Wolf Who Rules

Maynard acknowledged the dismissal with a hard look but took himself away.

***

Ginger Wine intercepted Wolf in her front gardens, bowing low.

"What is wrong?"

Ginger Wine's face tightened and she glanced down the garden path. There were only her own laedin caste guards in sight. "These," she hissed in English, "Conceited, pompous, arrogant Stone Clan pigs-that is what is wrong. I should have asked for four times my normal fee, instead of twice. The way they eat, you'd think they were hollow."

"I can not do anything about arrogance and gluttony. Have they done anything wrong?"

She let out her breath in a long sigh, and then stood nudging a rock in the garden path. "It just everything is - off; nothing seems right. Everyone is tripping over one another, plates are being dropped, laundry is being mislaid and they eat and eat and eat." She looked pleadingly up to Wolf. "Everyone is frightened of them. We've lived so long with just you and your sekasha, I actually forgot how the world really is; what it is to live in fear."

"Do you want them out?"

She looked away, chewing on her bottom lip. Finally she shook her head. "No. Things are not that bad - perhaps it will settle down after another day or two - once we grow used to them." She laid her hand on Wolf's arm. "Please, domou, get rid of these oni so we can go back to our comfortable life."

He patted her hand. "We will work hard to resolve this quickly."

Ginger Wine gave Wolf a tight smile. "Thank you. Please, let me show you to the dining room."

As they entered the elegant dining room, there was a crash from the far kitchens, followed by loud sobbing. Ginger Wine sighed, begged his pardon and hurried off toward the kitchen. A large round table with six chairs stood in the center of the room. All the extra tables had been cleared, leaving the space bare and echoing. While only five domana were attending, there would be fifteen sekasha and a server from each clan.

Wolf considered the sixth chair. Tinker should attend the meeting, but she was in no mental state to do so. He ordered a chair to be removed. Unfortunately, Jewel Tears arrived as the chair was being carried out.

"Your domi is not attending?" Jewel Tears managed to put malice into the innocent words.

"No." Wolf warned her with a look that he did not wish to discuss it farther.

Jewel went with great purpose to lay claim to her chair.

True Flame arrived with a shifting of the sekasha and a new contest of rank between them. "So this is where we will be?"

"Yes, your highness." Jewel Tears appropriated the role of hostess. She bowed low, displaying her charms to the prince.

True Flame recognized her with a slight cold nod. Wolf's cousin never approved of Jewel Tears. It had been a source of bitterness between him and Wolf, even afterwards, as it had been hard to acknowledge that his cousin had been right all along. Wolf could only hope that his decisions with Jewel Tears wouldn't now taint True Flame's opinion of Tinker.

True Flame glanced at the table and then to Wolf. "Five chairs?"

"My domi will not be able to attend," Wolf wished Jewel Tears wasn't standing there, reminding True Flame of his bad choices in the past. "She is-" He found himself at loss for words. What was Tinker? "-not herself."

"An interesting choice of words," Jewel Tears murmured.

Wolf ignored her.

Earth Son arrived with Forest Moss in tow. They made their bows to True Flame.

All parties gathered, they settled at the table to start the aumani, a formal meeting of clans.

Windwolf was sure if they captured any oni and needed to torture information out of them, an aumani would be perfect for it. He sat across from Earth Son, studiously ignoring the servants as they laid out the elaborate table settings. Between the Skin Clan's love of elaborate power icons, and the thousands of years that the clans needed to conduct meetings in secrecy, elves had had the use of symbology beaten almost out of them. There had to be some deep buried need left in them that seeped out at times like this. How else explain the pure white table runner, the scattering of blood red roses, the black ceramic place settings, and the glasses of sapphire blue? The lit candle. The smoking incense. The polished pebble. All the colors and the elements of three Clans were subtlety present on the table.

They sat in reflective silence until the servers withdrew from the table. True Flame sipped his tea, opening the meeting. They drank, waiting for him to speak.

"So that we can all be of one mind," True Flame broke the silence. "Wolf Who Rules Wind, tell us our past."

Wolf recounted the last few weeks since the meeting of the three clans at Aum Reanu. Knowing that he would lose face with True Flame for holding back information, he tried to be as thorough as possible in Tinker's kidnapping, Lord Tomtom's killing and the discovery of Sparrow's treachery.

"And what of the Ghostlands?" Earth Son asked when Wolf came to an end. "Is your domi's gate still functioning?"