__The Bird Bone Flute__part 9
By Blackmare



Cresting the hill between Saxford's place and the cottage Giles decided that he was going to have to commute to and from the barn in different footwear. His hamstrings and arches remarked snidely that good riding boots rarely made good walking boots. This small irritation did not dent his fine mood, however. When he settled on the porch bench, removed the boots, and massaged his sulking feet he realized he felt calmer than he'd felt in years.

The song came to Giles as he sat there. It was so subtle he didn't separate it from his own meandering stream of consciousness right away. When it trickled by the second time, though, he realized it was coming to him from elsewhere. He wasn't hearing it exactly, the sensation was more like memory. He recognized the melody, but he knew he'd never heard these phrases in this tempo before, or in this tone. The bird bone flutecame close, but this version of the song was more like a voice, richer and more complex for all that it was so faint. He closed his eyes and made a still place in himself for the song to form and it grew stronger. With it came a familiar longing, and he knew she was calling him.

He launched himself into the house to grab his running shoes. In a less than two minutes Giles had changed from his riding togs to sweats. He chugged a bottle of water then trotted out into the front meadow. This time when he quieted his mind to listen he got more than just the melody, he got a clear sense of direction. Giles set out, glad that his earlier walk had warmed him up enough to tackle the slope at speed.

At first he ran along the path she'd taken him the previous day, but before he turned down into the wood he knew he needed veer northeast, skirting a standing crop of oats, leaping over a stile and crossing an empty pasture. The song did not get louder, but the sensation of following an actual sound grew more distinct. He forded a small stream and headed up another hillside into a copse of trees. For a short time his path followed a game trail, then the call pulled him sharply east parallel to the top of the hill.

A new quality came into the song, a marked tension that he took as a warning. Giles slowed, tried to keep to cover when he could, and surveyed the area carefully. He had no idea what he was looking for, but caution for him had always translated into stealth. As he approached the eastern flank of the hill, he dropped, not wanting to silhouette himself against the sky for any observer on the far side. The song told him he was close now; he crouched and moved as quickly as he could among the gorse thickets.

He spotted the wolf just as she turned to look at him. She was hunkered down beside a tumble of small boulders, peering over the edge of the hill into the valley. He dropped and crept up beside her as silently as he could. As he settled next to her, he smelled the acrid reek of malteryx and saw a black stain spiked with limp feathers sinking into the grass just on the other side of the stones. Giles quickly turned to look at her face, and saw she had another mouthful of spines. Yet in spite of her obvious discomfort - she held her mouth open and her tongue was twitching - she kept her focus on the house below.

The main structure was dark brick flanked by two half-timbered additions that had clearly been built at different times. The house would have been a formidable, dignified presence if it had been cared for, but in its present condition it had the air of a corpulent senior barrister gone badly to seed. Two of the five chimney stacks were missing their ornamental cornices and one of them tilted so badly that it looked likely to topple in the next good blow. Both of the huge horse chestnuts that flanked the yard suffered from some arboreal malady that left them lopsided and cradling a number of huge dead limbs. The yard held, in addition to three vehicles that appeared marginally roadworthy, two automotive carcasses and the picked skeleton of a large steam thresher. One of the outbuildings had surrendered entirely to gravity and the others seemed to lean in around the angular heap as if they lacked the courage to poke the body to see if it was dead or just comatose. The surviving members of the extensive orchard had long since burst from the proscribed pruning of domesticated fruit trees and grown into huge, feral tangles of dark wood.

Giles turned and looked farther down the valley to see the main road into the village, then glanced back along his own trail, trying to place himself in the larger geography of the neighborhood. The decrepit brown Fiat parked by the house confirmed his suspicions that he was seeing his ancestral home for the first time. This was the Thorne place, and something in it had the complete attention of his demon killing companion.

They lay there long enough for Giles's elbows to start twinkling with pins and needles. He watched the wolf with his peripheral vision, admiring her utter stillness, the patience of a consummate hunter. Suddenly one of the gabled windows opened on the house. A slender person leaned out and hurled something black across the slate roof. It tumbled in the air for a moment before unfolding into a malteryx, beating its broad wings hard to gain altitude, then swinging sharply south, flying very fast.

The wolf watched the thing far longer than Giles could make it out against the bright sky. When it had disappeared completely, she shrugged herself backwards away from the ridge. He followed her, staying low until they had rounded a gorse thicket and would not be visible from the valley.

