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The Ozark Mountains, May: The Free Territory had its genesis here, a the river-cut limestone, caves, sinks, and thick forests of Americas oldest mountains Like the armadillos and scorpions found in these timbered, rocky hills, the residents here are scattered, alert, tough, and dangerous They know the stands of oak and hickory, trout-filled lakes and streams, and each other But one area they avoid out of respect for its inhabitants, more wary and herround around the headwaters of the Buffalo River, home to a cluster of Lifeweavers
The locals call them wizards Some fear them as a branch of the Kurians and their otherworldly evils When the residents co the river as he fills a cask ater, they gather their children and avert their eyes The Lifeweavers draw trouble like corpses draw flies The Reapers, when they break through the border cordon to stalk and slay aravitate to this area in the hopes of killing Kur&039;s ed brethren
Perched halfway up Mount Judea, a stoutly built A-frarove ofwas cut from the old seabed a few miles away, thick slabs of varicolored stone that support the ranite, etched with obscure designs that suggest Mayan hieroglyphs, gradually narroard the peaked roof The building dwarfs any other house in the area; you would have to travel to the old resorts of the Mountain Hoer construct
The Cats of Southern Command call it Ryu&039;s Hall or just the Hall They also call it ho from when he first set eyes on it, in the afternoon of the day after leaving Cobb S another cave," Valentine said as they walked up the hill-cutting switchback leading to the Hall &039;This part of the Ozarks is full of them"
"The Wolves like to lurk in their holes We Cats like shared solitude and co the ith her swordstick used as a staff
"Shared solitude? Sounds like &039;fresh out of the can&039; to ence&039;"
"Watch it, Valentine What &039;ence&039; Southern Command has feeds you now"
He didn&039;t need his Wolf&039;s nose to scent pine trees and wood s odors after their days on the road
The pair walked across a pebbled path to a ht iron with a thin steel bar hanging down the epicenter hung next to the door, and Duvalier rang it until the hills echoed
A face appeared at a high, horizontalFe eyebrows "Duvalier! You et the door"
Valentine heard a heavy bolt being drawn back and noticed there was no knob or handle of any kind on the outside of the door It ood view of the six-inch-thick timbers that constituted the main door
"David Valentine, meet Dix Welles," Duvalier said by way of introductions "Dix was the toughest Cat between here and the Appalachians once upon a time"
He noticed that the darkly attractive woman held herself very stiffly and used a cane "That was a long tiot busted up," Welles explained She earing ordinary blue overalls and had a bag of tools hanging from her hip
"Pleased to an
"Dix does just fine, David For the last-I guess it&039;s nine years now-I&039;ve been the Old Man&039;s assistant, or major-domo, or whatever it is I do here Have you ever met Ryu, Valentine?"
"No"
"He&039;s ued, Valentine looked at the tomen It never occurred to him that the Lifeweavers had families
"We can talk later," Welles interjected "Come in, come in I&039;ll find you soht now The Cats that wintered here left for the summer About all that&039;s here are so to call you, anyway?"
"Ghost," Duvalier answered "Soave him that naistered to Valentine His eyes had adjusted, and he stood and gazed at the cavernous interior of the lodge
Ryu&039;s Hall was one big rooood thirty square feet, with a wide metal chimney that disappeared up into the dark rafters Valentine&039;s eyes followed the , which he estih A series of bea up two chandeliers They gloith fore in a golden light and deep shadow
Welles saw the direction of Valentine&039;s gaze "Those little fancies are soht across the worlds Leave thelow like that for weeks But don&039;t ask me more-I only work here"
The es of the roo out of the walls like shelves, all at various heights and connected by little staircases, clied on the platfor at the new arrivals Tapestries and sheets and rugs hung from the rafters or from the platfors and casks were stacked at the centers of two long tables at opposite sides of the fireplace
"You like it small and cozy or open and airy, Valentine?" Welles asked as they walked into the hall She moved with a back-and-forth motion of her upper body that reminded Valentine of a metronome
"Open and airy, I suppose That&039;s what I&039;m more used to"
"I&039;ll take my usual spot," Duvalier said "Just put hih These tables are the coe "You are free toht meal made up by the Aspirants That&039;s you now, Ghost- with two showers and a tub, but you have to attend to the boiler When there are a few more bodies here, we take turns with that duty so there&039;s always enough hot water for all There&039;s a sauna that works whenever we got the boil up This place is built practically on top of awater you&039;ve ever had whenever you want it We don&039;t even have to work a pump handle Sweet, no?"
