Fox's Luck
                         Prologue
          516, Age of Enlightenment, Late Spring
    The barking woke Jindun, and he opened his eyes, 
struggling from the depths of sleep. He liked to think 
that he would have been awake even without the desperate 
sound that curled about his ears. But he didn't know. The 
barking was quick, frantic, sharp and fast, driven more by 
Elwen emotion than vulpine.
    "Damn," he breathed. He had only heard Kordet bark 
like that once, the night that the raiders came who had 
killed their father. This had to be something equally as 
bad.
    He rolled out of bed and Shifted. The world twisted 
and bled in colors, and then the vibrations of the earth 
came more clearly to his ears. He slipped into the tunnel 
that led from his room a slender black fox, and ran down 
the tunnel into the front of the den.
    His mother was already pressing her newest litter back 
against the wall, her mouth open and her eyes glowing with 
anger though she had not yet Shifted. She turned and gave 
Jindun a brief nod. He nodded back and slid past her, out 
into the open.
    His family's den was on a sand-colored loam slope 
above a small lake, the better to protect the pups, born 
with sandy-colored coats. Jindun's mother's newest mate 
was standing on the shore of the lake with Kordet, 
bristling like a cat at her. The young vixen held her 
ground, snarling. She wasn't trained as a fighter- almost 
no vixens were, being too slender and small for it- but 
she wasn't going to be driven off by a dog fox who 
couldn't Shift, who wasn't even her father.
    ^Kordet.^ As always, it was hard to speak 
telepathically in fox form, but Jindun and Kordet had 
perfected it over the years. There was rarely anyone else 
to talk to. Their mother spent far more time as fox than 
as jarum, fox Elwen, and had begun to lose her telepathic 
gift as a consequence.
    Kordet stopped barking and turned at once. ^You're 
here, Jindun.^ The mental world was bright with aqua and 
gold, the colors of relief.
    ^Yes. What is it?^
    The dog fox they called Fire most of the time for the 
color of his coat took the chance to snarl again. Jindun 
snarled back, and the other male's fur lay flat. He came 
creeping up, and Jindun suffered him to lick and nose at 
his mouth for a short time before turning back to his 
sister. Danger or not, the family would still be here when 
it was done, and ignoring Fire would only make his mother 
unhappy.
    ^Jarumi,^ said Kordet. ^I smelled them,^ she added, 
when her brother radiated disbelief at her.
    ^Our own kind won't attack us.^
    ^The Lonila?^
    Jindun hesitated. Yes, there were rumors that some of 
the jarumi had started to live in cities instead of 
Territories, call themselves Lonila, and even fight 
together in armies instead of families, but he didn't 
believe them.
    He had another suspicion.
    He turned and snarled at Fire, showing his teeth. The 
other male flattened his ears and all his fur, lying 
almost straight down. Not for the first time, Jindun 
cursed that his mother preferred fox mates to jarum. He 
couldn't even talk to Fire to confirm his suspicion.
    ^Kordet, did Fire bury any caches this afternoon?^
    ^Yes. Why?^
    ^Where is it?^
    Kordet nodded to a place that Jindun felt silly for 
not glancing at himself, given the strong scent of musk 
that marked it. He began to dig. Fire barked, but Kordet 
snarled and he fell back.
    Sure enough, underneath the scent marking was a 
glimpse of white fur. It was all Jindun needed to see. 
Fire had been hunting outside the Territory again, killing 
rabbits or hares that lived among the snow-blossoms of the 
neighboring Territories and so kept their white coats all 
year long. This had to be a raid by other jarumi to punish 
him.
    Jindun thought he could outface them, but not with the 
criminal in plain sight, and not with a vixen in plain 
sight, either. It would have to be him alone. He wasn't 
worried. He was a better fighter than any dog in the 
neighboring Territories.
    ^Inside the den, Kordet.^
    ^But-^
    ^I'm invoking the right of dog and mate, to protect 
the den.^
    Kordet sighed and began to urge Fire back to the den. 
^Mother won't like it.^
    ^I'll talk to her later.^ Jindun snarled at Fire 
again, and sneezed in disgust as he all but cowered, even 
from this distance. ^You could think she could choose 
better mates than this.^
    ^Fire won't live more than a few more years, you know 
that.^
    ^I know. But maybe we can speak to her next year, and 
she can choose someone else.^
    ^Maybe.^ Kordet sounded doubtful, and Jindun didn't 
blame her. Even the choice of den this year had been their 
mother's. Jindun would have preferred a more defensible 
place. With the river this close, they wouldn't smell any 
trouble unless the wind was blowing just right; any 
attackers could come up through the water, and the water 
would wash the scent away. It was sheer luck that Kordet 
had smelled this lot.
    Alone, Jindun waited, stalking back and forth stiff- 
legged, slowly calling every piece of his fur on end. He 
was one of the biggest dogs, at least in fox form, in the 
surrounding Territories as well, and the only black one. 
Mottled with silver as his fur was, he could even call on 
the power of the moons to help him if he wanted. It 
wouldn't be easy for the others to get past him. He hoped 
he could back them down if he looked intimidating enough, 
and turned to face them as the smell drew nearer, mouth 
open, back hunched, black-silver fur standing out so 
sharply that he fancied he looked like a porcupine.
    But it wasn't jarumi who came around the bend of the 
river at all, even walking in Elwen form, which he thought 
might have accounted for the odd splashing noises that he 
heard. It was a string of boats, something he had seen on 
the river before, but only used by Elwens of other races. 
He stared, mouth open. Anyone riding in them would mistake 
him for an animal, unless they stared closely enough to 
see the diamond shape that his green eyes had even in this 
form.
    Could they have fox pelts on board? That was a crime, 
but it was one for the Ladies of the Territories to 
debate, not one dog alone. He only had to tell his mother, 
and she would tell the Council-
    And then someone stood up in the boat. Someone Elwen, 
but with pointed ears, a tail, and bright red skin, what 
he could see of it. Most of it was covered with clothing 
he had never seen a fox Elwen wear.
    But still, she was jarum.
    Jindun snarled softly. It looked as if the rumors had 
been right, and there were jarumi aping outlander ways, to 
the point of riding in boats and wearing clothes. Oh, 
well. Still a matter for the Council and not for him. He 
stood there, letting them go by. Their eyes swept the 
bank, but they might as well have been blind. If they saw 
the den, they thought it was a wild fox one.
    But then the vixen standing up in the boat saw him.
    She smiled, and something was wrong with it. It wasn't 
the restrained smile that most jarumi would have given in 
Elwen form. It showed her teeth, and that could be taken 
as a threat.
    Jindun snarled at her, unable to help himself.
    She spread her arms, and closed her eyes- black eyes, 
such as he had never seen before- and then threw back her 
head and barked.
    At once, the night was lit, the stars seeming to have 
grown a thousand times brighter in an instant. Jindun 
heard the wild barking of his family. His mother sounded 
hysterical.
    He leapt blindly towards the boats, teeth bared. At 
least he would die defending them.
    But something scooped him up in midair. As suddenly, 
the light faded.
    Jindun struggled up out of the net, Shifting back into 
jarum. He was helpless and weak a moment too long.
    He struck the floor of the boat very hard.




                        Chapter 1
                         The Dog
    "It is the dog's duty to defend,
     As it is the vixen's to lead.
     The vixen's mouth speaks the truth;
     The dog's makes the enemies bleed."
    -One verse of the Laws of the Jarumi, the Law of the 
Dog and Vixen.

    "Is he sleeping?"
    Ryani Gracedancer nodded, turning her head to regard 
the man who stood over her. "Yes, Anoran." She snorted a 
little in amusement as she saw that he was still watching 
her. "For stars' sake, Anoran, it's not as if this is my 
first Wild One."
    "But all the others weren't yours." Anoran spoke very 
seriously.
    Ryani narrowed her eyes. For some reason, perhaps 
because of their striking dark color, it had a pronounced 
effect on all the dogs around her whenever she did that. 
"Do you think I can't handle him?"
    "I think you should have accepted a guard."
    Ryani's face softened, and she patted his arm. Most of 
the other vixen civilizers did have guards for their 
charges, but... "I'm strong enough to knock him 
unconscious again if he tries to run, Anoran. Besides, 
we're in the middle of the River. Where is he going to 
go?" She gestured at the banks around them, which were 
widening and parting. In moments, the current that would 
carry them to their destination would be too strong for 
even a jarum in Elwen form to swim against.
    Anoran hesitated, then finally nodded. "I worry about 
you," he said, licking her hand gently.
    Ryani accepted it with a nod of her own. "I know. But 
you don't need to."
    Anoran paused, staring at her one more time, then 
nodded and moved to the far side of the boat to tend to 
his own charge, a vixen who had been awake but silent for 
the past few hours. Ryani could hear the patient murmur of 
his voice as he tried to get her to talk. She turned her 
attention back to her dog.
    Her dog. She smiled a little. It wasn't as if he was 
going to be her mate. And that was the way the Wild Ones 
did things, anyway, calling themselves "his vixen" and 
"her dog" if they mated. Among the Lonila, such things 
only applied with marriage, not a mating. In this, as in 
so much else, the Free Ones were deficient.
    But the other civilizers had finally agreed she was 
ready to teach one of them to be part of the Lonila, to 
feed him on the wonders of civilization until he shed his 
barbaric ways and became one of them.
    She had seen the other civilizers with successful 
charges. It was a picture of gratitude and joy that she 
wanted to share.
