Coins and necklaces had no particular interest for her, but maps were her delight. To see what she knew in a different way, to see where her kin lived. When she rose to walk on land, maps of any kind provided knowledge and entertainment.
But today she wandered from room to room, looking at what had been salvaged over centuries, and felt no curiosity, no pleasure. The creatures who made these things had been an enemy in the past and were an enemy again. They had killed her Sharkgard. They had killed fish of all kinds with their poison. And for what? To fill their little ships with gold or some other kind of treasure and scurry from one shore to another?
Let them fight among themselves. That was no more significant to her than male crabs maintaining a territory in order to entice a mate. But they had touched her domain, had spilled poison into her waters.
Because the Sanguinati were land predators the Sharkgard respected, she had sent her warning to give them time to withdraw inland. Soon she would strike. But not quite yet. Air said strange noisy things had been flying lately. Ancient Tethys was stirring, roused out of her benign watchfulness of the Mediterran Sea. Even Indeus slapped at the shores that bordered his domain, disturbed by a change of temper in Earth and Air.
Two shores—Thaisia and Cel-Romano. Where was she needed?
Leaving her treasure rooms, she returned to the water and flowed toward the west. The poison had come from Thaisia. She would deal with the enemy there first.
As she followed currents, she listened to the news the Sharkgard and Orcasgard passed along to her. And she waited for the right moment.
Other forms of terra indigene referred to her Elemental form as Ocean. Among her kin, she was known as Alantea.
And humans, those two-legged upstarts, called her domain the Atlantik.
CHAPTER 25
Windsday, Juin 20
The Lakeside Wolfgard knew how to hunt deer together, and they knew how to fight together to defend the Courtyard, but they didn’t know much about hunting bison until they tried to round them up. After chasing one of the yearlings, the pack made it clear that this wasn’t an animal they wanted to hunt unless they were very hungry and had no other choice. In fact, the only Wolf who really wanted to chase bison was Skippy. The juvenile’s suicidal enthusiasm was one reason that Simon decided to send four of the bison to Talulah Falls as a gesture of friendship to the terra indigene currently living there.
Unlike the Wolves, who didn’t know how to hunt bison, the bison already knew how to defend themselves against Wolves. But they weren’t prepared for a Grizzly dressed in a T-shirt and jeans to jump toward them and roar, and when faced with a small tornado that trotted after them, they stopped fighting the Wolves’ efforts to herd them into the truck.
Tired and thirsty, Simon watched Jerry Sledgeman drive away with the bison. <Well, it’s done,> he said when Blair joined him.
Blair shook out his fur. <Boone Hawkgard says there is enough room in various freezers to store half of the meat from the yearling the Sanguinati brought down. The other half of the meat will be available now to all of us, including the human pack.>
Simon sighed. <Meg didn’t like the bison burgers. I don’t think Ruthie or Merri Lee did either.>
<Their mates ate what they left on their plates. We can sell bison burgers and hunks of roasted meat at Meat-n-Greens. Kowalski and Debany will eat them. So will Captain Burke and the Shady Burke if we allow them to visit again.>
<The humans are another pack who want to eat from the land inside the Courtyard.> Simon headed for the Pony Barn, where Meg had watched the “roundup” from a safe place.
<They eat like Wolves and gather in numbers that rival the Crowgard in any Courtyard.> Blair said nothing for a moment. <How many humans can live in that pack? How many will want the supplies that come into the Market Square? We can’t bring down more deer to feed another pack. The herd wouldn’t produce enough offspring to make up for that.>
He could accept for himself being hungry some days. But not Sam. Not Meg. Not the other terra indigene young who lived in the Courtyard.
<Our human pack has been sensible so far.> Of course, hunger could drive out sense. But that was a maybe problem. Food of all kinds was growing in the Courtyard, and there was plenty of meat, even if things like pork and beef were in short supply until they received the next delivery from a terra indigene settlement that raised a few of those animals. And how the human pups drank milk! He’d run out of milk for Sam, and Meg didn’t have any either until the earth native truck made the next delivery. They couldn’t ask for more from their current sources, so they would all have to make do with a little less.
Except Sam and Meg.
<I’m going to the swimming hole,> Blair said.
He’d like to do that too, but he headed for Meg when she stepped out of the Pony Barn, and Blair went on without him.
“You must be hot,” Meg said, tunneling her fingers through his fur.
Yes, he was.
“Where is Blair going?”
This was one of Meg’s tricks: asking questions when he couldn’t answer because he was in Wolf form.
Jester Coyotegard stepped out of the barn, grinning. “He’s going for a swim.”
Meg looked at Simon. “Don’t you want to go for a swim?”
Of course he did. He was hot and his fur was dusty. He gave her a hopeful look.
“No. I’m not hot, and I don’t want to do the Squeaky Dance.”
Simon sighed. This day was full of disappointments.
“I’ll wait for you here,” Meg said.
“Which is convenient,” Jester added, “since your clothes are in the back of Meg’s BOW.”
Grumbling to himself, Simon trotted to the swimming hole. The cool water tasted good and felt even better. And since there weren’t any human females nearby to get all squeaky about it, when he’d paddled around enough as a Wolf, he shifted to his human form and enjoyed floating on his back while cool water played over sun-warmed skin.
? ? ?
Meg returned to the folding chair that Jester had set out for her. She picked up another deck of prophecy cards that she’d brought to show the Coyote. Then she sighed. “Simon really wanted to have bison.”
“Your seeing and his wanting made it happen.” Jester repositioned the other chair and sat beside her. “That brought the bison here, where they’ve done a lot of good. The terra indigene in Talulah Falls are talking to Ming Beargard and the Steve Ferryman because the bison meat is the first thing that has made them happy since they came to the Falls to control the humans. Henry, Elliot, Vlad, and Nyx have gone to Talulah Falls with Jerry Sledgeman to deliver the Courtyard’s bison, and the Steve Ferryman and Ming are going to join them there for a meeting with the terra indigene leaders and some humans.”
“How do you know who is going to be at that meeting?”
“I have my sources.” Jester winked at her. “I think Talulah Falls will be under new management soon. Isn’t that the phrase humans use? So you showed me the city deck, which isn’t so interesting, and the nature deck, which I liked. What’s that one?”
Stuck on the image of a sign saying UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT hanging over the road leading to Talulah Falls, it took Meg a moment to catch up to Jester’s change of subject. “This is a deck of fantastic drawings—imaginary creatures.”
Jester’s smile faltered. “Can I see the cards?”
She handed him the deck. “They’re just make-believe. I don’t know how the Intuits would read them, but I don’t think they’ll be useful to the cassandra sangue. Why would we speak prophecy about something that doesn’t exist?”
She thought about the cards of city skylines that she had put aside because she didn’t think they would be needed. And she watched Jester’s ears shift to Coyote, watched fur spring up on his neck and hands as he looked at the drawings. He let most of the cards fall into his lap, but a few he handed to her.
“Jester?”
“Who else knows about these cards?”