The wind whipped the frozen edge of her parka, but Dion turned into it, searching for a trace of the mother-alien's flight. She thought she saw the speck of the creature, struggling against the wind. She stretched, and the link between them seemed to shiver. Loathing, disgust... And yet there were other things too. The empathy of one for the other's grief... The need filled, one by the other... And the Naming, which bound them in each other's mind...

The winds hit Dion hard on the right, and she staggered before she realized that it was not her body that had felt the gust, but the Aiueven who had faltered. "Mother!" she cried out.

The voice swept back. (Child/youngling).But the winds cut, and Dion's cheeks, white and chapped, felt a cold that was more alien than hers. Mother! she shouted. Mother, if you need my strength, take it.No more debts, Human. But the voice was faint and weakening.No debt. I give it freely.Human. You have no (concept/knowledge/vision) of freedom.

Imagery was not enough, and Dion found herself straining with her voice to convince the Aiueven. "You made yourself my mother," she said fiercely.

"Your flight is now my own."

No power can be given over (time/distance). It is not the way.

"I am human," she acknowledged. "So I do not know the way. But you are in (need/hungry/failing). Let me send this to you."

At the risk of (your/my/our) own (baby)?

"I am human, not Aiueven. I do not risk our child in this."

There was a hesitation in the alien, and Dion could feel her own mind crawling, as if the Aiueven somehow searched her for truth.

But it was not the truth of her statement of risk, but the truth that the child

was both hers and the alien mother's. The emotional void in the Aiueven swamped Dion like night, and Dion saw the death of the alien's child. The heated gases of volcanic vents... The shiver deep in the mountain... The fractured stone, crushing down... The loss that tore at her guts like lepa.

The alien's need meshed with Dion's; their grief screamed out together.

And the child within Dion became a light between them.

The alien's voice was faint in her mind. Our (children)? the alien asked.

Our (child-debt)?

Dion caught her breath, and the cold air cut her throat, but she returned steadily, "Mother of myself. Mother of my own."

Then we are (bound/family/timeless).

"Aye." Dion's voice was a whisper. She didn't ask again if she could send the internal power across the sky to the other. Instead, resolutely, she gathered what was left of her strength into a fist of heat within her. And as if they had been waiting for her voice to Call, the wolves howled in the back of her mind. They were still faint compared to the alien, but it didn't matter to Dion.

She pulled at them, sucking their packsong into her voice. Eagerly, they swept into her head. Energy flowed in-from her mouth with every breath, from her hands with every shiver, from her chest with every gust of wind.

Greedily, she clutched at the wolfsong. Images, strength, warmth-they were thrust into her mind in a tide of gray.

She loosed that heat in a single burst, like a silver-blue arrow shot through

the clouds. It sought the Aiueven like a hunter.

There was a moment of rejection. Then their voices merged. Dion could feel the alien, could feel the focusing of the power that the Aiueven controlled. Some part of her mind studied that while another part of her pushed her strength toward it. Emotions flared, clashed, clung. Something comforting and wise, distant and cold clicked into Dion's mind. And in the alien's mind, something determined and unyielding, as raw as youth and as uncontrolled, hot as bloodlust and powerful as love, slid into Aiueven patterns. Dion's mouth was open, but she couldn't tell if it was she or the alien mother who screamed. But it was not a scream of horror or anger or

pain. It was a scream of recognition, as though a child were returned, or a mother found.

Wind seemed to cut through Dion's mind, but it was no longer full of ice.

Thin air screamed into her lungs, but it was no longer freezing her throat. The horror faded between them, and something else replaced it.Kiuntihin'kiuntihin'kiun! The alien's voice was suddenly strong.Mother! Dion cried.Then the blue-gray voice faded, and the snow thickened, and Dion stood alone.

She stared at the sky, blinking as the dry snow hit her face. Wind chapped her lips. She didn't realize that she sank to her knees, her legs weak as grass. For a moment-for less than a moment-her eyes had been filled with a vision of darkness that went beyond night. Of a light that went beyond brightness. It was a star seen not through atmosphere, but from the vastness of space itself. It had been the alien's future that she had felt, for the barest of an instant.

She stared up at the sky, heedless of the snow. Stars... Aranur's dream was as close as that-as close as an alien's ship. The link to the past that he had sought to strengthen-that would never be enough. It was a link to the future that was needed.

She looked at her fingers, still stained with blood and now blue-white with the chill. She had touched something beyond herself-something alien, but also something more than that. As though Danton's death had destroyed her vision, and Aranur's had destroyed her future, she had forgotten that her own life was power, and power harnessed was hope. The plague in the wolves, the death in the domes... Power had created those, so power could find a cure. And she now knew that power.