    He stirred and groaned, and her attention came back to 
him. She really looked at him for the first time, and he 
wrung a gasp from her throat.
    He was black-skinned, with silver splashed liberally 
on throat and chest and the back of his head, spoiled only 
a little by the rising bruise of the thump she had given 
him. Ryani stared in fascination. She had only seen the 
Moon Children among the Lonila at a distance, and she 
hadn't known they could be born among the Wild Ones. This 
one would make a powerful Moon Child, given the amount of 
silver on him, if she could only tame and teach him.
    And she would.
    She remembered how he had sprung at her, and smiled to 
herself. Yes, he had looked fierce, and even desperate. 
But he had to have been guarding...
    Something.
    She twisted, but they were already out in the middle 
of the widening river, and she couldn't see the den that 
must have been there. She thought briefly of asking Chari 
to pull the boats around. But every other civilizer on 
board already had a Wild One to work with, and the pups 
that would have been born in a Territory like this would 
likely have been only half-jarum anyway.
    That thought quieted Ryani's guilt that she might have 
taken this dog away from mate and pups. If his vixen was 
another Wild One, she could get help from their Council- 
but she was likely a wild fox, a true animal, who wouldn't 
miss him in any case.
    Ryani's lips curled a little. She didn't understand 
how anyone, even a jarum who spent more time as fox than 
Elwen, could want to mate with an animal. But enough of 
them did that the civilizers had gained impetus in their 
campaign to bring all the Wild Ones under Lonila control. 
It was seen as a sin in cities like Foxhaunt and 
Dragonsview, and though some Lonila still complained that 
they were taking the Wild Ones away from home and family, 
that complaining diminished all the time.
    Abruptly, the dog woke.
    Ryani gasped again as his eyes opened. In their own 
way, they were as striking as hers, though their bright 
green was closer to the yellow-green shade that most 
jarumi had than her black was. But they were still 
beautiful, true green, the color of the emeralds that 
Ryani kept on her mantle at home or of the first growth on 
the marshlands. And with the black fur around them... 
Surely not even one of the Moon Children was so handsome.
    He blinked for a moment, then looked up and saw her 
through the meshes of the net. He stared at her.
    Ryani reached down and took his hand. The feel of the 
long, uncut nails startled but did not frighten her. The 
words she had spoken to Anoran still held true. There was 
nowhere for him to go, and he would remain in the net 
until they reached the civilizer camp- longer if he showed 
violent tendencies.
    She glanced over her shoulder, saw dawn rising, and 
smiled. "Fair-morning, dog-"
    His hand slid through hers, the nails scratching her 
palm. Ryani whirled around, startled, eyes automatically 
on the meshes of the net.
    He wasn't there.
    She looked up just in time to see dark-skinned legs 
and a silver brush disappearing over the rim of the boat, 
followed by a splash.
    Ryani shouted, not with words but with a sound more 
like an alarmed bark, and then leaned over the side of the 
craft and looked for him. Only later did it occur to her 
how stupid it had been to do that. He could have been 
treading water and waiting for her there, to grab her and 
pull her after him.
    But he was out in the middle of the river, struggling 
to swim against the current and make it to shore.
    Ryani let out her breath in a long sigh. She had been 
right. She had been right, and if she hadn't panicked so 
easily, she would have remembered earlier. Of course. He 
couldn't swim against the current in either jarum or fox 
form. He could only swim, or be swept along, until they 
reached him.
    She started to stand, to call to Chari to turn her 
boat, give it enough magic to push against the force of 
the current, so she could go after him.
    Then she saw a shimmer in the middle of the water, and 
whipped back.
    He couldn't swim as a fox, she thought as she watched 
the slender head and sharp muzzle poke out of the water. 
What in the name of the stars was he doing?
    "He'd rather drown than be taken prisoner."
    Ryani started and glanced over her shoulder at Anoran. 
He was leaning forward, arms folded on the rim of the boat 
as he watched her dog. His yellow-green eyes burned with 
something between irritation and admiration.
    "We're not taking him prisoner," said Ryani. Her voice 
sounded stiff even to her own ears. "We're taking him to 
be civilized."
    Anoran blinked at her, startled in turn, and then 
dropped his eyes. "Of course. I was only thinking about 
what it would look like to him." He stared out over the 
water and shook his head. "Of course, if he wants to go 
that badly, we ought to let him."
    Ryani turned her head back to the water. She had 
thought that he had only become a lighter form that 
wouldn't be swept along at the same pace as the boats, but 
something else was wrong. She could see that he wasn't 
striking out as strongly as he ought to have done, that 
the motions of his paws were lazy and almost dreamy. He 
flung back his head as if trying to rise to his hind legs 
in the water, and then tipped over with a horrifying 
slowness to let the small waves close over his head.
    "What is he doing?" Ryani clenched the wood until her 
own short nails scraped on it.
    "Drowning himself," said Anoran.
    "No... no, it's more than that. It has to be. He 
wouldn't drown himself."
    The dog shot her an amused glance. "You already know 
so much about him? He told you his soul in the moment he 
was awake before he dived overboard?"
    "Damn it, Anoran, this isn't funny." Ryani controlled 
the urge to snarl at him in favor of squinting out over 
the water. It was glowing dark and molten gold now with 
the reflection of the rising sun, and she found it 
difficult to see her dog. Then silver fur threw back the 
light like polished metal. "There!"
    "There?" Anoran asked.
    "Yes." Ryani turned to look at him, but only slightly, 
just in case she lost sight of that precious gleam of 
silver again. "Ask Chari to slow the boats- stop them, if 
she can."
    "What?"
    "You heard me."
    "I heard you. I just don't believe you." Anoran shook 
his head. "Let him go free if he wants to so very badly, 
Ryani. You'll have other chances. One of the boats 
captured one more Wild One than they know what to do with. 
They'll let you have him."
    "He's not going free, he's drowning."
    "It's the same thing to him."
    Ryani did snarl this time, and heard the dog fall back 
behind her. "He's jarum," she said, without looking over 
her shoulder. "Isn't that what you tell me? All of them 
are jarumi. All of them are Lonila, if we can just teach 
them to forget the ways that make them so barbaric and 
different from us."
    "Well, yes, that's true. But-"
    "No buts," said Ryani, with a depth in her voice that 
sounded alien even to her. "This one's mine."
    Her hands dug down for the net, and she flung it into 
the river as she would to catch a fish. It floated out 
wide, silver glittering like the dog's fur in the morning 
light. He couldn't fail to see it, she thought as he came 
to the surface again and she saw that those jewel- 
brilliant eyes were open.
    "Catch it!" she called.
    He panted, staring at her, and then was rolled by the 
current and nearly went under again. He struck out with 
his paws, saving himself. Again, the motion was slower 
than it should have been. But she had seen the panic flare 
briefly in his eyes, and was willing to urge the net 
towards him with a fierce little shake.
    "Catch it!"
    "It's a waste of time, Ryani." Anoran's voice at her 
shoulder sounded strangely muffled, as if she had slapped 
him across the face and broken something in his jaw 
instead of just snarled at him. 
    "No, it's not."
    The dog was floating now, at almost the same pace at 
the boats. The shores continued to sweep back on either 
side, and though the current would soon slow accordingly, 
he couldn't reach shore before he tired and died, even in 
Elwen form. Whatever it was that was keeping him from 
swimming would drag him down and kill him before then, 
Ryani was certain.
    "Catch the net," she called, keeping her voice as calm 
and soothing as possible.
    He would have to learn to trust her, she thought as he 
watched her in an agony of indecision- for her, at least. 
Save for the dull gloss in those green eyes that hinted at 
extreme weariness, she had no idea what he was feeling. If 
she was to be his civilizer, he would have to learn to 
trust her.
    He stretched his neck out and caught the mesh of the 
net in his teeth.
    Letting her breath out explosively, Ryani reeled the 
net in, and brought him with it, clinging almost like a 
dead weight. But he wasn't dead, she thought as she pulled 
him to the side of the boat and into her arms.
    He shook himself dry, mostly on her. Anoran stepped 
back with a growl. Ryani hardly cared, stroking the 
silver-splashed dark fur and murmuring aloud at the heat 
she felt beneath it.
    "So that's it." She was light-headed with relief. He 
hadn't been trying to drown himself after all. She had 
known that he was too intelligent for that. "Idiot. You 
tried to Shift once too often."
    He panted up at her, green eyes halfway between anger 
and the trust any animal would feel for someone who had 
saved and was caring for it.
    "Make him Shift back."
    Ryani ignored Anoran again. This one was hers. "You 
can't Shift again until you've eaten something," she 
murmured in one pointed ear. "And you can't eat something 
until we reach the camp. Do you understand me?" Some of 
the Wild Ones spent so much time in animal form that they 
lost their intelligence, and the only difference they had 
from wild foxes was the fact that they lived longer.
    He flattened his ears at her and snarled.
    Ryani thought of the way he had responded to her 
shouting by clinging to the net, and smiled. "Ask a stupid 
question," she said in his ear. "But truly, you can't 
Shift again until then."
    He said nothing- of course- simply settled in her lap 
with his pure silver brush tucked around his nose and 
watched the river flow by.
----------------------------------------------------------
    Ryani waded through the shallow water to the smooth, 
slightly sloping green bank of the river. The fox in her 
arms bowed his head to watch the water flowing by, as if 
by doing that he could conceal the trembling eagerness in 
his slender body.
    Ryani stepped onto shore, looking about in pleasure. 
