Diplomacy of Wolves: Book 1 of the Secret Texts Read online

  Natural Tendencies

  It was a scent in the hallway that began the Shift. Kait moved to a dark side passage and sank to the floor. She felt her bones going liquid in her body, her blood bubbling like sparkling wine. I want to run, she thought. I want to race the wind and hunt. I want fresh, hot meat, the iron tang of blood.

  Her blood pounded in her wrists, in her temples, behind her tightly closed eyes. “I don’t want those things,” she said. “I want to serve my Family.” Her voice sounded raw, husky, far too deep.

  I can hold the other back, she thought. I am in control. I have given up everything for this chance. I can be more than my cursed self.

  Kait opened her eyes and looked at her hands. Human hands. But she had solved nothing. The Crash was coming . . .

  ACCLAIM FOR

  Diplomacy of Wolves

  “This fast-paced story moves along smartly; in-depth characterizations bring the inhabitants of these troubled lands to life. Lisle has mastered the technique of writing high fantasy . . . leaves readers eager for the next installment.”

  —VOYA

  “Carefully crafted and well thought out . . . wonderful.”

  —SF Site

  “An exciting story.”

  —Philadelphia Press/Review

  “Entertaining . . . sorcery, wolves, and deception. What more could you want?”

  —BookPage

  “Lisle blends magic, politics, and romance . . . a good choice for fantasy collections.”

  —Library Journal

  “Lisle’s richly realized characters defy easy classification, and are the complex products of their convoluted environments . . . a tantalizing introduction to a detailed world that will definitely lure me back for the next installment.”

  —Robin Hobb, author of Assassin’s Apprentice

  “A tough, bold new epic fantasy that you’ll never forget.”

  —Kate Elliott, author of King’s Dragon

  “Lisle is a powerful fantasy creator, and DIPLOMACY OF WOLVES is her best yet!”

  —Julian May, author of The Galactic Milieu series

  DIPLOMACY OF WOLVES. Copyright © 1998 by Holly Lisle. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  For information address Warner Books, Inc., Hachette Book Group, USA, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Aspect® name and logo are registered trademarks of Warner Books, Inc.

  A Time Warner Company

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2014-1

  A trade paperback edition of this book was published in 1998 by Warner Books.

  First eBook Edition: December 2000

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com

  To Russell Galen,

  my fantastic agent—

  for standing by me through hard times and leading me,

  through his encouragement, persistence,

  and belief in me and what I could do, to better.

  Neither this book

  nor the world of Matrin

  would exist without him.

  Thank you, Russ.

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to Peter James and Nick Thorpe, authors of Ancient Inventions, whose book proved a constant source of inspiration in the writing of this one; to Betsy Mitchell, my editor, whose incisive criticisms kept me on track, and whose enthusiasm for the story made the book fun to write; to Michael Watkins, for early technical criticism and the loan of books on dirigibles that made some of this project work; to Becky and Mark, for encouragement and support and carrying ten thousand glasses of ice water up the stairs for me after school and during summer vacation; to Matt, for love and support and many, many suppers.

  Men forge swords of steel and fire;

  gods forge swords of flesh and blood and tragedy.

  Vincalis the Agitator

  from The Last Hero of Maestwauld

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  For more than a thousand years, the Mirror of Souls waited for the return of magic that would awaken it and allow it to finish its work. It waited in a closed-off room on the side of a hill in a long-abandoned city, its existence forgotten on a continent where men had been replaced by the monsters spawned of a hellish war. It slept, oblivious to the passage of time, oblivious to the change that went on all around it, oblivious to the destruction of an old order and to the chaos that followed, and to the new world that rose on the ashes of the old. For more than a thousand years, the Mirror had waited in vain.

  Now, though, it glowed softly, as faint currents of distant magic began to wash against it, and within the shimmering depths of its central well, shadows stirred. That far-off spellcasting—still too weak to rouse the lost artifact to wakefulness—sufficed to permit it to dream.

  Within the reborn stream of magical energy, the Mirror began to dream of the past that remained its present. It dreamed of the ghosts of the great men and women held within its memory. It dreamed of a world lost and forgotten, of wonders no longer imaginable, of secrets buried in the rubble of a world that no longer existed. It dreamed of the task that it had left undone for a thousand years.

  Undone. But not forgotten.

  The Mirror yearned to waken, and to complete the task for which it had been created.

  * * *

  “Your job will be to keep her away from the men, Kait. Just until after the wedding. You know how Tippa is—and with the Sabirs getting a firm foothold into the Kairn Territories, we need this alliance.”

  She had acknowledged her cousin’s fascination with all things male, and the senior diplomat had smiled at her and patted her shoulder. “This is your chance to prove yourself,” he’d said. “Do well here, and the Family will place you in a regular diplomatic position. You’ll have other assignments.”

