Free The Queen of Wolves by Douglas Clegg Page B

were stripped of property and honor, driven to a life of hard work, and early death. Yet it was this same demon blood that awoke in me the dreaming. This Illuyan, my namesake.”
    “I have known Illuyan,” Pythia said, resting her hand on his shoulder. “He was a great ruler in the nights before the night and day had parted.”
    “Yes,” the old man nodded, grinning a smoke gust. “Before the moon held shadow, and in the days when the trees spoke of the treasures of the deep earth.”
    He asked us both to try the burning leaf. Pythia refused, but I cupped the bowl in my hand as he had and sipped at the pipe stem until smoke filled my mouth. It was sweet and strong and seared my throat with its heat. Then I coughed it out, for it was too much like inhaling fire itself.
    He laughed, though the other men were silent while they passed water and meat and boiled grain among themselves. One of them began singing a high, beautiful song of distant maidens and lovely flowers while more sacks of grain were poured into black pots and set to cook over the fire.
    I began to love these men, despite their rough circumstance, and particularly Illuyanek, the Storm Dreamer, for his wisdom and respect. He did not fear me, nor had I given him reason to fear; but better than this, he treated me, a demon to his kind, as an equal—even as a son.
    As if reading my thoughts, Pythia came up behind me as I stood in the doorway, watching the men enjoying their repast.
    “You know this vampyre, Illuyan?” I asked.
    “He ruled Myrryd, and founded many cities. But as with all the old Myrryd kings, he extinguished. All who wear the crown are hunted by those who wish to take the crown, yet no one wears it long.” She looked at me almost lovingly. She took my hand in hers, drawing me along the corridor, past the many rooms to the steps that led above. Once on the deck, she let go of my hand and went to look out over the deep mist. I followed her there and stood a few feet behind her.
    “You are like my father.” She sighed. “You believe mortal man is worth saving.”
    “And you?”
    “This one man, Illuyanek, is worth the world,” she said. “But to care for the prey...it was the downfall of my father’s kingdom. It is like taking a soft rabbit into your arms and keeping it safe...until the hunger for it outweighs the love of the creature. My father protected many rabbits, but few vampyres.”
    “You have rarely spoken so kindly of Merod.”
    “What is there to say? He fulfilled his prophecies. In the end, that is all he cared for—he was a guardian, he told me. Not a wolf, but a shepherd—as if a blood-drinker who lives off the wine of man could also care for mortals beyond the thirst itself. He nearly ensnared me in his delusions.”
    “Ensnared?” I faced her, shaking my head. “It was you who trapped your father.”
    “Were you there? Did you watch me trap him?” she asked. For the first time, I genuinely believed I had hurt her in some way. She was not as invulnerable as she seemed. “You cannot pretend to know what I have done. Or what has been done to me.”
    “No, I cannot know any of this, other than what you tell me. You have kept much from me. You spent years in Nezahual’s kingdom. Tell me of those times now. Was there another vampyre of our tribe there? A vampyre who had no glamour, no beauty? A vampyre whose eyes shone red with the blood that pulsed behind them? A vampyre whose skull jutted from rotting flesh?”
    The golden mask rippled slightly on her face, and her eyes would not meet mine. “Why do you ask this?”
    “I have seen him. You must have sensed him in the stream. He follows us from Aztlanteum.”

    4

    Pythia grabbed one of the hanging ropes, drawing herself up to the edge of the ship, swiftly leapt from it, and soared off into the mist. I tried to reach her through my mind, but it was as if I had hit a wall with my thoughts. Then she dove back down, crouching along the ropes of a nearby mast. I