The ground, a meadow scattered with tiny rivers and pools, 
was wild enough to find game, but scattered with houses 
that would serve the civilizers and those they taught. 
Invisible barriers of magic would keep the Wild Ones from 
running far. Those would be lowered when they could be 
trusted to want to stay in their new home. Pens for 
holding those who wouldn't Shift back stood behind each 
house, and there were-
    "Ryani!"
    Too late, she felt the soft, sodden burden in her arms 
wriggle to life.
    She grabbed, and her arms closed on air. The dog was 
bolting across the meadow, dodging those who tried to 
catch him, faster than she had ever seen any civilizer run 
in vulpine form.
    Save one.
    She went to her knees and closed her eyes.
    She knew from the shouts that he was nearing one of 
the barriers and tried to ignore the sensation of guilt 
and responsibility that impelled her to hurry. Shifting 
too quickly could be just as bad as Shifting too many 
times in succession.
    The world jolted and shifted, and she Shifted, 
changing into the other form that awaited her in some 
space just beyond the real, a space that she would never 
have tried to describe in just words alone.
    She opened her eyes and sprang after her dog, a 
slender flame-red vixen with dark eyes whom everyone 
cleared a path for. They all knew her speed, all knew she 
could catch a hare in full dash.
    She winced as she saw her dog slam head on into one of 
the barriers; they were invisible, just a shimmer in the 
air, that meant nothing until one trained oneself to make 
it mean something. He picked himself up again, though, and 
crouched on the ground.
    Damn. They had lost a few Wild Ones who had guessed 
the height of the barrier correctly and used the jumping 
magic all jarumi had to clear it. Ryani redoubled her 
speed.
    Maybe it was because he was her first one; maybe it 
was because she had saved his life on the river; maybe it 
was because she thought, based on admittedly little 
evidence, that there was something extraordinary about 
him, and she wanted credit for taming him and making him 
one of the Lonila. Maybe she was just being her usual 
obstinate self.
    Whatever it was, she wasn't going to let him go.
    She saw him jump, and it was a leap that took her 
breath away, at least forty feet in the air. But the 
barrier was higher than that, and he crashed back to earth 
again, spitting and snarling.
    He turned on her.
    Ryani slowed her dash and turned broadside to him, 
curling her tail around her hind legs and showing her 
teeth, arching her back. It was the display that the wild 
foxes and the Wild Ones used to show dominance, and that 
the Lonila had mostly culled from among themselves. She 
wasn't as big as he was, but she knew that few Wild One 
dogs would attack a vixen. It ought to be enough.
    Green eyes watched her with a brightness that might 
have been born of hatred. If it was, though, it hadn't 
made him lose his intelligence.
    He came towards her, unintimidated, intelligence 
guiding instinct. His own head was lowered, lower than her 
own, but his body was fluffed out, tail curved, teeth 
bared, seeking to make her fall to the ground.
    Ryani was astonished to feel the tug of instinct to do 
so. It had been a long time since she had felt that- at 
least not since the beginning of civilizer training.
    She shook it off and snarled.
    He growled at her.
    Ryani resisted the temptation to bark in delight, if 
barely. Ah, he would be a delight to tame! The strong Wild 
Ones never lost hope, or never seemed to. Instead of 
pining away as the weak ones did, they just turned their 
hope eventually from winning their freedom to fulfilling 
their role in the Lonila. Ryani could almost see him as 
one of the Moon Children, refusing to back down from 
something he thought was wrong. Even now the look in his 
eyes was more Elwen than fox.
    He opened his mouth wide, showing her every last tooth 
in his head.
    She returned the gesture.
    She could see him fighting, muscles trembling. She was 
suddenly no longer sure if he was resisting the temptation 
to crouch in submission or just his own weariness. He must 
be tired and hungry.
    She hesitated.
    He jumped her at once, whipping his brush around hers, 
his hind legs around hers, his forepaws around her neck. 
It was a curious mixture of gestures, Elwen and animal, 
and it distracted her long enough for him almost to fasten 
his teeth on her throat.
    Then hands scooped both of them up. Ryani turned her 
head to see Anoran holding her, and one of the older 
civilizers, a vixen named Litessa, holding the dog. The 
black fox was fighting like a wolf to get away, snarling 
and snapping.
    Litessa held him by the scruff of his neck and he 
quieted at once, eyes still glittering with rage. But not 
at Litessa, Ryani saw.
    At her.
    She whipped her brush commandingly at Anoran, and he 
slowly lowered her to the ground, watching her closely. 
She Shifted back as slowly as she could, and climbed 
shakily to her hands and knees. Her clothes were still 
whole, since they went with her Elwen body into the space 
beyond space, and so she didn't have to feel immodest.
    "Let him go." Her voice was firm, but quiet. She 
didn't want to start an argument, she thought, staring 
into Litessa's eyes. She just wanted her dog back.
    The older vixen frowned at her, and then at the dog 
she held. "Are you sure that is the wisest course?" she 
asked quietly.
    "Yes."
    Litessa stared hard at her as she lowered the fox to 
the ground. Ryani knew why, and knew that there wasn't 
much she could do but stand her ground. Litessa was one of 
those who thought she was too young to handle a Wild One 
by herself.
    There was nothing to do but prove her wrong.
    Never taking her eyes from the older vixen's, Ryani 
went down on one knee and put her hand on the dog's ruff. 
"I'll make sure that he doesn't run away again," she said, 
lifting him off his paws. The heat under his fur made her 
flinch. "He was a fox when we found him; he's Shifted 
twice since then. Do you think you could find him 
something to eat before he tries to do it again?"
    "Is he that stupid?"
    "That stubborn," said Ryani, staring into the green 
eyes that glared back at her. She didn't think he was 
stupid, by any means, but stubborn... She resisted the 
urge to lower her head and rub her cheek in his fur. He 
wouldn't understand the gesture or the affection that 
prompted it, not yet. She was beginning to understand the 
fondness that many civilizers felt for their Wild Ones, 
and why they were willing to spend so much time bringing 
in jarumi who would show them no gratitude until months or 
even years later.
    "You're stubborn," she murmured to him. "But that's 
just part of your charm."
    He snarled at her again, displaying his teeth. Ryani 
smiled and scratched under his chin, holding him so 
tightly that he couldn't do more than wriggle a little. He 
seemed at least as angry about that as about anything else 
she had done.
    "Here." Litessa held out a small cage filled with 
larvae of several insects. "It's the best we've been able 
to do."
    Ryani nodded, and set the fox on the ground, the cage 
in front of him. He stopped struggling at once when he saw 
the insects, and began to drool.
    "There you are." The young vixen kept her movements as 
slow and unthreatening, her voice as smooth as possible, 
as she set him down in front of it. He snapped up the 
first wriggling thing that clung to the bars, and then 
began sticking his muzzle in and seizing them with a 
hunger that spoke of not having much to eat before he had 
done his first Shift, either.
    Ryani shook her head and stroked his fur. He was more 
stubborn than anyone she'd ever heard of. But that might 
mean that they wouldn't want her to work with anyone else 
until she'd civilized him, and they wouldn't want to take 
him away from her and assign him to someone else.
    Unless they thought that she couldn't tame him.
    She bent down and whispered in one pointed ear that 
turned to the sound of her voice. It was only a small 
acknowledgement, but it pleased her nonetheless to see him 
noticing her, a little.
    "If you're taken away from me, it will be to place you 
with someone else who won't be as understanding or 
accommodating as I've been. Do you understand me, little 
one? Little dog?"
    He was looking up at her with unfathomable green eyes. 
But he swallowed, nodded, and then turned back to the cage 
and the press of insects.
    Ryani sighed softly and stroked his coat again. He 
understood; she knew he did. It just remained to be seen 
if he could trust the vixen who had captured him.
----------------------------------------------------------
    He Shifted back as she was unlocking the door of the 
house where they would be staying for the next several 
days, until a larger place could be set up, or until they 
saw how stubborn he was about remaining in vulpine form. 
She stood near the door for a moment before she turned, 
not wanting him to see the effect that he had on her, 
especially naked.
    She really would have to get him to put on some 
clothes as soon as possible, she thought.
    He stretched and climbed to his feet with grace that 
showed nothing of his previous weariness, or strain from 
running at a pace that would have made her proud. He 
looked at her, his eyes as unfathomable as they had been 
in fox form, but his face revealing a little more of his 
emotions than a vulpine one would. He was angry, angry and 
trying not to show it.
    Ryani locked the door and walked towards him. "Let's 
try it again," she said mildly, and held out her hand to 
him. "Fair-morning, dog."
    He looked at her hand for a moment, then stared into 
her face.
    "What does that mean?"
    Ryani smiled at the sound of his voice, and then hoped 
he would see it as an expression of correction and not of 
fascination. Even his voice thrilled her, deep and musical 
in a way that she wouldn't have thought a Wild One's voice 
could be. Certainly none of the ones who had ever spoken 
to her civilizing class, tame or not, had sounded just 
like this.
    "It means- it's a greeting." She would have to think 
carefully about what she said, she realized. Some of what 
she had to explain could be prejudicial if it was 
explained in anything other than the exact right way. "It 
means that I have no weapon in this hand."
    He looked at her as if she had started speaking a 
different language. "You have your nails, and clasping 
that would put my hand in reach of your teeth."
    "But you can see that I don't have a blade in that 
hand," Ryani said, fighting to keep from laughing. Did he 
really think teeth and claws more deadly than a blade?
