The Hallowed Hunt

'Learned... ' Ijada’s voice was suddenly thin and uncertain. Learned, not dear Hallana, Ingrey noted. Hergi stood alertly ready to usher her mistress out the door; she frowned in frustration as the divine turned back.

'Yes, child?'

'No... never mind. It’s nothing. Foolishness.'

'Suppose you let me be the judge of that.' Hallana lowered herself into a chair and tilted her head encouragingly.

'I had a very odd dream last night.' Ijada stepped nervously back and forth, then settled in the window seat. 'A new one.'

'How odd?'

'Unusually vivid. I remembered it in the morning right away, when I awoke, when my other dreams melted away out of my mind.'

'Go on.' Hallana’s face seemed carved, so careful was her listening.

'It was brief, just a flash of a vision. It seemed to me I saw a sort of... I don’t know. Death-haunt, in the shape of a stallion. Black as soot, black without gleam or reflection. Galloping, but very slowly. Its nostrils were red and glowing, and steamed; its mane and tail trailed fire. Sparks struck from its hooves, leaving prints of flame that burned all to ash in its wake. Clouds of ash and shadow. Its rider was as dark as it was.'

'Hm. Was the rider male or female?'

Ijada frowned. 'That seems like the wrong question to ask. The rider’s legs curved down to become the horse’s ribs, as if their bodies were grown together. In the left hand, it held a leash. At the end of the leash ran a great wolf.'

Hallana’s eyebrows went up, and she cast a glance at Ingrey. 'Did you recognize this, ah, particular wolf?'

'I’m not sure. Maybe. Its pelt was pewter-black, just like... ' Her voice trailed off, then firmed. 'In my dream, anyway, I thought it felt familiar.' Briefly, her hazel eyes bored into Ingrey’s, her sober look returning, to his immense discomfort. 'But it was altogether a wolf, this time. It wore a spiked collar, but turned inside out, with the sharp points digging inward. Blood splashed from its paws as it ran, turning the ash it trod to splotches of black mud. Then the shadow and the cinders choked my breath and my sight, and I saw no more.'

Learned Hallana pursed her lips. 'My word, child. Vivid, indeed. I’ll have to think about that one.'

'Do you think it might have been significant? Or was it just an aftershock from... ' She gestured around the room, plainly recalling the bizarre events of last evening here, then looked at Ingrey sideways through her lashes.

'Significant dreams,' said Hallana, a faint didactic tinge leaking into her tone, 'may be prophecy, warning, or directive. Do you have any sense of which this might be?'

'No. It was very brief, as I said. Though intense.'

'What did you feel? Not when you awoke, but then, within the dream? Were you frightened?'

'Not frightened, exactly. Or at least, not for myself. I was more furious. Balked. As though I were trying to catch up, and could not.'

A little silence fell. After a moment Ijada ventured, 'Learned? What should I do?'

Hallana seemed to wrench her distant expression into an unfelt smile. 'Well... prayer never hurts.'

'That hardly seems like an answer.'

'In your case, it might be. This is not a reassurance.'

Ijada rubbed her forehead, as though it ached. 'I’m not sure I want more such dreams.'

Ingrey, too, wanted to beg, Learned, what shall I do? But what answer, after all, could she give him? To stay frozen here? Easthome would only come to him, with all due ceremony. Travel on, as was his plain duty? Surely a Temple divine could advise no other course. Flee, or set Ijada to flight? Would she even go? He’d offered escape to her once, in that tangled wood. She’d sensibly refused. But what if her flight were made more practical? An escape in the night, with no hint to Ingrey’s masters, oh no, as to how or from whose hand she had acquired horse, pack, money... escort? We must speak again of this. Or could he give her over to the sorceress, her friend—send her in secret to Suttleaf? Surely, if such a sanctuary were possible, Learned Hallana would have offered it already. He strangled his beginning noise of inquiry in a cough, scorning to be dismissed with instructions to pray.

Hergi helped her mistress to rise again from her chair.

'Travel safely, Learned,' said Ijada. She smiled crookedly at the pregnant woman. 'I don’t like to think that you might have put yourself in any danger because of me.'

'Not for you, dear,' said Hallana in an absent tone. 'Or not for you alone, at least. This is all much more complex than I anticipated. I long for the advice of my dear Oswin. He has such a logical mind.'

'Oswin?' said Ijada.

'My husband.'

'Wait,' said Ijada, her eyes growing round with astonishment. 'Not—not that Oswin? Our Oswin, Learned Oswin, from the fen fort? That fussy stick? All arms and legs, with a neck like a heron swallowing a frog?'

'The very same.' Oswin’s spouse seemed unruffled by this unflattering description of her mate; her firm lips softened. 'He’s improved with age, I promise you. He was very callow then. And I, well, I trust I may have improved a trifle, too.'

'Of all the wonders—I can scarcely believe it! You two used to argue and fight all the time!'

'Only over theology,' said Hallana mildly. 'Because we both cared, you know. Well... mostly over theology.' Her mouth twitched up at some unspoken memory. 'One shared passion led to others, in due time. He followed me back to the Weald, when his cycle of duty was ended—I told him he just wanted to have the last word. He’s still trying. He is a teacher, too, now. He still likes to argue—it’s his greatest bliss. I should be cruel to deny it to him.'

'Learned Sir has a way with words, he does,' confirmed Hergi. 'Which I do not look forward to hearing, if I don’t get you home safe and soon as I promised him.'

'Yes, yes, dear Hergi.' Smiling, the sorceress at last turned to lumber out under the close attendance of her handmaiden. Hergi gave Ingrey a nod of judicious approval in passing, presumably for his cooperation, or at least, for his failure to interfere.

He glanced back at Lady Ijada, watching her friend depart. Regret darkened her expression. She caught his gaze and mustered a wan smile. Oddly warmed, he smiled back at her.

'Oh,' she said, one hand flying to her mouth.

'Oh what?' he inquired, puzzled.

'You can smile!' From her tone, this was a wonder tantamount to his sprouting wings and flapping up to the ceiling. He glanced upward, picturing himself doing so. The winged wolf. What? He shook his head to clear it of these odd thoughts, but it just made him dizzy. Perhaps it was as well that Hergi had taken the blue bottle away with her.

Ijada stepped to the window onto the street, and Ingrey followed. Together they watched Hergi load her mistress into the wagon, its wheel repaired, under Bernan’s anxious eye. The groom, or smith, or whatever he was took up the reins, clucking at the stubby horses, and the wagon trundled up the street and turned out of sight. Behind them in the chamber, the warden made herself busy unpacking a case evidently bound up for the road, but like Boleso’s coffin not loaded because of Ingrey’s order of delay.

He was standing very close to Ijada, looking over her shoulder; he might readily reach up and rest his left hand on the nape of her neck, where her hair, lifted into its bundling net, revealed the pale skin. His breath stirred a stray strand there, yet she did not move away. She did turn her head, though, to meet his glance. No fear convulsed her features, no revulsion: just an intense scrutiny.

And yet she had seen not just that other vile thing, but his wolf; his defilement, his capacity for violence, was not rumor or gossip to her now, but a direct experience. Undeniable. She denies nothing. Why does she not recoil?

His perceptions spun. Turn it around: how did he feel about her cat? He had seen it, in that other reality, as clearly as she had seen his wolfishness. Logically, her defilement should seem twin to his own. Yet a god had