Wen Spencer - Wolf Who Rules

- Prologue

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- Prologue

Prologue: Cup Of Tears

Elves may live forever, but their memories did 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

as 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 salt water. He did not know when

she started working with the oni, perhaps as early as the first day the human's orbital hyperphase gate

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 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 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

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- Prologue

brought with him the quiet affection that Wolf missed from his parent's 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 saved him from a saurus. She

saved him again from a recent oni assassination attempt. The days afterwards, 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

flood 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 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 like 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 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.

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Framed

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- Chapter 1

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Chapter 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 spectrums of light – or maybe the full

spectra of light weren'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, 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

realized it was 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 fairly safe bet that

she somehow yanked the hyperphase gate out 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 that 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

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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 defused 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 in an elfin 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 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 nearly killed him. She took some comfort that he

was the one thing that she hadn't totally messed up.

As they 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 healed far faster than when she was a human; she

awoke 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 always knew 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.

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"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 became friends. Or at least, Oilcan thought they were friends, just

the same as he thought they were both humans. 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 deepest pocket of her carpenter's jeans. "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 ghost lands. 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.

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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.

Pony made a small puzzled noise. "Why isn't everything sinking?"

"I think – because they're all in the same space – which isn't quite here but isn't really someplace else –

or maybe they're everywhere at once. The trees are stable, because to them, the earth underneath them is

as stable as they are."

"Like ice on water?"

"Hmm." The analogy would serve, since she wasn't sure if she was right. They worked their way around

the edge, the hilly terrain making it difficult. At first they found sections of paved road or cut through

abandoned buildings, which made the going easier. Eventually, though, they'd worked their way out of

the transferred Pittsburgh area and into Elfhome proper.

On the bank of a creek, frozen solid where it overlapped the affected area, they found a dead black

willow tree, lying on its side, and wide track of churned dirt were another willow had stalked northward.

Pony scanned the dim elfin woods for the carnivorous tree. "We must take care. It is probably still

nearby; they don't move fast."

"I wonder what killed it." Tinker poked at the splayed root legs still partly inside the discontinuity. Frost

like freezer burn dusted the wide, sturdy trunk. Otherwise it seemed undamaged; the soft mud and thick

brush of the creek bank had cushioned its fall so none of its branches or tangle arms had been broken.

"Lain would love an intact tree." The xenobiologist often complained that the only specimens she ever

could examine were the non-ambulatory seedlings or mature trees blown to pieces to render it harmless.

"I wish I could get it to her somehow."

The tracks of both trees, Tinker noticed, started in the Ghostlands. Had the willow been clear of the

discontinuity at the time of the explosion – or had the tree died after reaching stable ground?

"Let me borrow one of your knives." Tinker used the knife Pony handed her to score an ironwood

sapling. "I want to be able to track the rate of decay. Maybe there's a way I could accelerate it."

"A slash for every one of your feet the sapling stands from the ghost lands?" Pony guessed her system.

"Yeah." She was going to move on to the next tree but he held out his hand for his knife. "What?"

"I would rather you stay back as much as possible from the edge." He waited with the grinding power of

glaciers for her to hand back his knife. "How do you feel, domi?"

Ah, the source of his sudden protectiveness. It was going to be a while before she could live down

overestimating herself the night of the fighting. Instead of going quietly to the hospice, she'd roamed

about, made love, and did all sorts of silliness—and of course, fell flat on her face later. It probably

occurred to him that if she nose-dived again, she would end up in the Ghostlands.

"I'm fine," she reassured him.

"You look tired." He slashed the next sapling, and she had to admit he actually made cleaner, easier to

see marks than she did, robbing her of all chance to quibble with him.

She made a rude noise. Actually, she was exhausted – nightmares had disrupted her sleep for the last

two days. But she didn't want to admit that; the sekasha might gang up on her and drag her back to the

hospice. That was the problem with bringing five of them – it was much harder to bully them en masse –

especially since they were all a foot taller than her. Sometimes she really hated being five foot nothing.

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Standing with them was like being surrounded by heavily armed trees. Even now Stormsong was eyeing

her closely.

"I'm just – thinking." She mimed what she hoped looked like deep thought. "This is very perplexing."

Pony bought it, but he trusted her, perhaps more than he should. Stormsong seemed unconvinced, but

said nothing. They moved on, marking saplings.

* * *

With an unknown number of oni scattered through the forest and hidden disguised among the human

population of Pittsburgh, Wolf did not want to be dealing with the invasion of his domi's privacy, but it

had to be stopped before the Queen's representative arrived in Pittsburgh. Since all requests through

human channels failed, it was time to take the matter into his own hands.

Wolf stalked through the broken front door of the photographer's house, his annoyance growing into

anger. Unfortunately, the photographer – paparazzi was the correct English word for him, but Wolf was

not sure how to decline the word out—in question was determined to make things as difficult as

possible.

