in her head. Wolfwalkerwolfwalker...The instant of terror blurred into a tangle of white ice spires. Her stomach was slammed up into her throat as the ice gave way to a frigid cave, and that gave way in turn to an opening even larger. The Aiueven's wings spread open again. It soared back up, away from the bottom of the cave, flashing into another cavern. Blue-white light seemed to glow through the walls, and patches of green-blue fungi swarmed on the roof of the cave.

The Aiueven swooped into another cavern, still paced by the other two aliens. Below them, the ground was mostly ice, with only the darkness of

glacier rock showing faintly through the frozen buildup. And there were shapes below her-white shapes, ovoid. Eyes-yellow, slitted eyes- looked up as she was carried overhead. There were more of them the farther in she was flown. First one, then three, then eight in the caverns through which they blasted. Then four figures slightly darker in shade, and one more even darker in the next ice cave on.

Suddenly, Dion's skin burned. Her cheeks were on fire, and her hands seemed covered with sparks, not skin. Some dull part of her mind realized that it was the temperature, not herself, that had changed. The air had warmed, and the wind that whistled past her ears was like a slap of shocking heat. They dropped lower, to a cave where a frigid stream of melted ice began to course over the floor. Another tunnel and another cave, and this one was empty except for a single alien squatting on the ice out of the water. Dion's teeth burned the other way now, as the temperature rose with each drop in altitude as they dove toward the bowels of the mountain.

Seconds-it felt like hours of frigid wind-later, the alien dropped her onto the rock that made up the floor of yet another cave. She fell to her frozen knees. The alien circled tightly, then landed. He seemed to stare at her as she huddled, shivering uncontrollably, on the rock. She didn't speak; she didn't move except to shiver. Her mind felt numb, as though her thoughts had frozen during their flight, and the warmth that should have been relief only made her chill seem worse. All she knew was that she was in a cave littered with what seemed like brown carcasses, and the three Aiueven who had flown her in stood like lepa over her cold, cringing body.

"Its wings have no name."

It was a voice, but not a voice. Clear as if it rang from a bell, the words/

images shot into Dion's mind, rather than through her human ears. Yet where Hishn's images were muddied by the constant drone of the packsong, the alien's voice was crisp like frost. Some part of her mind was still cold with fear, but part of her mind leaped forward. That voice was power-it was what the Ancients had sought when they went to the aliens. Dion's hands, cold as they were, clenched with the thrill that jabbed her.

The male Aiueven who had dropped her regarded her dispassionately. The other two studied Dion in silence. With her arms crossed over her belly, she stared back, trying to read the expressions in their yellow-slitted eyes. It took long minutes to realize that it was not through their eyes at all that they saw her, but through their minds instead. She could hear them-on the edges of her mind, carefully not intruding but waiting for her to speak.

There was a drone-it was similar to the fog of the wolf pack, but it was sharper too, as if she could hear individual voices more clearly. The young, she realized. She could hear the voices of the smaller aliens in nearby caves.

The voices of the three adults were sharp, but the young alien voices were dull, as if their thoughts were not as formed. And the single dark-furred young alien who squatted in this cave had a voice even more dull than the others.

"Is it yours/ours?" asked one of the three adults. His voice was hard and

dark gray like a wolf. "Does it (Know)?"

An image of consensus filled Dion's head, and she almost blanked out as the thoughts overwhelmed her and drove her own identity away. "It Knows.

I (heard) it," returned the one who had brought her in, his voice a sharp white-gray.

"But it is so (young)," the first voice stated.

The third, softer voice eased its own question in. "It has no Name?"