"Here, let me help you with those," Giles whispered, sitting in the grass and inviting her close with his hands. She came and sat between his legs, patiently allowing him to search her mouth and muzzle for spines. She'd taken many more than she had the previous day, and several had broken off close to the skin. The wolf relaxed enough that he could tilt her head into the light as necessary, grateful that the spines flashed with an almost metallic gleam in the wetness of her mouth. Finally he was satisfied that he'd removed all of them, and he stroked her jaw closed. She shook her head violently, sneezing several times, then flopped down with her head high up on his thigh. From that position, she continued to watch the southern sky, although the slow blinking of her eyes suggested that a nap was imminent.

Giles settled himself to wait, keeping one hand in the deep nest of her hackle fur, and using the other one to shield his eyes as he scanned the horizon. The wolf let out a long nasal sigh and succumbed to the quiet afternoon. He looked down at her, reaching into himself to find the astonishing soft glow of her presence. He let his delight at being called here to help her flow around that small blue flame, treasuring it, as he treasured the solid warmth of her under his hand. She stirred slightly against him, and the inner light bloomed a deeper blue for a moment then subsided. It was hard to be so still when he felt such vibrant joy.

While she slept, he watched the sky. He found it oddly difficult to keep his thoughts focused on a single thing and finally decided that he hadn't had so many interesting items to juggle simultaneously in quite a long time. Giles mentally composed a letter to Lady Mathanwy describing the malteryx and asking her if she knew anything about this species. He wondered what occult mischief the new occupants of his grandfather's childhood home were doing, and whether they had moved there because of its proximity to the gate. He speculated about the filly he would be riding tomorrow morning. All the while he surveyed the country around them.

There: a ripple of motion against the far hillside. He sat up straighter and waited; he saw it again, a change from dark to light to dark moving against the distant green. A minute later it had resolved into the wildly swirling mass of a bird flock. Starlings often packed that tightly together and moved in such perfect unison. The flock shifted suddenly, swelled, flattened, then flared into a tight turn. In spite of their convoluted aerobatics, they were approaching rapidly, traveling very low over the treetops. Then he saw their quarry. The malteryx banked and spun desperately in an attempt to evade the mob pursuing it. Giles stroked the wolf's head.

"Wake up, love, your little ones are bringing the game to you," he whispered. She was alert instantly. Giles felt a fleeting kiss from her moist nose and then she was gone, pelting down the hill toward the flatter meadows below. He suspected she did not want the occupants of the house to see her bring down their creature. Giles knew he could never keep up with her so he struck out parallel to her course but kept to higher ground so he could see where she set up her ambush. She vanished into an unkempt hedge on the far side of the oat field and did not appear beyond it.

The flock flattened itself out again, sweeping around its panicked victim and steering it directly toward the hidden wolf. There was no question in Giles' mind that the birds understood exactly what to do. The starlings weren't as individually assertive as the rooks had been. Instead, they were totally coordinated, acting more like a single huge organism than a collective of tiny ones. Above the oats the flock condensed suddenly into an aerial fist and punched down at the flagging malteryx, forcing it to dart toward the hedge.

Giles saw a flash a silver among the leaves, and the flock of starlings exploded into hundreds of flickering fragments like a blossoming firework. The little birds fled the scene in small groups, vanishing completely into the surrounding countryside in just a few seconds. Giles ran hard, vaulting the stone wall and tearing straight through the pale, waving oats. As he approached the hedge, he heard thrashing in the underbrush, and the wolf's rumbling growl. When he burst through the tangle of hazel and sloes, he found her holding the creature pinned to the ground by its wings. She had one huge forepaw placed on each black shoulder and leaned back to keep her face away from the flailing snout with its bright needle teeth. The wolf looked up at Giles expectantly, her tail waving slightly and her mouth relaxed in an easy grin.

"Wonderful!" Giles gasped, leaning his hands on his thighs for several moments until his heart rate dropped and his breathing slowed a bit, "You knew I wanted to look at one!" He fished around the base of the hedge until he found a suitable forked stick, then he stepped forward and pinned the snaky neck to the ground and planted his shoe on the creature's whipping tail. Giles crouched down and looked at her.

"Did you get another faceful of prickles?" She answered by opening her mouth wider for him, and he didn't see any suspicious black glints there. "Good, I should think that would be getting a bit old."

