The sun shone bright in a deep blue sky. Stiff, green heath grass prickled her palms. Crouched on her hands and knees near the edge of a cliff, Kyra’s first, frantic thought was that the wyr-wolf had sent her through the door of death.
A huge, silver disc drifted across her vision, and she sprang to her feet, her pulse quickening. She was in Anant-kal, the world as perceived by their kataris. The world beyond time. The place Shirin Mam had taught her how to enter before the Mahimata had died.
Kyra glanced down past the cliff’s edge. A depthless chasm yawned below her, spanned by a long, narrow bridge. Across the gap, a vast city glittered in the sun. Tall towers and white domes, glass and metal reflecting the light so strongly that it hurt the eyes to look at them. A beautiful city, devoid of life. Just the same as she remembered.
Hope flared within her. Perhaps Shirin Mam had drawn her to Anant-kal again, this time to rescue her from wyr-wolves. Kyra swallowed as she recalled the dripping maw of the beast that had pinned her to the ground with its paw.
A flash of movement at the other end of the gossamer-thin bridge caught her eye. Shirin Mam? Yes. Kyra scrambled down the rocks to the bridge and ran across, her excitement mounting. But when she reached the other side, no one was in sight.
A broad road lined with brilliant purple bougainvillea stretched out before her, leading into the city. Kyra walked down the road, trying to remember which one of the sky-touching towers she had seen Shirin Mam enter the last time.
“Looking for someone?”
Kyra’s stomach clenched at the unfamiliar voice, and she whirled around.
A tall, powerfully built young man stood behind her. He was light-eyed and shaggy-haired, naked but for a rag tied around his waist.
Kyra stepped back, trying to slow her heartbeat. Too late, she remembered Shirin Mam’s cryptic warning: Beware of Anant-kal. We are not the only ones who walk here.
“Who are you?” she demanded, wishing she had her katari. Without it, she felt small and defenseless.
The man grinned, revealing a line of elongated white teeth. He made an elaborate bow. “Menadin Vulon at your service. May the moon shine bright on our meeting.”
Moon? Kyra frowned. The man was oddly familiar, with his animal grace, his amber yellow eyes, and that mane of hair . . .
A sly look crossed his face and his tongue flicked out: a forked tongue.
“No,” she whispered. “It can’t be . . .” Shock coursed through her, robbing her of speech.
“Did you like my kiss?” he said with a smirk.
Goddess help me. Kyra held up her hands against the abomination. “Go away,” she stuttered. “Get away from me.”
Menadin threw his head back and laughed, a deep-throated sound that was more like a growl. “We have waited for you many years, Kyra Veer.”
Kyra spun and ran toward the city.
Between the rows of immaculate towers she flew, turning unexpected corners and dashing into side streets. She came across a sparkling pond, glittering jewellike in the sun, and waded through it, hoping to throw the creature off her scent. Beyond the water was a walled garden, and there she took shelter. She sank to the grass and buried her head in her knees, willing herself to stop shaking.
“It’s a beautiful place, is it not?”
Oh no. Kyra raised her head in despair. Menadin stood before her, leaning against the trunk of a twisted tree. He didn’t even seem winded.
He pointed to the scarlet flowers near her feet. “Be careful. They bite.”
Kyra withdrew her feet. Menadin grinned again, displaying the rows of overlong teeth, the bestial tongue.
“What do you want? And what are you?” Kyra asked, striving to keep her voice calm.
“You would like the history of our race in one sitting?” said Menadin. “It is not as simple as that.”
Kyra wrapped her arms around herself. The beast could talk; it could be reasoned with. She would escape. “You drew me here, didn’t you?” she asked.
“It is a power we have always possessed,” said Menadin. “Wyr-wolf venom can be used to transpose someone to Wyr-mandil. As long as they have the ability to bond with kalishium, like you do.”
“Wyr-mandil?”
“In our tongue, ‘mandil’ means home.” Menadin waved his arms in a gesture that encompassed the city. “This is our home—at least, the only home where we walk as humans.”
