Fillan gave him a blank look. “No, why?”
Rieka coughed. “Are we quite done?” she asked icily.
Fillan nodded, still holding the squirming bag, and Rieka tapped at her device. “There.”
At first nothing happened. Then Brann gasped. “It’s gone!”
Coll felt it too. That slight sensation in the back of his head since they approached Raven – the aura of … something – faded away. As he watched, the feathers writhed and fell. The anthryl pulled away from them and they clattered to the ground, breaking into metal and plastic pieces. The wing sagged and ripped loose from the body, and the head shrank, leaving only the metal struts of its beak.
“No,” whimpered Brann. Tears ran down her face.
Then came a rumble from inside and the deck gave way with a huge crash, falling into the carcass. Dust rose in a cloud, then settled. There wasn’t much after that. The anthryl moved to one side with a strange shiver, like sand shifting, and Raven’s remains lay like the stripped bones of a dead animal: plastic and steel struts, hexagonal panels, cables and electronics.
Raven was truly gone.
Brann sobbed.
Rieka ignored her. “Right,” she said, rubbing her hands. “Now for the interesting bit.”
“Remember, you have to think alike,” Rieka said. “It only works if you all think the same. So I’ll do the Tock stuff, and you lot do the, you know, believing thing.”
“Right,” said Coll. “So … do we all just think about Wolf, then?”
“Wait, I thought we were making Raven!” said Brann.
“Don’t be stupid,” said Coll, exasperated. “Of course we’re making Wolf!”
Brann folded her arms. “Raven.”
Coll glared at her. This stupid bird girl was just problem after problem! Why couldn’t she just do what she was told? He rubbed his face and for a moment remembered Alpha doing the same. Was this what it was like to be Alpha?
He took a deep breath. “Look, we’ve got three Wolf crew here, so we’ve a better chance of making a Wolf than a Raven, right?”
“Raven is faster,” said Brann. “Raven can fly.”
“We don’t know if this will even work,” said Coll. “Or if we can keep it working. Do you want to find out while we’re in mid-air?”
Brann scowled but didn’t reply.
“OK,” said Coll. “So, we all know Wolf. Brann, you’ve at least seen her. We just have to remember.” He turned to Rieka. “Now what?”
“I’ll activate the system in Construct mode,” Rieka muttered, tapping her screen. “It’s pretty straightforward – we apply our psychic template to the field input, and it will self-actuate and deploy.”
The others gaped at her. She sighed. “Me start Construct. You think Wolf. Construct make Wolf.”
“You don’t have to be rude,” said Coll.
“I’m only rude to idiots.”
“That’s—”
“OK, go,” she said, and pressed a button. The anthryl pile suddenly spread out, tendrils stretching and pooling around the metal and plastic pieces, picking each one up before laying it down again. Perhaps it was working out what it had to use. It seemed alive.
Then Coll felt it, that sense in his mind of… of something. Like a sound, no, a song … Yes, a song they were all singing. It was like being back on Wolf again, that feeling of sharing, being together. He could feel, or hear, or see, the others in his mind, joined together in a song. A song they could change…
“Now,” he murmured, and together they created a new song. A song of Wolf.
I am Wolf, he thought, closing his eyes. I am the hunter of the high plains, the shadow of evening, the ghost in the night. I am strong, and fast, my claws are powerful, and death is in my jaws! My eyes are sharp, my senses keen. My thick pelt keeps me warm, my padding feet can run a thousand kilometres. Wolf. Wolf. I am WOLF.
“Hmm,” said Rieka.
Coll opened his eyes and gasped. The creature before him was…
Awful.
It was small, hardly five metres tall, with short bowed legs and a fat hunched body, covered in a weird mix of wolf fur, raven feathers and long boar bristles. Its mouth was stuffed full of more teeth than could fit, forcing it open; its eyes were red and insane; and long slavers of drool hung from its mouth.
“What happened?” he asked in horror.
Rieka shrugged. “I told you, its form comes from what you imagine.”
“I never imagined that!” snapped Coll. He stopped and listened to the songs in his mind and groaned.
On Wolf, everyone sang together, believed together. You learned it as a tiny child and you never lost it, and there were always hundreds around you believing the same, keeping the song pure. Here there were only the four of them, and all their songs were different. Coll’s Wolf was right – pure and noble, fierce and proud, perfect. Rieka’s was similar, though faint – she was concentrating on the Tock stuff and only half helping. Fillan was trying his best, but he kept slipping into Boar. His ‘Wolf’ was round-bellied, with more bristles than fur, the teeth more like tusks…
And Brann’s Wolf was horrible. A vicious, rabid dog, a slavering monster, a cruel and mindless creature, pure evil. Her Wolf was a barking, yelping force of death.
