Jane Lindskold

“Indeed, he is glorious in his madness.”

“Are you prepared then, to shoot a human being?" he asked, trying not to let Jenny sense his own internal unease. "It's not the same as shooting a duck or gazelle."Jenny's violet eyes met his straight on. "If that human being was about to harm any one of us, I'd feel worse about shooting the duck. It, at least, would have done nothing to deserve a bullet.”

“There is no shame in strategic retreat if it lets you remain strong enough to go after the enemy later.”

“What if the only non-humans the two-legs know," she mused, "are the Cousin-kind? How stupid they would believe all others who walk the earth to be!”

“Something else changed when querinalo changed. Our immortality began to become—it is difficult to explain. None of us began to age, nor did we lose our vitality. Rather it was as if what was resilient within us began to stiffen. Traits of character became not merely habits, but defining elements. I suppose for me that it was fortunate — or unfortunate, given my current situation as your prisoner — that one of my defining traits has always been curiosity. Curiosity is one of the seeds of creativity, so that remained to me as well, but many of my associates were less fortunate."Remember that Virim recruited us all because we shared a certain idealism. However, I fear that not much time needs to pass for idealism to become dogmatism. This was the case for many of my associates. They became dogmatic, but not regarding the same things."Firekeeper wondered what dogs had to do with ideas, but thought she understood. Dogs, like wolves, were pack animals, but unlike wolves, dogs retained a juvenile desire to follow. So these spellcasters had been Virim's dogs, and when this stiffening happened, they had become even more doglike. It made sense in a way.”

“I thought," Shad said slowly, "that she was offended if you referred to Blind Seer or Elation as her pets.""True," Derian assured him. "Absolutely the correct etiquette—to her face. However, well… When I first met Firekeeper, less than a year ago, her relationships with animals fell into pretty much two categories: those you ate and those you befriended. I remember that she thought we were pretty clever for bringing horses along so we wouldn't need to hunt our meat. It took me a while to show her they had other uses.”

“You cannot escape that you are a woman,” she began.“I wish I could,” Firekeeper muttered, but Elise continued as if she hadn’t heard.“Since you cannot, you cannot escape the expectations that our society and our class places upon women.”“Why?” Firekeeper said querulously.“...Consider,” she offered, “what you told me about learning to see at night so that you could hunt with the wolves. Learning to wear a gown, to walk gracefully, to eat politely…”“I do that!”“You’re learning,” Elise admitted, “but don’t change the subject. All of these are ways of learning to see in the dark.”“Maybe,” Firekeeper said, her tone unconvinced.“Can you climb a tree?”“Yes.”“Swim?”“Yes!” This second affirmative was almost indignant.“And these skills let you go places that you could not go without them.”Stubborn silence. Elise pressed her point.“Why do you like knowing how to shoot a bow?”“It lets me kill farther,” came the answer, almost in a growl.“And using a sword does the same?”“Yes.”“Let me tell you, Firekeeper, knowing a woman’s arts can keep you alive, let you invade private sanctums, even help you to subdue your enemies. If you don’t know those arts, others who do will always have an advantage over you.”“All this from wearing a gown that tangles your feet?”

“Firekeeper still could not understand the human penchant for eating in company. Even less so, she could not understand the human desire to combine business and meals.True, a wolf pack shared a kill, but not from any great desire to do so—rather because any who departed the scene would be unlikely to get a share... She struggled...not to bolt her food and almost always remembered that growling when a person spoke to you was not a proper response.”

“Wolves regularly attacked their rivals in power, so the idea of killing to gain position was neither alien nor repulsive to her. The use of assassins she had filed as yet another of the curious tools - like swords and bows — that humans created to make up for their lack of personal armament. What she still had to puzzle through was the subtle strategies involved in killing those who were expected to inherit power rather than those who held the power itself.”

“For his part, Blind Seer had no difficulty accepting idleness. A wolf proverb stated: “Hunt when hungry, sleep when not, for hunger always returns.”

“After a day of watching the two-legs interact from within their midst, she was certain that they could talk as well as any wolf. Unlike wolves, however, they mostly used their mouths, a thing she found limiting. How could you tell someone to keep away from your food when your own mouth was full?”

“I am a brother to dragons, a companion to owls.”

“Well done, Sister," Blind Seer said. "I look forward to meeting this One above Ones. Now, you must make ready. I, of course, am already perfect.”

“Is she become a rag doll? Are the wolves become children? It seems quite possible, there on the twilight fringes of dying. With some faint spark of herself, the little girl holds on to the idea. Even a rag doll has more life than does a dying child.”