With a jolt, Kyra remembered the story that Aram of the Order of Khur had told her one night as they journeyed across the Empty Place to Kashgar. He had said that wyr-wolves had talked to Zibalik, the founder of Khur, in his dreams, and saved his life. It was Zibalik who had named the creatures wyr-wolves, recognizing them as half-human.
At the time, Kyra had dismissed the tale as pure myth and the men of Khur a credulous bunch to believe that wyr-wolves were anything but dangerous beasts to be put down.
Menadin lounged against the tree, twisting a bit of grass in his fingers. He exuded an aura of power and confidence. When he kept his mouth closed, anyone would think him human.
“Why—” Kyra began, but Menadin interrupted.
“The question is mine. Why do you kill us? Does it give you pleasure?”
“Of course not.” Kyra stood, letting anger take over and push fear away. “It is our duty. Wyr-wolves are a plague on the people of Ferghana. When you take the sheep and horses of the nomads, you take away their only means of survival. Some folk have given up trying; they’ve lost too much, and they’re scared of losing more. So they sell what remains and come down to the valley to work in farms. You’re destroying a way of life as old as the hills.
“But the worst, the very worst, is when you take humans. Every child that goes missing is a hole in the heart of our people and a mark of shame for our Order. You have bled us too long. For this alone, I will not rest until I clean the valley of every wyr-wolf that infests it.” She stopped, panting. Why was she even talking to this creature? She should leave; perhaps if she concentrated hard enough she could return to the forest, find Rinna, and make her way back home.
Menadin was quiet for a moment. Then he raised his head and something in his eyes made Kyra flinch.
“How easy it is to blame the ‘other.’ Every winter we starve, as game gets ever scarcer. The wild sheep, boars, and deer that used to be so plentiful in the valley and the hills are now hardly to be seen. Your people multiply and mine decline. Are we to be blamed for now and then plucking a fat sheep to feed our young ones?”
“What about our young ones?” asked Kyra sharply. “Does a sheep not fill your belly, that you must feed on human flesh too?”
Menadin took a quick step forward so that he towered over her, his face contorted in a snarl. “I have never once tasted human flesh. I might make an exception with you, though.”
“It will be the last thing you do, dog,” Kyra snapped, standing her ground, although every nerve in her screamed to back away, to put some distance between herself and this wolf-man.
“Such spirit,” murmured Menadin, “and such a slender neck. I could break it with two fingers.”
Kyra’s hands flew to her throat. “You can’t touch me,” she said, hoping against hope that she was correct. “Not in Anantkal. We aren’t really here.”
“No?” Quick as lightning, Menadin lunged forward and gripped her hair. “Perhaps I can demonstrate how wrong you are.”
Kyra screwed her eyes shut, trying to overcome her panic and revulsion. What was happening? Shirin Mam had said that nothing was present in Anant-kal, not in the physical sense, anyway. So why could she feel his fingers in her hair, his fetid breath on her cheeks? She struggled to free herself from him, but he laughed, and a feeling of utter helplessness swept over her.
You are only powerless if you think yourself to be. Remember who you are.
Shirin Mam’s voice cut clear as a bell through the jangling discord of her mind.
I am a Markswoman—more, I am the Mahimata of Kali, Kyra told herself. The most powerful woman in Ferghana. Time to teach this dog his place.
Kyra breathed in and out, seeking the calm at the core of her being. She sank into the second-level meditative trance, and Anant-kal vanished.
She was in a dark tunnel, a limbo. The light of her katari burned bright at the other end, her bridge back to her body, her world.
Come, I have need of you.
Then the weapon was in her hand, the slim blade glowing green fire.
She returned to Anant-kal to find Menadin’s fangs against her neck. Without hesitation, she brought her blade up and slashed his back.
Menadin stumbled and fell. The look of surprise on his face was almost comical.
“You will not touch me again,” said Kyra. “Next time, my katari will find your heart and stop it.”
Menadin picked himself up. To her amazement, he smiled. “Good. You begin to discover your power.”
Kyra’s feeling of triumph evaporated. Menadin didn’t appear to be hurt at all. She glanced at her blade, quiescent now. It felt real enough in her hand.
