"Very good, master." The servant disappeared into the dark dining room, where the light of an uncovered lamp soon appeared.
"Mother, he doesn't know the first thing about riding the moon," complained Feena. "What's he going to do? Lock himself in the closet during the full moon?"
"The cellar, actually," offered Chaney. "Fortunately, he agreed to move the wine out first. Wouldn't want any drunken wolf antics, after all."
"What's 'riding the moon'?" asked Tal. He was genuinely curious, but Feena ignored him.
"See? They think it's funny," said Feena, turning to Maleva. "They haven't the first idea how to deal with the curse. We don't even know whether he's three-skinned."
"What's that?" asked Tal. "What's 'three-skinned'?"
Feena made a superior little smile and raised her chin.
"Some nightwalkers have three forms," explained Maleva. "The man, the wolf, and the beast between them. Feena saw you only as the wolf. If you take the half-form, you might be able to break out of rooms a wolf couldn't escape."
"Ha!" said Chaney, sinking down into one of the stuffed chairs and crossing his legs. "Not a problem. There's a cage in the cellar." He clicked his tongue and pointed a finger at his temple. "Smarter than you thought, eh?"
Tal considered the cleric's words, ignoring his friend's joke. He had witnessed the transformation in his nemesis, Rusk. Before he and the mad cleric of Malar had nearly slain each other, Tal watched Rusk begin to transform into a huge gray wolf. Tal wondered what else he did not know about the wolf inside himself, the big black monster that Feena reported seeing with Rusk.
"I don't care whether I have two or twenty skins," said Tal at last. "I'm not walking in any skin but my own. Like I said, I appreciate your concern, but you couldn't cure me before the first moon. You told me what I'm facing, and that's enough for me to keep it under control."
"You can't control it without help," said Feena. "Selune can give you that help, through us."
"Rusk said something similar about his Beastlord." "You would choose Malar over Our Lady in Silver?" Feena said, rising from her seat.
Lommy hissed at her, his rough nails clutching Tal's shoulder.
"Calm down!" said Tal. "It's nothing against your moon goddess. I just don't like the idea of anyone-Malar or Selune-making my choices for me."
"That's just it," said Maleva, pulling at Feena's arm to make her sit again. "It is your choice, Talbot, the most important one you're likely to make."
"Those who die faithless spend eternity in the Wall of Tears, endlessly tormented for their selfishness," added Feena, returning to the couch. "Those who pledge themselves to Selune spend the afterlife in grace and beauty. What are you smiling at?"
"That was a pretty speech. You could be a player at the Wide Realms."
Eckert returned from the dining room. On a serving tray rested four silver goblets and a bottle of Usk Fine Old, the precious family vintage favored by Tal's father, Tha-malon. The servant set the tray down and began to pour the wine, scowling briefly when Chaney helped himself to the first one. Chaney winked back at the servant and shrugged himself more deeply into his seat, watching the conversation continue.
"It's no act to speak passionately about Our Lady in Silver."
"Rusk seemed equally 'passionate' about the Call of Malar," noted Tal. In fact, he thought the cleric was a reckless fanatic, if not a complete madman.
Feena's eyes flashed with anger. She thrust a scolding finger into Tal's chest. Lommy hissed at her again, but Feena ignored the tiny creature. "Haven't you heard anything we've told-?"
Tal held up his hands and stepped back. "I said I'm not choosing either one," he countered. "Both want nothing but my servitude. If I don't obey Rusk, I must obey you-that's what you keep suggesting, but it isn't true. I don't have to obey anyone."
"This isn't some trade negotiation," spat Feena. "You can't bargain for a better deal from one side or the other. If you try to contain this on your own, then you're dangerous to everyone. Eventually, someone will have to deal with you."
"Time for you to leave," said Tal. His patience was at an end. "Go back to keep watch over that pack in the woods."
"You'll regret turning us away," warned Feena. She and her mother rose from the couch and went to the door. Feena flung open the door and rushed out into the cold, but Maleva paused at the door.
"Come here, my boy," she said.
Tal plucked Lommy from his shoulder and set him on the floor before joining Maleva at the door.
"Come," she said, reaching up and beckoning to him to kneel before her. Feeling foolish, he descended to one knee. She took his face in her hands and looked into his gray eyes. For a long moment, she searched for something in them.
"Feena means well when she warns you of the danger," she said at last. "It is hard for her to understand why you refuse our help. But even she does not realize what you face. It is a thorny path, that of the nightwalker, and thornier for those like Rusk, and like you."
"Mother!" called Feena from the bottom of the stairs.
"What do you mean, like Rusk and me?" said Tal.
She did not answer. Instead, Maleva held Tal's face a little longer, then slapped him lightly on both cheeks. "Keep your good heart, Talbot Uskevren. It will guide you on the thorny path."
She turned and descended the steps to join Feena. Tal watched the two women walk down Alaspar Lane. As they moved farther away, he was surprised to hear their words, since they kept their voices low.
"I don't care how much you like him, mother. He is not the Black Wolf."
"Shush," said Maleva. "It is still considered heresy, whether we believe that or not."
Tal strained to hear them, but their voices grew fainter as they walked away. He briefly considered following them but realized there was nowhere to conceal himself on the snowy street.
"Then Talbot Uskevren is not the… you-know-what."
"Perhaps not, my dear," said Maleva. "But he could be."
"You used to say the same…"
Tal stepped out onto the landing, but the sound of the women's footsteps crunching in the snow obscured the rest of their conversation. He sighed and went back inside, closing the door against the cold.
They made an odd spectacle around the table: big Tal, small Chaney, and tiny Lommy. Eckert had tied a napkin around the little creature's neck as a bib, careful not to touch the tasloi as he did so. Even so, the fastidious servant could not conceal his disdain for serving the uncouth creature at the dinner table, and he appeared ready to faint when Tal stacked the collected histories of Selgaunt on Lomm/s chair to help him reach the table.
What he lacked in warmth for Tal's friend, Eckert made up in culinary skill. Supper was oxtail soup followed by roast beef with carrots and onions, pickled asparagus in a spicy Turmish cream sauce, and a fried wheat cake smothered in jellied pears.
Tal ate twice as much as Chaney and Lommy combined, while Eckert dined alone in the kitchen. Tal had given up on inviting him to sit at the table. The very suggestion made Eckert nervous, for he had been a servant all his life and dared not overstep his station.
Aside from Eckert and the clerics of Selune, the others who knew of Tal's condition were Chaney, Mistress Quickly, and the two tasloi. Tal hoped to keep it that way, even though it appeared that he would never be cured. After treating him with an almost lethal brew of herbs, Maleva had tried breaking the curse with powerful spells. For reasons she couldn't-or wouldn't-explain, all efforts had failed. Tal supposed he could go to one of the city temples, but he had a sinking feeling that they could do no better.
More puzzling was the fact that Kusk, the werewolf who had infected him, traveled far from his lair to bring Tal into his pack. Why was he so interested in Tal? He suspected that Maleva knew more than she was telling him.