Wolf's-own: Koan

  * * *

  Dreamspinner Press

  www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Copyright ©2012 by Carole Cummings

  First published in 2012, 2012

  * * *

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  * * * *

  Acknowledgments

  Not enough (because there will never be enough) thanks to Jenni, who loves me enough to beat me over the head with a tree until I see the forest. To Linda, who lets me borrow the brain, even though I always return it folded, spindled, and mutilated. To my LJ Enablers—Caroline, Connie, Donna, Julia, Marinella, and Marlene—who alternately wave pom poms and shake sticks at me, depending on what I need at the time.

  To my husband, Eric, who continues to love my weirdness and continues to be proud of me. To the rest of my family—Jenna, Rachel, Eric Jr., Olivia, Aidan, Ellie, and Ethan—for existing and acquiescing to coexist with all the people in my head. And to my mom, my dad, my stepdad, and all my sisters and brothers, who apparently always knew I could, even when I didn't.

  Finally, to The Readers. Because “putting it out there” is not an easy thing, but you make it worth the angst.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Glossary

  Ada

  Once Jejin, the land ruled by the Jin, until they were conquered by the Adan.

  Adan

  The people of Ada. They shared a close relationship with the Jin until the Binding War, when the Jin used their magic against the Adan and so severed the kinship. Decades later, the Adan overrode the Jin and began stamping out those of the Jin who had magic.

  The Ancestors

  Descendants of Temshiel and mortals. They were once the guiding Voices of the Untouchables, who spoke for the Ancestors and advised the Jin, until the violence of the Binding War sent the Ancestors mad, and thus the Untouchables.

  Banpair

  Magical beings who were once maijin but who have angered their god in some way and been banished. They maintain their magic but can no longer draw strength from their god and so must draw it from the emotions of the mortals around them.

  Beishin

  A term of respect for one's teacher or master.

  Catalyst

  An alternate title for Untouchable. Their purpose is to serve as a channel and Voice for the Ancestors, and to influence individuals and events per the Ancestors’ wishes.

  Change

  A term used by the Jin to describe the point at which a child with magic begins to manifest his/her powers.

  Doujou

  Ada's guard unit, like a police force.

  Doujoun

  A guard of the Doujou.

  Eremite

  Hermit

  Ghost

  A derogatory term used to describe an Untouchable.

  Gods

  Bear, Dragon, Owl, Raven, Snake, Wolf. Each god is represented by his/her namesake moon and reaches his/her apogee of strength when his/her moon is in its primary Cycle.

  Heldesan

  A country to the north of Ada.

  Incendiary

  The paradigm upon which the Untouchables were molded. Nonmagical beings and servants of Fate whose job it was to influence world events to Fate's desires. They were deemed too dangerous generations ago and stamped out by the gods.

  Jejin

  The land once ruled by the Jin until they were conquered by the Adan. The Adan annexed Jejin and made it a part of Ada.

  Jin

  A magical people of the land once known as Jejin before the Adan overran it and took the Jin prisoner. Jejin is now known as Ada. The Jin are descendants of the Ancestors, who were themselves descendants of Temshiel.

  Ken-ken

  A particularly vicious dog, known for its “happy puppy” appearance and used for guard dog purposes.

  Kente

  A country to the south of Ada.

  Kiwa Shuua

  Tsunami; tidal wave

  Kurimo

  Chariot

  Maijin

  "Children” of the gods, but more involved with mortal concerns. Maijin are magical beings whose purpose is to interpret the laws of their gods in the mortal world and carry out the gods’ orders. Meant to balance out the Temshiel and represent mortals, where Temshiel represent the gods. Each maijin is sworn to only one of the six gods but must obey the laws of all of them.

  Misin

  An honorific used to address a woman, as in “ma'am” or “madam."

  Niijun

  Rainbow

  -onna

  An honorific added to the end of a woman's name.

  Rei

  A word that means “ghost” in the Jin's language.

  -seyh

  An honorific added to the end of a man's name, used as an address, like “Sir."

  Temshiel

  "Children” of the gods. Some Temshiel were once mortal and some were created whole by the gods. Temshiel are magical beings whose purpose is to interpret the laws of their gods in the mortal world and carry out the gods’ orders. Meant to balance out the maijin and represent the gods, where maijin represent mortals. Each Temshiel is sworn to only one of the six gods but must obey the laws of all of them.

  Thecia

  A country to the south of Ada.

  Untouchable

  An individual of Jin descent who hears the Voices of the Ancestors. Known also as Catalysts, their purpose is to serve as a channel and Voice for the Ancestors, and influence individuals and events per the Ancestors’ wishes.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter One

  Malick had always been enamored with aesthetics. Always.

  Even in the time he thought of as Before—back when he was mortal; back before he'd seen the terrifying delicacy and elegance of life, of the Balance of the gods, of the universe, of a single beat of a mortal heart—he'd admired beautiful things, beautiful people. He collected them, studied them, until he found something yet more beautiful and redirected his attention. Umeia told him quite often that his attention span was that of a two-year-old child; she would change her opinion eventually and tell him his attention span was actually that of a gnat.