She touched the parka where the slab of blood-ice covered her belly. The bond between mother and child was not something either she or the alien could deny. There was a power now between them that stretched through distance and time. And the energy brought with it a realization more clear than winter water. It wasn't her humanity she had lost, but that sense of strength- of what she could do to create the future she sought. Not Aranur's future, but her own. Her future, Olarun's future, the future of the wolves... Aranur's dreams had been his, not hers; she had to find her own.

"My sons," she whispered. "My daughter."She looked out over the ice. In the distance, she could see the shapes of the wolves who ran through the snow to meet her. Wolfwalker! they called.

Their song filled her head. She got to her feet and swayed. She took a step and staggered, then gathered her focus as she had seen the aliens do. Her legs stiffened, then strengthened as they accepted the energy. Her skin became suddenly warm. The wolves howled again, Calling her as they felt her mental voice strengthen. Her voice had changed, she realized. It was tinted with blues, not just gray, and the vision she projected was not just of the wolves, but of cold and starry futures.

She threw out her arms and spun, cold-clumsy on the ice. This time, when they Called, she sang her name back. For a moment the packsong was stilled. Then the wolves surged deeply into her head, seeking the voice they had known. They spun memories and flung them into the back of her skull.

They dragged at her consciousness. What they found was not simply Dion, but something also Aiueven. Slitted eyes met lupine ones; promises met and merged. Histories blended so that time was a coil that touched itself through the ages.

Dion let the sense of the wolves strengthen in her mind. Hishn, so distant, clung to her, blurring her eyes and yet leaving her eyesight clear. Thick with the wolves, clear as Aiueven... She sang her name again to the wolves, and this time when she touched their gray-shadowed minds, they howled hauntingly with her.

XXIV.

What do you have but yourself?

What do you face but yourself?

What do you hear but your voice in the night?

Whom do you know but yourself?

-Answer to the Second Riddle of the Ages Previous Top Next The three of them stopped at the barrier bushes beneath a blue-gray sky. Dion turned back and searched the clouds for a glimpse of a winged shape, but knew she wouldn't see one. The Aiueven were far away, in deeper, stranger caves. There were still wolves around her-she could feel them waiting on the other side of the wall.

Slowly, while Tehena and Kiyun watched her, she stepped forward and touched the thorns. They pricked her skin, just as before, but this time, she didn't flinch. In her mind, her body focused, the wolves howled softly, and the power flowed. The trickle of blood was stopped. The child in her belly turned. Her child, Aranur's child. And now, too, an Aiueven youngling... Dion turned to Kiyun and stopped him from automatically tightening the lashings of his pack. She opened the bundles on his dnudu and drew out a small shape, then took the wrapped sword from his saddlebags. "These, I think, are mine," she said.

She unwrapped her healer's circlet. For a moment, she simply held it in the light and let her fingers trace the carving of the silver. There were lines of ancient symbolism twined with lines of newer hopes; twists and metal coils that curled like wolfsongs against a silver sea. "This was my mother's," she murmured, to ears that could not hear and yellow, slitted eyes that could. "And now, through you, it is my mother's, again." She settled the circlet on her head. Then she buckled on her sword.

Tehena moved beside her, searching her face with those flat, faded eyes. Dion had not spoken when she returned, and the days coming back had been silent. Now, as Tehena watched Dion take back her things, the woman cleared her throat. "You found it, then? What you were looking for? The cure for the plague in the wolves?" The cure for yourself, she wanted to ask. Her hard voice had been carefully neutral, and Dion missed the flicker of desperation in the other woman's eyes as Tehena rubbed at her forearms.

For a moment, Dion didn't answer. She should have bought that painting back in Vreston, she thought, as she caught the worry on Kiyun's face-or the one in Sidisport. He would have liked the blending and rawness those paintings had portrayed. And there had been that inlaid drum that Olarun would have jumped at. And Tehena... Dion wished she could share the strength of the Aiueven-the power and depth of that contact.

The wolves growled in the back of her head, and Dion's eyes became unfocused. The bond between her and Hishn was strong, but the other wolves had entered it now, as had the alien mother. There was a richness in the gray din that went beyond any single voice. She felt it curl around her thoughts, around Aranur's voice and Danton's silence. Felt it touch the silver and steel and fold them into her heart like gifts. She fingered the circlet absently. The weight of it was no longer on her shoulders, she realized, but in her heart, as if she finally understood it was her own needs that drove her, not the pushing of other people.

