Wolf Who Rules

"This was educational." Tinker caught Wolf's arm and pulled him to the kitchen. On the counter was an odd sculpture. A rainbow of creamy paste whirled upwards like a tornado with paper plates dividing the various colors. It was supported by a silvery aluminum plate, which had been balanced on a base of soda cans.

The paste was the source of the color streaks on Tinker's face, and the smell of butter and sugar. Wolf smeared some off her face. "And this is…?"

"Frosting. Long story. Doesn't matter anymore. This," Tinker pointed to the structure. "I think this is a model of the Ghostlands. Look he's sculptured the frosting into a Roy G. Biv spectrum and at each color shift there's a universe marker - the paper plates. Well-at least I think that's what they are."

Tinker took out a camera from her dress pocket, and flipped up the screen. "I filmed it all." She played a minute of the dragon building the sculpture, rumbling in a low steady tone. "What we need is someone that speaks dragon. But, until then -" she folded the camera back up and stuffed it into her dress pocket. "This is what I think it's trying to tell me. Look, can you see down into the middle of this? He made a big production of dropping a lug nut down into there, and did a lot of pointing and talking. He took it out and dropped it a couple of times. And then the math started. I think- he's trying-maybe - to say that my gate is still active."

"Can you stop the Ghostlands from expanding?"

"If I can figure out a way to remove my gate, yes, I think it might close the Ghostlands completely. What I think is happening is this." She dragged him to the whiteboard.

Tinker swept her hand across dragon writing and the English words 'save: yes no' appeared. She touched the 'yes' and the board went white. Drawing a straight horizon line, she turned to him. "This is Turtle Creek before the chaos started. According to Stormsong, when you originally surveyed this area a hundred years ago, there was a fiutana here," she added a large purple oval under the line. "Now Lord Tomtom talked about protective spells that the oni had cloaking their compound, so I think this is why the oni were based here - which almost might indicate where their other camps are and why you can't find them."

Yes, that would explain much. "If the other springs in the area are cloaked, then we know that the oni are using them. Look for what is missing instead of what is there."

"Huh? Oh, yes, that would work. Now, my gate was here." She drew in a black circle above the line, and then added a second black circle at the bottom of the board. "And that's the gate in orbit. I set up a resonance between then." The resonance was represented by a wavy line connecting the two black circles that ran through the heart of the purple spring oval. "I think what Impatience is telling me is that along this line, a discontinuity emerged, which immediately affected the land under my gate."

She turned and typed on a keyboard. The television which had been cycling pictures of Turtle Creek stopped on a blur of blue. "This is thermal readings of the discontinuity. It's hard to see, but this area here." She tapped a circle at the heart of the screen. "That's the same size and shape as my gate, lying on its side."

Tinker turned back to the white board, and drew a series of black circles stacked inside the pool of purple. "See, as it sinks, the area affected by the gate would expand." She stepped back from the board, gazing at it. "I'm not a hundred percent sure this is an accurate model, but it explains why the effect is growing."

"Even though the gate in orbit was destroyed?"

"Each gate was designed to operate independently."

"So if we remove the gate, the discontinuity will heal?"

Tinker sighed. "I don't know. If I'm right, and we can get the gate out, it will at least stop the Ghostlands from growing."

Wolf considered what Jewel Tears claimed about the current forces working in the valley. "That would be good enough for now. We need to do something quickly."

"Well, I'm not getting anything done here." She picked up various items and slipped them into her pocket. "I can get to work on the retrieval now."

Chapter 20: Follow The Yellow Brick Road

Stone Clan chose to wait until the next morning to protest Wind Clan's actions. Wolf wasn't sure why they had delayed, so he stood and listened to Earth Son rant on about protocol and etiquette.

"Wind Clan is insulting us at every step. Look," Earth Son pointed up the tall iron wood scaffolding to where Tinker stood, overseeing the installation of her scrap yard crane. Little Horse was up in the scaffolding with her, but the rest of her Hand were keeping to the ground. "Wind Clan's domi hasn't come down to hear our complaints."

Wolf made a show of glancing around. "We did not know this was to be a formal aumani. I see the rock, but where is the incense and the flame?"