  His mother was the first to have held his attention. Not for aesthetic reasons, though yes, she'd been quite beautiful. Then again, didn't every son think so of his mother? Still, the lines of her face and the drape of her hair had not been the things that Malick had heeded.

  The carefree nature with which she'd approached life; the hard practicality with which she'd lived it; the gentle but stern hand with which she'd led her children—those were the things that Malick had seen beneath the near-perfect set of her cheekbones and the supple tilt of her mouth. But the ferocity with which she'd tried to defend herself and her children, when their father decided he wanted his family back and that a knife and a cudgel was a good way to get them—that was what had solidified her place in Malick's heart forever. Turned a poor, mortal woman into something tragic and iconic, an ideal to which no one else could even attempt to aspire.

  Malick thought perhaps he'd caught Wolf's eye that same night, when his thirte
en-year-old self—still all knees and elbows, but under the delusion that shock and grief and rage really could turn him into a giant—had driven off their father with his own cudgel. Malick was only sorry he hadn't killed him. Sorrier that he'd taken the time to grieve his mother and let his father slip away like a ghost into the darkness. That single regret kept his attention for years.

  Umeia had been rather secondary in Malick's attention, ‘til then.

  She was beautiful in a different way, almost up there on their mother's pedestal in Malick's heart, but not quite. More their father's daughter, really, with his looks and his disposition, and that streak of temper that turned to violence in their father, but in Umeia veered into protective instinct. She'd get violent, surely, if anyone threatened her own, and Malick was certainly her own. But she'd also come into their mother's pragmatism, somewhere along the way, and she was wily, Umeia, so she hardly ever had to opt for violence. Brains, brass, and boobs, Malick would tell her, always laughing and with a snarky grin, and he'd generally get a healthy swat for it, but he'd also get real smiles and cackles, and sometimes even a hug.

  She'd been sixteen when their father killed their mother and Malick had almost killed their father. She'd had four genuine offers of marriage when it had happened, even without a dowry or a swath of fallow dirt to bring to a binding bed, and then another three afterward. She'd refused them all, taken Malick out of Kente and to Thecia on money she'd made selling everything they owned, had taught him cards and charm and petty fraud by the time they'd gotten there, and set him loose on the unsuspecting.

  Malick had known he was aesthetically pleasing; now he knew what to do with it.

  He'd loved all of his marks. Every one of them. Strange, though, how their beauty didn't seem to hold up to constant scrutiny. Blemishes of the soul were a lot harder to see than those of the flesh, but they almost always revealed themselves eventually. And then the beauty would fade for Malick, and the love would go with it, and he'd move on to a new love, a new purse to plunder, a new body to debauch, because none of them ever complained about the debauching. Malick had always made it a point to be very good at everything he did, and sex was just something else he did.

  He didn't have to trick or steal their purses from them. They handed him fortunes without him ever having to ask.

  Beautiful women had left their husbands for him. Beautiful men had threatened to lock him up and keep him for themselves. Only one had ever really tried it. Umeia had helped to dump the body in a swamp when Malick was through with him.

  "Someone like that doesn't deserve the fire,” she'd told Malick, satisfied. She'd been one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen, in that moment.

  He didn't know if Wolf had been watching him all along, but he thought probably. It had been Desi, though, that had made Wolf decide that perhaps Malick might have his uses. Malick knew this because he'd had the audacity to ask.

  Beautiful, of course, they all were, in their own ways. Desi had been special. Malick supposed that might just be because Desi had been taken away before Malick had found her flaws, and so she would therefore remain always beautiful in Malick's memories. Still, though, Desi had been something else.

  Sold to a Thecian lord when she'd been six, coddled, really, perhaps even a bit spoiled, and taken to the old man's bed when she'd been twelve. She'd been seventeen when Malick had first seen her, her purse heavy and her dark eyes handing him an easy in.

  She'd learned her art just as thoroughly as Malick had, and that bit of fractured steel inside her, covered over with layer after layer of silk, had bitten him deeply. She had fire in her, did Desi. Smothered to near suffocation beneath the oppression of captivity disguised as wealth and favor, but it was there, and she'd kept it kindling for over a decade. Here was one whose beauty was her strength, and whose strength was her beauty, he remembered thinking. Here was one who could laugh and bite and moan and snarl, and yet he thought she might—maybe—accept a cudgel to her beautiful face for her children, should she ever be blessed with them. Or cursed. Her lord was rather an old, ugly little man.

  Malick had Desi twice, and then he didn't see her again until her mutilated body had been displayed on the gates of her lord's manor. FAITHLESS, the placard had stated.

  Malick hadn't wept. He hadn't lost control. He hadn't done anything but stare, mark each score and welt on what had been flawless ebony skin, mark each bruise and slash on her bloodied, disfigured face. Knowing, knowing, that Desi would go unavenged and unmourned, because she was chattel, and a man could do as he pleased with what he owned.

