"Would the Huntsman make you go back?"
"Well, he can't, which is why I'd call him and not my queen. He could kill me, of course, but—"
"Then, no." Her hand clenched hard on his. "Don't call."
"Wait, wait. I didn't mean he would kill me. It's a hunter's way of seeing things, that's all—that he could kill me but can't compel me. He'll come, he'll be curious, he either will or won't do what I ask." He shrugged. "And he'll tell her, tell my queen, about my call at some point, when it occurs to him to do so. But she… she'd have known when the realms shifted that I could return. Since I haven't…" He shrugged, looking away.
He hurt. She settled herself beside him, careful of his arm. It looked whole beneath the bloody rags of his sleeve, and she knew he healed fast. But she'd seen bone earlier. Surely it wasn't completely healed.
She put her hand on his thigh. "You feel torn in your loyalties."
"If she calls me to her, I'll go," he said quietly. "That hasn't changed, but… eh, there's no way to wrap this up in words." He sighed and, oblivious to her worry about his wound, put his arm around her. "It may be I've a choice ahead of me I don't know how to make, but there's no saying when that one will arrive. Calling the Huntsman might hasten it. Or it might not. Your choice is already here, Kai."
I can't let her die. That much was clear, a truth Kai couldn't duck. But she wanted another solution, one that saved the chameleon but didn't draw the attention of Nathan's queen.
One that didn't carry so high a cost, she admitted.
In the corner, the chameleon-cat slept, her mottled coat blending her into the shadows. She'd been beautiful and terrifying in action—built more like a leopard than a lion, only shaggy. She had a lynx's oversize ears and feet, an oddly shaped muzzle, and quiet colors.
Quiet now. During the fight they'd flared in a rage of orange and red, but asleep, her colors softened to a dappled brown, like sun-freckled earth. Her thought-shapes drowsed along in the colors… not forming the intricate patterns of human thought, but neither were they beast-simple.
You are so beautiful, she thought. But what do you want? Who are you?
The great head lifted, the eyes blinking open. Golden eyes. Even in the shadows, Kai could see they were a brassy gold, like old coins. The thought-shapes stilled, then seemed to struggle. Kai felt the struggle as the chameleon tried to answer—felt the creature's need, deep and vital, to be understood. She needed for Kai to know—to know—
"Dell," Kai said, her voice thick with tears. "Her name is Dell, and she trusts me. Call him, Nathan. Call the Huntsman."
Chapter 13
THE wind is never gone long in West Texas. Thirty minutes later, Nathan stood beneath a cloud-hung sky in scrubby dirt that might have once been a yard with that wind tugging at his clothes and hair. Kai was beside him; he doubted she could see at all, for even his vision had trouble picking out details in the darkness.
The chameleon—Dell—had followed, and sat on her haunches on Kai's other side, sniffing the air, unafraid. But she was a night creature, wasn't she? Like him.
His mind was sharp with disbelief. Could his long exile be about to end? Not yet, he told himself, which was true, since the Huntsman was unlikely to bring his sister along.
Yet it felt false. Memories crowded him hard, jostling out the nebulous images of what-might-be. He thought of a name, a scent, a face that had once been the dearest in all the worlds to him. The hand that had stroked his head, the voice that had praised him for a good kill.
The Huntsman. After all these years, he would see the Huntsman again… but other faces, other scents and names crowded into his head, too. People long dead, those he'd known and liked, some few he'd loved.
And beside him, Kai. Kai.
"Is there anything I should know?" she asked nervously. "I mean, assuming your spell works and he and I understand each other, do I bow, or wait for him to greet me, or shake his hand, or what?"
"Ordinary courtesy will do. The Huntsman has little patience with ceremony. He…" Nathan's voice broke. Emotions welled up too strong, too fast, pulling him in too many directions. "He doesn't… aieee," he moaned, as the grief of the long-ago sundering rose up as fresh as newly shed blood.
He scarcely noticed when he started weeping, but he felt it clearly when she moved behind him, wrapped her arms around him, and held on. And it was as if at last, at last, someone held him through that first, terrible grief, when he'd nearly gone mad with despair. At last something closed. It could close now, and the raw place inside could begin to heal.
His sobbing died, and he found the stillness inside he'd touched a few times before. Twice, when he stayed with the monks in Tibet. Once when he stood on the edge of suicide and decided not to step off… a sensible decision, he'd often thought since, for a hellhound was not easy to kill, and he'd have had the devil of a time making sure of himself.
The cold, arid wind was quickly drying his cheeks. He turned and touched his lips to Kai's forehead. "Love," he said, "is very strange."
And then he faced the night again, and spoke the Huntsman's Name.
KAI heard wind, only wind, yet she saw Nathan's lips move. She knew he'd spoken, but something in her mind refused to hear what he said. But the wind kept rising—blowing harder now, whistling scornfully through her jacket, the cold biting deep.
No. Not just wind. She heard… howling.
They came on the darkness, black shapes racing across the black of the sky. Like the darkest of storm clouds they seemed to build, to mount taller rather than draw nearer. Fear, atavistic and complete, numbed her limbs and dried her mouth.
Not Dell's. The chameleon-cat howled back, a wail of fear and defiance. Kai reached for the cat with her hand and her mind, soothing her.
Nathan took her other hand, bent, and whispered, "He likes to make an entrance."
Terror and laughter tangled in her throat, and the choked sound she made was built of both. She held tight to Nathan's hand.
Part of her saw the man come striding down from the sky, his boots as sure on the air as if it were forest floor. Part of her saw him just suddenly here—only ten feet away, standing in the ordinary dirt beside a mesquite bush. Him and his hounds. They were black, and many, and varied—some greyhound-lean, some mastiff-strong, all of them tall. And silent. After that howling, they were silent now, and unmoving.
And she hardly noticed them, for she was staring at him.
She couldn't have said if he was young or old, tall or short, only that the shape of him was perfectly right. He wore a vest over a hairy chest and rough-sewn trousers tucked into hide boots, with a quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder and a sword at his hip. His skin was brown as a nut, his beard the color of maple leaves after they've faded from flame—still autumn, not winter, but no longer burning. That beard, like his hair, curled madly, with bits of dried grass caught in the tangles.
And his colors—! Rich and warm and earthy, but with hints of leaf green, the violet of a twilight sky, and arctic white. The thoughts woven through those colors were smooth and somehow complete.
"Nadrellian." His voice was rich as freshly pressed cider, pure as a bell, and it caught on some strong emotion. "Ah, Nadrellian." And he held out his arms.
Nathan took one step, then another, and the Huntsman sprang forward to meet him, and the two men embraced—the Huntsman laughing, then seizing Nathan's face in his two hands and planting a smacking kiss on each cheek. The hounds crowded around them, tails wagging, wanting to greet and be greeted.