Wolf Who Rules Read online

  Wolf Who Rules

  Wen Spencer

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright ©2006 by Wen Spencer

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-2055-4

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-2055-9

  First printing, April 2006

  Cover art by Kurt Miller

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Spencer, Wen.

  Wolf Who Rules / by Wen Spencer.

  p. cm.

  "A Baen Books original."

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-2055-9 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-2055-4 (hardcover)

  1. Elves—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3619.P4665W65 2006

  813'.6—dc22

  2005037946

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Ann Cecil,

  In many ways, elf-like.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to

  Greg Armstrong, David Brukman,

  Ann Cecil, Gail Brookhart, Kevin Hayes,

  W. Randy Hoffman

  Nancy Janda, Kendall Jung,

  Don Kosak, June Drexler Robertson,

  John Schmid, Linda Sprinkle,

  Diane Turnshek, Andi Ward,

  Joy Whitfield and

  Thorne Scratch, who let me steal

  her lock, stock and barrel

  Baen Books by Wen Spencer

  Tinker

  Wolf Who Rules

  PROLOGUE: CUP OF TEARS

  Elves may live forever, but their memories do not. Every elfin child is taught that any special memory has to be polished bright and carefully stored away at the end of a day, else it will slip away and soon be forgotten.

  Wolf Who Rules Wind, viceroy of the Westernlands and the human city of Pittsburgh, thought about this as he settled before the altar of Nheoya, god of longevity. It was one more thing he would have to teach his new domi, Tinker. While clever beyond measure, she had spent her childhood as a human. He had only transformed her genetically into an elf; she lacked the hundred years of experience that all other adult elves lived through.

  Wolf lit the candle of memory, clapped to call the god's attention to him, and bestowed his gift of silver on the altar. Normally he would wait to reach perfect calmness before starting the ceremony, but he didn't have time. He'd spent most of the last two days rescuing his domi, fighting her oni captors, and discovering how and why they had kidnapped her away. In truth, he should be focusing on his many responsibilities, but the fact that his domi had been restored to him on the eve of Memory made him feel it was important to observe the ritual.

  He picked up the cup of tears. As a child, he couldn't understand why anyone would want to cling to bad memories. It had taken the royal court, with all its petty betrayals, to teach him the importance of bitterness; you needed to remember your mistakes to learn from them. For the first time, however, he did not dwell on those affairs of the heart. They all seemed minor now. His assistant, Sparrow Lifted by Wind, had taught him the true meaning of treachery.

  He replayed now all her betrayals, slowly drinking down the warm saltwater. He did not know when she had started working with the oni, perhaps as early as the first day the human's orbital hyperphase gate had shifted Pittsburgh to Elfhome. He knew for sure that she'd spent the last few weeks subtly detouring him away from the oni compound. She had arranged for his blade brother Little Horse to be alone, so the oni could kidnap him and use him as a whipping boy. So many lies and deceptions! Wolf remembered the blank look on her face as she talked on her cell phone on that last day. He knew now the call was from the oni noble, Lord Tomtom, alerting her that Tinker and Little Horse had escaped. What excuse had she used to slip away in order to intercept them? Oh yes, a member of the clan needed someone to mediate between them and the Pittsburgh police. He had thanked her for sparing him from such small responsibilities so he could focus on finding the two people most important to him. Too bad Little Horse gave her such a clean death.

  Dawn was breaking, and the cup of tears was drained, so he set aside his bitter memories. As light spilled into the temple, he lifted the cup of joys.

  Normally he would dwell for hours on his happy childhood in his parents' household, and then, with a few exceptions, skip over all the lonely years he spent at court, and start again as he built his own household and settled the Westernlands. He did not have time today. In celebration of their safety, he thought only of Tinker and Little Horse.

  Sipping his honeyed tea, he remembered Little Horse's birth and childhood, how he grew in leaps and bounds between Wolf's visits back home, until he was old enough to be part of Wolf's household. He brought with him the quiet affection that Wolf missed from his parents' home. Bitterness at Sparrow tried to crowd in, but Wolf ignored the temptation to dwell on those thoughts. He had only a short time left, and he wasn't going to waste it on her.

  He turned his thoughts to Tinker. A human, raised on Elfhome, she was a delightful mix of human sensibility steeped in elfin culture. They had met once years ago, when she had saved him from a saurus. She had saved him again from a recent oni assassination attempt. The days afterward, as she struggled to keep him alive, she proved her intelligence, leadership, compassion, and fortitude. Once he realized that she was everything that he wanted in a domi, it was as if floodgates had opened in his heart, letting loose a tide of emotions he hadn't suspected himself capable of. Never had he wanted so much to protect another person. The very humanity that he loved in her made her butterfly fragile. The only way to keep her brightness shining was to make her an elf. At the time, he had regretted the necessity, but no longer. As a human, Tinker would have either been taken away from the home she loved by the NSA, or she wouldn't have survived Sparrow's betrayal. If he had any regrets it was trusting Sparrow and underestimating the oni.