  Malick wouldn't understand it for many years, but he thought now that that was the moment he became Kamen, even before Wolf had turned him. Back then, he'd only understood that justice didn't come for everyone; sometimes you had to go and get it.

  So he'd watched.

  And he'd waited.

  And then he'd hunted.

  It wasn't easy. It took patience. It took charm. It took finding the right people and asking the right questions. It took amiably bedding those he didn't even want to touch and wringing secrets from their mouths as he wrung orgasm from their bodies. It took finding that sliver of cruelty, a legacy of his father, and letting it blossom, take root, flourish.

  Malick didn't only take care of Desi's lord in her honor—he took care of every man in the lord's employ who'd marked her, who'd taken her broken body and used it as she'd spent her last breath on a cry of agony. Malick made them scream just as loudly and desperately as he was sure Desi had done in the end. Malick was thorough. Malick was methodical. Malick hunted them down, one by one, and showed them what “merciless” really meant. And when the last two had divined the too-obvious pattern and fled, Malick had stalked them across two cities and the reach of a sterile wasteland between, and taken care of them too. Thoroughly and methodically.

  Wolf had taken him then, made him Kamen, and Malick-now-Kamen had dragged Umeia with him.

  A whole new sort of beauty opened up to the Temshiel Kamen, Wolf's-own. The beauty of vastness and things unseen by mortal eyes, and knowledge impossible to attain within the narrow stretch of a mortal life.

  Hunting was easier now. It took him almost two decades to learn how to use the spirits properly, how to be just cruel enough to be sure you were getting the answers you needed, but not so cruel as to hasten their slow slide into true insanity. Malick did Wolf's bloody work while he learned, and when he'd learned enough, he'd hunted down his father—an itch in the back of his mind for years—and made his mother's murderer look him in the eye, know his son, as Malick strangled him. A knife would have been quicker, a simple surge of power easier, but he'd wanted to feel the pulse slow and sputter, he'd wanted to watch the life spark out of those eyes that were too like his own.

  Malick generally got what he wanted.

  Wolf's law wouldn't allow Malick to bury the corpse and so bind his father to the earth. Malick sulked a bit as he watched the pyre, but he obeyed. He was Kamen Wolf's-own, and he respected his god.

  And then, out of the blue and all unlooked-for, there had been Skel.

  Malick hadn't been impressed by Skel's perfect face. Malick hadn't been impressed by Skel's raven-black hair, or his cobalt eyes, or the lines of his body, or the way he moved it.

  Malick had been impressed by the carefree nature with which Skel approached life; the hard practicality with which he lived it. Skel was fierce and beautiful and whimsical and foolish. When he'd tested Malick in a seedy tavern—Malick somewhat drunk and grieving his mother all over again, grieving all those he'd already outlived, still smelling of the smoke and incense from his father's pyre, and wondering if acquiescing to being the bloody hand of Wolf's long arm on mortal lands had been such a brilliant idea after all—Malick had been struck not by the pleasing angles of Skel's face, or the open invitation in his too-blue eyes; Malick had been struck by the tiny hints of fracture behind the reckless audacity. The singular pinpoint of satori that Skel was just as broken inside as anyone els
e; perilous enough to be interesting, and yet still strangely safe.

  Skel was Temshiel. Skel couldn't die.

  He'd been beautiful in his way, in more than the aesthetic sense, though he was, of course, extraordinarily aesthetically gifted. His sense of justice was perhaps a bit rigid, to Malick's mind, but it lit his soul with such a bright fiery blaze sometimes that Malick couldn't look away. Blinded. Skel was beauty and distraction and laughter and forgetfulness. Skel was friend and sometime-lover; touchstone and confidant; role model and bad example.

  Malick had thought Skel wouldn't take a cudgel to the face for anyone. He'd been wrong.

  There had been Asai and foolish choices and betrayal and bewildered grief, and then there had been no more Skel.

  Malick finally felt the true weight of what he was. What he'd chosen. What his god had made him, and what he'd allowed himself to become. Malick looked Kamen in the eye, and... flinched.

  He retreated.

  Umeia didn't need to. Umeia was much better than Malick at being what they were. Still, Umeia had come with him. Malick would regret that eventually, but at the time, he'd been grateful.

  Always enamored with beauty, and now it hovered just out of Malick's reach. No matter how many drinks he poured down his throat, no matter how many beds he fell into. He searched for it in the wrong places—pink lips, light-stubbled chins, firm breasts, muscled backs, pleasing faces, sweet-scented skin—he knew he was looking in the wrong places, but he couldn't bear to look within. If he found it, he might lose it. He loved with little splinters of himself he didn't mind risking, and nursed with liquor and more liquor the shriveled part of his spirit that hunkered inside him and hardened into a snarling little knot.

  He observed the world around him with ever-growing contempt, nurturing his useless craving for vengeance, while he watched and waited.

  And then, out of the blue and all unlooked-for, there had been Fen.

  Malick had thought, right up until Fen had shot him that first hate-filled glare, that he'd been waiting for a chance at retribution. He'd been wrong.