  He hadn’t said, Fail and you’ll go back to your life as a decoration in Galweigh House. He hadn’t needed to. That was a given.

  She would be secondary, of course. Tippa would have a professional chaperone from the Galweigh Family, and another from the Dokteerak Family; Kait would be a “companion,” as far as anyone outside the Galweigh diplomatic corps knew. She would act as a fail-safe, nothing more, and while her chances of failing were slim, her chances of winning any recognition for competent performance—and with that recognition, a chance at a real diplomatic job—were even slimmer.

  But this was her beginning. Her opportunity to serve her Family, and perhaps to win a place in the diplomatic corps. This was the opportunity she’d thought she would never—could never—have. Under no circumstances would she allow herself to fa
il, or even to consider failure. Though she stood in the breezeway with her head aching and her eyes throbbing, her pain meant nothing; the fact that her skin crawled and her gut insisted that something evil lurked in the party meant only that she needed to focus her attention, that she needed to work harder. She had her assignment and her chance. She would make it count.

  So Kait Galweigh stood off in one corner at the Dokteerak Naming Day party and scanned the crowd while she pretended to sip a drink. The Dokteerak Family women in their gauzy net finery clustered beneath the broad palms in the central garden, chatting about nothing of consequence. Torchlight cast an amber gleam on their sleek skin and pale hair and made the heavy gold at their throats and wrists seem to glow. They were decorative—Kait’s Family had such women, too, and theirs was the fate she so desperately wished to escape. The senior diplomats from both Families, Galweigh and Dokteerak, gathered in the breezeway that surrounded the courtyard, leaning along the food-laden tables, nibbling from finger servings of yearling duck and broiled monkey and wild pig and papaya-stuffed python, telling each other amusing stories and watching, watching, their eyes never still. Concubines flirted and primped, tempting their way into berths in the beds of the high-ranking or the beautiful. Dokteerak guardsmen in gold and blue propped themselves against doorways, swapping racy stories and tales of bravado with Galweigh guardsmen in red and black. Outland princes and the parats of other Families and their cadet branches drifted from group to group, assessing available women the way hunting wolves assessed a herd of deer.

  In the salon beside the breezeway, dancing couples moved in and out of Kait’s view. Tippa and her future father-in-law stamped and swirled among them, performing one of the traditional bride’s dances, with, perhaps, a bit more enthusiasm than necessary. Kait watched the older man and wondered if the Dokteerak paraglese would be a threat to his future daughter-in-law’s virtue. If he would, he wouldn’t be a threat on the dance floor in front of his son and subjects, but Kait wondered at the wisdom of an alliance with a man who eyed his son’s future wife with such blatant lust.

  Both Tippa’s Galweigh chaperone and her Dokteerak one watched from the sidelines, and Calmet Dokteerak, the future bridegroom, danced with a series of gaudily dressed paratas. Things there remained under control.

  The people she needed to watch were the parats. Like the one approaching her at that moment.

  “Beautiful parata,” he said, “please dance with me and be my flower of the evening. You are so beautiful, I cannot continue to breathe unless my air has first been kissed by you.”

  Kait had heard variations on the same line half a dozen times already. As the night wore on, the protestations would become more passionate and more vehement. Also, she mused, more desperate. The concubines flocked to the older men and women—those with wealth and power, who could be expected to give fine gifts or even offer permanent positions in their Houses. The younger men, who had less to offer, could only seduce others among the partygoers if they hoped to round out their night with sexual amusements. Kait—young, unmarried, and acceptably attractive—had come in for a complete range of attempted seductions, and her patience began to wear thin.

  “You’ll have to find another flower,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ve promised myself that I would bloom alone tonight.” She didn’t even waste time on a smile. The parat, who wore the silk of one of the lesser branches of the Dokteerak House, blanched and nodded stiffly and walked away, the anger evident in his stride and the set of his shoulders.

  He wasn’t the sort who would interest her cousin Tippa, but there were plenty of others roaming the party who would. Kait discovered that while the parat had distracted her, Tippa had moved out of view. Kait stepped closer to the arches and almost tripped over the Dokteerak head artist, Kastos Miellen, who was demonstrating the workings of a charming mechanical playhouse to a pair of admiring Galweigh women. Kait apologized, backed away, and caught sight of Tippa, now dancing with her future husband.

  She relaxed, almost amused by her paranoia. From a quiet place under the arches, she alternately watched the artist’s tiny mechanical men and women moving across the miniature stage, and her cousin spinning and leaping on the crowded dance floor.

  A plump hand settled on her shoulder and she jumped. She turned to the sun-browned, grinning man who’d come up behind her, and for an instant didn’t recognize him. His scent tipped her off before she placed his face.

  “Uncle Dùghall?”

  “My Kait-cha. You haven’t forgotten me.”

  “It is you!” She hugged him hard and, laughing a little at her own confusion, stepped back to look at him. “You’ve changed.”