Valentine felt the war charcoal bricks as they passed the massive fire pit
"The fireplace isroast here on occasion The ood at ency"
"Great, you&039;re our new baker These kids go bluescreen whenever they try to bake anything but flatbread Ryu has the rooms above the kitchen, and he doesn&039;t take to visitors, so stay away from the back staircase Questions so far?"
"Just as long as you don&039;t have hiru to be ready to come out with me in a couple months When can we see Ryu?"
"You know that&039;s not up to me Okay, here we are Your usual spot, Smoke, and the Ghost will be in the attic"
Duvalier had a small space beneath Valentine&039;s platform and its stairs Valentine noticed she already had curtains up, blinds made from some kind of wicker She dropped her pack under the stairs and sat on a footlocker to unlace her boots He looked up at his own platform directly above, bare and featureless
"I can find you a futon if you want, Valentine," Welles offered
He didn&039;t relish spending too hts in his ever-ready hammock "Thank you, I&039;d appreciate that"
"I&039;ll let Ryu know you&039;ve arrived," she said, and rocked her way back to the doors at the rear of the Hall
As he placed his possessions on the platform, connected by a stairway to the main floor and by a little ay to still another platform, it occurred to hiear: his carbine and the neord, a pack containing a few tools and utensils, pans, and spare clothes, and one i, books, and odds and ends that he would have to write to somebody about
"Hey, Duvalier," he called
"Yes?" she answered from below, like a fellow camper in the bottom bunk
"Where am I?"
"Southern Coe, Newton County We call it Ryu&039;s Hall You confused about so here?"
"Didn&039;t you listen? You&039;re going to bake bread That and learn how to kill Kurians"
Ryu hi The nearly less hall slulow in the fire pit
The Lifeweaver chose to appear as an ordinarythat made Valentine instantly think of Pharaoh from illustrations in the Padre&039;s storybook Bible He wore a silad of this opportunity to meet you, David," he said as Valentine sat up, a little startled "Would you share the sunrise with ivethe sleep from his eyes The futon didn&039;t look like much, but it was bone-deep comfortable He slept heavy in the hours before dawn, but duty seemed to require him to awaken then more often than not
Ryu turned and sloalked down the stairs Not sure whether that was a yes or a no, Valentine hurriedly pulled on his pants and followed The Lifeweaver led hih the kitchens and spring-cave They stooped into a rocky passage cut into the side of the h the shoulder-wide tunnel They arrived at a wooden ladder, and Valentine smelled outside air
"This is my private entrance The ladder ends at a little fissure in the ht caan to clied in the trees on the north side of the rounded-offall around the My spot for dawn-keeping is up the hill"
Valentine followed hi out at a pile of boulders Ryu sat down on the cold stone without even wincing, and Valentine joined hireen-carpeted h, scattered stratus clouds were turning froan to touch the of rare color"
"What should I call you, sir?" Valentine asked Ae of the Wolves, had acted like an old randchildren with riddles, and spoke as though he knew Valentine his whole life Rho, the Lifeweaver who&039;d trained his father, he&039;d known only a few hours before he died Ryu seemed cold and detached compared with the other two
Valentine shivered in the chillair The rock they sat on leached his body heat, but that was not the reason for the shudder Ryu looked solid enough-he brushed aside srass with his feet-but the Lifeweaver had no presence Valentine thought it like having a conversation with an unusually lifelike portrait
"Just Ryu In our Old World, we had long and coin, and planet of residence My brother and I were young then, born when the old Interworld Tree was still intact, and the rift with the researchers of Kur just beginning We are old now, but not e consider ancient I mention etting him free The torments and humiliation he suffered at the hands of the fiendsI had no idea until you brought hirief He went in peace, a friends"
Valentine couldn&039;t find the proper words, so he resorted to a quiet yes
They sat side by side, staring off into the war sun
"You have questions for us You have an inquisitive mind"
"Sometimes I sense the Reapers They say there are others likeAmu did? When I was invoked as a Wolf, one of the men said that I&039;d been &039;turned all the way up&039;"
"Soenes are there to do more Your family had an aptitude, I understand But as to this sense-I cannot say"