  Much as he'd have liked to continue dwelling on the good memories of his beloved, there was too much to do. Reluctantly, Wolf Who Rules blew out the candle, stood, and bowed to the god. The oni had forced his domi into building a gateway between their world and the neighborhood of Turtle Creek. Since the oni were gaining access to Earth (and ultimately Elfhome) via the orbital hyperphase gate, Tinker had used her gate to destroy the one in orbit. Unfortunately there were side effects not even his beloved could explain. Pittsburgh was now stuck on Elfhome. Turtle Creek had melted into liquid confusion. And something, most likely the orbital gate, had fallen from the sky like shooting stars. It left them with no way to return the humans to Earth, and an unknown number of oni among them.

  1: GHOST LANDS

  There were some mistakes that "Oops" just didn't cover.

  Tinker stood on the George Westinghouse Bridge. Behind her was Pittsburgh and its sixty thousand humans now permanently stranded on Elfhome. Below her lay the mystery that at one time had been Turtle Creek. A blue haze filled the valley; the air shimmered with odd distortions. The land itself was a kaleidoscope of possibilities—elfin forest, oni houses, the Westinghouse Air Brake Plant—fractured pieces of various dimensions all jumbled together. And it was all her fault.

  Color had been leached from the valley, except for the faint blue taint, making the features seem insubstantial. Perhaps the area was too unstable to reflect all wavelengths of light—or may
be the full spectrum of light wasn't able to pass through—the—the—she lacked a name for it.

  Discontinuity?

  Tinker decided that was as good a name as any.

  "What are these Ghostlands?" asked her elfin bodyguard, Pony. He'd spoken in Low Elvish. Ghostlands had been in English, though, meaning a human had coined the term. Certainly the phrase fit the ghostly look of the valley.

  So maybe Discontinuity wasn't the best name for it.

  A foot taller than Tinker, Pony was a comforting wall of heavily armed and magically shielded muscle. His real name in Elvish was Waetata-watarou-tukaenrou-bo-taeli, which meant roughly Galloping Storm Horse on Wind. His elfin friends and family called him Little Horse, or tukaenrou-tiki, which still was a mouthful. He'd given her his English nickname to use when they met; it wasn't until recently that she had realized it had been his first act of friendship.

  "I don't know what's happening here." Tinker ran a hand through her short brown hair, grabbed a handful and tugged, temptation to pull it out running high. "I set up a resonance between the gate I built and the one in orbit. They were supposed to shake each other apart. They did."

  At least, she was fairly sure that they had. Something had fallen out of the sky that night in a fiery display. Since there were only a handful of small satellites in Elfhome's orbit, it was a fairly safe bet that she had somehow yanked the hyperphase gate out of Earth's orbit.

  "This was—unexpected." She meant all of it. The orbital gate reduced to so much space debris and burnt ash on the ground. Turtle Creek turned into Ghostlands. Pittsburgh stuck on Elfhome.

  Even "sorry" didn't seem adequate.

  And what had happened to the oni army on Onihida, waiting to invade Elfhome through her gate? To the oni disguised as humans worked on the gate with her? And Riki, the tengu who had betrayed her?

  "Is it going to—get better?" Pony asked.

  "I think so." Tinker sighed, releasing her hair. "I can't imagine it staying in this unstable state." At least she hoped so. "The second law of thermodynamics and all that."

  Pony grunted a slight optimistic sound, as if he was full of confidence in her intelligence and problem solving. Sometimes his trust in her was intimidating.

  "I want to get closer." Tinker scanned the neighboring hillsides, looking for a safe way down to the valley's floor. In Pittsburgh, nothing was as straightforward as it appeared. This area was mostly abandoned—probably with help from the oni to keep people away from their secret compound. The arcing line of the Rim, marking where Pittsburgh ended and Elfhome proper began, was diffused by advancing elfin forest. Ironwood saplings mixed with jagger bushes—elfin trees colliding with Earth weed—to form a dense impenetrable thicket. "Let's find a way down."

  "Is that wise, domi?"

  "We'll be careful."

  She expected more of an argument, but he clicked his tongue, the elfin equivalent of a shrug.

  Pony leaned out over the bridge's railing; the spells tattooed down his arms in designs like Celtic knots—done in Wind Clan blue—rippled as muscle moved under skin. The hot wind played with tendrils of glossy black hair that had come loose from his braid. Dressed in his usual wyvern-scaled chest armor, black leather pants, and gleaming knee boots, Pony seemed oblivious to the mid-August heat. He looked as strong and healthy as ever. During their escape, the oni had nearly killed him. She took some comfort that he was the one thing that she hadn't totally messed up.

  As they had recuperated, she'd endured an endless parade of visitors between bouts of drugged sleep, which gave the entire experience a surreal nightmare feel. Everyone had brought gifts and stories of Turtle Creek, until her hospice room and curiosity overflowed.

  Thanks to her new elfin regenerative abilities, she'd healed far faster than when she was a human; she'd awakened this morning feeling good enough to explore. Much to her dismay, Pony insisted on bringing four more sekasha for a full Hand.