    Maybe he just wasn't used to fighting with steel 
weapons. Ryani blinked and shivered, feeling a slight 
thrill travel through her again.
    "What should I do with it?"
    "Clasp it."
    His eyes flicked to her teeth.
    "I won't punish you for running away from me earlier, 
I promise-"
    She let her voice trail off, but he made no response 
to her effort to get his name, other than to look 
perfectly incensed. "You think that I was afraid you would 
punish me?" His lips drew back again. Among one of the 
Lonila, Ryani would have counted it as a smile. On him it 
looked threatening, almost as much as a steel weapon would 
have done on one of the Lonila. "I have done nothing that 
a vixen could punish me for. I have lived by the Laws all 
my life, obeyed the Council-"
    "Yes, but you're not among your people now. You're 
among the Lonila."
    "Are you or are you not jarumi?"
    Damn. This would be tricky. Ryani thought carefully 
for a moment. She had to make him see that all Lonila were 
jarumi, that they were what jarumi should be, without 
making him feel that he had no chance to be one of them.
    "We are. But we're a different kind of jarumi than 
your people."
    "My people obey the ancient laws," he said, proud as 
starlight. "If you don't, then you can't possibly be 
jarum." He stared at her. "You don't obey the ancient 
laws, do you?"
    "No. But-"
    He dropped to his back and rolled, laughing. It was a 
strange sound, as everything about him was strange, a deep 
rolling bark that went on and on. He rolled over at last, 
and lowered his hands to the floor, resting his chin on 
top of them in a very fox-like gesture. His brush curled 
halfway up his body, all the distance it could reach in 
this form. He didn't seem to notice that it wasn't 
covering his nose; he peered at her as a fox would from 
behind its tail.
    "If you don't obey the Laws, then you have no control 
or power over me," he said. "Vixens only rule in the Laws. 
Outside them, they don't."
    Ryani narrowed her eyes. This hadn't been covered in 
the civilizing class. "I don't think you understand," she 
said. "You're my charge, and it's my task to civilize you. 
That's all the authority that I need, one that you can't 
question."
    He stared at her, the light dying from his eyes. Ryani 
found that she wanted it back, to replace the trapped, 
haunted look that he turned on her.
    "That was what you meant- that they would take me away 
and give me to someone else."
    "Yes."
    "I thought- I thought it was a marriage raid, that 
your people had run low on vixens and dogs that weren't 
related closely to each other and wanted young ones to 
mate with them." He shook his head. "I never thought- what 
do you want with us, then?"
    Us. Not good. He had to forget about the others, to 
see himself as alone. They had tried to prevent a bond 
from forming among the taken Wild Ones by only taking one 
from each Territory, but it still wasn't impossible that a 
common cause would spring up among them, a common hatred 
of their captivity, if the civilizers were foolish enough 
to let it do so.
    "I think I've told you," she said. "We want to 
civilize you. We are the Lonila."
    "The Lonila?" He stared at her again. His tail 
twitched twice and then stilled. "Those ridiculous rumors 
are true, then?"
    "What rumors?"
    "That you've been living in cities, and wearing 
clothes, and abandoning the families and the Territories 
that have endured since the War of the Falling-" He 
shuddered as if doing all those things also meant setting 
out poisoned meat for foxes. "How can you stand to do such 
things?"
    "How can you stand to live wild?"
    Anger lit his eyes. "I'm used to it. It's the way of 
our people. How can you stand to live out of contact with 
the earth, and not even spending most of your time as fox, 
any more?"
    "It's not easy," said Ryani softly, seeing an opening. 
"But we do it for the sake of bettering ourselves."
    "What is better than the life of the Territories?"
    "What we have. Fox Elwens free to make poetry and 
music, instead of hunting all the time. Living, instead of 
just surviving. Dogs free of the leadership of vixens, if 
they want to be, dogs and vixens held as equal." She held 
out a hand to him. "My name is Ryani."
    He stared at her, then accepted the hand, the long 
nails tickling her paw. "My name is Jindun."
    Jindun. She smiled. It fit him. "What is your family 
name and Territory, Jindun? I know that you would give it 
to a Wild One."
    "Wild One?" The green eyes were bright and guarded 
lights once more.
    "Our name for your people." Ryani smiled at him. "I 
know that you don't have any formal name, not like the 
Lonila do, and we're all jarumi, so we can't just call you 
that-"
    "Not true jarumi," said Jindun, in a mutter on the 
edge of a snarl.
    She adeptly ignored that. "So we called you by what 
you are compared to us."
    "I hear contempt in your voice when you speak of us. 
Why in the name of the earth should I tell you my family 
and Territory, when that's so?"
    Ryani pursed her lips in annoyance. Yes, it had to be 
that the civilizer training was deficient. She would 
recommend that something be added to the classes, 
something that would give students a warning for dealing 
with Wild Ones like Jindun.
    But in the meantime, those green eyes watched her, 
challenged her, almost dared her to answer the question. 
She composed herself and did the best she could.
    "I think that that would be obvious."
    "What?" He stared at her still, green eyes never 
wavering. It was unnerving how long he could do that. 
Maybe it wasn't considered rude to do that among the Wild 
Ones.
    "You have come here to stay- not to the camp, but 
among the Lonila. They'll judge you by how well-behaved 
you are. And part of that is answering questions put to 
you by your civilizer."
    "I'm going back."
    "No, you're not."
    Jindun growled softly.
    "You might as well stop flashing your teeth. I can 
tell you that it doesn't impress me."
    "Is that why you almost spring for the door every time 
I do it?"
    Ryani bit her lip to keep from smiling or snarling 
herself; she wasn't quite sure which one she would do, and 
didn't really want to find out. "I want to keep this as a 
civilized discussion, Jindun."
    "You keep using that word, and I don't even know what 
it means."
    "Civilized?" That question, at least, was one she 
knew. When he nodded, she recited, "Civilization is the 
cloak that we wear, the cloth that makes us different from 
animals. Civilized jarumi live in houses, wear clothes, 
and use tools such as boats and blades. We eat with our 
hands, and we marry for life when we are ready to take a 
mate. We do not confine vixens and dogs to the roles that 
the old Laws lay out for them, and-"
    "Why not?"
    "You can be so much more, Jindun." Ryani smiled 
encouragingly at him, feeling they were finally on the 
right game trail. "You could be anything you wanted to be, 
if you weren't bowed down to the earth, game for any vixen 
that wants you."
    "I'm not game for any vixen that wants me." Jindun sat 
back on his heels and put his brush around his legs. Ryani 
didn't know if he'd arranged it on purpose or not to block 
her view between his legs; either way, she was grateful. 
"That you can think so shows that you've never heard or 
studied our Laws, not really. We have our places and our  
duties, and it works. Why would you want to change 
something that works so well?"
    "But you could be more."
    "What more?" Jindun continued to stare at her, eyes 
narrowing as if he could smell her confusion and 
desperation to make him understand. "I am a hunter and 
defender of my den. That is all I want to be, all that I 
was trained to be."
    "I can train you to be more, anything that your heart 
desires, anything that a vixen can be."
    "I want to be a hunter and defender. I want to go back 
to my family."
    Ryani felt a little squeeze of guilt, and had to know. 
"Did I take you away from a mate and pups?"
    Jindun snorted. "How old did you think I was? I've 
only seen four hundred years. No, I was guarding my 
mother's den."
    "There, you see? You would have had to leave soon 
anyway. Isn't it the custom among the Wild Ones, that the 
young dog foxes leave home to seek out their destinies in 
other places?"
    "They leave to find vixens in other Territories, who 
aren't closely related and can mate with them," said 
Jindun. "Some of them leave the Lonil Valley, yes, but I 
never wanted that."
    "Why not?"
    "Why would I want it?"
    This was just as productive as chasing her tail, Ryani 
decided. She wanted to try something else, something she 
thought would bring out the intelligence that she saw 
lurking in the brilliant eyes.
    "I want to begin your first lesson now," she said, 
rising and walking to the small table in the corner of the 
room. On it sat several items, a red tunic and leggings in 
the size that they had thought a Wild One vixen would be. 
For some reason, Ryani had thought she would take a vixen 
first. But the silver collar might still be useful. "What 
would you say if-"
    He jumped her.
    There was no warning, hardly even the sound of his 
body passing through the air. As she went down under him, 
Ryani thought she knew what it must be like to be a mouse, 
suddenly taken by a predator it had no idea was even 
lurking in the brush.
    He didn't Shift to fox, as she had been afraid he 
might. Of course, he would have been smaller than she 
would in fox form, and unable to best her. In Elwen form, 
he was larger and stronger, and he must have been a hunter 
and defender. He used tricks of fighting like a fighter 
born.
    Ryani felt him rear above her for a moment, heard his 
panting, growling breath. Then he struck her solidly 
across the back of the neck. 
    She reeled to the ground, fighting for breath. He had 
almost knocked her unconscious, but not quite. She lay 
still. If he thought she was out, he might make a break 
for the door, and then she could catch him.
    He slumped on the floor beside her, though, and for a 
moment she thought he had wounded or exhausted himself, 
using so much energy so soon. Without thought, she turned 
to look at him.
    He slammed her into the floor at once, hard enough to 
make her ears ring. He gripped the skin of her throat in 
his teeth and stared into her eyes. 
    "Listen to me."
    How he could articulate the words with his mouth full 
of skin was beyond Ryani, but she held still and stared up 
at him with her full attention. He could rip her throat 
out if he moved an inch.