"&039;I cannot say&039; isn&039;t the same as &039;I do not know&039;"
"In the earlier war, before you wrote your histories, we tried a great many es of those live on It could be that"
Ryu let that sink in a moment before he continued "Another possibility is that you could be a genetic wild card, a leap in natural selection brought on by the new stresses on your species If I knew for certain, I would tell you"
Valentine felt like a bug under a light The Lifeweavers were strange sort of leaders They didn&039;t inspire the Hunters to die for them, for all that they helped in their own secretive way They just happened to be on the same side of a war-a very old one, in the case of the Lifeweavers "You use us," Valentine said, and then thought that the fact had sounded like an accusation
"Yes, we do Do you knohy? When we fell under the first onslaught of the Kur, ere in panic We had no aptitude for fighting We needed a weapon, so flexible and powerful, a species we could both use to attack with and hide ast A sword and a shield all in one Your race fit the bill, as you say In a span of nine planets, you were the ressive, and organized You are a unique race The deadliest hunter in the world is a tiger, but put five of theer A beehive is a anization, but three beehives cannot cooperate Arns, and roup instinct and could never work together with an ant from a different queen In microcosm, that is e found on the worlds we explored: individual greatness or collective ability, but never both You huether, able to switch froreatest warrior species we have ever encountered"
"Considering all that, the Kurians beat us pretty handily"
"They had surprise on their side Had we known they were coht have been able to warn you in tiovernments; we did not wish to reveal ourselves to you Perhaps it was a mistake, but we felt your society needed a chance to develop on its own We had no idea Kur could organize such an effort, had bred such a variety of what you call Grogs, or that soto sell their species for some iteration of thirty pieces of silver Ah, here is the dawn Let us enjoy it"
The sun tinted the clouds above and trees below, renewing the world in its warmth Its welcome touch restored hiht put in his path
They sat together in silence When the shining orb separated fro Valentine
Valentine tried to pierce the psychic disguise, to see the J real shape of the Lifeweaver beneath-a grotesque h sheer force of will, but Ryu did not change
"David, you&039;ve proved yourself as a Wolf It ht now, but weand smell, speed and endurance My Cats are different They depend on stealth and surprise, and a certain ae To becoes, and there is a risk Perhaps you remember a Wolf or tho could not adapt"
"Yes," Valentine said, re a cabin ht about by the Wolf invocation After Val&039;s own invocation, the tiniest noise and movement made him jump, before he learned to soften his new senses It was too much for some
"It is a hard, lonely life, often without even the comradeship of your fellow soldiers You lived once in the Kurian Zone Are you willing to go back? Perhaps to disappear, naed? Every year there are Cats who do not return"
"Ryu, I&039;ve heard enough stories about the Cats to know all this The only tiot Molly and her family out If there&039;s any way I can help the people in the lost landsI&039;ll take the risk"
"Good words But are they enough? Is there another reason? A personal one? Forget about your father, your fellow raceful Alessa Forget all that&039;s happened with your old captain You don&039;t have to prove anything to us Are you going to do this because you want to?"
Valentine sat back a little, perplexed "Ryu, if that&039;s the case, you should count me out My desires are at the bottoree with her about e need to hunt"
"Forget about the Twisted Cross for noant to knohat&039;s in you"
So do I "It&039;s because of my parents, and for my people, that I want to do this You talk about what an a species we are, like we&039;re soress We&039;re a species that&039;s either headed for extinction or per as livestock Whatever potential you saw in us is going to waste as long as the Kurians are here
"Sir, given my druthers, I&039;d like a house with a lot of books in the woods on a lake where I could fish in peace I volunteered for this life, and I&039;ve sought responsibility because so to be a future for any of us So if you&039;re looking for a samurai mentality, dedicated to its own perfection in deadly self-annihilation, it&039;s notmore? David, do you like to kill?"
