“Why?” Hohsalle demanded. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“Do what?”
“Send them to eastern Aquafa.”
Limuelle sighed. “I’m surprised you found out. Did someone tell you?”
“No. When I looked at all the factors, you were the only person who could have pulled it off.” Without taking his eyes off his grandfather, Hohsalle pulled out a chair and sat down. “The culprit would need to know about the disease being transmittable by ticks, be respected by the Zolians and the Aquafaese, and be able to get Shikan and the Kinma dogs through the checkpoints undetected. Considering they’d need close connections with the Inner Circle and a position that enabled them to control the Molfah, you’re the only possibility.”
A mocking smile touched the old man’s lips, but he said nothing.
“The black wolves and ossam specimens sent to Otawalle to check for contagion—you snuck the Kinma dogs in with them, didn’t you? Some of the Molfah know Shikan’s face, but I expect Malji would’ve handled that somehow. You’re the one man he can’t defy, after all.”
Limuelle steepled his fingers in front of his jaw. “True,” he admitted bluntly. “That’s what it means to be a parent. Politics, power, religion, convictions, loyalty, honor, desire—all those motives that tightly bind our behaviors—the only thing powerful enough to blast such chains apart is the need to protect our lives or the lives of those we love.”
Hohsalle’s expression twisted. “But how could you do such a thing?”
Limuelle remained silent, rubbing his chin on top of his clasped hands. He continued like that for some time until he stopped and raised his eyes. “There are a lot of reasons, but certainly a major one was your discovery of a promising method of treatment for the disease. The medicine you developed appears to be effective for people infected by ticks, and there’s a limited number of dogs carrying black wolf fever. It looked like we might prevent another major epidemic like the sort that occurred in the past. And since we’d reached that point, I thought it was worth a try.”
Fury suffused Hohsalle’s face, and he opened his mouth to speak, then frowned. “Wait. You mean, you didn’t plan this from the beginning?”
Limuelle raised his brows. “From the beginning?”
“The very beginning. The salt mine.”
Limuelle burst out laughing. “Don’t be ridiculous. Where would I have found the time?”
“But then how did you know Shikan’s plan?”
“I asked him.” Seeing the puzzled look on Hohsalle’s face, Limuelle turned serious. “If you’ll calm down and listen, I’ll explain it chronologically.”
He lifted his cup and took a sip of tea, then launched into his story. “As I’m sure you know, the Inner Circle has been keeping an eye on Shikan’s movements without intervening. He was very careful but couldn’t mask the suspiciousness of his movements entirely.”
He placed his cup on the table and ran a finger along the rim. Then he sighed. “But it appears that the Inner Circle was careless. After all, Shikan’s still young, only about twenty, so the Inner Circle’s members let him out of their sight occasionally when he was surveying with Tomasolle. Cheehana said that, in retrospect, they should’ve watched him more closely. But they never thought he’d cause such a sudden and drastic change in the situation.”
“Shikan caused a change?” Hohsalle echoed. “Not Ohfan?”
Limuelle shook his head. “When Ohfan was the mastermind, we could just wait and see. But unfortunately, the foundation of Shikan’s thinking differs from Ohfan’s.”
“So it was ticks, then?”
“Yes, but that wasn’t all. That boy figured out how to lead the Kinma dogs without relying on a Dog King.”
“What? But how?”
“He trained a black wolf to lead them.”
Hohsalle’s eyes widened. He remembered a wolf throwing itself against the bars of its cage when Shikan passed by. So that’s it. The scent of another wolf on Shikan must have been driving it crazy.
“And by the way, your research is involved in this.”
Hohsalle blinked. “It is?”
“Recall your tests on mice. You’ve been making them senile and then returning them to normal, correct?”
“Yes, but…”
“Shikan told me it was the sight of a mouse remembering the way out of the maze that gave him the idea of using an infected black wolf to lead the Kinma dogs.”
Hohsalle stared at his grandfather, mouth agape, as the elderly man launched into the tale he’d heard from Shikan.
When Ohfan realized that his father, the Dog King Kenoi, was fatally ill, he was desperate to find a cure and consulted Shikan, who was studying at the Academy of Deeper Learning. Through this conversation, Shikan learned what his clansmen were up to, and he quickly grasped how precarious their plan was with its dependence on Kenoi’s unique ability to lead the Kinma dogs. If they could find a way to train them like hunting dogs and then teach that technique to others, their plan would be more viable and far-reaching.