    "I'm going to go now." Jindun licked his lips. She 
felt the touch of the tongue on her skin, and it would 
have been distracting if their positions had been just a 
little different. "And you're going to vouch for me. Say 
that you decided I was wild, untamable, and that you're 
letting me go back to my Territory."
    "They'll never believe me. They would just take you 
away and give you to someone else if they thought you were 
really wild."
    "I don't believe you."
    And that, stupidly, was what made her want to cry, not 
the pain or the fact that she might have failed in her 
first try to civilize a Wild One. That he didn't trust 
her, wouldn't trust her. "Jindun," she whispered, reaching 
up a hand towards him, her eyes glittering with tears she 
wouldn't let fall.
    He froze, staring at her as if he had never seen tears 
before this.
    He didn't notice the motions of her other hand, and 
couldn't prepare for them. Even if he had seen the glitter 
of metal in her hand, she doubted that he would have known 
what it was. None of the Wild Ones brought in had the 
slightest idea how to work metal.
    She snapped the collar around his neck.
    Jindun rolled away at the first echoing snap, clawing 
at the air and biting at nothing at all. The collar held 
firm around his neck, though, and Ryani got slowly to her 
feet, watching him intently.
    She saw him try to Shift.
    Nothing happened.
    Panic flaring in his eyes, Jindun swung to face her. 
"What have you done to me?"
    She quailed before the look in his eyes; she might 
have given way if she had been less strong. But the memory 
of what else she had seen in those eyes stopped her. She 
couldn't let him go back to a life that would destroy him, 
in the end, and waste all his potential. He might die in a 
fight with a stronger dog; he might take a fox for a mate, 
to bear him pups.
    Not if she had anything to say about it, though.
    Standing tall and proud in front of him, she said, 
"That collar will keep you from using any jarum magic- the 
hypnotizing dance, the moonweb, the madness-gaze, the high 
jump, and, yes, Shifting or summoning foxes- until I tell 
you that you can."
    Jindun flung back his head and barked. The sound was a 
rolling, mournful lament she had never heard before, more 
piercing than the wolfsong she had sometimes heard in the 
distance. It ran to the marrow of her bones and hurt them.
    She was beside him before she knew it, smoothing her 
hands down the furred flanks and licking his face lightly. 
"It's all right," she murmured. It was all she could think 
of to say.




                        Chapter 2
                        The Vixen
    "The vixen is mother, lady, all;
     Any true dog with blood in the vein
     Will come to answer a vixen's call,
     And for as long as she needs him remain."
    -Verse of the Laws of the Jarumi, the Law of the 
Duties of the Dog.

    Jindun closed his eyes and choked down another sob. He 
didn't want to mourn where one of them- one of the Lonila- 
could see it.
    He wasn't even sure why he was letting the dark-eyed 
vixen hold him, but then, he would have let his mother or 
Kordet comfort him if one of them had been here. Maybe any 
vixen was better than none.
    Her red fur, brighter than that of any other jarum he 
had ever seen, surrounded him with a comforting, warm, 
musky scent. Her brush flicked up every now and then, to 
caress his face. He bowed his head to the feel of it, the 
sobs dying to whimpers in his throat.
    The collar burned cold and hateful on his neck. He 
couldn't have unfastened it even if he could have seen the 
clasp, and he had already tested the damn thing. It 
wouldn't turn or pivot on his neck. He was well and truly 
caught.
    And he couldn't even gnaw the offending part off, as 
he would have a paw caught in a trap. He couldn't reach 
the metal with his teeth.
    "There," said Ryani at last, softly, drawing back and 
resting her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes met his, dark 
and gentle as a deer's in the dead of winter. "Do you 
think you can stand?"
    "Do you care?" Jindun forced himself away from her and 
tried to rise. It didn't work.
    Ryani rose with a grace he wouldn't have suspected her 
of and pulled him up with her. "Yes, of course I do. I'm 
your civilizer. I have to care about you." Her hands 
caressed his face as if she was trying to smooth away the 
tracks of the tears that he barely remembered crying. 
    "If you only want to care about what happens to me 
because you have to, I would prefer that you didn't care 
about me at all."
    She jerked as if bitten, but didn't take her eyes from 
his, nor her hands from his face. "I'll take my chances, 
Jindun," she whispered. "I want your gratitude, but 
whether you give it to me or not, I am still going to tame 
you. I'm going to teach you to see the way of the Lonila 
as your way, the way that you would have lived if you had 
been born among us."
    "But I wasn't." Since she didn't seem inclined to let 
him go on her own, Jindun reached up and removed her hands 
from his cheeks. He turned and paced the length of the 
room, restless, on edge, knowing that he should calm down 
but unable to do so. Unable to use his magic, he had no 
advantage over her; most of what he could use wouldn't 
work on another jarum in any case. And now that she knew 
he would do it, he couldn't count on catching her off 
guard again.
    That left charm.
    He let out a slow breath and turned back to her. "What 
kinds of things do you want to teach me?"
    The hope on Ryani's face was almost a painful thing. 
Jindun winced under the assault of something that felt 
awfully like guilt. She was the one who stole me from my 
home, he told himself. I owe her nothing.
    "It's the most wonderful thing," she said in a low 
voice, as if she thought someone would overhear them and 
try to take the words she was speaking away from him. "I 
can teach you everything, from the words of the songs our 
people make to the new Laws that we are making to replace 
the old ones."
    "Why would you want new ones?"
    "The old ones are no longer appropriate to who and 
what we are," she said, eyes bright and head high. "They 
say that we have to spend our lives hunting and raising 
pups- living as foxes- and that's not true. We're more 
than foxes. We have to be, or why did the stars make us 
more?"
    "They didn't really make us more-"
    "Yes, they did," Ryani interrupted, and Jindun saw 
that this was something she was unlikely to back away 
from, and he would gain little or nothing by pressing her 
now. He stepped back, hands raised before him and head 
lowered, ears carefully back.
    "I believe you."
    "Good." Ryani ran a hand through the thick orange-red 
hair that hung almost to her waist, then sighed and 
smiled. "Now we should sleep, I suppose." She turned to 
the packed bed of moss in the corner, then glanced over 
her shoulder at him when he didn't follow. "Aren't you 
coming, Jindun?"
    Jindun snarled at himself for sniffing the air, as if 
he could catch a scent of the sweetness that had filled 
her voice briefly when she spoke his name. It was only a 
natural reaction, he soothed himself. He was alone for the 
first time with a young vixen who wasn't bound to him by 
ties of blood. But it was one that he would have preferred 
not to have had. 
    "No," he said. "Why would I? I'll sleep there, near 
the door." He nodded to the wood. She couldn't be afraid 
that he would go anywhere, he thought, watching her eyes 
fill with doubt. He hadn't been watching when she latched 
the thing, and he knew that those barriers like the one he 
had run headlong into must fill the camp. He wouldn't get 
far even if he did run.
    "The civilizers and the Wild Ones sleep as close as 
they can, Jindun."
    Jindun shook his head. Some things he would compromise 
on, and learn what they wanted him to learn, so that he 
could escape. This wasn't one of them. This was one of the 
oldest Laws. "You're not my mate, my mother, or my sister. 
I have no right to sleep as close to a vixen your age and 
your power who's either none of those or who hasn't asked 
for my protection."
    Ryani blinked, and then looked charmed for a moment. 
Jindun fought not to look away. That was how he wanted her 
to look, he reminded himself. But it was still revolting. 
She looked as she would have if someone had told her about 
a clever game some children had invented.
    The Laws and the way that his people lived were not 
games. He wondered if anyone had told her that.
    He wondered if she had listened.
    "A vixen can't offer her protection to a dog among 
your people, then?"
    Jindun snorted. "Of course not!"
    "But what if a dog is wounded, and the vixen is 
stronger than the dog?"
    "If the dog is wounded, then he wouldn't be good 
protection for a vixen anyway. Protection or love are the 
only reasons for sleeping closer."
    Ryani smiled at him, the smile that he had to fight 
not to think of as a snarl, and then bowed to him, a low, 
sweeping gesture he had never seen outside of the High 
Council of Ladies. "Both reasons you have."
    Jindun closed his eyes and scratched briefly behind an 
ear. This world was growing more and more confusing for 
him, and he didn't want to get further into it than he had 
to. "I don't understand."
    "Of course you don't, Jindun. No one expects you to. 
The others won't, and you are more than... usually 
difficult." He could hear a smile in her voice as she 
spoke, but he didn't open his eyes to see. He didn't want 
to see her if she was smiling. "But you will come to feel 
love for me eventually, and as long as you are here an 
ignorant stranger and might offend someone accidentally, I 
am your protector."
    He did open his eyes then. He had to see her face and 
be sure that she wasn't joking. "You think that breaking 
your rules is a worse offense than hurting someone?"
    Her face said it all.
    Jindun snarled low in his throat. "Ask for my 
protection, and I might be able to do it."
    Ryani's eyes lit. "I won't do that."
    "Then I can't share the bed with you. I told you, love 
and protection-"
    "If I were to ask you to mate with me?"
    Jindun snarled at her, curving his brush straight out 
and back.
    Ryani spread her hands. "Now, what did I say to cause 
that reaction?" From the look in her eyes, still partially 
amused, it was obvious that she had no idea of the 
magnitude of her offense. "Among my people, it is a simple 
thing, the asking of a mating. Marriage is a different 
thing, the binding of souls and hearts and bodies as long 
as the lives shall last." She paused, her eyes growing 
darker. "Do you have nothing like marriage among the Wild 
Ones, then?"