Valentine&039;s heart stopped for a moment, then restarted with a thud that bounced off his ribs How far into his ue?"
"I can&039;t-," Valentine said
"David, how did you feel when you knifed that sentry on the bridge, when you killed that policeed you as an &039;Injun&039; What did you feel when you strangled that man in the Zoo?"
"How-?"
"Hows take too long What was in your soul?"
"Guilt, but-"
Ryu waited
"I felt guilty"
"Guilty because you chose one path over another, leading to their deaths? Or guilty because you reveled in it?"
Valentine shrank away Ryu suddenly frightened him; he wasn&039;t sure he wanted this conversation to continue But he had to answer, and no ansould do but the truth
"I don&039;t know I don&039;t know h"
Ryu nodded &039;Then leave it at that I like to knohat is in my Cats&039; hearts Once you&039;ve learned what&039;s in you, I hope you&039;ll share it with me someday Very well, you&039;ll have this opportunity to aid your people in their crisis And perhaps one day learn why David Valentine feels guilty"
"Then I&039;m in?"
"You are in"
The cereht to a warm little room in the back of the Hall, escorted by Duvalier He wore only a torapped around his waist "It&039;s a waste to wear clothes for the Change," she said as butterflies began to beat their wings on the inside of his sto in a way Ryu entered, wearing a heavy robe with arments He had Valentine stand next to Duvalier
"Alessa, are you ready to take on the responsibility of training this one?"
She nodded "I am"
Ryu turned to Valentine "David, are you ready to take on the responsibility of joining our ranks?"
Valentine nodded "I am"
"May the bond between you meet with success"
The Lifeweaver emptied a small vial into a plain ceramic bowl of water and swirled it in his palm like brandy in a snifter
"Drink this, and become a Cat," Ryu intoned
Valentine drank it, as tasteless as water
Ryu handed Duvalier a small knife "Now share your blood"
With a quick slash, she opened a sht palm, then took Valentine&039;s left hand and did the sahtly Valentine felt the sticky warmth pressed between their palms
Ryu looked at Duvalier "Explain to your bloodshare what is co to be a little difficult Within a few hours, you&039;re going to feel ju, and it et very dizzy; people who&039;ve been on boats say it&039;s like seasickness Your heart will beat very fast There&039;s no real physical pain, but a whole new part of your body that you didn&039;t knoas there is going to be waking up We&039;ll keep you in this room for a couple days, safe and warouge yourself"
Valentine stiffened He&039;d been aard and twitchy after his first invocation, but hadn&039;t felt the desire for self-mutilation
She continued: "If you have to bite soot a leather-wrapped plastic tube in there for you; gnawing at the wood&039;s no good, you&039;ll just wreck your teeth After the second day, I just did ju jacks till I collapsed; then it was done Maybe that ork for you, too"
Ryu shook his head "David, she&039;s oal, keep this in h the Change And you&039;re lucky; the Wolves who&039;ve come into our caste adapt quickly There will be so an eye on you"
The Lifeweaver clasped Valentine&039;s blood-sesture that was half-handshake and half-bow Duvalier gave Valentine a tight hug, then showed him the old white scar across her left palm
"You&039;ll be fine See you in three days"
They shut and locked the door to the little roolassin the rough cedar door A single slatted bench was the extent of the furnishings, and a drain hole in the center of the wood-paneled room evidently served as the sanitary facility There was a water spigot fixed into the wall, and Valentine gave it an experiwater cascaded onto the floor
They left hi&039;s chew toy He did not feel uncomfortable, at least not yet He spread the towel on the unyielding boards of the bench and stretched out The light shining into the little roonized human teeth marks
The hus: the taste of a superlativemusic It hurries to dispose of the unpleasant- Valentine was always grateful for that ability later: the three days in that little roo the worst in his life
The first tremors hit within an hour, and by the afternoon, his muscles screamed for action He wanted to run until he dropped Sweat poured off his body, his ears pounded, the tiny ah thehurt his eyes He felt disoriented The roo on a sea of five-story waves He did not vo stretch of nausea absent the relief of vo hi to his own overloud heartbeat To keep his heart fro out of his chest, he curled into a fetal position and locked his arms around his body, at ith his own desire to climb the walls, pound down the door, then run and run until the h his body left hi
The second day was better His wooden cell seemed oddly shaded, the red browns of the room became muted and faint, the shadows ed around hi mother
But he wanted out
He did push-ups until he collapsed in exhaustion, drank a little water, and passed out into electric nightover to end all hangovers His empty sto When Duvalier&039;s face appeared in the little , he threw hi a smear of saliva where he&039;d tried to bite
Then he slept
When she caain, he was too drained to react
She entered cautiously, a tray holding a shalloith some kind of soup in her hand "How do you feel, cousin?"
