'Why should I help you?' Sam asked. 'You'll probably try to kill me again as soon as you get what you want.'
'You have a responsibility. Your action has strengthened Spider and emboldened her. She stirs now, and the world lies in danger. She is drawing on her web and pulling to herself the instruments of holocaust.'
'Hey hey, elf, cut the flowery stuff. Like I keep telling the pup, I'm a stupid old man. Ya talking about what I think you're talking about?'
Urdli spoke slowly and clearly. 'Spider is engaged in operations to acquire a forbidden arsenal of nuclear weapons.''
Sam was confused. What was a spirit going to do with bombs? 'That doesn't make sense. Totems don't have any physical presence. Why would Spider need an arsenal?'
'Spider is an old totem with very strong ties to the earth. She is different from the totem to which you profess allegiance. She manifests through avatars, and those unfortunate beings have all-too-human flaws and all too many enemies. Spider has enemies as well, and radiation is as intangible as a spirit. Might it not therefore affect a spirit?'
'You don't sound like you're sure it can.' 'Even if it cannot, there will be effects beyond the physical if Spider employs the weapons with that end in mind. Rival spirits work through people as well, and they could not work on this earth if they had no agents. I think that you will find that Spider has no love for Dog, or for Coyote. The Spider. and nuclear weapons combination has a great potential for disaster.'
'You're not even sure this is happening,' Sam accused, on a hunch. The elf stared at him venomously, but Urdli's silence spoke to Sam of the truth of his accusation. Even so, just the possibility of nuclear weapons in the hands of someone who might use them was frightening. It was a fear that had dominated previous generations, and although it had subsided since the build-down, it had never entirely gone away. Sam wondered if man had succeeded in breeding it into his bloodline. If the threat were real, the elf wouldn't be the only one seeking to cancel it. 'I don't think I trust you, Urdli.'
'Your trust is not desired. Your cooperation, however, is required. You have a responsibility.'
Sam looked away from the intensity of the elf's stare. When he had been a member of the Renraku corporate , he had understood the burden of responsibility as the Japanese did. They called it girt, and made of it a load they could never put down. Giri could never be completely discharged, but that did not stop one from continually attempting to do so. Sam understood responsibility well enough to feel the weight of it on his shoulders. He didn't like the idea of some strange elf dictating to him the nature of his responsibilities and the way to discharge them. So what, if he had unwittingly released some part of a captive totem? That didn't make him responsible for the plans or actions of the totem's avatars.
Did it?
Sam couldn't be responsible for the whole world. So why did he feel like he ought to do something about it? He turned to Howling Coyote.
'What should I do?'
'I'm Coyote. You're Dog. Why ask me?'
Sam tried to catch the shaman's eyes and divine his true feelings, but the old man refused to look at him. Was this another test, the shaman's answer a riddle to be solved? If so, the proper response seemed easy. Dog was loyalty, and who should he be more loyal to than his family? Sam turned back to Urdli.
'I say I have some responsibility to recover your guardian stone. You were willing to kill me to get it before and didn't even tell me what you wanted. If you had explained the situation, I might have given the stone to you. It hadn't proved effective for my needs. Your actions don't leave me thinking much of you.' The elf seemed unconcerned about Sam's opinion of him. ' 'I have to admit to taking it, but I did it for what I consider an important reason. I was only interested in the power the stone would let me focus. Not that it helped in the end. Still, if I'd known what it was, I suppose I would never have taken it in the first place. I'd have found another focus. How was I supposed to know the place was some kind of citadel? It looked like an old cave.'
Howling Coyote snickered quietly, but Sam didn't let the sound disturb him. 'If what you say about Spider's plans is true, I'd like to help. But right now, I've got a pressing family problem. You said you're not even sure what the stone will do to help your enemy. Even if you knew it was an immediate threat, you don't know where it is. It sounds like you've got a bit of leeway. Even if it is a danger, you still need to find it. That's something you can do without me because I haven't got the faintest idea of how to track it.
'I haven't got the luxury of time. I've only finished my own hunt recently, and still haven't got what I want.' Sifting sand from one hand to the other, the old man ignored Sam's meaningful glance. 'Time's pressing on me. I'm trying to avert a terrible result that is certain to come, but you're just worried about possibilities. I'm not worried about something that might affect the whole world, but something that will destroy a life the life of someone dear to me. Right now I Ve got my priorities lined up, I've put off helping my sister for too long, and I'm going to do what I can for her before I even think of anything else. When she is saved, we can talk again.''
Urdli glared at him, then shifted his burning stare to Howling Coyote. The old man dumped the sand from his hands, dusted them off, and shrugged. He mumbled as he got to his feet and walked away.
'Foolishness.'
Sam couldn't tell if the old man was referring to him or to the elf.
The lights of Seattle were seductive. Across Puget Sound the myriad denizens of the metroplex were going about their nightly business. Salary men and cor-porates were on their way home, or perhaps still clacking keyboards and tapping in orders in an effort to impress their bosses and get a leg up over their fellows. The street haunts were crawling out to scene, shift for a buzz, or wrangle for turf. The hopeful relaxed, another day successfully completed, and the hopeless sagged with another one survived and only the night to face. On the edges and in the shadows, the runners were doing their biz. She could not see any of them, but the lights of the plex shone on all those scurrying little people. And the lights sang of their doings, burning the song into the air and promising such a rich feast of life. Oh yes, the lights were seductive.
Janice looked at them and felt her stomach growl. The hunger grew with each day. Had it been an ordinary hunger, the pangs would have stopped days ago. When a human starves to death, hunger dies within his empty belly long before his body surrenders to death. Meat she had had, but not real nourishment. The steady diet of small furred things Ghost was providing kept her alive, but failed to sate the hunger.
How many more nights until she could stand it no longer?
She was tired, worn from her struggle. She lay back, feeling as though she might sleep. She had fought off the urge all day, through her normal sleeping time, just to avoid the dreams. She had lain restless within the darkness of the basement of the house where she and Ghost hid, waiting for her brother to come up with a solution. A slim hope, at best. And didn't she know better than to hope? There had been no word from him for days and he was probably dead. So why did she wait?
She was tired, but sleep brought the nightmares. She didn't want to sleep, but somehow she fell into its embrace.
In sleep, they waited for her. They waited, the facesj. all as one and one as all. She slipped deeper into the dark realms, past the places of rest. She hung at the doors of the precincts of restoration and looked through the locked panels wistfully. Satiating the hunger was the only restorative for her now. A small voice whispered of another way, but she didn't believe what it said. The voice belonged to a man, and all men were liars. They proved their perfidy when they pounced.
She laughed with joy when his arms went around her. He held her close, slipping easily into the compass of her great, brawny arms. For all his elven slim-ness, her Hugh was strong. He reminded her of Dan Shiroi, but that was impossible, because she hadn't met Dan yet. Hugh laughed at her confusion. But his eyes didn't laugh. How could they? Those golden orbs did not belong to Hugh, but to the evil one who had brought the change.
She tore herself from the grasp of the golden-eyed
Hugh and ran, but she could not escape the eyes. They bore down upon her and pinned her to a table. Cold steel pressed against her naked back and straps bound her wrists, ankles, waist, and brow to the hard metal.
Empty white coats drifted around her in a dance of scientific enquiry. The eyes had their own questions.
' She had questions too. Why? Why? And why?
The terrible gold eyes stared through her as though she didn't exist. The man who owned them didn't an 198