“Don’t you understand?” said Menadin. “The influence you have on this world depends on how strongly you are present in it. Already, you have greater vitality here than your teacher ever did. But still, you cannot match me. I have walked in Wyr-mandil more years than you have lived.”
That didn’t make sense. But then, nothing about Anant-kal had ever made sense. “Why have you drawn me here?” asked Kyra, sheathing her blade. “What do you want of me?”
“Two things,” said Menadin. “For you are twice in my debt.”
Kyra frowned. “How so?”
“The first, when you killed my brother Darril. Do you remember him, Kyra? He was younger than me and not as handsome, but our mother loved him best.
“I tracked you one day to the hillside behind your caves and watched while you did silly exercises in the rain. I imagined how it would be to kill you. I could have snapped your neck with one swipe of my paw. It would have helped me lay Darril’s ghost to rest. But I let you live.”
Kyra’s throat was dry. She remembered the third and final wyr-wolf hunt she had ridden in last year and the wyr-wolf she had killed. How easily her blade had opened its—his—chest. She wet her lips. “And the second?”
Menadin bared his teeth. “When we helped you flee your Order after Shirin Mam died. We led Tamsyn a merry dance through the woods, and you escaped to the hills of Gonur.”
Kyra closed her eyes. It was too much to take in. The wyr-wolves were people. Of a kind. People who had helped her. Who would ever believe her? Unless . . .
Her eyes flew open.
But Menadin seemed to know what she was thinking. “We cannot manifest ourselves as human except in Wyr-mandil. You are the first person in centuries with the talent to be here strongly enough to see us. Even Shirin Mam was not able to see or hear us, although she sensed our presence. We, on the other hand, could hear her every thought.”
That didn’t seem believable. “Why should I do anything to help you?” demanded Kyra. “If there was anything remotely human about you, you would not prey on our young.”
“We don’t prey on your young, Kyra Veer,” said Menadin. “It is you humans who prey on ours.”
Kyra bit her lip. She remembered the tales she had heard about hunters discovering dens with pups and the slaughter that followed. Tamsyn herself had delighted in stalking pregnant wyr-wolves.
“I always spoke against the killing of any human, young or old,” said Menadin. “And I am the leader of the Vulons, the most powerful pack in the Ferghana. My people listen to me. But I cannot control every wyr-wolf that comes down from the mountains, howling for revenge because he has lost his mate and his young ones. Besides, were you to look more deeply into the matter, you may find the truth somewhat different than what you imagined. Wyr-wolves may have injured or killed human adults, but they are not behind the loss of any children. Perhaps you have predators among your own kind. The stories of wyr-wolves carrying off children are just that—stories with which mothers frighten children and killers hide their crimes.”
“You expect me to believe that?” said Kyra, summoning up scorn, but her heart was not in it. Menadin’s words had the ring of sincerity, unpleasant though they were.
“The truth is always difficult to accept,” said Menadin, “and easy to distort. I promise you this: if you grant the first of our two requests, I will do everything within my power to keep my people away from yours. Any wyr-wolf that dares disobey this edict will have his throat torn out.”
“And the first of your requests is?”
Menadin spread his hands. “Leave us alone. Stop the killing. Issue an edict of your own that wyr-wolves are not to be hunted, on pain of death.”
“I can’t do that,” Kyra burst out. “Everyone will think I’m mad.”
“You are the Mahimata of Kali, aren’t you?” said Menadin. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”
“It’s not that simple,” said Kyra. “Even if I do believe you, you’re asking me to overturn centuries of fear and hatred with one decree.”
“When has doing the right thing ever been simple?” countered Menadin. “Did Shirin Mam teach you nothing?”
Kyra glared at him, knowing that he was right. She said, “You haven’t told me what else you want.”
“Later,” said Menadin. “It’s time you were getting back. Your elders are beside themselves with worry.” He spat into his hand and held it out. “Come.”
Reluctantly, Kyra extended her hand toward his. As they touched, she screamed; his hand felt like a gigantic paw, hairy and clawed.
The world faded.