  Yeah, yeah, it was wise, considering they had no clue how many oni survived the meltdown of Turtle Creek. She was getting claustrophobic, though, from always having hordes of people keeping watch over her; first the elves, then the oni, and now back to the elves. When she ran her scrap yard—months ago—a lifetime ago — she used to go days without seeing anyone but her cousin Oilcan.

  As viceroy, her husband, Wolf Who Rules Wind, or Windwolf, held twenty sekasha; Pony picked her favorite four out of that twenty to make up a Hand. The outlandish Stormsong—her rebel short hair currently dyed blue—was acting as a Shield with Pony. Annoyingly, though, there seemed to be some secret sekasha rule—only one Shield could have a personality at any time. Stormsong stood a few feet off, silent and watching, in full bodyguard mode while Pony talked to Tinker. It would have been easier to pretend that the sekasha weren't guarding over her if they weren't so obviously "working."

  The bridge secured, the other three sekasha were being Blades and scouting the area. Pony signaled them now using the sekasha's hand gestures called blade talk. Rainlily, senior of the Blades, acknowledged—Tinker recognized that much by now—and signaled something more.

  "What did she say?" Tinker really had to get these guys radios. She hated having to ask what was going on; until recently, she had always known more than everyone else.

  "They found something you should see."

  The police had strung yellow tape across the street in an attempt to cordon off the valley; it rustled ominously in a stiff breeze. Ducking under the tape, Tinker and her Shields joined the others. The one personality rule extended to the Blades; only Rainlily got to talk. Cloudwalker and Little Egret moved off, searching the area for possible threats.

  "We found this in the middle of the road." Rainlily held out a bulky white, waterproof envelope. "Forgiveness, we had to check it for traps."

  The envelope was addressed with all possible renditions of her name: Alexander Graham Bell, "Tinker" written in English, and finally Elvish runes of "Tinker of the Wind Clan." The sekasha had already slit it open to examine the contents and replaced them. Tinker tented open the envelope and peered inside; it held an old MP3 player and a note written in English.

  I have great remorse for what I did. I'm sorry for hurting you both. I wish there had been another way. Riki Shoji.

  "Yeah, right." Tinker scoffed and crumpled up the note and flung it away. "Like that makes everything okay, you damn crow."

  She wanted to throw the MP3 player too, but it wasn't hers. Oilcan had loaned it to Riki. The month she'd been at Aum Renau, Oilcan and Riki had become friends. Or at least, Oilcan thought they were friends, just the same as he thought they were both human. Riki, though, was a lying oni spy, complete with bird-feet and magically retractable crow wings. He'd wormed his way into their lives just to kidnap Tinker. She doubted that Oilcan would want the player back now that he knew the truth; it would be a permanent reminder that Oilcan's trust nearly cost Tinker her life. But it wasn't her right to decide for him.

  She jammed the player into the back pocket of her shorts. "Let's go."

  Rage smoldered inside her until they had worked their way down to the Discontinuity. The mystery of the Ghostlands deepened, drowning out her anger. The edge of the blue seemed uneven at first, but then, as she crouched down to eye it closely, she realized that the effect "pooled" like water, and that the ragged edge was due to the elevation of the land—like the edge of a pond. Despite the August heat, ice gathered in the shadows. This close, she could hear a weird white noise, not unlike the gurgle of a river.

  She found a long stick and prodded at the blue-shaded earth; it slowly gave like thick mud. She moved along the "shore" testing the shattered pieces of three worlds within reach of her stick. Earth fire hydrant. Onihida building. Elfhome ironwood tree. While they looked solid, everything within the zone of destruction was actually insubstantial, giving under the firm poke of her stick.

  Pony stiffened with alarm when—after examining the stick for damage done to it and finding it as sound as before—she reached
her hand out over the line.

  Oddly, there was a resistance in the air over the land—as if Tinker was holding her hand out the window of a moving car. The air grew cooler as she lowered her hand. It was so very creepy that she had to steel herself to actually touch the dirt.

  It was like plunging her bare hand into snow. Bitterly cold, the dirt gave under her fingertips. Within seconds, the chill was painful. She jerked her hand back.

  "Domi?" Pony moved closer to her.

  "I'm fine." Tinker cupped her left hand around her right. As she stood, blowing warmth onto her cold-reddened fingers, she gazed out onto the Ghostlands. She could feel magic on her new domana senses, but normally—like strong electrical currents—heat accompanied magic. Was the "shift" responsible for the cold? The presence of magic, however, would explain why the area was still unstable—sustaining whatever reaction the gate's destruction created. If her theory was right, once the ambient magic was depleted, the effect would collapse and the area would revert back to solid land. The only question was the rate of decay.

  Pony picked up a stone and skipped it out across the disturbance. Faint ripples formed where the stone struck. After kissing "dirt" three times, the stone stopped about thirty feet in. For a minute it sat on the surface and then, slowly but perceivably, it started to sink.