Over the last two weeks, Wolf's people had worked through a series of false names and addresses to

arrive at a narrow row house close to the Rim in Oakland. The houses to either side had been converted

into businesses, due to their proximately to the enclaves. While the racial mix of the street was varied,

the next door neighbors were Chinese. The owners had watched nervously as Windwolf broke down the

photographer's door, but made no move to interfere. Judging by their remarks to each other in Mandarin,

neither did they know that Wolf could speak Mandarin in addition to English, nor were they surprised by

his presence – they seemed to think the photographer was receiving his due.

Inside the house, Wolf was starting to understand why.

One long narrow room took up most of the first floor beyond the shattered door. Filth dulled the wood

floors and smudged the once white walls to an uneven gray. On the right wall, at odds with the grubby

state of the house, was video wallpaper showing recorded images of Wolf's domi, Tinker. The film loop

had been taken a month ago, showing a carefree Tinker laughing with the five female sekasha of Wolf's

household. The image had been carefully doctored and scaled so that it gave the illusion that one gazed

out a large window overlooking the private garden courtyard of Poppymeadow's enclave. Obviously

feeling safe from prying eyes, Tinker lounged in her nightgown, revealing all her natural sexuality.

Wolf had seen the still pictures of Tinker in a digital magazine but hadn't realized that there was more.

Judging by the stacks of cardboard boxes, there was much more. He flicked open the nearest box and

found DVDs titled: Princess Gone Wild, Uncensored.

"Where is he?" Wolf growled to his First, Wraith Arrow.

Wraith tilted his head slightly upward to indicate upstairs. "There's more."

At the top of the creaking wooden stairs, there was a large room stark of furniture. A camouflage screen

covered the lone window, projecting a blank brick wall to the outside world. A camera on a tripod

peered through a slit in the screen, trained down at the enclaves. This room's video wallpaper replayed

images captured this morning, a somber Tinker sitting alone under the peach trees, dappled sunlight

moving over her.

Wolf moved the camera and device's artificial intelligence shrank Tinker's image into one corner and

went to live images as the zoom lens played over Poppymeadow's enclave where Wolf's household was

living. Not only did the balcony provide a clear view over the high stone demesne wall, but into the

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windows of all the buildings, from the main hall to the coach house. One of Poppymeadow's staff was

changing linen in a guest wing bedroom; the camera automatically recognized the humanoid form and

adjusted the focus until she filled the wall. The window was open, and microphone picked up her

humming.

"I haven't done anything illegal," a man was saying in the next room in English. "I know my rights! I'm

protected by the treaty."

Wolf stalked into the last room. His sekasha had broken down the door to get in. The only piece of

furniture was an unmade bed that reeked of old sweat and spent sex. His sekasha had a small rat of a

man pinned against the far wall.

On the wall, images of Wolf's domi moved through their bedroom at Poppymeadow's, languishingly

stripping out of her clothes. "You want to do it?" She asked huskily. Wolf could remember the day, had

replayed it in his mind again and again as his last memory of her when he thought he had lost her.

"Come on, we have time."

She dropped the last piece of clothing on the floor, and the camera zoomed in tighter to play down over

her body. Wolf snarled out the command for the winds and slammed its power into the wall. The wall

boomed, the house shuddering at the impact, and the wallpaper went black. Tinker's voice, however,

continued with a soft moan of delight.

"Hey! Hey!" the man cried in English. "Do you have any idea how expensive that is? You can't just

smash in here and break my stuff. I have rights."

"You had rights. They've been revoked." Wolf returned to the balcony and knocked the camera from its

tripod. The wallpaper showed a somersault of confusion as the camera flipped end over end. When it

struck pavement, it shattered into small unrecognizable pieces, and the wallpaper flickered back to the

previously recorded loop of Tinker sitting in the garden.

"Evacuate the area," Wolf ordered in low Elvish. "I'm razing these buildings."

Apparently the man understood Elvish, because he yelped out, "What? You can't do that! I've called the

police! You can't do this! This is Pittsburgh! I have rights!"

As if summoned by his words, a commotion downstairs announced the arrival of the Pittsburgh Police.

"Police, freeze." A male voice barked in English. "Put down the weapons."

Wolf felt the sekasha downstairs activate their shields, blooms of magic against his awareness. Bladebite

was saying something low and fast in High Elvish.

"Naekanain," Someone cried in badly accented Elvish—I do not understand – while the first speaker

repeated in English, "Put down the weapons!"

Wolf cursed. Apparently the police officers didn't speak Elvish and his sekasha didn't speak English.

Wolf called the winds and wrapped them about him before going to the top of the stairs.

There were two dark blue uniformed policemen crouched in the front door, keeping pistols leveled at the

sekasha who had their ejae drawn. The officers looked human but with oni, appearances could be

deceiving. Both were tall enough to be oni warriors. The disguised warriors favored red hair while one

policeman was pale blonde and the other dark brown. The blonde motioned with his left hand, as if

trying to keep both his partner and the elves from acting.

""Naekanain," The blonde repeated, and then added. "Pavuyau Ruve. Czernowski, just chill. They're the

viceroy's personal guard."

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Wen Spencer - Wolf Who Rules

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