In the dimming light, he saw a tree with wide, forking branches. The climb was not hard, and he found a place where he could wedge himself between a broad limb and the trunk of the tree, with a second limb beneath to catch him should he fall. It was not very comfortable, but he could not see the ground when he looked down. Predators relying on sight should not notice him.
If animals followed his scent, he could only hope that they were not the kind that climbed trees. Once he settled in one spot, it was hopeless to try to stay awake in the face of his body’s need to restore itself.
Despite the hard, rough tree against his bare skin, he carefully arranged his body in the best compromise he could manage between safety and comfort. Wulfston felt himself sucked inexorably into the oblivion of Adept slumber.
Perhaps the gods would grant him protection for this one night-whatever gods held sway in this dark and alien land.
He was gorging on fresh meat, aware only of the smell and taste, and the emptiness in his belly. The pack leaders had brought down a water buifalo, and gorged their fill on the smoking entrails and the liver, but there was meat aplenty for the two young ones who now chewed on the tough muscles, struggling even with their sharply pointed teeth to tear off chunks to swallow whole, ready to run if-
Snarls warned him.
He saw the hyena coming up on the other side of the carcass, warning him away.
But he was still hungry! He had had only a few mouthfuls! And his sister-
She was gone already, had turned and run from the scavenger, knowing it perfectly capable of killing if it wanted to.
For the first time in his life, hunger combined with male instinct, and he stood his ground, his hackles rising, growling in return, baring his teeth to show their sharpness and the meat that was rightly his.
The hyena gave a bark of warning, and leaped over the buffalo carcass.
The one eating growled in return, but the hyena thrust its sharp nose under his tail, challenging.
He turned sharply, trying to do the same to the larger beast, but the hyena went for his throat, tumbling the younger animal head over heels in an attempt to escape the slashing teeth.
Hunger made him brave. He got his feet under him and leaped for the hyena’s throat-but the larger animal was wily and experienced. He caught the young dog by the thick throat fur, shaking, trying to snap his neck.
This time youth and lack of experience overtook him- when his opponent let go he cringed in fear, whining. The hyenas wicked yellow teeth gashed his thigh. In response, he turned on his back, belly exposed in submission.
The hyena snarled and threatened, standing between the buffalo carcass and the dog, but he did not attack further.
The dog whined, then slunk off in the stink of his own blood and fear musk, his stomach still empty and protesting.
At the edge of the jungle his sister waited anxiously, crying, ready to lick his wounds-
Wulfston woke with a start, to full daylight. What a strange dream-he and Aradia as dogs-?
As he turned his stiff body to climb down the tree, Wulfston found himself eye to eye with the biggest snake he had ever seen. The body was wrapped around a branch above him, the head hanging down to peer at him from cold reptilian eyes.
Wulfston backed down the tree as hastily as he could without any sudden moves. His limbs were stiff from having remained in the same awkward position all night, but he didn’t hurt. His body’s healing powers had come automatically into play. But still his stomach demanded food.
He reached the foot of the tree and straightened, stretching his arms upward to ease his back-and his makeshift loincloth slid down to his ankles!
Wulfston picked up the silk shirt and unknotted it to retie it more securely about his loins. He knew what had happened: he had not provided his body with food to restore his strength, and so it had taken energy out of his own flesh.
He had to find food-his gut was aching. The fact that he was wide awake and feeling good except for the raging hunger told him that his powers were restored, but he could not use them without replacing the energy his body required. Adepts carried no extra body fat; the night’s fast had taken all he could spare without giving up muscle.
He was still within the sound of the waterfall, so he went back, easily caught a fish and lifted it from the water with Adept power, and cooked it over a small fire he built on the rock ledge. He ate the first of it half raw, unable to wait for it to cook through.
When he had caught, cooked, and eaten a second fish, although he was not satisfied, he had at least given his body something to work with. He also felt more confident, now that he dared use his powers again.
Having fulfilled his first priority of nutrition, he had to decide what to do next. Surely the other survivors of the shipwreck were looking for him.
Were there other survivors? There had to be. Zanos and Astra would have combined their Adept powers to save themselves. And what about Chulaika and Chaiku? Sukuru had used them to bring Wulfston to Africa. Their usefulness over, had he discarded them? Or had they rejoined him?
He wasn’t going to find them in the middle of the jungle. If he worked his way east for a few miles he would come out onto a plain-
How did he know that?
He realized the knowledge came from that weird dream, in which he and Aradia were half-grown wild dogs driven from their meal by a hyena.
Was that what the dream was really about? Or was that just the interpretation he had put on it when he woke up?
When he opened his mind to it, Wulfston realized that in the dream he had been the dog, not himself at all. The female had been sister, litter-mate, companion… but not Aradia.
It had been… real.
He had been in that dog’s mind.
He had been… Reading?
Torio had once asked him how he knew where the animals were that he called. Had his defenseless state of last night dropped some barrier?
He sat beside the pool, and tried to Read. As always, nothing happened. Of course nothing happened.
He d had a dream, that was all!
So how did he know that a grassy plain lay beyond the jungle?
Well, how did he know? Maybe there was no plain. Maybe there was nothing but more jungle, and if he went east he would be farther and farther from any other survivors of the shipwreck. If he went west, he would certainly come back to the ocean. But wouldn’t the shore be where Sukuru expected to find him?
He had been attacked there once already.
So… east or west?
And then, with chill prickles up his spine, he realized that he knew east from west. He was no longer lost, although the sun rode too high to be an indicator of direction, and he had no lodestone. He just knew!
Something had happened to him in the night. Perhaps it really was the opening of his Reading powers at last. He had to find Astra-she’d quickly train him to use them. But he had to keep from being captured or killed by Sukuru, or by Z’Nelia’s forces, who might assume he was on Sukuru’s side.
They knew he was not a Reader. They would assume that, unable to traverse the jungle, and not knowing that the plain lay within easy distance for an Adept, he would go back to the sea.
Therefore he would go eastward, to the plain.
By high noon he came to the edge of the jungle. Before him stretched the plain he had seen in his dream-grassland as far as the eye could see, teeming with life.
Some animals he recognized-elephants were used for heavy labor in the Aventine Empire, and lions had been kept by the Emperor’s family as if to demonstrate their power by their hold on the king of beasts.
But he did not know the names of the many deerlike creatures, large and small, some with horns that appeared too large for their small heads to carry.