    Jindun turned his back on her. "You know nothing. And 
you dare to call my people barbaric." He curled on the 
floor, brush over his flanks.
    "Jindun. Please."
    He ignored her.
    "Jindun. Please." He heard a whisper of cloth as she 
dropped to the floor. She came crawling to him, gently 
nipping and licking at his mouth when he turned his head 
to watch her. "I want to understand," she whispered, mouth 
brushing his ear.
    Jindun jerked his head away, but it wasn't in him to 
refuse her sincere repentance. If nothing else, he might 
be able to train her to be more tolerable company until he 
could escape. "Among my people, a mating is a solemn thing 
as well, a thing to commit to for a year for the raising 
of children," he said, staring hard at her. "Not what you 
made it sound like."
    "Which is?"
    "A simple thing. A thing- what is the mating for, 
among your people?"
    "Pleasure."
    Jindun jerked his head back. "Where do you raise your 
children, then?" he asked in loathing. "With hounds?"
    "No." Ryani's voice surged briefly against his in 
matching anger, and then fell back again like a bird 
alighting. She rolled on her back, looking up at him. "In 
the marriage."
    Jindun shook his head. "But you can't know that you 
want to have children with the one you marry. Only some 
do, the very few and lucky. A wife or husband can be mate 
as well, but it's rare."
    "I have never heard such a thing. Why wouldn't you 
want to have children with someone you love?"
    "Perhaps that person has things in them you do not 
wish to give children. Perhaps you love others in the way 
of the mate." Jindun shook his head, consumed with the 
frustration of trying to explain something he had 
understood all his life. "What are you doing, 
misunderstanding on purpose?"
    "No. Trying to understand."
    He glanced sharply at her.
    She looked up at him with large dark eyes, lying on 
her back. She wagged her tail like a hound, then nipped at 
his jaw again.
    He drew away. "You're trying to act as if I was the 
dominant one, and I'm not."
    Ryani laughed at him, rolling over and stretching her 
hands out before her. He found himself wondering what she 
looked like without the tunic and trousers she wore, and 
then realized that he didn't know and couldn't imagine. 
And didn't want to know, he added in his own mind. They 
were a kind of odd fur, a second skin that showed what she 
was. If she took them off, she would look just like anyone 
else.
    But she wasn't. She was acting like everyone else, but 
she wasn't, not really, and he couldn't let her fool him 
into thinking she was.
    "What does it matter?" she whispered, staring up at 
him. "You give gestures too much importance, Jindun." She 
crept towards him, staring up into his face, and then 
breathed on his cheek as he lowered his head almost 
unwillingly to meet his eyes. "Things like this don't 
really matter," she whispered, just before she closed her 
teeth on a thin layer of fur.
    He pulled away.
    She laughed at him again, tongue falling out between 
her teeth, and then said, "I was trying to understand, 
before you distracted me. What would it mean, to you, if I 
said I wanted to mate with you?"
    "If you were a vixen of my own people?" It was hard to 
imagine her that way, but not impossible.
    She nodded.
    "That you had watched me for a time, that you had seen 
that I was a good hunter and could provide for you and the 
pups if you had no sister or brother to help us, that you 
had seen I was a good fighter and could defend the den. 
That you had a Territory of your own, with good den sites 
and hunting ground, and were willing to share the 
responsibilities of rearing the children." He stared at 
her. "Jarum children take hundreds of years to rear, as I 
am sure you know. If you were a true vixen, a fox, it 
would be different. Half-jarumi need only a year, like any 
pups would."
    "You know that?"
    "I have half-jarum brothers and sisters, myself. 
Mostly dead by now, of course."
    She jerked away from him, her face wrinkled up with 
revulsion. "Your father mates with animals?"
    "My mother. And why do you make it sound so terrible?"
    She stared at him as if expecting him to change into 
something else, something neither fox nor Elwen. Then she 
shook her head and turned back to the moss bed. "All of 
this is fascinating, but it doesn't get us any closer to 
sharing the bed."
    "I told you-"
    "And I told you." Ryani glared at him over her 
shoulder, dark eyes fierce. "You don't understand things 
here. A vixen can offer her protection to a dog, and not 
be laughed at. That is the way that things are, and I 
won't change them for the sake of your sensibilities."
    Jindun bared his teeth. "I won't challenge the Laws 
for the sake of yours."
    "Very well."
    Jindun turned away to curl up again, certain he had 
won the argument. She hit him with something that smelled 
like fur, though. He struggled up, snarling, and stared at 
what she had flung him.
    Clothes. The tunic and trousers that had been on the 
table from which she had taken the collar. There were 
other, smaller garments, things that he didn't know the 
purpose of.
    "I'm not wearing these." His voice shook as he flung 
them away from him. He couldn't help himself. If he put on 
the second fur, he would be just like the Lonila. He would 
be one of them, in a way that just pretending to go along 
with them wouldn't let him be.
    "You have to, Jindun. It's one of the things that 
separates us from animals."
    He ignored her.
    "Among my people, if you bear your calcama, it is a 
sign that you want to mate with the person to whom you are 
speaking at the moment."
    Jindun scrambled for the clothes, his nails shredding 
the delicate cloth at first. He calmed at last, and 
managed to figure out the purpose of most of the clothes 
without her help. He did need Ryani to fasten the ties on 
the tunic for him, but he batted her hands away the moment 
that he could.
    "Good," she said, and turned back to the moss bed in 
the corner once more. "That's better."
    He wondered if she had thought... He buried his head 
in his hands to hide his shame, and curled up again, as 
gracefully as he could given the clothes and his larger 
size. He liked to sleep in fox form, but she had taken 
that away from him.
    At least the clothes had a hole for his brush. He 
could say that for them.
    He heard the thump a moment before she settled behind 
him, one arm draping around his middle. He started up, 
snarling, but she held on, lying on the moss bed she had 
dragged across the room.
    "Go to sleep, Jindun," she said, sounding tired, 
closing her eyes. "You'll find that it's easier than you 
think. You must be tired."
    He was, but he wasn't sleeping this close to a strange 
vixen. He started to lift off the arm that she had draped 
over him.
    "Jindun." Ryani's voice spoke his name in that way 
that was already making him listen in spite of himself. 
"They're going to come in soon to make sure that we're 
asleep, as we should be. If they see you in a far corner, 
they'll be sure that I can't handle you, and they will 
give you to someone else."
    Jindun lay still, considering that. She said it as if 
it was a threat, or should be, but how much of a threat 
was it, really?
    "Are you sure?"
    "I am. Someone else won't be nearly as tolerant of you 
as I am, Jindun."
    His people could smell lies, and he heard no trace of 
one in her voice. She believed it. That didn't necessarily 
mean that it was true, but this was her world and he had 
to trust her guidance in it, as he would have expected her 
to trust his if they had been in his Territory.
    He bared his teeth at the far wall and lay down on the 
pallet once more.
    Ryani's voice came to his ears, still sweet, but with 
a hint of triumph. "Thank you, Jindun."
    Jindun closed his eyes and persuaded himself that the 
best thing to do would be to go to sleep as soon as 
possible.
----------------------------------------------------------
    Jindun awoke slowly, stretching and rolling, and then 
freezing as he felt something rub his skin. He opened his 
eyes, smelled cloth, and then remembered. 
    All of it.
    The whole sorry affair.
    He glanced sharply about the room. Ryani was nowhere 
in sight. He hadn't felt her rise or smelled her leave, 
and that bothered him. The scent in the room was hours 
old. But at least, if she was gone, he could search for 
and find some way out that didn't use the door.
    The window.
    He walked carefully towards it on hands and knees, 
keeping below the level of the sill in case someone was 
watching, and then lifted his head. It would have been 
easy to spring through and walk away unnoticed if he was a 
fox. As an Elwen, he would have a more difficult time.
    But he couldn't help raising a hand and touching the 
window, to see if he could at least feel the rush of 
outside air.
    He brushed something as translucent as air, cool and 
hard. He sniffed up to it, and felt a barrier, one that he 
could only see by tilting his head and squinting. It had a 
smell that he had never caught before.
    Another barrier? Possibly, but he didn't think it was 
magical. He would have felt a shock or seen a shimmer if 
it was.
    "There you are."
    Jindun whirled around. Ryani was coming in the door, 
smiling at him. With her was another dog who made Jindun's 
fur stand on end at once. He was older than Ryani by a few 
hundred years, but radiated a feeling of being older than 
that, as if he had seen all the world had to offer already 
and only awaited death to tell him the answer to the 
final, eternal mystery. His eyes glowed yellow-green, his 
coat a dull red. He was nothing striking in looks, not 
like Ryani was.
    But the hatred that informed his scent was striking. 
He smelled like a dog protecting a vixen in heat might 
have done. Jindun sniffed careful, wondering if Ryani 
could be in heat and he had missed it- but no, he wouldn't 
have been able to miss it if she had been. And she either 
would have gone to her husband, if she had one, or made 
sure that she was well away from any dog when she went 
into heat. A vixen in heat would mate if near a dog, and 
would conceive from that mating.
    But Ryani wasn't in heat, and even the assumption that 
she might soon be going into it didn't explain the older 
dog's protectiveness. He snarled as if Jindun had been 
going to force himself on Ryani, and Jindun had done 
nothing but lie in the middle of the floor and stare up at 
him, a little intimidated.
    The older male's snarl brought Jindun back to himself. 