Valentine eased hihtheaded "Weak asas a kitten?"
It turned out that the soup eneral consensus was that his ordeal was over While he ate, Duvalier went to get hi the door open to air out the stuffy roo into the hills, but noas content to just sip at the soup and wait for her to return with so presentable The blood-and-filfh-snawed to shreds
He finished thea litde When he followed Duvalier into the brighter light of the little honeyco facilities at the rear of the Hall, he put a hand on her shoulder She, and everything around her, didn&039;t look quite right There was little color in her skin, and the wooden walls were ashen, like bleached-out driftwood
"Just a second," he said "Why do you look different? The light is all odd"
"I knohat you ht-it&039;s your eyes A Cat with so explained it to uess there are two kinds; he called theht levels You&039;ve got a whole lot et used to it; right now your brain is just not processing it right That was his theory You&039;ll adapt In any kind of light short of pitch black, you&039;re going to have no trouble seeing from here on out"
"Did the doctor explain the drunken feeling?"
"That was even ot to do with your ears We have these little bags of liquid in our ears that help us keep our balance Some animals, cats in particular, have a whole different set of nerve fibers attached to them You kno a cat always lands on its feet, or at least nearly always? It&039;s from these nerves Their balance corrects as involuntarily as your leg ht now you&039;re oversensitized again"
She walked into the kitchen and picked up a sack of flour
"Stand on one leg Raise the other one like a dog her Okay, keep it there," she ordered
Valentine obliged, noticing that as he raised his leg he barely moved Normally he would wobble a bit
"Now catch," she said, tossing the ten-pound sack of flour with a shoving ht it a few inches fro little puffs of flour to shoot in the air What&039;s ," he said, returning his leg to the floor He shifted the bag of flour in his hands, and quick as a flash hurled it back at her
Her reflexes were no less than his She snatched the bag out of the air, but while she was strong enough to halt the ten pounds of flour ai wasn&039;t quite up to the task Its weakened fibers opened, and a white bomb detonated full in her face
"Mother-!" she screa from the cloud in kabuki makeup and fury
Valentine let out the first squawk of a laugh and then read her expression Their eyes locked for a second, like a gazelle and cheetah staring at each other on the veldt He ran for his life
"Dead meat, Valentine!" she shrieked, after him in a flash Valentine went to the stairs up to his little flat, and jumped To his astonishle bound With only one foot down, he changed direction and leapt onto the next platform over, a jump he normally would have needed a sprint to cover
He slipped on the landing and sprawled Duvalier was on his back in a moment-she must have equaled or exceeded the speed and power of his bounds He tried to wriggle out, but as he turned over, she pinned his that felt like a steel trap She nailed his ar: Duvalier in the classical position astride hi its own strange zest to the moment But her eyes were lit only in triuotcha," she said "Let&039;s have it"
"Sorry," he panted "Didn&039;t mean to make you the monkey&039;s uncle"
"What&039;s that?
"A monkey&039;s uncle!"
"Can&039;t hear you, Valentine, speak up"
"Uncle!"
"That&039;s better," she said, rolling off hioosey with the half-drunken, half-hungover sensation
"Ghost, how do they do it?"