  He smiled. “Age and women, Kait. Age and women—the first gives you wrinkles and the second makes you fat. Whereas you are more beautiful than ever.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Kait murmured.

  “I’m sure you have. The lads are out in droves tonight. But you’re still alone. Haven’t found one you fancy yet?”

  Kait lowered her voice. “Can’t even look. I’m working.” She grinned then—her uncle was the reason she had any diplomatic assignment at all, however minor it might be. He had recommended her to the diplomatic services when she turned thirteen, and had insisted she be trained by the best teachers in the best classes. He had shipped her final two tutors to Calimekka from his post on the Imumbarra Isles himself.

  He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and leaned in close enough to whisper in her ear, “Then you have an assignment.”

  “Minor,” she said. “But important to me.” She glanced in to be sure that Tippa was still behaving herself, then turned to her uncle. “What are you doing here? I thought you couldn’t get away from the islands for this . . . that some holiday interfered.” She tried to remember the name of the holiday her mother had mentioned when reading Dùghall’s letter to her, but failed.

  “There are advantages to being considered a minor deity back home. I changed the date of the holiday, boarded a fast ship, and here I am.”

  She hugged him again, and started to effuse about how happy she was to see him. But Kastos Miellen’s miniature had caught his attention.

  “Impressive toy, isn’t it?” he asked her, nodding at the mechanical stage.

  “Ingenious. And everyone seems to like it.”

  He held up a finger, the way he always had when he was about to impart some tidbit of wisdom. “Dokteerak hasn’t forgotten the immortal advice of Vincalis.”

  Kait raised an eyebrow.

  Her uncle grinned at her. “All your studies of diplomacy and you haven’t read Vincalis the Agitator yet? That’s criminal.”

  “I don’t think I’ve even heard of Vincalis,” Kait admitted, hoping that he was one of Dùghall’s island diplomats, or someone obscure, so that she might have an excuse for not knowing his works.

  “One of the Ancients. A troublemaker of the first water, by all accounts, which is probably why you haven’t been taught him. I hear you have some talents in the direction of trouble yourself.” Dùghall didn’t look at her when he spoke—he squinted instead at the artist and his mechanical marvel. “Vincalis said, and I quote, ‘To the man of wealth who would be great, remember this—an artist is a better investment than a diplomat for three reasons: first, an artist, once bought, stays bought; second, you screw the artist instead of the other way round; and third, if you should find it essential to permanently dispose of your artist, the value of his works will increase, which no one will say of a diplomat.’” He paused for just an instant, so that he could be sure she had a chance to let the words sink in, then guffawed.

  Kait laughed with him, but even to her own ears her laughter sounded nervous.

  Dùghall studied her face and his smile grew mischievous. “I believe I’ve shocked you.”

  “At first, I suppose. But Vincalis wasn’t serious, was he?”

  Dùghall shrugged. “My dear, in the best humor lies the deepest truth, and Vincalis is as true now as he was more t
han a thousand years ago.” He smiled at her, and then stiffened as his gaze moved past her and fixed on something in the courtyard. Suddenly he was as intent as a jaguar who’d spotted a fawn. The expression vanished as quickly as it had appeared, so quickly that Kait couldn’t begin to guess what had caught his eye, but when he returned his attention to her again, his smile was apologetic. “And now, sadly, I must move on. I see an old friend out in the courtyard, and if I don’t hurry, she’s sure to vanish.”

  And before she could even give him another hug, or tell him how glad she was to see him, he was gone.

  She glanced into the salon to check on Tippa. She didn’t see either of the chaperones. Tippa’s future father-in-law had vanished. Her future husband stood in the center of a circle of admiring women, none of whom was Tippa.

  Tippa . . .

  Kait felt her stomach knot. This was her chance to prove she could serve the Family’s interests, and Tippa was nowhere in the salon.

  Kait looked around the breezeway and out into the courtyard; a cluster of men parted, and revealed Tippa spinning in a circle on the arm of a tall, handsome young outlander dressed in Gyru-nalle finery, while two others, similarly dressed, looked on.

  The couple stopped spinning and Tippa flung herself down onto a seat beside a fountain in one shadowed corner of the courtyard. Her companion said something too softly for Kait to catch over the crowd noise, and Tippa squealed with laughter. She took a tall goblet from one of the men who’d been watching her impromptu dance with his associate, and swallowed the contents in two hard pulls. At some point she had opened the outer blouse of her silk dress and pulled it back, revealing the filmy silk underblouse, which was tugged so low that Kait could see a new-moon sliver of one rouged nipple peeking over the scalloped hem. Very stylish . . . but not appropriate for a woman who was to marry within the week. Tippa’s hair had come loose from its netting and hung around her face in wild tendrils. Her eyes were too bright and her laughter too loud. All three men clustered around her as if she were one of the party concubines, and not the bride-to-be of Branard Dokteerak’s second son, Calmet.