He scrambled up and snarled back, displaying every tooth 
he could. It didn't look as impressive, with the collar 
around his neck and Ryani watching him with a look that 
mingled impatience and amusement, but the older dog looked 
startled, at least.
    "Anoran! Jindun!" Ryani's voice rang out, commanding, 
and Jindun relaxed a little. That was the kind of voice he 
knew, the kind of voice his mother would use when she 
wanted something. "Can you stop acting like animals for 
one moment and let me introduce you?"
    Anoran calmed at once, turning his head to Ryani with 
a look that said he was her mate or husband or wanted to 
be. His fur settled back into place; his ears rose to 
their normal position. "As my lady wishes," he said, voice 
perfectly calm.
    Jindun laughed to himself. Anoran wasn't Ryani's mate; 
Jindun would swear to that. But he acted as if he had been 
living under her rule for years.
    Ryani turned to him. "This is Jindun, Anoran."
    "What family name and Territory?"
    Ryani lowered her eyes. "He hasn't brought himself to 
tell me that, yet."
    Anoran's eyes narrowed. "Really?" he said in a voice 
that was too soft, as if in threat, yet pleased.
    Jindun remembered what Ryani had said about some of 
the other civilizers not thinking that she could tame a 
Wild One, and wondered if Anoran was pleased about Jindun 
not trusting her and wanted her to fail. For no reason 
that he could name, that offended him. Yes, she had taken 
him from his family and he owed her nothing, but on the 
other hand, he didn't see what Ryani owed Anoran. Hoping 
for her to fail when she had done nothing to him...
    "I was about to do so," he said, standing and 
stretching his arms above his head. Anoran's eyes narrowed 
further, and he moved back a step before he could stop 
himself. Jindun flashed teeth. Both of them were ways that 
he could display he was bigger and stronger than Anoran, 
something the red dog hadn't realized with him on the 
floor, but nothing Anoran could call him on. "My name is 
Jindun Foxfling. My Territory is Riversfast."
    "An interesting name," said Anoran. "That means it is 
fast on the river, does it not?"
    "I bow to your superior knowledge," said Jindun, and 
tilted his head down, protecting his throat.
    Ryani's eyes, he saw, were sparkling. That made him 
feel better, perversely. Ryani obviously wasn't the only 
one of her Lonila who didn't obey the old Laws. Why cause 
distress to another jarum when you didn't have to? But 
Anoran seemed intent on doing that to her.
    "You should," said Anoran, and turned away from him. 
"He should be mine soon, Ryani, if you're ready to give 
him up."
    Ryani stared at him. "Why would I?"
    "I have a vixen. Dolette. They didn't realize that I 
had captured a vixen and you a dog. They think that we 
would feel more comfortable with our own kind."
    "We might, but that doesn't mean that I feel 
uncomfortable around Jindun."
    "You don't want to give him up, then?"
    "No."
    Anoran studied her a moment longer, his eyes 
unreadable, but the scent of his anger thick enough to 
fill the house. Jindun winced, but Ryani didn't react. He 
wondered if she was unused to sniffing for such things.
    "Very well," said Anoran at last. "I will speak to the 
Moon Children about this."
    Ryani smiled. This time it did seem more like a baring 
of teeth than a gesture of friendship. "Please do."
    Anoran tilted his head, in what looked like a formal 
gesture of leavetaking, and then turned and went out the 
door. Jindun eyed in longingly, but knew better than to 
bolt out it. He would only run straight into an angry dog, 
and without being able to use his magic or even his teeth, 
really, to defend himself.
    "Who's he?"
    "A... friend."
    "Not your mate?"
    Ryani snapped startled eyes from the door to him. "Of 
course not! What gave you that idea?"
    Jindun shrugged. He might as well sow confusion and 
dissension where he could. If it would give him a chance 
to escape... "He smelled like it. And among my people, no 
dog would act that protective of and fussy around a vixen 
unless she was about to go into heat, or unless he was her 
mate or husband."
    "He was acting fussy and protective?" Her voice came 
out in a growl.
    "Oh, yes. Frankly, I'm a little startled that you let 
him act like that." Jindun dropped to the floor again, 
watching her from under half-lowered eyelids.
    Ryani stared at the door as if she would burst out and 
take Anoran to task, but then shook her head and turned 
back. "You need to have a few more lessons," she said. "I 
trust you had a pleasant night's sleep?"
    Jindun watched her warily as she moved to the table on 
the far side of the room again, the one that had held the 
clothes and the collar. "Why should it matter to the 
lessons you want to give me if I did?"
    Ryani glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him, 
eyes still shimmering with a residue of anger, and an 
energy that he hadn't seen there yesterday when he had 
first looked at her. It seemed as if she was about to go 
hunting, and that would have made him more pleased if he 
didn't think that he was going to be the prey. "I think 
you'll need your strength for this. Sleep and food are 
both sources of strength. And you might not get any food 
for several days."
    "You brought me here to teach me, you said. You 
wouldn't starve me to death."
    "No." She opened a small box under the table and began 
to set out small pieces of wood and metal he had never 
seen before on the table. "But that doesn't mean that 
you'll be comfortable eating what we give you."
    "It depends." Jindun found his feet, still watching 
her warily. He could jump her... but she was within 
calling distance of help, and even if he could get her to 
open the door for him, he would only go bowling out into 
the midst of that help. "As long as it's meat, then I'll 
eat it."
    "It is."
    His mouth watered.
    "But not as you would catch and kill it." Ryani pulled 
out something else and held it up so that he could see it.
    One sniff, and Jindun jerked back. "It's not just 
dead, it's burned."
    "That's right." The dark eyes were unreadable once 
more. She put the meat on one of the pieces of wood and 
arranged a few of the pieces of metal beside it, then 
stepped back.
    "What do you expect me to do with meat that you killed 
and then burned?"
    "Eat it."
    "I won't, no matter how hungry I get." Jindun folded 
his hands in front of himself and stared at her. "There 
are some things you can't make me do, especially when I 
don't need the strength to Shift shape, since you won't 
even let me do that."
    It seemed she smiled then, but she had turned back to 
the table and he couldn't see for sure. "You have to eat 
it, Jindun, and in the proper way and with the proper 
tools. Or it doesn't count, and I won't go on to the next 
lesson."
    "Why should I want you to go on to the next lesson?"
    "It's simple. We stay here until you do." She nodded 
to the window and the clear, hard barrier over it. "You 
can leave if you think you can get far, but until we can 
trust you, you won't have the run of the camp. And until 
you finish this first lesson, we can't trust you, so you 
won't be let out of the house. No fresh air, no fresh 
grass under your paws..."
    His breathing was loud in the close, still little 
house. "You'll kill me."
    She only looked at him.
    "How can I know what I'm supposed to do when I've 
never seen those before?" Jindun nodded to the pieces of 
wood and metal on the table.
    "I'll show you." She walked to the table and picked up 
one of the pieces of metal, holding it daintily in her 
hand. 
    "I can't do that," he pointed out, as he watched her 
turn it so that the sharp edge rested on the meat. He 
sniffed, but caught only the cold, dead scent of metal, 
not the living scent of anything that had once been part 
of an animal's body. This might be one of the weapons she 
was speaking of. "My nails would get in the way."
    "Then ask for them to be cut."
    "I won't."
    "You have to trust in many things to be let out of 
this place, Jindun." She sliced the meat in one neat 
movement, then laid the sharp-edged metal on the table and 
picked up another with a few tines projecting from it like 
antlers from the head of a deer. She speared the piece of 
meat and put it in her mouth.
    "Why would you want to do that?"
    She chewed a few times, apparently blissfully, then 
sighed and swallowed. "So you don't have to touch it with 
your fingers."
    "You had to touch the body of the creature when you 
killed it. Why would you be more embarrassed about 
touching what's inside the skin with the same paws you 
clasped it with?"
    She turned to him and held out her hands. "These are 
hands, not paws."
    "In this form."
    Ryani sighed. It had the trace of a laugh in it, but 
Jindun didn't think she was laughing at him. Still, there 
wasn't much else for her to laugh at. "I keep forgetting 
how stubborn you are."
    He kept his eyes on her, waiting firmly for an 
explanation.
    She turned away from him, running one hand over the 
table. "There is a separation between animal and Elwen 
that almost all the shapeshifting races but us have come 
to acknowledge."
    "Don't be stupid, vixen. There's a difference, but not 
that much of one. We have one more body than most foxes, 
magic, and a greater intelligence. That's all."
    She swung on him, brush crackling behind her, fur 
standing on end. "That is not all we have that is 
different, dog!"
    He stared at her, feeling the scent of her anger fill 
the house as Anoran's had done only a short time earlier. 
It was more threatening than it had been for Anoran, 
perhaps because he had the feeling that she might attack 
him, and few vixens would have. He fought the impulse to 
sink to his knees and nose at her mouth. "What else do we 
have that separates us?"
    "The ability to speak-"
    "We bark in fox form. And telepathy is just part of 
the Elwen magic."
    For a moment, she was diverted. "You can speak 
telepathically in fox form?"
    "Yes."
    "Then why didn't you speak to me yesterday, when I was 
trying to speak to you?" She was frowning at him now.
    "I didn't know you well, and I had no reason to trust 
you or try to get to know you better," Jindun pointed out, 
wondering why she seemed to want his trust so badly. Yes, 
it might confirm some things for her, but it would cost 
him something.
    Ryani sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. 
"Forgive me, Jindun. I've been... distracted. And I've 
never tried to explain this to a Wild One just caught 
before." She closed her eyes, and the words came out, slow 
and halting, but sincere. "It is ... we are not animals. 
