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.Yeah, I feel sorry for her, but I empathize with the cousins, too.“And in the time he takes to help you,” Jack is saying, “Jilly and her friend could be killed.”“You don’t know that.”“We don’t know anything,” Jack says.“That’s a big part of the problem.”“But—”“And I doubt it’d make that much difference to him anyway.You know Joe.He looks at the little picture first.Until he knows his family’s safe, you’d have better luck whistling up the wind to help you.”It’s pretty obvious from Tatiana’s face that she already knows this, but I guess she had to try.“How about you?” she asks Jack.“Can you talk to them?”“The buffalo wouldn’t listen to me.You need someone way up on the respect ladder, or at least someone who’s got the gift of calm, the way Joe does.I wouldn’t know where to start with that trick of his that has people putting down their weapons to listen to him pretty much as soon as he opens his mouth.” He shoots a glance at Mother Crone.“Barring one or two exceptions, that is.”Tatiana lets the veil that separates the between from her court fall closed once more.We can still hear the buffalo, but it’s like a distant thunder now.“So, what do we do?” she asks Jack.“I haven’t a clue,” he says.“All I know is you’ve got a problem.”“You can’t seriously not care.”“What I feel’s got nothing to do with it.”“You could at least try.”“I’m telling you right now, they wouldn’t listen to me, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let them pound me into the ground under a few hundred hooves just to prove that to you.”“But—”“You’re just going to have to find your own way out of this,” Jack says, cutting her off.Then he turns to me.“We need to get out of here.”I hear Tatiana calling Jack’s name, but we’re already on the move, shifting from the world the court is in to the between that lies next to it.The sound of the buffalo is louder once more.We’re not exactly on the plain where they’re gathering, but close enough to hear them.Really, how could we not hear them? Thousands of drums.Hundreds of thousands of hooves pounding on the dirt.A line of trees blocks our view, but we can see the dust from their dancing rising up above the topmost boughs.“You were a little harsh back there,” I say.Jack shrugs.“We were wasting time.There’s nothing you or I could do to help, in the court or with the buffalo.”“But the queen was right.We could have tried.”“We’re not going to try, we’re going to do.”I raise my eyebrows.“Here’s how I see it,” Jack says.“This whole show is Minisino’s doing and though I don’t entirely disagree with his reasons, I don’t believe that everybody should pay for the sins of a few.Trouble is, all that war chief of the buffalo is going to listen to is someone with a bigger gun.”“Which we don’t have.”“Nope.But maybe we can find us one or two.”“Now you’ve lost me.”“You ever hear of Ayabe?” he asks.I nod.People talk about wolves and bears—maybe elk—as being the lords of the forest, but the most powerful beings you’re going to find in the deep woods are the moose spirits.Like the buffalo, they don’t have a whole lot of give to them.Unlike the buffalo, they don’t have a herd mentality.They’re solitary by nature, but that doesn’t make them easy prey because nobody willingly takes on a moose.They weigh in at over half a ton, can have an antler spread of six feet, and they’re not the most even-tempered of the cerva.Easy to piss off, and impossible to shake if they get it in their heads to come after you.Ayabe’s the oldest of the moose spirits in this area and his range takes in everything from the Kickaha Mountains down to Newford’s lake.“You think he’d be interested in helping us?” I ask.“If I can convince him it’d be in the best long-term interests of his people, yes.”“Well, let’s go.”Jack shakes his head.“No, I’ll go.I need you to talk to Lucius.”He means Raven, the big gun of the corbae, my people.I’ve never met him, but from all I’ve heard I know what his reaction would be.“I can already tell you what he’ll say,” I tell Jack.“He’ll say that the fairy brought this problem onto themselves, so they can fix it themselves.That’s pretty much his response to anybody who comes looking for him to get involved in something.”And while I hate to say it of one of my own, he’d probably rationalize the whole thing along the lines of not wanting to be seen as pro-fairy when the buffalo run them over, but he also wouldn’t want to join them in case the fairy pull something out of a hat at the last minute.He’s always the mediator, the old stories say.“I still need you to try,” Jack says.“I’ll try.I don’t know if he’ll even hear me out, but I’ll give it a shot.”“That’s all anyone can ask.”“And if he won’t help?”Jack grins.“Then stick around.There’ll be plenty of pickings for a carrion bird.”With that, he steps away and I’m alone in the between with the sound of the buffalo ringing in my ears and echoing the drum of my own heartbeat, deep in my chest.I find myself wondering what I’m doing here, going out on a limb for a people I don’t even like in the first place.All I was interested in doing was seeing that some justice was done to Anwatan’s murderers.Then that got complicated in this search for Lizzie and Joe’s sister Jilly.Now here I am, going off to petition the head of the corbae clan to intercede on behalf of what I’ve always pretty much felt were my enemies.And none of this even comes close to dealing with my own problems with Odawa.I listen to the buffalo for a little longer, let their righteous anger rise up and fill me.But it won’t hold.I’ve given my word.So I step back into Kakagi-aki—Raven’s world—and set off to find its creator.Who knows? Maybe he’ll listen to me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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