"Do what?"
"Change us like that"
He shrugged "I&039;ve wondered about that myself So so to a cabin as lamp that was barely on, just a flicker, and turned it all the way up It hissed and roared and lit up the whole room He said that&039;s what the wizards do, they just &039;turn up the heat&039;"
Valentine wondered if he could share his fears with her, as well He looked at the healing wound on his hand "But the bigger the flaht for longevity It worries me I haven&039;t met many elderly Hunters"
She shook her head, flour cascading off her face "Gie Cat lasts in the KZ? Two or three years Ask Welles-she&039;ll confirm it Me, I&039;m already well past my &039;lifespan&039; I&039;d like to switch subjects
"Now that you&039;ve been tuned up, it&039;s ti a lot of corners I&039;ll try to fill in the holes on the road"
"Okay, Sarge, what&039;s next on the agenda?"
She began to dust herself off "Sarge? David, as a courtesy, Cats are treated as captains by the other ranks in Southern Coot promoted after all But rank doesn&039;tto get so to run your ass ragged When I drop, Welles will take over So you take it easy while you can"
Over the next weeks, Valentine decide that Duvalier held an epic grudge against him for the flour bomb and wanted to see him lose life or limb if at all possible When she was unavailable to personally torment him, Dix Welles made sure he sweated
He had to carry the sword everywhere, to ridiculous extreht hiest instead of his sword, he got to spend the rest of the day running up and down the mountain He learned a few basic stances, cuts, and thrusts from Duvalier the first day, then practiced theot the ht, and then with the naked blade One day Welles took hie roof, and draing, and move with the sword back and forth across the narrow peak, carefully straddling the top as he fought wind and s, wrapped thes, soaked theet was then placed on a gimbal-mounted teeter-totter He tried to hit it while Duvalier, at the other end of the ten-foot plank,hi hi duels ooden swords She struck like lightning, and more than once laid him out with stars in his eyes
Even when he was off his feet, he had to read Poisons, explosives, powders both natural and cherizzled old Cat, toothless and bent, lectured hiines to hydraulic brakes to a backyard water puht with his claws Duvalier taught him to always keep them in the pockets of an old overcoat, so that all he had to do was slip his hands in to become armed He clawed, climbed, and parried with theood enough Duvalier had him practice with them until they felt like a natural extension of his body A couple of the other Cats-in-training shook their heads and privately made fun of Duvalier&039;s fixation with them
"Waste of ti theht out of a hundred, I&039;ve been told"
Welles overheard and stiffly turned on the other Aspirant "That one time in a hundred he&039;ll be alive And you won&039;t"
Ryu appeared now and then and took Valentine in order to work his mind First Valentine had to reduce his aura at rest, and as the days progressed, he had to do the sa with his sword He&039;d learned the basics of hiding lifesign from an old Cat named Eveready the summer after he&039;d been invoked as a Wolf Noas learning froht Eveready
Valentine could satisfy Ryu at rest, but in action, the Lifeweaver upbraided hiain One afternoon, as he crossed a rock-strewn creek under the Lifeweaver&039;s eye, Ryu lifted his arnal to stop "You&039;re still in your own mind, David"
The obvious joke about "the perfect Cat is always out of his ain
"You&039;re not a Kurian You don&039;t need it to survive How can you sense it?"
"Aura is a lot of things, David Thought, emotion, sensitivities, fear I am able to perceive these to an extent So can you, by the way There&039;s uesswork Sometimes I can read you as easily as you read printed words"
"Sorry I saw a fish dart away"
"Forget about your empty stomach for a while"
Valentine stood in the shin-deep water and tried to reduce hiain, become a part of the stream and the rocks rather than a traveler over they they feed froerprint," Ryu continued, "and you&039;re putting out far too much into the world You&039;re the wind on the rocks, the water flowing on its natural course, a swar there"
Valentine iined himself part of the strea for apool Just water and rock, trout
"Quit thinking, David Just float across"
Valentine followed the water, ignoring the fish and the gnats until he stood beside Ryu