It turned out, however, that the Kinma dogs, while clever, were also hard to train. Self-sufficient as a pack, they rejected outsiders. Even the most experienced handlers couldn’t make them obey. Kenoi was the only person who managed it, and without him, the Kinma dogs followed the dominant male in the pack.
That gave Shikan an idea. The dogs and Kenoi had been transformed after coming down with mittsual. Carrying this disease had forged a special bond between Kenoi and the dogs, giving him the power to control them. So why not train and condition dogs to obey human commands before infecting them? Such a dog was successfully integrated into the pack. Although it failed to become the leader, Shikan felt he was on the right track and tried again with black wolves, which were larger and stronger than Kinma dogs.
Shikan’s position as Tomasolle’s assistant provided the perfect cover for his trial-and-error experiments. He incorporated his own agenda into the research tasks he’d been assigned. Training wild wolves was more challenging than training dogs, but Shikan already knew from his work with Tomasolle that black wolves could be tamed more easily than other species. It also helped that Kinma dogs carried the blood of black wolves already. However, this did not appear to be enough to make a black wolf a leader. Not all of the wolves Shikan trained successfully led the dogs, and none of them were able to command the entire pack as Kenoi did. Still, Shikan eventually managed to raise one wolf that was master to a small group.
“As long as the dogs could only be led by someone with a special ability like Kenoi, we knew we could stop it at any time,” Limuelle said. “But once it became possible for anybody to control them, we were incapable of thwarting the Ahfal Oma’s plan.”
He smiled. “You should have seen Cheehana. She was terrified. I suppose that’s what the fear of disease does to people. She came to me in a panic, demanding to know if the new medicine you were developing could prevent a repeat of the ancient tragedy, should the fever begin to spread.”
Hohsalle gazed at him. “And what did you tell her?”
“Just about every possibility I could think of. But I knew it would make no difference no matter what I told her. I knew what she was thinking. Unless we proved the new medicine was guaranteed to protect everyone in Otawalle, she’d never cross such a perilous bridge.”
Limuelle sighed. “She told me it was a good thing we’d found out early, while the number of people who knew how to control the dogs was still low. All we needed to do was kill them.”
Hohsalle saw Cheehana’s wily old face in his mind. Sounds like something she would say, all right.
“What would you have done if it were you?” Limuelle asked.
Hohsalle blinked in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“How would you have responded if Cheehana had said that to you?”
Hohsalle looked down and mulled this question over. What would he have done? Would he have chosen to murder Ohfan and the others? Undoubtedly, it was the surest way. Cheaper and less trouble, too. Considering the nature of their actions, Ohfan’s band would have deserved it.
A vision of the desolate scene in the salt mine on that cold, drizzly morning rose before Hohsalle. If he were to ask the dead, they’d probably tell him to kill Ohfan and his men, so that no one else would die.
But…
Hohsalle took a deep breath and raised his head. “I would have made a different proposal.”
“And what’s that?”
“Stop them, but not by killing them. Although I’m sure Cheehana would have scoffed at the idea.”
He looked his grandfather in the eye. “We’re not gods. And we’re not judges of any law that the Ahfal Oma would respect. Cheehana’s way of thinking is much the same as the fanaticism of Ohfan and his followers, and I’m sorry to say that the Otawalle nobility’s blindness to its own arrogance is no different from that of the Ahfal Oma.”
Limuelle watched Hohsalle, seemingly amused. “And? What would you have done?”
“I would have captured them. Captured them and taken them to the Sacred Territory. Then we could sit down and consult with them and others who’ve been scattered across Aquafa. I would have negotiated with the king and Yotalu as well. Even if it took years or decades, I would have searched for a solution amenable to all. And in the meantime, we could search for mittsual treatments.”
Limuelle smiled. “Too bad.”
“Huh?”
“Had you seen just a little further, I might have praised you for finding such an equitable solution, even if it is naive.”
Hohsalle glared at his grandfather. “And what precisely do you think I can’t see?”
Gazing steadily back at him, Limuelle said, “The future of Otawalle medicine.”