He looked more closely at the writhing creature. Even splayed out and completely tacked down it was not still. Giles could feel it twitching through his foot and the hand that held the stick, and he could see the feathered skin rippling like a disturbed pool of thick crude oil. This close the scorched smell had a bitter undertone and an acrid quality that caught at the back of his throat like ashes. Remembering the vivid, intricate web of scent in his dream, Giles looked up at the wolf and asked:

"Doesn't the stink bother you?" The wolf snorted sharply and shook her head, then looked at him, her tongue curling back deeper into her grin. "Ah. It certainly does bother you and you'd be much happier if I'd get this done faster." Both of them sneezed, and he chuckled. He reached out to touch the malteryx with his left hand but she quickly deflected him with her muzzle.

"Right. I think I'll trust you on that." Giles fished around in the grass for a twig and used it to lift the feathers along the back, finding the pattern of spines hidden among them. The thing hissed; he saw a long, forked tongue. Spread out this way, its wingspan was at least a meter. The leading edge of the wings was leathery, like bat skin, and he saw a nasty clawed finger right at the wrist where the annular feathers would be on a bird. The neck was only lightly feathered where it joined the body; the rest of it was naked and the wrinkled skin had a blunt sheen. Giles slid his twig under the snout and lifted the head, leaning in close to inspect it.

It spoke. A rapid string of sibilant words punctuated by sharp clicks with a rising intonation. Giles' hands stung as if they'd been splashed with acid. The wolf snarled, then reached down and neatly snipped the creature's head off. Giles leapt back, alternately shaking his hands and clutching them against his chest as the burning sensation worsened, quickly spreading up past his wrists to his elbows. The sole of his left foot, which had held down the malteryx' tail, started to burn as well.

"Sonofabitch! Defensive magic!" The wolf bounded away from the body, which already slumped into the grass. She bounded over to Giles and bumped him on the thigh, herding him away from the malteryx. He let her, skipping a bit on his stinging foot.

"Well, now we know it's got some kind of intelligence anyway," he said, trying to rub his hands along his arms but finding that too painful. "Damn! did it have to be both itching and burning?" He noted that the effect had stopped spreading upward; getting farther away from the body also seemed to help a little.

"Are you okay?" he looked down at her, "your feet are okay, your mouth?" She met his eyes and gave him her lupine nod, dipping her neck and head slightly from the shoulders. Then she swung her head in the direction of the cottage and looked up at him expectantly.

"Yeah, I think home is a very good idea. Lead on." The wolf set out at a businesslike trot that nicely matched his jogging stride. Giles found it awkward to run at first, but the soreness in his foot responded well to the rhythmic impact and he felt the pain subside to a dull ache. His forearms still burned, though, and he kept expecting to see them flush bright red, or break out in blotches - some kind of dramatic and visible symptom to accompany the horrible sensation.

Giles forced himself to concentrate on running, on breathing, on the terrain, on the fierce and elegant beauty of the wolf's huge shoulders as she glided ahead of him. The exercise helped so he pressed himself harder, catching up to her briefly before she effortlessly extended her stride and floated back into the lead. She looked back over her shoulder, tongue lolling, eyes laughing and he had to grin at her. He pushed himself harder still. This time she let him draw even and stay there. She shifted into a lovely lope and stayed right beside him as he covered the final mile at a racing pace.

At the top of the hill above the cottage, Giles pulled up, breathing hard and feeling considerably better. His foot barely bothered him, and the burning in his arms had faded, leaving just the violent itch to make him crazy. Together he and the wolf bounced down the slope. Giles peeled off his shirt and used it to mop his face and neck. He was delighted when the wolf followed him inside. Immediately he filled a bowl with water and put it down for her. She emptied it while he tossed off a bottle himself.

"More?" he asked, and she nodded. He topped the bowl back up and finished stripping for a shower.

"Don't suppose this spell is water soluble," he mumbled as he drew the curtain closed around the tub and ducked under the cool spray. Giles ran the water as chilly as he could stand it, hoping to calm some of the vicious nerve impulses that rankled along the skin between his palms and biceps. It didn't help much. He rinsed and peeled back the curtain to find the wolf sitting in the bathroom doorway. She glanced over to the clean towel folded on the bathroom chair and up at him. He was shivering a bit, and still trying not to scratch off all the skin on his forearms. She leaned over, snatched up the towel, and pirouetted in the doorway, prancing across the main room with her tail high and her pale pantaloons mocking him.