Her fingers traced the circlet's designs, remembering other, icy patterns. Her voice was quiet. "I failed. And yet I could not win. And still, I live-I breathe." She looked up. "I found no cure," she answered. "The moons left me that, as a goal-" Dion gave a faint, twisted smile. "-or a punishment." She looked back toward the mountains. They were hung with a new shroud of white that looked clean against the half-gray, half-blue sky. There were no wings to break that cold expanse, no speck of motion soaring between the peaks. Her voice dropped, as if she spoke more to herself. "But it is a goal, and one that I can work toward." Her hand rested against her belly, and she stretched through the wolves to the life that grew within her. "And if I do not reach that goal myself, my children will take up that burden. The wolves won't let them forget the promises to which I've bound them."

"You didn't even find what you were looking for?" This time, the desperate taint was stronger in Tehena's voice, and Dion didn't miss it. She met Tehena's eyes steadily. "No," she said. "But I found what was needed. And in the end, that is all that matters."

Tehena let out an imperceptible breath, but all that showed was that the

lanky woman nodded.

For a moment, Dion looked down at her hands. There was no trembling in her fingers. She stretched, and as if her strength had grown, not simply been sharpened by the touch of Aiueven, she could hear Hishn's voice clearly.

The Gray Wolf of Randonnen. The Heart of Ariye... She looked at Kiyun and Tehena, then glanced back only once at the mountains. Then, as one, they mounted and rode into the barrier bushes.

As she passed through the channel, in the back of her mind, the yellow, slitted eyes blinked, and a gray-blue voice brushed the wolfsong. Soft, it was there for no more than an instant, but Dion felt it cleanly. And around her, on the wind, her hope seemed to lift, like a pair of alien wings.

Epilogue.

Heart of Ariye

Previous Top Sevlit arranged the sticks in the fire pit as the children began to gather near his wagon. The evening was full of soft noise: wood creaking, dnu stamping their feet, a dozen families murmuring as they set up evening camp. The light dust of three dozen kays clung to his teeth, and his muscles ached from riding. But this was his hour, when the world hung on his voice and the tiredness of others could be forgotten within the realms of stories. So he accepted more sticks from another young pair of arms and built the wood fire higher.

He studied the group as he arranged the branches, watching the youths who pushed each other eagerly for a seat near the fire pit, and then those who showed more sober faces: the boy with the large brown eyes and stringy blond hair; the two sisters who never let go of each other's hands, even when they sat down; the young man whose sharp voice stilled his brother; the girl with the loose black braid...

Sevlit let his eyes linger on the black-haired girl. She was young-nine or ten, perhaps-and her riding boots had seen more wear than this caravan had provided, but her slender frame was already muscled, rather than simply lanky. She did not smile, but in the dusk her dark eyes glinted with anticipation at his words, and her gaze followed his movements like a wolf stalking prey. She rode with her parents sometimes, away from the rest of the caravan, and other times alone, beside neBukua's wagon. She seemed a quiet child, but Sevlit had heard her laugh and sing as noisily as the rest when she thought she was alone.

She had not yet lost her dreams, though she already had the eyes of the Gray Ones, far-seeing, deep-reaching, and wary.

The future, he thought, in the hands of such a child...

He nodded to himself, then waited for the small crowd to settle. Waited while the parents provided their last admonishments before moving off to prepare the suppers. Waited while the scouts set watches around the camp, and the older youths began to split wood to replace what they would use that night. Waited for the noises and voices to become a background hum, until his patience itself became intriguing.

"Heart of Ariye," he said softly. The group stilled. The evening seemed to deepen as though, with those three words, his breath drew the darkness close like a curtain across the day. The glowing wood sparked, and Sevlit spread his hands, smoothing air and fire into palette and paint for his story.

Where is hope, that you might find it?

Where are dreams that you might see them?

What is life, that it continues?

Who is the Heart of Ariye?

Wolfwalkers run the trails at night They scout our borders, watch our homes And one among them stands alone: The Gray Wolf of Ramaj Randonnen, The gray Heart of Ariye.

The firelight caught the words like tree sprits, playing his questions back in the children's eyes as the yellow-bright flames began to consume the wood. He felt the familiar anticipation, the catch in his own breath. Each story had its own life, its own passions, but this one had made his own pulse pound ever since he first heard it. He nodded at the children, pulling their gazes with him. And within the lines of the story, the sound of the fire crackling became a rhythm of its own.

Ariyens work in secret, silence, Recovering the ancient skills; That once again, we'll touch the stars And skies of other worlds.

But next month, next year, next century- They hang like threats, dissolving time, Till past and future merge once more, And ancient plagues, which killed before,