We can sing, and learn new things, and make up new rules 
and laws when we feel the old ones don't work for or suit 
us anymore. That is the greatest difference that sets us 
apart from wild foxes: the ability to change in ways that 
they never can."
    "Why would you want to change?"
    She opened her eyes and looked at him. "How many dogs 
do you know whom have had to leave the Lonil Valley, to 
look for life outside it?"
    "A few dozen."
    She nodded. "If all of us lived together in cities, 
then none of the dogs and few of the vixens would ever 
have to leave. We wouldn't have to seek among people who 
didn't know or understand us for a life. We could stay 
among our own kind."
    "No, we can't. The dogs would have to fight. Only 
those who can find and marry or mate for a year a vixen 
with Territory can stay."
    "No, that isn't the way it should be. It cuts off so 
many choices. It shouldn't be only the daughters of vixens 
who inherit."
    Jindun stared at her. "You're mad. That is the way it 
always has been and always will be. I thought you knew 
that, at least."
    "I'm saying that it can change, that it doesn't always 
have to be like that."
    "But why would we want to change something that works 
so well?" Jindun reiterated. He had the feeling that he 
could repeat himself to the end of time, and she would 
still only hear the things from his speech that she wanted 
to hear, the things that contradicted her and "proved" 
that her ideas were right. "It works. It insures that the 
strongest dogs and vixens remain, and the weakest have to 
make their own way."
    "And would you still think that way if you had been 
cast out of your mother's Territory to make your own way 
in the world?"
    Jindun met and held her gaze. "I wouldn't have. I am 
the strongest of the dogs for miles of surrounding 
Territories, a good fighter. And I can create the 
moonweb." He nodded to the patches of silver on his back 
and flanks. He would have been hesitant about telling her, 
but he was fairly sure she already knew.
    "Does that mean that you're incapable of thinking as a 
dog who has lost a battle?"
    "No. I just never thought that something like that 
would happen to me." Jindun bared his teeth and nodded to 
the table. "I never thought that something this strange 
would happen to me."
    In a moment, the gentler Ryani he had seen was back. 
"We are staying here until you eat that, with the knife 
and fork, as is proper."
    "Knife? Fork?"
    She held up the sharp-edged piece of metal, then the 
one with the tines. "Here they are." She held them out to 
her, and he shrank away.
    She put them on the table, and sat down in front of 
him, arms folded around her knees. "We're staying here 
until you eat with them."
    Something she had said but that he hadn't really heard 
before came to him then. "We?"
    "Yes. I'm your civilizer- friend, teacher, and 
protector." She looked him in the eye, utterly determined. 
"I'm staying here with you until you come to your senses 
and see that our way is better."
    "Is that what you think I'll be admitting, if I use 
the knife and fork?" The words tumbled on his tongue, 
strange, but he said them. They were the proper words for 
what the things were. He wasn't yielding to anything by 
using the words, just admitting the reality of where he 
was, he snarled at the part of himself that objected even 
to using the words.
    "Yes."
    Jindun folded himself on the floor, head turned away 
from her. "You'll have a long wait. I won't admit that, or 
anything like that. Ever."
    "I'll wait."
----------------------------------------------------------
    Jindun awoke with a start. He had been having a 
strange dream, that he was a captive in a place far from 
Riversfast, and forced to eat strange food watched over by 
a strange vixen...
    It was no dream.
    He turned his head, and he could see the knife and 
fork and meat still on the table. Ryani was curled up in a 
corner, drowsing. He could see from the slant of silver 
beams through the window, and the darkness beyond that, 
that it was night.
    And he hadn't eaten anything all day. And Ryani hadn't 
given up and retired.
    Hunger and mourning tore at his belly until he 
couldn't tell which was which. If he had been fox, he 
could have slipped out the door, or jumped out the window, 
and hunted to his heart's content before they saw him and 
made him go back into the house. But here, where he was 
shut away from even the scent of the hunt...
    But the sound that came from him was like nothing he 
had ever heard before, like no sound that he had ever made 
in either hunger or mourning. It was a mingling of the 
bark that he would give to warn other dogs away from the 
Territory in winter and the elwensong that he would sing 
to the stars on the rare nights he was in Elwen form to 
greet the sunset. It rolled out of him and around the 
house.
    It woke Ryani almost at once. He could see her start, 
could see her jerk and turn her head towards the sound as 
if she hadn't expected it.
    At the sight of him- or maybe it was the scent- her 
hair stood on end, and she shrank back against the wall, 
staring at him. Her hand rose above her head, scrabbling 
for the latch for a moment, and then fell back nerveless 
to her side. She seemed to have forgotten about latches 
and doors and other Elwen conventions in the fascination 
of watching him.
    Then Jindun's eyes closed, and he tilted his head back 
and gave himself to the song that overwhelmed his soul.
    He thought of never seeing Riversfast again. His song 
grew deeper and purer. His mind passed on to his mother, 
to Kordet, to Fire and the small pups that had been born 
this year of his mother's mating with Fire, his half- 
brothers and sisters. One of them he and Kordet had called 
Cross, for the rare color that covered her, half red and 
half black. Another was Starlight, for her silver and 
almost white touches in places. And there had been a young 
dog, Saldi, who would watch Jindun and Kordet with an 
almost Elwen intelligence flickering in his gold-green 
eyes at times...
    The sobs grew so deep that he thought they would tear 
him in half, and most of the music left his voice. He was 
a wounded animal crying out, as much at the sound of his 
own voice as anything else. He rolled over on his side and 
hunched up as he would around a belly wound.
    He heard rushing steps, and then arms came around him 
and held him close. The warm scent of musky fur filled his 
nostrils. Ryani's voice whispered in his ears, half-growl 
and half-whimper.
    "Jindun, Jindun, calm. Calm. I can see them, feel 
them, and I know how it must have felt to lose them. I'm 
sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't know that one of the Wild 
Ones could mourn like you are mourning, that you could 
sing a mourning song." He could taste her tears on his 
face. "I didn't think you were jarum, and I shouldn't have 
committed that crime. I'm so sorry."
    Jindun turned away from her as much as he could, 
without leaving her embrace. He thought he would begin 
howling again if he broke free, and this time the sorrow 
might destroy him. He needed the embrace right now, even 
if the one holding him was the one who had caused his 
grief, in large measure.
    His voice came out torn and broken, like ice by a paw 
in winter before it had fully frozen. "Does this mean that 
you'll let me go home?"
    "How can I?"
    Anger overcame the sorrow in a furious rush, and he 
strained against her. "What do you mean? How can you not, 
after seeing me like this, after seeing how much it hurts 
me to be here?"
    "I can't... Jindun, forgive me, but I can't help but 
think that you would be wasted in Riversfast. You're so 
much more than that."
    "I'm so much more than that according to you. 
According to me, I'm a dog lonely for his family, and as 
much jarum as you are, and I want to go home, you bitch."
    Silence filled the room. It was an insult to call a 
vixen a bitch, meaning that he thought of her as a wolf or 
hound, but he didn't care. He meant it, and he stared up 
at her with the hatred that had inspired the insult 
blazing in his eyes as she stepped back in him.
    Ryani stared down at him, her eyes magnificent as her 
bared teeth in threat, her face stiff with fury. Her fur 
bristled out all over her body, forcing her clothes to 
stand out an inch or more from her body. "I will not 
tolerate this, Jindun. Some resistance is to be expected, 
but not this level."
    "You were the one who said that we weren't animals. 
Quit speaking of me as if I was some kind of an animal you 
could study and put right."
    She jerked back from him, then came forward again, one 
hand out. "I want to help you-"
    Jindun rolled back from her, so that he was staring at 
the window and the star-patterned sky beyond. "Are you 
ever going to let me go home?"
    "I can't-"
    "One word! Are you?"
    "No."
    Jindun screamed. This sound was pure Elwen, pure 
frustration, and in the middle of it he felt something 
break inside him. 
    If he couldn't go home, then life wasn't worth living 
anyway. It was an insight that had just occurred to him.
    He swung his head, and Ryani jumped back, staring at 
him warily. Then there came a pounding on the door, and 
she went to open it, never taking her eyes from Jindun in 
front of her, crouched in threat posture.
    Jindun tensed, grateful for the clothes for once. They 
hid from Ryani's eyes something that would have been 
immediately obvious to her eyes otherwise.
    "What is happening?" he heard a voice demand, and knew 
it was Anoran's. Ignorant dog, arrogant dog, who had dared 
to threaten him earlier. Jindun's snarl depended, tail 
standing out from his body and slowly beating the ground 
in a display that couldn't have been mistaken for 
friendliness no matter how one looked. He snarled out 
loud, and Anoran let out an explanation and tried to step 
past Ryani.
    She resisted, and for a moment, they struggled, poised 
in the doorway.
    It was the chance that Jindun had been waiting for.
    He shot towards them like a dark shadow, his silver 
fur gleaming in the starlight that poured through the 
window. For the moment, though, they weren't paying enough 
attention to him to see that, and he came up on them, and 
past them, like a dark wind.
    Free!
    He was free, and tearing through the camp as he had 
done once in fox form. But he was Elwen this time, and 
could see the shimmer of the magical barriers about the 
camp, if he concentrated hard enough.
    He heard the braying sounds of what must be alarms, 
and startled barks ringing out just a moment later. He 
ignored them, swinging for the river, hearing Ryani and 
Anoran hard on his trail.