"Hey you! Bring that back!" Giles reached out and snatched up his glasses, swept his dripping hair back and lunged after her.

She danced lightly ahead of him twice around the stove, almost letting him catch her before twisting away. Then she headed right out the door onto the grass, turning to grin at him around the towel, her tail waving slightly. Giles charged. At the last possible moment she bounced sideways, ducking down with her forelegs extended and her rump in the air. He crouched, spread his arms and they started a feinting game, little lunges to one side then the other. Once she let him get too close and he managed to grab the towel with one hand, pull her head around and get the other hand onto it as well. She snapped her neck hard and flipped him right down onto the grass. He used the energy of the fall to roll back up, twisting the towel between them. This time he took a wider stance before he swung his shoulders, and he discovered that his superior height and weight had absolutely no effect on her.

Fine. He would use guile.

He braced himself and leaned back, pulling her hard toward him. She responded as he hoped she would, by locking herself down and pulling in the opposite direction. Instantly he relaxed and let her yank him right down on top of her. He released the towel and wrapped his arms around her ribs. She yelped and squirted forward but he caught her hipbones in his hands and lifted her up, pulling her back so he could clamp his legs around her flanks. She bucked and twisted, and he started working his fingers along her ribs, down along her spine and back up over her shoulders. He dug deeply into the rich fur and felt for the edges of the rippling muscles, following them with strong, sweeping strokes of his thumbs. In fifteen seconds she went limp, standing spraddle-legged and still under him as he massaged her. He stepped back a bit and framed her pelvis with his hands, pressing and stroking the intricate connections of her hips and thighs, then gliding up to the ridge of her spine where it swept into her tail. There he turned his fingers parallel to her body and skritched right down to the skin.

The wolf let out a long, wheedling sigh and curled herself back toward him, her ears flat and soft and her eyes slitted. She dropped the towel. He skritched harder on the opposite side, and she responded by reversing her curl to that side, leaving the towel unguarded. Giles reach down and snatched it up, then bolted for the door, cackling in triumph.

He got exactly two strides before she rammed the back of his legs, flipping him right down on top of her, knocking the wind out of them both. They slid apart and he tried to rise, but she pushed him back down into a sitting position with a paw on his sternum. He grinned at her and the wolf stepped forward into his touch, sliding her face alongside his and resting her throat against his chest. Her scent washed over him and he could feel her heart beating under his hand. Giles closed his eyes and dropped into himself, seeking the sweet blue light of her there.

What he found was wildfire, golden green flame that shot up out of him like a geyser. He grabbed at her and howled as that power exploded through him, surging out along his limbs like electricity, like music, like sunlight, like thunder. Giles clung to her through it all, shaking violently but ecstatic, riding this rising joy and knowing that she rose right with him.

Then it passed. He slumped backwards onto the grass, and she followed him down, lying alongside him with her head on his pectorals. His arm lay around the curve of her chest and down along her ribs. Giles had to think about breathing. He was slick with sweat again, and hot where her fur pressed against him. She sighed softly, a sound of profound contentment. In the dark chamber of himself Giles sensed her gentle glow.

After some time, he realized that the horrible itching was completely gone. The eruption of magic had simply burned that small spell away. He wanted to inspect his hands, but found it too difficult to raise his arms just yet. The wolf had fallen asleep where she was, and he didn't want to disturb her.

Oddly, in spite of the wild release, he felt very alert. Honed, even. He wasn't thinking in words yet, but he was extremely aware of everything around them. The breeze, the conversations of birds nearby, the scent of trampled grass, the hum of bees over the meadow. He closed his eyes and extended his other senses as far as he could.

Giles could feel again the intricate network he'd known first in his dream of her, the sense of being woven into a richly layered world where everything connected to everything else, sometimes directly, but often through circuitous, delicate pathways and many intermediate intersections. He could not focus on any given route, he could only perceive the fabric as a whole. Giles relaxed into it, confident of his place in it, confident that it supported him. It buzzed with energy, tiny flickers and broad sweeping bursts. Now and then he felt the energy break apart a connection, and always somewhere else the energy formed a new one. There was movement everywhere, yet somehow the fabric was profoundly still, orderly, and resilient. He had never known anything so beautiful. The wolf stirred against him, sighed again. Giles managed to raise a hand and stroke her face. She opened one golden green eye. He looked into it and wondered: had that wildfire been hers or his?

* * *